Anti-Nazi German Popular Front

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The Anti- Nazi German Popular Front (ADV) was an anti-fascist resistance group in the Munich area.

The group was formed in 1937 (without initially giving itself a name) around the two workers Rupert Huber and Karl Zimmet , who before 1933 both belonged to the left - wing Catholic Christian Social Reich Party (CSRP) or, in Zimmet's case, the KPD . The two began to produce and distribute leaflets, which were initially directed primarily against German war preparations and the support of Franco in the Spanish Civil War . Little by little, Huber and Zimmet brought in other former CSRP and KPD members and later other active people, mainly industrial workers. The illegal activities of the group, which is now calledThe anti-Nazi German Popular Front was intensified after the war against the Soviet Union in 1941. A total of twelve pamphlets and two issues of the newspaper Der Wecker were produced between 1941 and the end of 1943 . In terms of content, the group spoke out in favor of the immediate end of the war, the gathering of all anti-fascists and the understanding with the other peoples of Europe, especially the Russian people. A revolution, like the November Revolution in 1918, was supposed to put an end to the war and its sponsors.

From the summer of 1943 a new aspect was added to the work of the ADV with the support of the Brotherly Cooperation of Prisoners of War (BSW). The group provided Soviet prisoners of war and forced laborers with food, clothing, papers and information. The ADV procured weapons and ammunition for the BSW, which should be used in the event of an uprising or when allied forces were approaching .

After the break-up of the BSW at the end of 1943, the Gestapo also tracked down the ADV and arrested a large part of the group's members from January 1944. Most of the organization's leaders were sentenced to death by the People's Court in December 1944 and executed a little later. Only Zimmet, who successfully pretended to be mentally ill after his arrest, survived the Nazi era .

literature

  • Wolfgang Benz / Walter H. Pehle (ed.): Lexicon of the German resistance. Frankfurt am Main 1994. ISBN 3-596-15083-3
  • Heike Bretschneider: The resistance against National Socialism in Munich 1933-1945. Munich 1968
  • Josif A. Brodskij: In the fight against fascism. Soviet resistance fighters in Hitler Germany 1941–1945. Berlin 1975
  • Michael Rudloff: Christian anti-fascists of the "first hour" in the resistance, in: Scientific journal of the Karl Marx University Leipzig. Social science series, 38. Jg./1989, pp. 297–307.

See also: German Popular Front

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