Herbert Kranz
# Herbert Kranz

Herbert Karl Ludwig Kranz, pseudonym Peter Pflug (born 4 October 1891 in Nordhausen; died 30 August 1973 in Braunschweig) was a German writer.

## Biography

After graduating from the Städtisches Reform-Realgymnasium in Berlin-Wilmersdorf in 1910, Kranz studied German, philosophy and history in Berlin and Leipzig. At the start of World War I he volunteered, but was discharged two years later due to illness as a lieutenant. He then married Ulrike Reck. After starting as a scientific assistant at the Youth Welfare Office in 1918, he took on several jobs in the literary field in addition to his own literary activities with various publications. He worked as a director at the theater in Düsseldorf in 1920 and in the Netherlands in 1923. From 1925 he worked first as a freelancer, then as an editor at the Rhein-Mainische-Volkszeitung in Frankfurt am Main, which belonged to the Herder publishing group, and from 1927 produced the children's newspaper Weg in die Welt as its supplement. From 1930 to 1933, he was a professor of German at the Halle (Saale) Pedagogical Academy in teacher training, without having a teaching degree himself. After Hitler's rise to power, Kranz was dismissed from the academy in 1933 because of his liberal views. He found employment as a local editor at the Frankfurter Zeitung and, in parallel, at the Illustrierte Blatt. At the same time he worked as a freelance writer. In 1941, for example, he wrote Hinter den Kulissen (Behind the Scenes), an anti-Semitic pamphlet about French politics from 1933 to 1940. In 1943, the Frankfurter Zeitung was closed down and he was banned from his profession by the Reichsverband der Deutschen Presse (Reich Association of the German Press) for his drama Der Ritt mit dem Henker (The Ride with the Hangman), whereupon the Illustrierte also dismissed him. His book Zeugnis der Zeiten was, however, recommended by Alfred Rosenberg's "Hauptamt Schrifttum" for Nazi libraries.

After the war, he lived as a freelance writer in Vachendorf, Stuttgart, Gebersheim and, from 1970, in Königstein im Taunus. He died in 1973.

