Helmut Roloff

Helmut Roloff ( born October 9, 1912 in Giessen, † 29 September 2001 in Berlin) was a pianist, professor and since 1970, Executive Director at the Academy of Music ( Academy of Music ) Berlin ( now University of the Arts Berlin, Faculty 3).

Life

His father was the historian Gustav Roloff. Helmut studied law in Leipzig and Giessen in 1935 and got a job as a court clerk in Butzbach. However, he then decided to turn his hobby into a career and began to study at the Hochschule für Musik Berlin ( Academy of Music ) Richard Roessler as a concert pianist. He took private lessons in 1938 with the pianist Vladimir Horbowski in Berlin.

By his friends John Graudenz and Helmut Himpel did the collaboration with the resistance group Rote Kapelle. From Himpel Roloff received a suitcase with short- wave transmitter, which he hid in his parents' apartment in Berlin behind a piano. On September 17, 1942 a search took place in the apartment and the suitcase was found by the Gestapo. Although he was able to clearly explain that he had kept the contents of the suitcase for a musical instrument, he was arrested. For interrogation, he was taken to the Gestapo headquarters at Prinz- Albrecht-Strasse, where he bound on his back hands remained two weeks in the basement. During his interrogation he was going to have not known what was in the suitcase and the Gestapo could give him a privy, not prove his involvement in flyposting actions as well as his active membership in the Red Chapel. He was transferred to the military prison in Spandau and dismissed surprising from prison on January 26, 1943.

In 1945 he was appointed to the re-founded the Academy of Music, where he was appointed professor in 1950 and full professor in 1953.

From 1969 he was first deputy and chief since 1970 director of the Academy of Music. On April 1, 1978 he became Professor Emeritus.

For the " German Gramophone " Roloff played a series of records. He worked all his life as a concert pianist and piano teacher, and died in the fall of 2001.

His son Stefan Roloff began in 1999 with an intense engagement with its history of resistance. His son John Roloff is also a pianist, his son Ulrich Roloff flutist.