Alexander Westermayer

Alexander Westermayer (born October 29, 1894 in Goslar , † June 19, 1944 executed in Brandenburg-Görden ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism and a victim of fascism .

Life

Alexander Westermayer, approx. 1940 (private photo)

Stolperstein , Bayreuther Strasse 41, in Berlin-Schöneberg

Alexander Westermayer was born on October 29, 1894 as the son of the architect and sculptor Andreas Westermayer and his wife Minna Marie Dorothea Christiane, née. Move, born in Goslar. The father died in 1910. Westermayer attended elementary school in Breslau. Since his parents were in serious financial distress, Westermayer, whose father was a Catholic, was accepted into the religious school of the Catholic Oblate Missionary Institute in the Valkenburg Monastery in the Netherlands ( Valkenburg-Houtem , Limburg Province, Holland) on the recommendation of the Caritas Secretariat in Wroclaw . The recommendation states: “A characteristic trait that emerges is the desire to help anyone in need or distressed (e.g. on the street). The inability to follow this wish often causes him deep pain. ”He attended the“ Collegium Carolinum ”from 1910 to 1912.

After a vacation stay, he did not return to the religious school, but stayed with his mother in Katowice . When she got married again, he came to live with foster parents, the Kaper couple, in Katowice. With his foster father, a building trade school senior teacher, he completed an apprenticeship in timber construction and worked in his company until 1931. In 1915 and again from 1917 to 1918 he was a soldier.

In the early 1920s, Alexander Westermayer joined the “ General Workers Union ”. After the AAU split up, he became a member of the Spartakusbund (political and economic unitary organization) , also known as Spartakusbund No. 2, until its forced dissolution in 1933 . He wrote several articles for the journal Die Aktion , which is closely related to this political direction . That is why Westermayer was occasionally listed as "writer".

From 1926 to 1933 Westermayer lived in Spremberg and founded the “Bund Deutscher Sozialisten” with friends from Spremberg, to which Walter Lehmann and Alfred Krüger also belonged.

After the foster father's death in 1931, Alexander Westermayer worked as a commercial clerk at various companies. From 1939 he got a permanent job as a salesman in the tobacco shop FA Farenthold, Unter den Linden 38, and lived in Bayreuther Straße 41. This house was completely destroyed by a bomb hit towards the end of the war.

While working in the tobacco shop, he met the architect and resistance fighter Herbert Richter and joined his resistance group in August 1943. Richter was one of the founders of the European Union resistance group in 1939, along with the doctor Georg Groscurth , the chemist Robert Havemann and the dentist Paul Rentsch . Within the resistance group, Alexander Westermayer had the task of gaining additional members - according to his old friend Walter Lehmann - and of distributing leaflets. He also supported and hosted Jewish citizens.

With his wife Dora Rojahn (1882–1969), who was twelve years older than him, his first marriage was only a few months in 1916. With her he had a son who was born on August 7, 1917 - after the divorce. Dora gave him the name Alexander (1917–2001) out of deep affection for his father. The second marriage (1917–1921) with Wanda Stenske remained childless. From his third marriage (1923–1936) to Margit Kuboth, his son Wolfgang (1922–1952) emerged. Dora Rojahn always felt close to her divorced husband and had been living with him again since October 1939, also to take care of the son from a third marriage, who lived with his father after his mother's accidental death in May 1939. Dora Rojahn loved and adored her ex-husband and stuck with him until his violent death, trying to find the best lawyer for him and saving him from execution with a pardon.

On September 9, 1943, Alexander Westermayer was arrested on the basis of the statements made by Groscurth and Havemann and accused of working in an "anti-state organization" and of preparing for high treason. When he was first questioned on September 11, 1943, he initially denied all the allegations, but two days later, when he was “reproached” (or, presumably, torture was used), he admitted his involvement in full.

After the main hearings on March 29 and April 17, 1944 before the 1st Senate of the People's Court in Berlin, he was sentenced to death on April 17, 1944. The verdict contains the following justification: “In the fourth year of the war, the defendant Alexander Westermayer joined a highly treasonable group and used agitation and propaganda for them. In doing so, he also helped our war enemy. Forever dishonorable he is punished with death. ”After his arrest, he spent nine months in custody, first in Berlin-Moabit prison at Lehrter Strasse 12 and from November 1943 in Brandenburg-Görden prison. The death sentence was carried out on June 19, 1944 at 3:14 p.m. in Brandenburg-Görden with the guillotine.

