Günther Strupp

Günther Strupp (March 6, 1912 – 1996) was a German artist, illustrator, and art director. He was a survivor of Kemna concentration camp and of Gestapo imprisonment in Stadelheim Prison.

Strupp was born in Johannisburg in Masuria, now part of Poland. He grew up in Duisburg and in 1930, began studying art in Essen at the Folkwangschule with his long-time friend Heinz Kiwitz. In 1931, Kiwitz and Strupp went to Cologne for a few months. He studied at the Folkwangschule until 1933.

Strupp joined the Communist Party, which led to his arrest in 1933 after the Nazis seized power. He was held at Kemna concentration camp for several months, an experience he later depicted in an illustration. Kiwitz was also arrested and placed in Kemna, but was later transferred to another concentration camp. After his release in 1933, he fled to Paris, where he stayed until 1936. In 1940, he applied for work building stage sets at several theaters in Berlin and with the help of Wilhelm Fraenger, found work painting scenery at the Schiller Theater. Fraenger also commissioned Strupp to illustrate Ludwig Tieck's Merkwürdige Lebensgeschichte Sr. Majestät Abraham Tonelli, but its publication was forbidden by the Reichskulturkammer. It was eventually published after the war.

Strupp went to Augsburg, hoping it would be a safer place for him to live than Duisburg, but was swept up by the Gestapo in the wave of arrests after the July 20 plot to kill Hitler. The 1944 arrest carried an increased chance of a trial before the Third Reich's People's Court. Strupp was liberated from Stadelheim Prison by American troops on May 1, 1945.

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