Peter Neuhof

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Peter Neuhof (born July 30, 1925 in Berlin ) is a German journalist . As the son of the communist - Jewish resistance fighters Karl and Gertrud Neuhof , he was affected by the National Socialist tyranny from his early youth . During the Cold War , as a West Berlin correspondent for radio in the GDR, he was an exceptional cross-border commuter . Today he is one of the last contemporary witnesses to the terror and resistance against the Nazi regime.

Family and childhood

Peter Neuhof grew up in the middle-class garden city of Berlin-Frohnau . There was no material need in his parents' house, his father Karl worked for the company Neufeldt & Co. as a grain trader on the stock exchange, so that he had a good salary. The family could afford vacations and a maid .

Both his father and his mother Gertrud were members of the KPD and various political organizations and initiatives, such as an unemployed kitchen, the Rote Hilfe and the Fichte workers' sports club (ASV Fichte), which brought Neuhof to an early stage politicization. The father's Jewish family background, however, played a subordinate role in his parents' home, as he was not raised in a Jewish way.

In a left-wing, liberal children's home not far from his parents' home, he made friends with Peter Nelken, who later became editor-in-chief of the satirical magazine Eulenspiegel .

Neuhof has been a sports enthusiast since childhood. For the ASV Fichte, the family looked after many, partly international guests in their house. So Peter Neuhof got to know several active people in various sports personally and later did gymnastics in this club himself.

When political commitments were required for membership in sports clubs under National Socialism, he considered becoming a member of the Hitler Youth in 1937 in order to pursue his passion, which he was denied. His parents involved him in both sporting and political activities, such as handing out leaflets. Neuhof had a lasting political impact when a family friend was shot dead by an NSDAP member during the election campaign in April 1932 .

Nazi era

With the onset of National Socialism, his father was only able to earn significantly less money due to the boycott of Jewish shops in 1933. In the spring of 1934 the family finally had to move to a smaller apartment for financial reasons. The family apartment was searched several times (unsuccessfully) by the National Socialists for weapons and left-wing reading. The family continued to maintain contact with anti-Nazi opponents, for example through the "coffee supplier" Franz Demuth . After the November pogroms in 1938, his father finally lost his job and has since tried to keep the family afloat with unskilled labor. From 1940 to 1943 the father had to do forced labor in the so-called "Jewish column" of the Warnecke & Böhm paint factory. He also got the forced addition of "Israel" to his name. All of this had a lasting impact on Neuhof.

Peter Neuhof was drafted in 1942 and, to his relief, classified as "unworthy of defense". An event that he commented on in his autobiography with the words "This is neither my war nor my 'Führer'". From 1936 he attended the Realgymnasium Hermsdorf, from where he was expelled in September 1942 for anti-Semitic reasons because the National Socialists considered him a so-called “ half-Jew ”. In the same month the first members of the Jewish part of his family were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp . His grandmother Helene, who was over 80 years old, died there on December 5, 1942, three months after her deportation. A total of 16 of his immediate relatives died in the Shoah .

In January 1943, Neuhof was able to start an apprenticeship in the Wittenau machine tool factory Herbert Lindner, which was regarded as an NS “model company”. Despite the constant threat of being harassed for political reasons, he managed to have a largely normal training routine and even took part in an imperial professional competition.

When the Gestapo discovered in February 1943 that the Neuhof family was doing anti-fascist resistance work by granting illegal shelter to Wilhelm Beuttel, the wanted member of the KPD's domestic leadership , his parents were arrested and Neuhof was briefly interrogated.

Since then Neuhof has lived alone in his parents' apartment. Together with relatives and acquaintances, he helped his parents to get through the time in the repressive institutions of the Nazi state in the following months. He maintained partly legal and partly secret correspondence with both of them, providing them with food, linen and other helpful items. After his father was admitted to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in October 1943 , Peter Neuhof received his belongings from the Gestapo's Jewish Department, including the diary he had written during his imprisonment. Not giving up hope, Neuhof went to Oranienburg in December 1943 and went to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp to support his father. It was only during his mother's trial in January 1944 that she and Neuhof found out by chance that his father, Karl, had been shot in Sachsenhausen concentration camp two months earlier.

