Jean-Paul de Dadelsen

• Name — Jean-Paul de Dadelsen • Born — 20 August 1913 • Birthplace — Strasbourg, German Empire • Died — 22 June 1957 • Place of death — Zürich, Switzerland • Occupation — Journalist, poet, translator • Years Active — c. 1936–1957 • Known for — Poetry • Notable Works — "Jonah", "Bach en automne"

Jean-Paul de Dadelsen was born on 20 August 1913 Strasbourg. Despite the apparently noble patronymic, Jean-Paul de Dadelsen was the son of an Alsatian notary from Guebwiller, of German and Swiss ancestry. His mother came from Colmar. He spent his childhood, up to the age of 13, in the village of Mutterholz near Sélestat, where his father worked. In 1927 the family moved to Hirsingue in the Department of Haut-Rhin. He attended the lycée at Mulhouse until 1929. He continued his secondary education at the JJ Henner college in Altkirch. Part of a group of artists, painters and writers, he encountered A. Schachemann, René Jourdain. Nathan Katz, Eugène Guillevic and pastor Hoffet. After failing his Baccalauréat, his parents sent him to Paris as a boarder at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. In 1930 while preparing his university entrance khâgne, he met L. Senghor and Georges Pompidou. He attended drawing classes with the Alsatian painter, Robert Breitwieser. He came top of his German course in the Agrégation of 1936 and was appointed schoolmaster at the Lycée Saint-Charles in Marseille. Between 1936 and 1939 he translated several German writers into French, among them: Hans Helfritz, Hermann von Keyserling, Bernard von Brentano.

In 1938 he was called up as an army interpreter. In 1940 he fought in a tank regiment. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre. In 1941 he was appointed schoolmaster in Oran (Algeria) where he was befriended by Albert Camus. In December 1942 he was posted to London with the Free French. He was appointed interpretation officer in several roles of the etat major of the 1st Parachute Brigade. In 1943 he became an officer of the Interior Commission, in the Information Section of de Gaulle's Provisional Government in London. That year he married an English woman, Barbara Windebank with whom he had two daughters. In 1944, after the liberation of Paris, he was despatched to the capital as a deputy director in the Ministry of Information. In 1945 he joined the editorial staff of the newspaper, Combat, edited by Camus. Among its other leading contributors were Jean-Paul Sartre, André Malraux, Emmanuel Mounier and Raymond Aron.

In 1946 he returned to London as special political correspondent for Combat. When Camus left Combat in 1947, de Dadelsen became London correspondent of the paper, Franc-Tireur, a post he filled 1948-1949. He had a son, Michel, by Elizabeth-Ann Heffernan (de Dadelsen), an actor. Between 1946 and 1951 de Dadelsen presented, from London, a weekly current affairs programme, “Les Propos du Vendredi”, for the BBC French Section. He was an editor for both the BBC French and German services until 1956. In 1951 he moved to Geneva where he focused his career on Europe. He collaborated with Denis de Rougemont at the European Cultural Centre and became adviser to Jean Monnet and his European Coal and Steel Community in Luxembourg. In 1956 he became deputy director of the International Press Institute in Zürich. Jean-Paul de Dadelsen died in Zürich on 23 June 1957 from a brain tumour.