English source-aligned edition
Gunter d’Alquen
Gunter d’Alquen served as editor-in-chief of Das Schwarze Korps and commander of Waffen-SS propaganda. The profile reconstructs the person’s function in the German Reich and occupied Europe through documented office, decisions, supervision or operational conduct. It does not assign every crime committed by an institution or region to one individual.
Confirmed findings
- Gunter d’Alquen was born on 24 October 1910 in Essen and died on 15 May 1998 in Mönchengladbach-Rheydt. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
- From 1935, d’Alquen headed the SS weekly Das Schwarze Korps; during the war he created and commanded the SS war-correspondent company, later SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
- He co-wrote the screenplay for the antisemitic film Der ewige Jude, edited a paper built on incitement and denunciation, and led an apparatus that secured disproportionately extensive, glorifying coverage for the Waffen-SS while also developing psychological-warfare operations. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
- These were denazification rulings, not a war-crimes conviction: in 1950 a Berlin chamber classified him as a major offender and imposed 10 years' confinement; later proceedings added financial penalties. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
Place in the chain of responsibility
The profile attributes to Gunter d’Alquen only the documented role and conduct described in the cited sources, without transferring to him every crime committed by the institutions or units with which he was associated. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
Key events and mechanisms
- In 1935, he took charge of Das Schwarze Korps; during the war he expanded the SS propaganda unit into Standarte Kurt Eggers. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
- In 1955, a fine of 60,000 marks and loss of rights for 3 years were imposed; in 1958 a further 28,000 marks were added and he was released. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
The circle records authority, function and agency. Several profiles may describe different parts of the same persecution chain, so profile-level totals must not be added together.
Postwar accountability
After his release in 1958, d’Alquen worked in business and remained active in circles of former Waffen-SS members. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
Limits of the evidence
The profile records personal editorial decisions, co-authorship and command of a propaganda apparatus. It does not treat SS membership alone as proof of every crime and does not present denazification as a war-crimes trial. No individual victim total is assigned, and no additional order or act is attributed without an explicit source finding. No portrait with clearly documented publication rights was found. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
Sources
The source set combines institutional, archival, trial or scholarly material from at least two independent publishers.