Rolf Magener
Rolf Magener ( born August 3, 1910 in Odessa; † 5 May 2000, Heidelberg) was known for his escape in 1944 from the internment Dehradun in British India. Later, he was Chief Financial Officer of BASF in Ludwigshafen.
Life
Magener was born in Odessa, the son of a Russian mother and a German merchant, which, as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported in a lengthy obituary on 5 August 2000, Hotel Metropol is heard in Moscow; with regard to the mother's health, the family spent long hours on the Cote d' Azur. The High School put Magener from the Hermann- Lietz - Schule Schloss Bieberstein.
He then studied Business Administration and earned about 1937 at the University of Frankfurt am Main doctorate with a thesis on industrial liquidity in the business cycle. Several completing his university studies he had spent in Exeter; since he spoke English fluently.
In 1935 he entered the service of the I.G. Colors, was sent to China and was from 1938 worked in the IG Farben representatives in Bombay. There he was interned at the outbreak of the Second World War by the British as Enemy Alien and brought to the camp bearing Dehradun at the foot of the Himalayas.
On 29 April 1944 he escaped from the camp with six companions, of whom had Heinrich Harrer, Peter Aufschnaiter and Heins von Have been several times tried unsuccessfully to escape. This time had Magener and Have as British officers with sticks and blueprints under his arm, the other dressed as native workers with turban and implement before they marched together and unmolested out of the gate of the camp. While Harrer and the remainder of the nearest border zustrebten to go on Tibet allied with Germany Japanese in China and Burma, took Magener and Have turn with the same destination the train to Calcutta. With India, the English language and British idiosyncrasies familiar, they managed to attract attention neither on the ride even in Kolkata, as they treated themselves there for a few days of rest in hotels and clubs of the British upper class.
Yourself spending as a Swiss business, they traveled by train and river steamer then on to Chittagong by sampan to Cox's Bazar and from there continue on foot. After more than a month, they crossed the border river Naaf and arrived at Maungdaw in the jungles of Mayu the front. A Japanese patrol took them as spies caught and handed them the dreaded Kempeitai military police. After two months, they were brought to Yangon and another month later flown to Tokyo, where she arrived at the German embassy. There Magener Doris learned from Behling, whom he married in 1947.
In the same year he returned to Germany and was active after a short stay in a reception center first at German Commerz GmbH in Frankfurt. In 1954 he published his book about his escape from the camp Dehradun under the title The chance was zero, and in the same year as the Prisoner 's Bluff in England.
1955 moved to Magener BASF and worked for this since 1957 in London. In 1958 he became a director and directed from 1962 as a member of the Management Board in charge of Finance. In 1974, he went into retirement. From 1976, he joined the Supervisory Board of BDO German Warentreuhand and was its chairman from 1983 to 1989 at this time., He is mentioned in connection with the Mercedes- Automobil-Holding AG and the German subsidiary of the bank JP Morgan.