In his farewell letter, written on the day of his execution, Alexander Westermayer asks his Dora: "Tell my sons that I love my Germany as much as they do and that I hope that they will continue to carry me in their hearts ...". And he asks Olga Lehmann, the wife of Walter Lehmann, who died of heart failure a few days before the start of the trial under the interrogation tortures, for forgiveness and sees his own death as a kind of penance for encouraging Walter to work in the resistance group and putting him in danger would have. And he also quarrels with himself "... I was just too trusting and realized too late the danger I was putting myself." This also shows a certain criticism of the leadership of the group, because initially he was only able to work with the resistance group Being linked because his name was put on a written list by senior group members.

Robert Havemann appeared before the People's Court on March 29 and April 17, 1944 as a witness and testified for the defendants Wilhelm Hartke, Walter Lehmann and Alexander Westermayer. With his testimony, Havemann succeeded in making Hartke's participation in the European Union appear so marginal that he was “only” sentenced to three years in prison for failing to report the group. However, he was unable to invalidate Alexander Westermayer's commitment to the resistance group.

Commemoration

On November 29, 2013 , a stumbling block was laid in front of his former home , Bayreuther Strasse 41, Berlin-Schöneberg .

Literature and Sources

• Simone Hannemann: Robert Havemann and the "European Union" resistance group. Berlin 2001, pp. 55, 68f, 118, 170
• Bernd Florath : The European Union. In: Johannes Tuchel (Ed.): The forgotten resistance. On real history and perception of the struggle against the Nazi dictatorship. Dachau Symposia on Contemporary History, Vol. 5, Wallstein Verlag 2005.
• Werner Theuer / Bernd Florath: Robert Havemann bibliography with unpublished texts from the estate, Akademie Verlag, 2007
• Friedrich Christian Delius: The embarrassment of the good guys - Georg and Anneliese Groscurth, Robert Havemann, Paul Rentsch, Herbert Richter, speech in the German Embassy on June 19, 2006
• Federal Archives, SAPMPO-BA: NJ 1721 (files of the People's Court on the trial against Westermayer, Hardtke and Lehmann)
• Federal Archives; BLHA; Rep. 29 Brandenburg Penitentiary, No. 8 and Gen 101
• Address books Berlin

Privately owned

• Photos by Alexander Westermayer
• Alexander Westermayer, birth certificate no. 332 (1894), main birth register, registry office Goslar, extract from October 30, 1913
• Letter of recommendation for Alexander Westermayer for attending a secondary school, Catholic Caritas Secretariat Breslau, v. June 11, 1910
• School certificate for Alexander Westermayer, Collegium Carolinum, Missionsanstalt der PP Oblaten MI, Valkenburg (Holl. Limb.)
• Testimony from Alexander Westermayer, preliminary course I. Tertial 1910/11, Collegium Carolinum, Missionsanstalt der PP Oblaten MI, Valkenburg (Holl. Limb.)
• Alexander Westermayer's testimony, preliminary course II. Tertial 1910/11, Collegium Carolinum, Missionsanstalt der PP Oblaten MI, Valkenburg (Holl. Limb.)
• Alexander Westermayer, membership book No. 0234, “Reichsbund Deutscher Verein der Aquarien. u. Terrarium Science e. V. “v. April 1, 1939
• Alexander Westermayer, Wehrpaß, military number Berlin X 94/127/5/6, issued on August 26, 1937
• Death certificate of Alexander Westermayer, Brandenburg (Havel) registry office, issued on July 28, 1944
• Document No. 838/7346, Alexander Westermayer cremated in the Brandenburg crematorium, June 22, 1944
• Farewell letter from Alexander Westermayer v. June 19, 1944
• Confirmation of the anti-fascist activities of Dora Rojahn from March 25, 1946, signed by the surviving co-founders and board members of the Association of German Socialists (also appeared as the Association of Democratic Socialists.)
• Identity card for victims of fascism , fighters, No. 12417, for Dora Rojahn, issued on May 20, 1947

Web links

Commons : Alexander Westermayer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Hans-Jürgen Westermayer: Alexander Westermayer. In: Stumbling Stones in Berlin - Places & Biographies of Stumbling Stones in Berlin. 
• Short biography. (No longer available online.) In: Biographical Collection of the Federal Archives. Formerly in the original