Berkhahn, Günther

Draughtsman, publicist, resistance fighter

Born: 11.07.1910 in Berlin

died: 12.03.1982 in Wiesbaden

Berkhahn studied at the local crafts and arts and crafts school from 1925 and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin from 1928 to 1930. Having previously emerged as the founder and leader of the Wiesbaden Socialist Student Association, he soon began working for the satirical magazine "Roter Pfeffer", having joined the KPD in the meantime.

In 1932, he moved in with his mother and stepfather, Prof. Federico Graef, who worked as chief topographer for the Argentinian government. In 1933/34, Berkhahn took part in an oil expedition for the local Ministry of Agriculture and worked as a draughtsman for the decidedly liberal "Argentinisches Tageblatt".

In 1934, Berkhahn moved first to Sweden and then to Paris to work temporarily as a political cartoonist, for example for the weekly newspaper "Der Gegenangriff", published by the Central Committee of the KPD. This led to a collaboration with the former KPD Reichstag deputy for the Hesse-Nassau constituency 19 and anti-fascist propaganda specialist Willi Münzenberg, who, like himself, was to break with Stalinist communism a few years later. In 1935, Berkhahn took part in an anti-fascist exhibition in Paris before traveling to Argentina again via Great Britain and Sweden. There he took part in a cartographic expedition, this time on behalf of the Ministry of Defense.

He was then engaged by the Embassy of the Second Spanish Republic as a teacher of geological graphics by its Ministry of Agriculture. From the beginning of 1937, he was involved in the Republican army against the fascist Franco coup in Spain. He taught topography at the military academy and took part in the battles before Madrid and Córdoba as well as on the Ebro front as the staff officer responsible for this. The terror of the Stalinists against other left-wing forces, which he experienced at first hand during the Spanish Civil War, turned Berkhahn completely into an anti-communist, even though he steadfastly adhered to his decidedly socialist basic attitude.

After spending almost a quarter of a year in hospital in Barcelona from mid-September 1938, he returned to Sweden in February 1939. In the summer of 1940, he traveled to Argentina via the USSR, Japan and Chile, where he again worked for the "Argentinisches Tageblatt". Having been expatriated by the German Reich in 1941, he moved to Uruguay in 1944 due to the persecution that also began in Argentina after the establishment of a fascist military dictatorship. B. only returned from there to his native Hesse in 1950.

He worked for the Hessian and North German radio stations and wrote articles for various periodicals and press services. His work as an advertising consultant for the SPD was only temporary at the time, as was his membership of the party. In the second half of the 1960s, the unorthodox Marxist, who was inspired not least by Prof. Dr. Karl August Wittfogel, influenced some younger activists of the comparatively small local Extra-Parliamentary Opposition (APO) in the vicinity of the Wiesbaden Club Voltaire.

In 1970, the POP Club for Folklore, Politics and Information presented an exhibition of Berkhahn's satirical drawings. At an event organized by the municipal youth center PUB on the so-called Prague Spring in early 1977, his journalistic cooperation with the former APO activist Dr. Rudi Dutschke was established. His posthumously published book "Aufrecht gehen. A fragmentary autobiography", as well as his diaries edited by his widow Gretchen Dutschke under the title "Jeder hat sein Leben ganz zu leben".