Gregor Athalwin Ziemer (May 24, 1899 – August 1982) was an American educator, writer, and correspondent. He graduated from the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

in 1922 with an English degree. Ziemer lived in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

from 1928 to 1939, during which time he served as the headmaster of the American School in Berlin. After fleeing Germany, Ziemer returned to his wife Edna's hometown of

Lake City, Minnesota Lake City is a city in Goodhue and Wabasha counties in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It lies along Lake Pepin, a wide portion of the Mississippi River. The population was 5,063 at the 2010 census. Most of Lake City is located within Wabasha ...

. Ziemer wrote a couple of notable books about Nazi society: ''Education for Death'', which inspired the eponymous Disney short, and, more directly,

Edward Dmytryk Edward Dmytryk (September 4, 1908 – July 1, 1999) was an American film director. He was known for his 1940s films noir, noir films and received an Academy Award for Best Director, Oscar nomination for Best Director for ''Crossfire (film), Cros ...

's movie '' Hitler's Children'', as well as, along with his daughter Patricia, ''Two Thousand and Ten Days of Hitler''. For a time from November 1941, Ziemer was a commentator on European affairs with radio station

WLW WLW (700 AM) is a commercial news/talk radio station licensed to Cincinnati, Ohio. Owned by iHeartMedia, WLW is a clear-channel station, often identifying itself as The Big One. WLW operates with around the clock. Its daytime signal provides ...

out of

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

. He later returned to Europe as a correspondent, embedded this time with General

George Patton George Smith Patton Jr. (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army in the Mediterranean Theater of World War II, and the Third United States Army in France ...

's Third Army. Gregor Ziemer and F

At the

Nuremberg Trial The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded m ...

s, an

affidavit An ( ; Medieval Latin for "he has declared under oath") is a written statement voluntarily made by an ''affiant'' or '' deponent'' under an oath or affirmation which is administered by a person who is authorized to do so by law. Such a statemen ...

by Ziemer (an excerpt of one of his books), dealing with Nazi society in general and the education of youth in particular, was presented by the prosecutors. According to ''

Reichsjugendführer ''Reichsjugendführer'' ("National Youth Leader") was the highest paramilitary rank of the Hitler Youth. On 30 October 1931, Hitler appointed Baldur von Schirach as the Reich Youth Leader of the Nazi Party. In 1933, after the Nazi seizure of st ...

Baldur von Schirach Baldur Benedikt von Schirach (9 May 1907 – 8 August 1974) was a German politician who is best known for his role as the Nazi Party national youth leader and head of the Hitler Youth from 1931 to 1940. He later served as ''Gauleiter'' and ''Re ...

, this writing contained untruth and had "more importance as propaganda than it tends to be objective" and was "clearly inflammatory".Direct examination
of

at the

Nuremberg Trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies of World War II, Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945 ...

, May 23, 1946. Accessed July 31, 2008. Ziemer, who lived in California but summered in Lake City, kept busy as a writer of stories and articles and author of screenplays, contributing to the ''

Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...

'' and other popular magazines of the mid-20th century. He later served as a director of the

American Foundation for the Blind The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) is an American non-profit organization for people with vision loss. AFB's objectives include conducting research to advance change, promoting knowledge and understanding, and shaping policies and practice ...

as well as director of the Institute of Lifetime Learning. Among his key contacts in his charitable work was

Hoagy Carmichael Hoagland Howard Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981) was an American musician, composer, songwriter, actor and lawyer. Carmichael was one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s, and was among the first ...

. A manuscript for a book about the history of

water skiing Water skiing (also waterskiing or water-skiing) is a surface water sport in which an individual is pulled behind a boat or a cable ski installation over a body of water, skimming the surface on two skis or one ski. The sport requires suffic ...

was discovered only recently among Ziemer's papers by one of his publishers.

References

External links

*
"Education: Education for death"
''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

''. November 3, 1941. Accessed October 26, 2009. American male screenwriters 1899 births 1982 deaths American male short story writers 20th-century American short story writers 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American screenwriters {{US-writer-stub