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 (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

in 1922 with an English degree. Ziemer lived in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

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 County, Minnesota, Goodhue and Wabasha County, Minnesota, Wabasha counties in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It lies along Lake Pepin, a wide portion of the Mississippi River. The population was 5,252 at the 2020 ...

. 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 a Canadian-born American film director and editor. He was known for his 1940s films noir, noir films and received an Academy Award for Best Director, Oscar nomination for Best Director for ...

'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 broadcasting, AM) is a commercial radio, commercial news/talk radio station city of license, licensed to Cincinnati, Ohio. Owned by iHeartMedia, WLW is a clear-channel station, often identifying itself as "The Big One". Its studios ...

out of

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

. He later returned to Europe as a correspondent, embedded this time with General George Patton's Third Army. Gregor Ziemer and F

At the Nuremberg Trials, an

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

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''

Baldur von Schirach Baldur Benedikt von Schirach (; 9 May 1907 – 8 August 1974) was a German politician who was the leader of the Hitler Youth from 1931 to 1940. From 1940 to 1945, he was the '' Gauleiter'' (district leader) and '' Reichsstatthalter'' (Reich gov ...

, this writing contained untruth and had "more importance as propaganda than it tends to be objective" and was "clearly inflammatory". 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 published six times a year. It was published weekly from 1897 until 1963, and then every other week until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely circulated and influ ...

'' 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 "Hoagy" Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981) was an American musician, composer, songwriter, actor, author and lawyer. Carmichael was one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s and 1940s, a ...

. From 1926 to 1927, he also taught in the Cebu Provincial High School in the Philippines, where one of his students, Antonio Allego, would later become a renowned poet, essayist, and columnist in the Philippines. 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 one or two skis. The sport requires sufficien ...

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

References

External links

*
"Education: Education for death"
''

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

''. 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-fiction-writer-stub