Helmut Roloff was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 pianist and teacher.

Roloff was born in Giessen where his father was a university history professor who was a staunch anti-Nazi. Roloff entered the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 (now the Universität der Künste Berlin, Fakultät 3) in 1935, studying with Richard Rüssler. He also studied privately with Wladimir Horbowski in 1938.

During the Second World War he worked with The Schulze-Boysen / Harnack Organization, one of the resistance groups known as the Rote Kapelle between 1940 and 1942, and was arrested by Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 together with other members of the group in 1943. He claimed that he was unaware of the anti-Nazi activities of his friends, and that they had only met to listen to music. His friends in the Rote Kapelle did not betray him either, even under torture, and he was released for lack of evidence.

In 1945 he was appointed to the newly-established Universität der Künste Berlin (HfM) where he taught and, in 1970, became director until his retirement in 1978. He continued to live in Berlin, where he died in 2001. He is survived by his wife, Inge Roloff and his sons, Stefan Roloff

Stefan Roloff

Stefan Roloff is a painter, video artist and filmmaker, living and working in New York and Berlin. He is a pioneer of digital video and photography.- Life :...

, Ulrich Roloff and Johannes Roloff

Sources

• Kater, Michael H. The Twisted Muse: Musicians and their music in the third reich. New York & Oxford, 1997; Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509620-7. Pages 224-5