Karl Bömer

From left to right: William Randolph Hearst , Alfred Rosenberg , Bömer , Thilo von Trotha , Rosenberg's Adjutant (1934)

Karl Bömer (born September 7, 1900 in Munster , † August 22, 1942 in a military hospital in Krakow ) was ministerial director in the Reich Ministry of Propaganda and head of the press office of the NSDAP's foreign policy office .

War and civil war

As the son of a professor and Münster library director, he attended the Paulinum grammar school in Münster. In March 1918 he was still serving as a flag boy in Infantry Regiment 13. From June 1918 to November 1918 he was a combatant at the front . From November 1918 to April 1920 he was a member of the Münsterland Freikorps . From 1920 onwards he began studying, but other events in his life could not be followed consistently. So he took part in the Ruhr War. He was also a member of the Escherich (Orgesch) organization from April 1920 to October 1920 .

Training and doctorate

From October 1920 to April 1925 he worked for various banks. He then immediately resumed his studies and in March 1926 he received his doctorate as Dr. rer. pole. with the topic of the development of the Münster banking system. An economic history study in the context of general bank development . From April 1926 he took up a job as a volunteer at a newspaper in Münster. In the same year he took up a position as a consultant at the German Institute for Newspaper Studies at the University of Berlin, where in April 1927 he became head of the foreign department. Study trips to other European countries to England, France, Czechoslovakia and Austria followed. In August 1931 he gave a visiting lecture at Columbia University and the University of St. Louis in the United States. Then he went on a study trip to Mexico. Another trip to the United States followed in 1932 at the invitation of the Association of American Department as Schools for Journalism , giving lectures at universities in Urbana , St. Louis, and New York City . With his Handbuch der Weltpresse (1931) and the International Bibliography of the Newspaper (1932) he edited , Bömer made a name for himself as one of the leading international newspaper scholars. He had already joined the NSDAP on January 1, 1932 .

Career in the Nazi regime

From February 1933 to April 1933, Bömer took on duties as head of the press department of the German Academic Exchange Service . In May 1933, Alfred Rosenberg appointed him head of the press department of the Foreign Policy Office of the NSDAP . In November 1933 Bömer was invited to give guest lectures at Oxford University and Cambridge University . This was followed in December 1934 by lectures in The Hague and Rotterdam . Since May 1933 he was also employed as a lecturer at the German University of Politics in Berlin.

In November 1934, he was appointed Vice President of the Press Congress of the World . From 1935 he held a teaching position for foreign newspapers at the University of Berlin. On March 29, 1936, he ran unsuccessfully in the election to the German Reichstag .

In 1936 he obtained his habilitation at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Berlin in the field of newspaper science and was appointed associate professor in 1937, albeit without official status. A year later he worked for Joseph Goebbels in the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (RMVP). There he represented the tasks that arose in relation to the foreign press.

In 1940 he took over the management of the foreign press department in the RMVP and was appointed ministerial director there. He acted as government spokesman during the daily foreign press conferences in the RMVP. He passed on more information to the foreign press than was known in Germany itself in order to deliberately keep the correspondents away from other events or their own research. He also tried to stop Allied "atrocity propaganda" by giving some correspondents the opportunity to check such reports if possible. However, there were then considerable differences between him and representatives in the Foreign Office . In May 1941, during a reception at the Bulgarian embassy in Berlin, under the influence of alcohol, he made statements that diplomatic circles concluded that the attack on the Soviet Union was imminent . Although Goebbels stood up for him strongly and appeared as a defense witness, he was unable to prevent Bömers from being convicted. Bömer was sentenced to three years in prison for " negligent treason " by the People's Court . In the spring of 1942, Goebbels managed, with Hitler's consent, to get Bömers released. Bömer, however, was sent to the Eastern Front on probation and died in a Krakow hospital from a wound he suffered on May 22, 1942 near Kharkov.

Fonts

• The German newspaper: Your becoming, essence and effect , special edition for the international press exhibition "Pressa" with many other authors, Cologne 1928
• Bibliographical Handbook of Newspaper Studies - Critical and Systematic Introduction to the State of German Newspaper Research , Leipzig 1929
• Handbook of the World Press - A representation of the newspaper system of all countries , Leipzig 1931
• International Bibliography of Newspapers , Leipzig 1932
• The economic development of the German newspaper industry , with Friedrich Bertkau, Berlin 1932
• The freedom of the press in the National Socialist state. A word to foreign countries , Oldenburg 1933
• The international newspaper industry , Berlin 1934
• The Third Reich to mirror the world press. Historical documents about the struggle of National Socialism against the foreign hate speech , Leipzig 1934
• German seeds in foreign soil , Berlin 1936
• Immortal Hellas , with Charilaos Kriekoukis (press chief of the Royal Greek Legation in Berlin), Berlin 1938

literature

• Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 1: Johannes Hürter : A – F. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2000, ISBN 3-506-71840-1
• Martin Herzer: Foreign Correspondents and Foreign Press Policy in the Third Reich , Böhlau Verlag, Cologne a. a. 2012
• Herrmann AL Degener : Who is it? , Berlin 1935
• Hanno Hardt, Elke Hilscher, Winfried B. Lerg (eds.): Press in Exile , Munich 1979
• Ernst Klee : The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 .
• Louis Paul Lochner : What about Germany , London 1943.
• Ralf Georg Reuth : Goebbels , Munich / Zurich 1990
• Willi A. Boelcke (Ed.): War Propaganda 1939–1941. Secret ministerial conferences in the Reich Propaganda Ministry. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1966.

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Bömer in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Willi A. Boelcke: War Propaganda 1939–1941. Secret ministerial conferences in the Reich Propaganda Ministry. DVA, Stuttgart 1966, pp. 71f.
2. ^ Peter Longerich: Goebbels. Biography . Siedler Verlag, Munich 2010, p. 470; Willi A. Boelcke: War Propaganda 1939–1941. Secret ministerial conferences in the Reich Propaganda Ministry. DVA, Stuttgart 1966, p. 72.
3. ^ Peter Longerich: Goebbels. Biography , p. 821, footnote 163.