Willi Bänsch

Willi Bänsch (born February 27, 1908 in Berlin , † December 11, 1944 in Brandenburg an der Havel ) was a German locksmith and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

After graduating from a secondary school, Willi Bänsch learned the metalworking trade. Influenced by his family - his father was a KPD functionary  - he became a member of the KJVD . From 1933 he took part in the resistance struggle of the Berlin communists. In 1935 he was arrested by the Gestapo and in 1936 sentenced to six years in prison for producing and distributing “illegal literature”. Following his imprisonment, he was sent to the Wuhlheide labor education camp . Here he found access to the underground organization of the Berlin KPD , for which he was able to obtain important information from the camp clerk. He was able to escape from the camp in the spring of 1944. He found shelter first in Lübbenau and Zepernick , then with the printer Hermann Korus in Berlin. Both were arrested on November 12, 1944 and sentenced to death on December 1, 1944. He was executed eleven days later in Brandenburg prison.

Honors

After the end of the war and the establishment of the German Democratic Republic , his role in the anti-fascist struggle was publicly recognized several times. In his home district of Berlin-Friedrichshain , the magistrate named the former Mirbachstrasse Bänschstrasse after him on May 31, 1951 .

Six years later, the torpedo speedboat 844 of the 6th Flotilla of the People's Navy received its name. This sank after a collision with the Swedish ferry Drottningen on August 31, 1968, killing 7 sailors.

literature

• Luise Kraushaar : German resistance fighters 1933 to 1945. Berlin 1970 Volume 1, p. 72ff

Individual evidence

1. ↑ File: Stolperstein Heinz-Galinski-Str 8 (Gesbr) Hermann Korus.jpg
2. ↑ Bänschstrasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )