Dr. Bruno Helbig-Neupauer

Bruno Helbig-Neupauer graduates from the Jesuit grammar school in Mariaschein [Bohosudov] near Teplitz [Teplice]/North Bohemia. He then went to Innsbruck to study theology and entered the seminary there as an alumnus. After receiving the lower orders, he broke off his theological studies, left the seminary and began studying law in Innsbruck in the winter semester of 1908/09.

In 1909, he became a member of the Raeto-Bavaria student fraternity. In the winter semester of 1909/10, he then transferred to the German Karl Ferdinand University in Prague, where he joined the Vandalia student fraternity. In 1912, he obtained his doctorate in law here. He then went to Berlin to complete his habilitation in canon law and became a member of the Suevia student fraternity. However, the outbreak of the First World War prevented him from completing his habilitation. He enlisted as a war volunteer in 1914, took part in the campaigns in Russia and Italy and was discharged at the end of the war as a retired lieutenant of artillery.

After the war, Bruno Helbig-Neupauer returned to his home country, now Czechoslovakia [CSR], where he first worked as a trainee lawyer and later as a judge in Prague. After being admitted to the bar, he later joined the internationally renowned law firm of Dr. Wien-Claudi. From 1924, he worked for the Association of German Landowners, initially as secretary, in 1929 as managing director and from 1934 as managing member of the board until the association was dissolved in 1941. In 1934, he was adopted by Baroness Neuper-Müller, since when he has had the double name Helbig-Neupauer.

After the annexation of the CSR and the establishment of the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia" in 1939, the German institutions were initially able to continue working unhindered until they were dissolved in 1941. Bruno Helbig-Neupauer tries to continue the Association of German Landowners, works as a lawyer for the association, but is arrested by the Gestapo on December 23, 1942 "as an enemy of the state" and accused of being the "head of a resistance movement". After several months in police custody in Prague, Bruno Helbig-Neupauer was taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp, but was recalled thanks to the intervention of influential circles. A special court in Prague then sentenced him to a year in prison "for opposing the party and the Nazi state" and placed him under police supervision. He wrote about this in a letter dated January 5, 1948 to P. Erhard Schlund OFM (1888-1953) in Munich:

"I was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942, whereby I was particularly apostrophized as a representative of the Church - I represented some monasteries in a law-friendly manner... - and as a CV representative. The interrogations at the Gestapo were the most horrible. I had to listen to almost everyone. 'You CV dog! I was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp, but was immediately sent back as a result of interventions. Otherwise I wouldn't be alive today. I was then sentenced to a year by the special court for opposing the party and the Nazi state. With God's help, I survived that too."