Erich Kern

Erich Kern, (born Erich Knud Kernmayr on 27 February 1906 in Graz – died 13 September 1991 in Kammer am Attersee) was an Austrian right-wing extremist journalist. He became a writer of revisionist books that sought to glorify the activities of the German soldiers during the Second World War.

As a youth Kernmayer was briefly affiliated to the youth wing of the Social Democratic Party of Austria, before moving to the right, initially with the radical Sturmvolk movement before joining the Austrian Nazi Party. As the party was illegal he was imprisoned for a while in 1934.

His first experience as a journalist came on the Essener National-Zeitung, a local newspaper owned by Hermann Göring. He subsequently served as press-chief to Gauleiter Josef Bürckel, effectively controlling the press in both Ostmark and Saarland. By 1940 he was the chief of the Pressestelle of Gauleiters. He saw active service during the Second World War with the Waffen SS, holding the rank of Obersturmbannführer. Taken prisoner after the war, he was held in internment in Austria for two and a half years before being released in 1948.

During the Second World War, he had served with the 4th Battalion of the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler around the Black Sea and wrote about his experiences in his 1948 book Das Grosse Rausch, which was republished in English as Dance of Death in 1951. In the book he bemoaned the failure of Nazi Germany in the Soviet Union, arguing that a German victory would have brought culture to the uncivilized Russian people. The book was published only a few months after his release, despite one of the conditions being that he was banned from any publishing. Kern moved to West Germany in 1949 where he became known as a novelist. As an author on military history his works were largely published by the Verlag Welsermühl, a far-right revisionist publishing house that sought to portray a pro-German version of Second World War history.

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