Fritz-Otto Busch
From spring 1917 to summer 1918 he was an artillery officer on the Light Cruiser SMS Regensburg holding the rank of second lieutenant.
By this time the German PEN had been forced into conformity with Nazi principles as its new secretary Johann von Leers commented.
[4] In May 1933, as a member of the German delegation, together with Edgar von Schmidt-Pauli and Hans Martin Elster, Busch persuaded the International PEN Congress not to pass a motion against the Nazi book burnings and the persecution of the Jews in Germany.
Shortly after this, the German PEN Club withdrew from the international movement and in 1934 it was re-established as the Union of National Writers.
"[7] At the start of February 1933 a state funeral for Hans Maikowski, a member of the SA who died of a gunshot wound, took place in Berlin.
Among the other speakers, as well as Joseph Goebbels, was Fritz Otto Busch, who contributed a hymn of praise to the German forces.
[8] In her dissertation, Ingeborg Römer, the student of literature investigates the way in which numerous books for young people written during the Nazi period portray early nordic history.
[10] The book consists of two main sections: factual descriptions of the construction of Viking ships, and the adventurously portrayed retelling of excerpts from the Vinland sagas.
[11] In addition a dramatic battle with a storm by the crew of the Viking boat, which strengthens this motive has no precedence in the original.
In 1940, following the German victory in the Battle of Narvik the Bertelsmann publishing house released this lavishly turned-out book written by Busch.
It was a work of "war reporting which toed the party line", it had an introduction by Grand Admiral Erich Raeder and was recommended by the OKW in the Books of the Armed Forces.
[21] According to Christian Adam, if you ignore the moral aspect, the Narvik book is generally well crafted, although at many places it was "quickly cobbled together".
In a mixture of reporting, fictional elements and documents he describes a part of Operation Weserübung, that is the attack on Norway and the capture of the iron-ore port of Narvik.
(Busch)[22] As a result of a part of the text in the first chapter the book fell foul of several competing censors: the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, the Führer's official representative for the supervision of the overall spiritual and ideological training and education of the Nazi party, Alfred Rosenberg, and the Navy.
[23] Despite meeting its desired effect as propaganda, Busch was criticised by the SS poet Kurt Eggers because he was not writing from his own experience.
He argued that when the time came it was only from the circle of the "Narvik travellers" that the "prophets and singers" would be found who could write the conclusive heroic epic of this journey to the north.
By to 1945 Busch had written about seventy further works, including the autobiographical novel Cruiser in the Red Tide which he wrote under the pseudonym Peter Cornelissen.
In this novel he portrayed the final phase of the First World War and the Revolution of 1918 from the perspective of a young naval officer on board the minelaying light cruiser SMS Bremse.
In view of his involvement with National Socialism many of the books written by Busch landed in the list of literature to be withdrawn in the Soviet occupation zone or the GDR between 1939 and 1953.
Using his pseudonym Wilhelm Wolfslast numerous naval history books were published by Moewig in Munich, including two booklets for the war comic series: Soldiers' Stories from Round the World.
The greater part of the publications of both series was republished from 1978 onwards by Pabel publishers under the title The Landser presents: Ship's fates on the Seas of the World.
The German Maritime Search and Rescue Service also published - and frequently republished - a series of booklets Catastrophes at Sea, for which Busch also provided texts.
