Wilhelm Rothhaupt

Wilhelm Rothhaupt (born December 8, 1888 in Mehlsack , Braunsberg district , † March 1956 ) was a German writer and colonial politician.

Life

The father was employed as a train driver for the Reichseisenbahn in the Warmia town of Mehlsack. Wilhelm attended the high school in Allenstein , started an apprenticeship in a sawmill and became a timber merchant. He first worked as a forester and timber merchant, then in December 1912 he signed up as a planting assistant for the German East Africa Company . After several weeks of shipping he came in German East Africa and was until August 1914 on the Sizalplantagen in Kikwetu north of Lindi , most recently a senior position working. When the First World War began, he fought in the Schutztruppe for German East Africa under the command of General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck . Due to illness he was released to the British troops in 1918 and was a prisoner of war in Egypt until 1919.

After returning to Austria in 1920, he worked as a freelance writer from the beginning of the 1920s and published the first two books Unter Palmen und Dornen and Habari in 1925 . He pursued political ambitions and in 1924 in Vienna became the founder of the Association of German Colonial Friends , which was subordinated to the German Colonial Society (DKG) in 1927 . In the years 1927–1928 Rothhaupt was head of a film and hunting expedition in East Africa and from 1931–1932 on a study trip through West, South and East Africa. He was involved in Austria for the NSDAP and became its active member on June 1, 1932 (No. 897 067). Until 1936 he was a partner in a large dye works in Vienna.

He worked as a trainer for the NSDAP district group Mariahilf in Vienna, then was transferred to Berlin in 1935 and took over functions in the apparatus of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda . He was responsible for the Reichskolonialbund and then worked in the cultural office of the German Labor Front (DAF). In 1938 he joined the Labor Science Institute (AWI) of the DAF and worked on the problems of colonial social policy in the context of foreign policy. Rothhaupt first became head of the foreign department and, in 1939, head of the independent department for colonial social policy . On November 26, 1938, he appeared as a Reich speaker at a major event of the Reich Colonial Association in Vienna.

Until October 1943 he was employed by the Institute of Industrial Engineering (AwI). When the apartment in Berlin was bombed out, he moved into an official apartment on the NS-Ordensburg Krössinsee in Pomerania in September 1944 .

In February 1946, Wilhelm Rothhaupt was entered in the list of literature to be segregated in the Soviet occupation zone with the note “ Nazi colonial politician ”.

Works

• Under palm trees and thorns. Whimsical rides in East Africa. With drawings by HA Brunner . G. Westermann, Braunschweig 1925.
• Habari. From black and white Africans. With 40 drawings by Fritz Schönpflug . Strecker & Schröder, Stuttgart 1925.
• The song of the steppe. With drawings by HA Brunner . G. Westermann, Braunschweig 1926.
• The princess by the grace of God. Novel . Amalthea-Verlag, Vienna 1929.
• The big lie. A novel . Welsermühl publishing house, Leipzig 1930.
• Lord Chester cranks. A fun trip to the black continent . Welsermühl publishing house, Vienna 1930.
• Hunting adventure in German East Africa . Narration . Kamp, Bochum 1941.
• The call of the wild dogs. Based on old African sources and our own experiences . Thomas-Verlag, Kempen / Niederrhein 1953.
  • Dutch translation: De roep the wild dogs. A divorced uit de tijd of the slave yachts . Lannoo nv, Tielt / The Hague 1954.
  • Dutch translation: De krokodillen van het Njassa-Meer. Vervolg op: De roep the wild honeys . Lannoo nv, Tielt / The Hague 1955.
• The marked one. African adventures and experiences . Thomas-Verlag, Kempen / Niederrhein 1956.

literature

• Rothhaupt, Wilhelm. In: Werner Schuder (Ed.): Kürschner's German Literature Calendar . Nekrolog 1936-1970. Verlag Walter de Gruyter , Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-1100-4381-5 , p. 563.
• Rothhaupt, Wilhelm in: Karl Heinz Roth : Intelligence and social policy in the "Third Reich". A methodological-historical study using the example of the Ergonomic Institute of the German Labor Front . De Gruyter, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-598-11166-5 , p. 221.
• Rothhaupt, Wilhelm in: Directory of the literature to be sorted out . February 1946, p. 64. (online)
• Wilhelm Rothhaupt in: Karsten Linne: Germany Beyond the Equator? Nazi colonial planning for Africa . Ch. Links Verlag , Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86153-500-3 , pp. 64-67.