Elisabeth Bruhn

Elisabeth Bruhn (born December 26, 1893 in Nesserdeich , today Groven , in Norderdithmarschen as Elisabeth Holz ; † executed February 14, 1944 in Neuengamme concentration camp ) was a communist and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Elisabeth Bruhn was born as the daughter of the farm worker Johann Holz and his wife Katharina, née. Peters, born. She had four siblings.

Bruhn contributed to the family's upkeep as a nanny in the last years of school and later went to Kiel for a job .

There she met Gustav Bruhn , whom she married in 1913. The couple had a son named Heinrich. During the First World War she was a column worker on the railway in Hanover and joined the Spartakusbund .

In 1920 Bruhn joined the KPD and headed the Young Spartakus Bund in Heide (Holstein) , where the couple moved after the war. After Gustav Bruhn became a member of the Prussian state parliament in 1928, the family moved to Altona .

Bruhn was arrested by the Gestapo in 1934 . She was sentenced to two years in prison for “rebuilding the Communist Party” and sent to the Lübeck-Lauerhof prison for women . There she supported a group of young communists on strike for better accommodation.

In 1936 she was arrested again - together with her son Heinrich and daughter-in-law Edith - and taken to the Gestapo prison in Fuhlsbüttel . The two women were released in 1937, father and son in 1939.

During the Second World War she joined the Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen group . She made connections and supported comrades living illegally.

As the first of the wave of arrests against opposition activists that began in Hamburg, Elisabeth and her partner Gustav Bruhn were arrested on October 18, 1942. The prisoners were interrogated by the Gestapo in Fuhlsbüttel. After six months, Bruhn was transferred to judicial pre-trial detention in Hamburg's pre- trial detention center on Holstenglacis.

Ehrenhain , 2nd row from left, 8th stone:
Bruhn Elisabeth / Gustav

Stumbling
Stone Bogenstraße 23

The Gestapo headquarters and some prisons were destroyed in air raids in the summer of 1943 , so that detainees on remand, including 70 resistance fighters, were given two months' leave on the condition that they did not make contact with "perpetrators" during this time.

About 20 of those on leave, including Elisabeth and Gustav Bruhn, did not surrender themselves to the Nazi judiciary after the deadline, but continued the resistance struggle from underground. Elisabeth Bruhn lived illegally with Klara Dworznik and was supported by Adolf Schröder and other friends.

After Gustav Bruhn said goodbye to his wife in the first half of December 1943 in order to go into hiding in Hanover, there was no news from him. At the beginning of 1944, Elisabeth Bruhn went to Hanover and learned that her partner had been arrested.

Elisabeth Bruhn was arrested again by the Gestapo on February 3, 1944 - together with Klara Dworznik and Adolf Schröder. On the orders of Heinrich Himmler , the four communists Elisabeth Bruhn, Gustav Bruhn, Hans Hornberger and Kurt Schill were hanged without trial on February 14, 1944 in the execution bunker of Neuengamme concentration camp .

Her son Heinrich Bruhn lived in the GDR and was a professor in the journalism section of the Karl Marx University in Leipzig.

Commemoration

• On May 10, 1964, a memorial stone was set for the Bruhn couple in the honor grove of Hamburg resistance fighters in the Ohlsdorf cemetery .
• In 1985 a street in Hamburg-Neuallermöhe was named Lisbeth-Bruhn-Straße .
• Gunter Demnig laid a stumbling block for Elisabeth Bruhn at Bogenstraße 23 in Eimsbüttel , and another at Schellingstraße 16 in Eilbek .

literature

• Ursel Hochmuth : Nobody and nothing is forgotten. Biograms and letters from Hamburg resistance fighters 1933-1945. Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-89965-121-9
• Georg Gerchen: In memory of Elisabeth and Gustav Bruhn. 1993

Web links

• The Bästlein-Jacobs-Abshagen Group - An example of communist resistance in Hamburg during the “Third Reich” , by Kathleen Marowsky - on unter-hamburg.de
• Forgotten resistance fighter from the Dithmarscher Landeszeitung on May 12, 2011
• Detailed biography with picture at stolpersteine-hamburg.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rita Bake: Who is behind it. Streets and squares named after women in Hamburg ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 959 kB)