Peter Bamm

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Peter Bamm (actually Curt Emmrich ; born October 20, 1897 in Hochneukirch , today Jüchen , Rhein-Kreis Neuss ; † March 30, 1975 in Zollikon / Canton Zurich , Switzerland ) was a German ship's doctor, surgeon, journalist and writer.

Life

Curt Emmrich was born in Hochneukirch, Rhineland, but spent most of his youth in Saxony, as his mother had moved there shortly after his father's death.

He later volunteered in the First World War . In his memoirs , the communist writer Ludwig Renn reports on shared experiences on the western front . After 1918 Peter Bamm studied medicine and sinology in Munich , Göttingen and Freiburg im Breisgau . He received his doctorate in medicine. As a ship's doctor , he made numerous trips around the world between 1926 and 1934 before settling as a specialist in surgery in Berlin-Wedding in the 1930s . During the Second World War he served as a medical officer on the Western and Eastern Fronts , which he reports on in his book The Invisible Flag .

Emmrich's humanistic school education aroused his interest in different areas of knowledge. This, like his professional activity as a doctor, was the starting point for a successful activity as a journalist and writer, for which he had acquired the pseudonym Peter Bamm . As early as the 1920s, he was regularly writing feature articles for the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , or DAZ for short , under its editor-in-chief Fritz Klein . After the Nazis came to power, they forced Klein to leave the editorial team under threat of suspending the DAZ . Klein then created the German Future , a weekly newspaper . At that time, weekly newspapers were able to skillfully exploit loopholes in the regulations, so this paper remained largely free of Nazi influences. The small circulation of this newspaper was used as an opportunity. Peter Bamm continued his journalistic activities under Fritz Klein at Deutsche Zukunft .

Later Emil Dovifat from the Department of Newspaper Studies wrote about this newspaper: “The paper was connected to the Wednesday Society and the men who later became active on July 20, 1944 . It asserted itself with superior expertise and covered its guardians with intellectual equilibrism. “The German future managed to evade takeover by the regime until 1940, but then Klein was drafted into the Wehrmacht . The Nazis had taken over the editing and brought it together in the newly created weekly newspaper Das Reich . Bamm was also advised to participate in the new paper, which he wanted to avoid at all costs. An open refusal, however, would have run the risk of arrest, as the Gestapo was already keeping an eye on him at this point. Bamm therefore decided to be drafted as a doctor by the Wehrmacht in order to skilfully avoid this difficult decision.

So he first took part in the French campaign, later in the Russian campaign. He was not involved in direct combat operations, he was always head of a hospital. In this capacity he also treated many enemy prisoners of war and the civilian population of the occupied countries. Towards the end of the war, his company managed to evacuate from the Russians, and he came to Denmark. Here he was captured by the British Army and, still in prisoner status, brought to Germany. Since the Allies were looking for unencumbered Germans at this time to rebuild the press and radio, Bamm was asked to work with the Hamburg British Forces Broadcasting Service for the British Forces Network (BFN) program. He started while still in uniform. At the beginning of the 1950s, his interest in phenomenology, a philosophical direction based on Edmund Husserl aimed at understanding the essence of all things, increased ; Bayerischer Rundfunk broadcast three disputes with the Munich phenomenologist Hedwig Conrad-Martius , which were also published as a book. From 1952 to 1957, Bamm undertook study trips to the Near and Middle East . He then worked as a columnist for various Berlin newspapers. He wrote the book The Invisible Flag about his experiences in World War II . Bamm wanted to prove that there was definitely humanity (in the medical sector) during World War II. His autobiography, One Man's Time , has sold widely. In 1960, Bamm received the Paracelsus Medal from the German medical profession. Since 1956 he was a member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry .

Grave in the Stöcken cemetery

Peter Bamm was married to Ruth von Stangen, daughter of a general and divorced wife of a Hamburg doctor. The couple adopted the wife's granddaughter from their first marriage. His grave is in the Stöcken city cemetery (Department 32 D, No. 16) in Hanover . After him there has been the Munster since 1986Peter-Bamm-Kaserne and a multi-purpose hall in his birthplace Hochneukirch.

Honors

Works

Peter Bamm published numerous, often very witty and ironic feature sections and bizarre, imaginative short stories . In addition to his scientific and medical essays , he wrote cultural-historical travel reports , essays, a biography and his autobiography .

Complete edition:

  • Works in two volumes , 1230 pp., Droemer, Zurich, 1967.

literature

Web links

Wikiquote: Peter Bamm  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Heimatverein Hochneukirch
  2. ↑ a b c Ralf Bröer: Peter Bamm , in: Wolfgang U. Eckart and Christoph Gradmann (eds.): Ärztelexikon. From antiquity to the present , 3rd edition 2006, Springer Verlag Heidelberg, Berlin, New York p. 26. Ärztelexikon 2006 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-540-29585-3 .
  3. ↑ Werner Wachsmuth : A life with the century. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg / New York / Tokyo 1985, ISBN 3-540-15036-6 , p. 11 f.
  4. ↑ Tradition: Names of barracks and units ( Memento of the original from March 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Campaign against conscription, compulsory service and the military, Berlin. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kampagne.de
personal data
SURNAME Bamm, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Emmrich, Curt (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor, journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 20, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Hochneukirch , Jüchen
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1975
Place of death Zollikon , Switzerland