[5] On returning to Germany he launched his journalistic career in March 1947 as a contributing editor to the monthly news magazine Frankfurter Hefte, recently founded by Eugen Kogon (1903–1987) and Walter Dirks (1901–1991).

During this period there were some spectacular productions, such as Erich Kuby's "Nur noch rauchende Trümmer – das Ende der Festung Brest" ("Only smoking debris left – the end of Fortress Brest"), first transmitted by NWDR on 19 October 1954: the broadcast earned a forceful back-handed compliment in the form of a legal challenge from General Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke, the military commander in command of the German forces during the fighting.

[1] During the middle 1950s Proske teamed up with his colleagues Max Heimo Rehbein and Carsten Diercks to produce some of the country's first television documentaries such as, notably, the eight part series "Auf der Suche nach Frieden und Sicherheit" ("In search of Peace and Security," 1956/57) which dealt principally with the west's defence strategies and measures.

[1] In this connection he was intimately involved in the 1961 launch of the NDR current affairs programme Panorama and its development during the next few years.

[10] The programme's first episode on 4 June 1961 made the headlines in the printed press, a pattern which was followed for some time with each successive feature.

The programme did not, even at the outset, back away from contentious subjects[10] and relationship with the newspaper establishment was not infrequently confrontational in view of the inherent rivalry between the two media.

The new programme increased the overt politicisation of television coverage in ways which under Proske's direction quickly became normalised,[11] and moved the new medium firmly into the heart of the media firmament, but controversy was never far away.

[1] The often critical investigative journalism produced by the Panorama team around Proske of the programme triggered mounting unease and displeasure in some quarters.

[a][20] Some people found Rüdiger Proske gratuitously critical, and he was certainly sure in own his sense of what was right and what was not: even in retirement he did not hesitate to court controversy where necessary.

[1] His thoughtful 1996 book "Wider den Mißbrauch der Geschichte deutscher Soldaten zu politischen Zwecken",[21][b] running to just over 100 pages, and "Vom Marsch durch die Institutionen zum Krieg gegen die Wehrmacht"[22][c] published in 1997 and more than twice as long, each resonated with critics and other readers enough to run to several editions.

Anmerkungen zu einer umstrittenen Ausstellung" [d] re-visited some of the same themes, but this time in the context of a large public "Army Exhibition" created by the Hamburg Institute for Social Research which toured Germany and Austria between 1995 and 1999.

Proske, as a widely respected surviving army veteran who was still a familiar personality for television viewers, proved to be one of its fiercest and most effective critics, though he was very far from being alone in his condemnation.