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Kurt Graupner Collection

Archive Collection: MS 1773

Details

Type of record: Archive

Title: Kurt Graupner Collection

Level: Collection

Classmark: MS 1773

Creator(s): Graupner, Kurt()

Date(s): 1930s

Language: German; Esperanto

Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/8807

Description

Contains: (1) Anti-Nazi and socialist newspapers, 1932-1951, principally "Freies Deutschland", 1937-39; (2) Duplicated news reports and newsletters, principally "Deutschland-Berichte der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands", 1936-39; (3) A number of printed books and pamphlets, including four copies of "Unser Kampf gegen das dritte Reich"; (4) Miscellaneous news-cuttings, from German and English newspapers; (5) Manuscript and archival material, partly in the form of exercise books with insertions, including correspondence, handwritten notes, leaflets, typewritten material, and further news-cuttings; (6) Miscellaneous publications in Esperanto.

Biography or history

Kurt Graupner was born on 1 May 1911 at Schonbrum near Lengenfeld in Saxony and was brought up in Falkenstein, Saxony. He worked at the local lace factory and for a short while was manager of the yarn department. In 1933 he moved to Nottingham where he had acquaintances through the lace industry, but soon moved to work in the textile industry in Bradford. For a while he taught German privately and at night school, and subsequently began to contribute to (and then to distribute) the periodical "Freies Deutschland" published by the anti-Nazi propagandist Max Sievers, who visited him in Bradford. Graupner was interned when France fell in 1940, first in the Isle of Man. He was sent to Canada but was soon released and brought back to Britain. For the rest of the war he worked in a tractor factor in Bradford. He married in 1943 and became a British subject after the war, continuing with his left-wing activities. Until his retirement he worked in the redundant yarn industry.

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Access to this material is unrestricted.

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