In the spring of 1945 Neuhof was able to collect leaflets that the Americans had dropped during an attack flight - they "herald the imminent end of Nazi rule, report the advance of the Allies". He smuggled these into his company, which, contrary to its reputation as a NS “model company”, was more of a refuge for NS oppositionists, and secretly distributed them there during his night shift.

After her release from prison, his mother was again involved in the anti-fascist resistance and was arrested again in September 1944. One month later, Neuhof was to be drafted into the Todt organization as a “ first degree hybrid ” . Shortly afterwards, the request was abandoned because he was already doing essential physical work in his training company, where he manufactured components for grenade launchers in the final phase of the war.

In February 1945 Neuhof was called up to the Volkssturm . There he had to dig trenches and do target practice with poor equipment. Shortly afterwards the mistake was noticed that despite his Jewish family background he was drafted so that he could return to his training company.

Peter Neuhof experienced the end of National Socialism in Frohnau. At that time he assumed that his mother had lost her life in the Ravensbrück concentration camp . It was only through a letter from the resistance fighter Katharina Jacob that he learned that she had been driven on a death march and had survived it.

Neuhof recorded his experiences during this time in his own diary.

As a journalist in the Cold War

On 22./23. In April 1945, when the fighting in Berlin was not yet over, Neuhof belonged to a small group of people who initiated a KPD local group in Frohnau before it was officially (legally) re -established. From then on he took part in events for the victims of fascism and has been a member of the (West) Berlin Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime (VVN) since its foundation .

When the first sports clubs were re-established or newly established in the post-war period, Neuhof acted as one of two licensees for the athletics club SC Tegeler Forst in 1948 . He stayed in Frohnau and initially tried to catch up on the Abitur, which he had previously been denied, through a preparatory college. But because of his many other interests, he dropped his wish to study. Eventually he began to work as a freelance worker for newspapers such as the BZ am Abend and the Berliner Zeitung .

From 1950 he worked first as an assistant editor and finally until the so-called Wende as a West Berlin correspondent for Berliner Rundfunks ( Broadcasting of the GDR ), and for the station Voice of the GDR . This activity was equated with that of an editorial manager.

He justified his decision to work for the East German radio with his political convictions. In 1956 (as a result of the XXth party congress of the CPSU ) he was disappointed to receive information about the Stalinist crimes in the Soviet Union .

He married in 1960 and has a son with his wife, who has since passed away.

Because of his political convictions, he clashed with the West German authorities. During the police operation of May 14, 1963, known as the "Aktion Mai-Test", he was among the correspondents arrested in West Berlin. “In the 1960s there was a house search by the West Berlin police. But they only found innumerable manuscripts on me and not the explosives, which I didn't even have, ”says Neuhof.

When the World Ski Championships took place in Oslo in February 1966 , Neuhof reported from there for Radio DDR . He never missed a day of trial when the "Berlin Jewish Murder Trial" took place in 1969 and 1970/71 before the West Berlin district court in Moabit, which he followed as a trial observer for the Berlin radio and voice of the GDR . Negotiations were held against Otto Bovensiepen , his deputy Kurt Venter (* 1911), SS-Sturmbannführer, and against Max Grautstück (* 1903), member of the Gestapo and chief secretary of the "Judenreferat". For Neuhof, as “desk perpetrators”, these people were primarily responsible for organized anti-Semitism in Berlin and he considered them to be “murderers of many members of the same family”.

Autobiography and contemporary witness

Stolperstein , Zeltinger Strasse 65, in Berlin-Frohnau

In 2006 Peter Neuhof published the book When the Browns Came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance , in which he writes autobiographically about his life and reconstructs the history of his family, based on his own memories, his own diary entries and family letters, Gestapo documents and court files. The book was published in the Library of Resistance series by Pahl-Rugenstein Verlag . The Reinickendorfer Allgemeine Zeitung (July 13, 2017) judged: "In its history, the Nazi terror against the Jewish population condenses like in a magnifying glass."

In the course of researching for his book, Neuhof learned, among other things, of the suffering of former family friends and comrades who, during their emigration to the Soviet Union and Denmark, reached the limits of their communist party lines and were therefore exposed to various repression.

