Background
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.
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.
He studied at the Folkwangschule until 1933.
He was a survivor of Kemna concentration camp and of Gestapo imprisonment in Stadelheim Prison. In 1931, Kiwitz and Strupp went to Cologne for a few months. 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 Senior
Majestät Abraham Tonelli, but its publication was forbidden by the Reichskulturkammer.
lieutenant 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.
After World World War II, Strupp was put up in the Holbein Haus in Augsburg and given a job as an "upgraded" building superintendent, as he phrased lieutenant He then became a contributor to the postwar German satirical magazine, Ulenspiegel, founded by two other survivors of Nazi detention, Herbert Sandberg and Günther Weisenborn.
During the 1950s and 1960s, he also worked on several film productions. He corresponded with Bertolt Brecht.
Ausstellung Heinz Kiwitz, Günther Strupp, Galerie Oberstenfeld, Duisburg (September 27 – October 26, 1947)
Günther Strupp: Temperaund Ölbilder, Zeichnungen 1930-1960, Cologne Kunstverein (July 30 – August 28, 1960)
Der Apfel ist ab (1948), assistant production designer
Schneeweisschen und Rosenrot (1955), art director
Hänsel und Gretel (1954)
Rotkäppchen (1954), set decoration
Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge (1955), set decoration.