Cajus Bekker (12 August 1924 - 10 March 1975), born Hans Dieter Berenbrok, was a German wartime naval officer, journalist and author.
Born in Düsseldorf in 1924, Berenbrok was raised in Hamburg an...ver másCajus Bekker (12 August 1924 - 10 March 1975), born Hans Dieter Berenbrok, was a German wartime naval officer, journalist and author.
Born in Düsseldorf in 1924, Berenbrok was raised in Hamburg and joined the German War Navy (Kriegsmarine) in 1943, where he served as a naval news officer (radio officer). By the end of World War II, he had achieved the rank of lieutenant-commander.
After the war, Berenbrok worked as a news editor and reporter for various newspapers and magazines. In 1953, under the pseudonym Cajus Bekker, he published his first book, Kampf und Untergang der Kriegsmarine. Ein Dokumentarbericht in Wort und Bild (published in English in 1955 as Defeat At Sea: The Struggle and Eventual Destruction of the German Navy, 1939-1945).
From 1955, Berenbrok was a lecturer and editor for the naval program at the Gerhard Stalling publishing house in Oldenburg/Hamburg, where he also continued to publish under his pseudonym Cajus Bekker. During this time Berenbrok also drew on his wartime naval experiences as lieutenant-commander whilst undertaking extensive research in the Military History Research Office in Potsdam and the Federal and Navy Archives (Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv) in Freiburg, both of which had only just had the German wartime navy files returned by Great Britain.
Berenbrok died in 1975 whilst working on a new book on the “war in the ether” in connection with the battle in the Atlantic. He was 50 years old.ver menos