Since the publication of his autobiography, Peter Neuhof has been invited by educational institutions and historical-political initiatives to report on his life as a contemporary witness, mainly on his experiences with National Socialism. By 2018, he was invited to around 50 readings and discussions.

The Center for Research on Antisemitism at the TU Berlin has shown an academic interest in him for years . Neuhof has been invited here for several years in a row to answer students' questions about Nazi rule and how to deal with Nazi crimes after 1945.

To this day he is a member of the VVN-BdA and actively participates in their solidarity and memorial events. He explicitly encourages engagement against the current shift to the right in Germany .

Taking into account his life, especially his experiences from the NS and the GDR, his current balance sheet contains surprisingly little resignation:

“I can still imagine a world without capitalism, but I don't know whether that is feasible. In any case, I could imagine the world I now live in much better than it is. Maybe the world as we imagined it wasn't feasible either. What we experienced under socialism wasn’t socialism, and what we had in the Soviet Union wasn’t either. May those who come after us shape their world, but a world that is only based on weapons, on misery and wars, that cannot be the world, that is not my world. "

- Peter Neuhof : Interview from July 22nd, 2013 in Berlin

In 2011, a stumbling block for his father Karl Neuhof was laid in front of the Neuhof family's former home, at 65 Zeltinger Strasse in Frohnau .

In 2016 Neuhof handed over his father's prison diary, family letters and other more than 500 documents in total to the archive of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, where they are valued as a significant rarity.

literature

  • Peter Neuhof: When the Braunen came - a Berlin Jewish family in the resistance. Pahl-Rugenstein-Verlag, Bonn 2006.
  • Working group “Ask us, we are the last”; Berlin VVN-BdA: "Ask us, we are the last." Memories of those persecuted by National Socialism and people from the anti-fascist resistance. An interview brochure (part 4) , Berlin 2013, online at: http://fragtuns.blogsport.de/broschuere/ , p. 25 ff

