Barthel Schink

Stumbling stone laid in memory of Bartholomäus Schink in Cologne-Ehrenfeld, Keplerstraße 33 .

Bartholomäus (Barthel) Schink (born November 27, 1927 , † November 10, 1944 in Cologne ) was a member of the Ehrenfeld group in the Ehrenfeld district of Cologne .

Initially a member of the edelweiss pirates , he left them in the summer of 1944 and joined the Ehrenfeld group , which committed numerous food and gun thefts in the destroyed Cologne, but at the same time also hid forced laborers , Jews in hiding and deserters. After the group's hiding place had been revealed, Bartholomäus Schink was arrested like numerous other members of the group in autumn 1944. At the age of 16, he and twelve other group members were publicly executed on the gallows by the Gestapo on November 10, 1944 in what was then Hüttenstrasse in Cologne . They were charged with five murders and one attempted theft of explosives as the main offenses.

In 1978 Monitor magazine reported that Schink was still listed as a criminal . As a result, the activities and the environment of the Ehrenfeld group were scientifically examined. After years of fighting, the hanged men were rehabilitated as victims of National Socialism and honored with a commemorative plaque in 1986. In addition, a section of Hüttenstrasse in Cologne-Ehrenfeld was renamed Bartholomäus-Schink-Strasse. At the Cooperative Comprehensive School in Rastede, the Bartholomäus Schink Prize has been awarded annually to pupils since 1990 . The award is intended to make a contribution to moral and political education with the aim of developing and promoting democratic engagement.

In 1984 the Yad Vashem Memorial recognized him as Righteous Among the Nations .

The story of Schink was filmed in the 2004 movie Edelweißpiraten .

literature

• Alexander Goeb: He was sixteen when he was hanged. The short life of the resistance fighter Bartholomäus Schink. ISBN 3-499-23026-7 .
• Bernd-A. Rusinek : Society in Disaster - Terror, Illegality, Resistance Cologne 1944/45. Düsseldorf writings on modern history and the history of North Rhine-Westphalia, Volume 24, Klartext-Verlag, ISBN 3-88474-134-9 .
• Georg Bönisch: Resistance from the gutter . In: Der Spiegel . No. 45 , 2005, p. 84 ( Online - Nov. 7, 2005 ).
• Winfried Seibert: The Cologne Controversy. Legend and facts about the Nazi crimes in Cologne-Ehrenfeld. Klartext, Essen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8375-1235-9 .

Web links

• Short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center
• NS Documentation Center Cologne: Brief description of Bartholomäus Schink