Werner Knop

Werner Gustav John Knop (born December 29, 1911 in Cuxhaven ; † October 1, 1970 ) was a German-British journalist .

Life and activity

Knop studied at the Universities of Göttingen , Freiburg , Frankfurt , London and Oxford .

In 1937 he fled to Great Britain. There he became a foreign editor for the newspapers London Financial News and The Banker .

In 1938, Knop became director of Union Time Ltd , a secret organization disguised as a press agency , an association formed by German emigrant circles in London , which, in cooperation with British business and press people, aimed to convince the British public of the need for a strong foreign policy against National Socialist Germany and to combat the spread of Nazi propaganda in England and in Europe in general. The group even went so far as to promote the British government's funding of illegal anti-Nazi groups.

At the beginning of the Second World War , Knop was briefly interned , but released again due to the advocacy of Robert Waley-Cohen . In the further course of the war he was a member of the British Army .

After the war, Knop worked as a journalist for the Saturday Evening Post .

In 1948, Knop was one of the first Western journalists to secretly penetrate the Soviet occupation zone in Germany to study the life of the local population under Russian rule. After his return he published his impressions in the reportage book Prowling Russia's Forbidden Zone , published in 1949 (meaning: "On the prowl [free exploration tour] in Russia's forbidden zone").

Around 1950 Knop settled in the United States , where he bought a farm in Virginia .

Fonts

• The claim for reimbursement , Düsseldorf 1936.
• Six minutes late. Documents on the assassination attempt in the Bürgerbräukeller on November 9, 1939. In: Der Kurier from February 18, 1947.
• Prowling Russia's Forbidden Zone: A Secret Journey Into Soviet Germany . New York 1949.