Dr. Hans Kaiser
Terwelpstr. 4
47906 Kempen
Tel. 02152/8925469
Mail: emailadresse gelöscht wegen Spamgefahr. UHolthausen
Allen Mitarbeitern und Freunden des Forums der Wehrmacht ein gutes neues Jahr 2017!
Ich teile im Folgenden die Korrespondenz mit einer Dame aus den Niederlanden mit, deren Großvater im Februar 1945 als Zeichner für eine deutsche Zeitschrift "Der Westkämpfer" arbeitete. Das mir von ihr als Beleg geschickte Faksimile-Blatt zu übermitteln bin ich leider technisch nicht in der Lage. Ich nehme an, dass der Zeichner Mitglied der im Juni 1944 in Kempen/Niederrhein formierten SS-Propaganda-Einheit "Skorpion West" war.
Wer kann weitere Informationen beschaffen? Zum Hintergrund lege ich den entsprechenden Abschnitt aus meinem Buch "Kempen im Krieg", erschienen im Februar 2014 in der Schriftenreihe des Kreises Viersen, bei.
Danke für Eure Mühe!
Hans Kaiser
Dear Onno,
thank you for your interesting information.
I suppose that your grandfather was a member of the SS-propganda-unit "Skorpion West", which was formed in Kempen in June 1944. They were idealists and motivated to defend the European culture against the invasion of Communism.
Among other tasks this unit had to produce propaganda newspapers for the German soldiers. They have been working dotted over the whole region of the lower Rhine. In Kempen they printed the propaganda newspaper "Skorpion" (see the cover of the first edition on p. 523). From my book "Kempen unterm Hakenkreuz, Band 2. Eine niederrheinische Kreisstadt im Krieg", I send you from the correction manuscript the chapter about this unit (p. 517-524). There you find that French authors were working for the "Skorpion" (like Dr. Andre Lacroix from Paris, p. 518) and SS-soldiers coming from the Netherlands (like the film reporter Wouter de Vries, see p. 520).
On the page you sent to me I find as an author Victor Auburtin (* 5. September 1870 in Berlin; † 28. Juni 1928 in Partenkirchen). He was a German journalist, whose ancestors came from France to Prussia. Therefore I suppose that "The Westkämpfer" was published by people who knew everything about the French-German culture. Very educated people.
Victor Auburtin, Relief der Grabplatte
Leaflets produced from this unit have been published by Klaus Kirchner (Flugblatt-Propaganda im 2. Weltkrieg/Europa. Leaflets from Germany for American soldiers in Western Europe, 1944/Bd. 16, 1945/Bd. 17, Erlangen 2007) and by Wolfgang Fleischer/Richard Eiermann, Das letzte Jahr der Waffen-SS. Mai 1944-Mai 1945, Wölfersheim-Berstadt 1997, p. 107, 158. You will find a thick file containing a lot of names from this unit in the
Bundesarchiv Militärarchiv (BArch-MA), Wiesentalstraße 10, 79115 Freiburg.
Maybe you will find the name of your grandfather in that file or in of the books I quotated. I corresponded about files in that Archive with Mr. Frank Anton
f.anton[at]bundesarchiv.de
I was in that archive in 2013/2014 and I have found a lot of information about the "Skorpion", too.
Could I help you?
Looking forward to your answer
Yours
Hans Kaiser
Dear Ulrich & Hans,
I sincerely need somebody in Germany to help me in my Search for Zwagers. Somebody who speaks the language, knows collectors and is willing to mail my mails tot musea and archives. For some reason whenever I mail Germans, they just don’t give any answer. Is it that they just don’t want to be reminded about the war?
For now I’m sure that my grandfather (in law) has been in Aachen, Köln and Bergisch Gladbach. But I’ve have no proof of that in drawings.
He was drawing for sure fort Der Westkampfer (is attached) which paper nobody seems to know…
Can you - or do you know somebody who would like to - help searching?
Thanks!
Onno Lassooy