Willy Moese

Willy Moese (also written as Willi Moese) was born in Barcelona in 1927 as the son of a Siemens representative. He received his primary education in a Spanish monastary school. He went to a German high school in Barcelona, where he developed a love of painting and drawing. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1937, Willy Moese moved back to Germany with his family, where another war was about to begin. He was drafted into service in 1945, taken prisoner and released the same year.

Willy Moese became a freelance comic artist and illustrator for magazines in the former DDR (German Democratic Republic), the part of East-Germany that was occupied by the Russians. His comics, like 'Bogomil' and 'Klaus und Choko', were published in magazines such as Wochenpost and Zeit im Bild. He mostly worked for magazine Atze, for which he made several covers. He also did TV animations, such as 'Zauberlehrling', 'Blaff und Biene' and 'Rolle und Robby', which were also distributed in the West through a Swiss press agency.

Willy Moese never made a secret of his political ideas, which earned him the suspicion of the East-German secret service Stasi. This resulted in the loss of her job for Willy's wife, and some of his exhibitions were cancelled.