Helmuth Ellgaard

Who was Helmuth Ellgaard?

Helmuth Ellgaard was a German illustrator, artist and journalist.

Helmuth Ellgaard was born in the then German Haderslev in Nordslesvig. In 1928, the family left Haderslev, which became Danish after the Schleswig Plebiscites, for Kiel. Soon, Ellgaard caught an interest in drawing and painting. He was educated at the Art academy in Kiel in 1934, while simultaneously working as a news illustrator for the Kieler Neuste Nachrichten newspaper. He also learned to sketch, and his specialty became fast sketches with charcoal.

In 1938 he was newly wed and moved to Berlin. After the outbreak of the second world war he became a war correspondent, and as a lieutenant in the German air force he participated in many raids as a journalist, including the Battle of Britain in 1940. His works were published in the renowned weekly magazine Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung. During the war this two sons were born; Peter and Holger.

The war had destroyed the large publishing houses in Berlin, and new newspapers and magazines were started in Hamburg and Munich among other places.