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 18.
  2. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 19ff.
  3. ↑ Peter Neuhof: It was such an unlikely lucky circumstance that I survived this terrible time. In: AK asks us, we are the last; Berliner VVN-BdA (ed.): "Ask us, we are the last". Memories of those persecuted by National Socialism and people from the anti-fascist resistance. An interview brochure (part 4) . Berlin 2013, p. 25–35, here p. 26 .
  4. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 47 and p. 68.
  5. ↑ Peter Neuhof: Speech by Peter Neuhof on the occasion of the commemoration of Gerhard Weiß 2012. (PDF) In: http://www.dielinke-glienicke.de/ . April 2012, accessed January 6, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 50ff.
  7. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 55.
  8. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 90.
  9. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 130.
  10. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 131ff. and p. 64.
  11. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 142 and p. 252.
  12. ^ Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: The "other" capital of the Reich. Resistance from the labor movement in Berlin from 1933 to 1945 . Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-936872-94-1 , p. 577 ff . (668 pp.).
  13. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 131ff. and p. 149f.
  14. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 131ff. and p. 198.
  15. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 153ff.
  16. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 163f.
  17. ↑ Hidden in the bread wagon. In: Silent Heroes Memorial Center. Resistance to the persecution of the Jews from 1933 to 1945. Silent Heroes Memorial, accessed on March 16, 2018 .
  18. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 177ff.
  19. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 211.
  20. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 250.
  21. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 255.
  22. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 284f.
  23. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 274, p. 274 and p. 282.
  24. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 286.
  25. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 174.
  26. ↑ Antifa Jour Fixe August 2017. 70 years of the Berlin Association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime. Peter Neuhof, founding member of the Berlin VVN, in conversation with Hans Coppi. In: Berlin Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime - Association of Antifascists. VVN-BdA Berlin, accessed on January 6, 2018 .
  27. ↑ Peter Neuhof: It was such an unlikely lucky circumstance that I survived this terrible time. In: AK asks us, we are the last; Berliner VVN-BdA (ed.): "Ask us, we are the last". Memories of those persecuted by National Socialism and people from the anti-fascist resistance. An interview brochure (part 4) . Berlin 2013, p. 25–35, here p. 25 and p. 33 .
  28. ↑ Karlen Vesper: Luckily the tanks came ... How two Berlin boys escaped from Hitler & Co.: Kurt Hillmann and Peter Neuhof. In: neue-deutschland.de. May 8, 2014, accessed January 6, 2018 .
  29. ↑ Peter Neuhof: It was such an unlikely lucky circumstance that I survived this terrible time. In: AK asks us, we are the last; Berliner VVN-BdA (ed.): "Ask us, we are the last". Memories of those persecuted by National Socialism and people from the anti-fascist resistance. An interview brochure (part 4) . Berlin 2013, p. 25–35, here p. 33 f .
  30. ↑ Michael Minholz, Uwe Stirnberg: The General German Intelligence Service (ADN). Good news for the SED, Munich 1995, p. 225f.
  31. ↑ CS: When the browns came. How the son of a communist of Jewish faith experienced the Nazi persecution. (PDF) In: Berliner Woche as PDF. March 21, 2012, accessed January 5, 2018 .
  32. ↑ Short biography of Kurt Venter. In: Yad Vashem International Holocaust Memorial. Retrieved January 1, 2018 .
  33. ↑ Short biography of Max Bernhard Grautstück. In: Yad Vashem International Holocaust Memorial. Retrieved January 1, 2018 .
  34. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 118.
  35. Jump up against a terror regime . reinickendorfer-allgemeine.de. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
  36. ↑ Peter Neuhof: When the brown ones came. A Berlin Jewish family in resistance. Bonn 2006, p. 51f. and p. 59.
  37. ↑ Hans Wolf: Peter Neuhof: Moving evidence of a bad time. Peter Neuhof reads from his book "When the Browns Came". In: friedberger-geschichtsverein.de / Wetterauer Zeitung. November 21, 2007, accessed January 5, 2018 .
  38. ^ Editor: Lust and Burden of the Autobiography. In: Kulturation. Online journal for culture, science and politics. KulturInitiative'89 e. V., January 2007, accessed on March 16, 2018 .
  39. ↑ "Ask us, we are the last ..." - Students ask witnesses to the Nazi regime and how the Nazi crimes were dealt with after 1945. (PDF) In: Course catalog of the Center for Research on Antisemitism, summer semester 2018, p. Technische Universität Berlin, 2018, accessed on March 29, 2018 .
  40. ↑ Uwe Hiksch: Berlin VVN-BdA: Commemoration on November 9, 2015. In: Uwe Hiksch bloggt. November 4, 2015, accessed March 30, 2020 .
  41. ↑ Rüdiger Lötzer, Michael Netzhammer: Antifascism is non-profit. In solidarity with the association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime. In: www.igmetall-berlin.de. IG Metall Berlin, January 20, 2020, accessed on March 30, 2020 .
  42. ↑ Jutta Harnisch: “History does not repeat itself. Can we be so sure about that? ”Peter Neuhof's speech near the Bundestag building. In: VVN-BdA in NRW. October 25, 2017, accessed January 3, 2018 .
  43. ↑ Andreas Gandzior: against hatred and violence in the Bundestag. More than 10,000 people demonstrate against the AfD's entry into the Bundestag. In: Berliner Morgenpost. October 23, 2017, accessed March 16, 2018 .
  44. ↑ Peter Neuhof: It was such an unlikely lucky circumstance that I survived this terrible time. In: AK asks us, we are the last; Berliner VVN-BdA (ed.): "Ask us, we are the last". Memories of those persecuted by National Socialism and people from the anti-fascist resistance. An interview brochure (part 4) . Berlin 2013, p. 25–35, here p. 33 f .
  45. ^ AG Stolpersteine ​​Reinickendorf: Information on the Stolperstein for Karl Neuhof. In: Coordination Office Stolpersteine ​​Berlin. Retrieved January 3, 2018 .
  46. ↑ See Jewish Museum Berlin, Neuhof family collection, lot 335, Inv.Nr .: 2016/52 / 1-572; BIB 823; Third-party inventory 439 / 1-11.
personal data
SURNAME Neuhof, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin