Etter Rose Hampel Group
The Etter Rose Hampel Group was a resistance organization against National Socialism in Hamburg . It consisted for the most part of young people with anti-fascist and anti-militarist parents who were still children or adolescents when power was handed over to the National Socialists in 1933. This association was named after the orthopedic mechanic Werner Etter , the master tailor Liesbeth Rose and the painter Ernst Hampel , who were passed by the People's Court on January 5, 1945Sentenced to death and executed in the months that followed. A total of twelve members of this group perished during the National Socialist era .
Emergence
The Etter-Rose-Hampel Group emerged from 1936 onwards from a few circles of friends who did not integrate themselves into the National Socialist youth associations, but instead discussed questions of scientific socialism , problems of the international labor movement and methods of illegal struggle together. They used hiking and sports groups to be able to meet. The future art dealer Max Kristeller and his friends Barbara Dollwetzel, later married Reimann, Ernst Hampel, Hannes Gehrke, Ursula Gehrke, Karl Hellbach, Ada Löwe, Carl Rose, Liesbeth Rose and Erika Schmidt , and later married Etter were considered to be the central figures . Werner Etter, who had been friends with Ernst Hampel since childhood, was imprisoned as a member of the Communist Youth Association (KJVD) from 1934 to 1935. He was close to this group, but stayed in the background out of conspiratorial caution. Irma Thälmann , the daughter of KPD chairman Ernst Thälmann , had known some members of the group since she was young.
Until the beginning of the Second World War , a period in which the young people had grown up, the loose circles of friends developed into a close community. The paths in life partly diverged, as some were drafted into the Reich Labor Service and others into the Wehrmacht , but they maintained contact with one another. The common goal of the resistance group, which they advocated cautiously but actively, was a speedy end to the war and the overthrow of the Nazi regime.
persecution
From mid-1942, the Hamburg State Police Station became aware of the group. It was viewed as the successor organization to the broken-up Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen group and was called the group of those with no criminal record . An undercover agent of the Gestapo called Alfons Pannek was introduced into the group, but although their members are not unmasked him as a spy, he could not pass relevant information. In May 1943, however, the first wave of arrests began against the group and the Gestapo arrested Max Kristeller as leader and a few other people in the hope of obtaining more information about this union. At the beginning of 1944 the police deployed the Wehrmacht prisoner Herbert Lübbers, who had also belonged to the district in earlier years. A desertion was faked and he sought the help of former friends on the supposed escape. These and their families were subsequently arrested by the Gestapo for “active aiding and abetting in desertion”, including Werner Etter on March 21, 1944 and his wife Erika Etter on May 17, 1944. The prosecuting authorities also hoped to gain access to Ernst Thälmann's family in this way. Irma and Rosa Thälmann were arrested in April and May 1944.
Processes
Ernst Hampel, Liesbeth Rose and Werner Etter were charged with indictment dated November 1, 1944 by the senior Reich attorney at the People's Court of Justice for preparing for high treason , favoring the enemy and reducing military strength . The trial against the three defendants took place on January 4th and 5th, 1945 in Berlin and ended in all three cases with a death sentence . Liesbeth Rose was on February 2, 1945 in the Plötzensee prison , Werner Etter on 19 February 1945 and Ernst Hampel on 20 April 1945 in the Brandenburg penitentiary executed .
Trials against other members of the organization were planned for March 1945 by the People's Court, which met in Hamburg, but were no longer carried out. The Jewish members of the group had been deported to concentration camps , Max Löwe died on November 24, 1944 in the Stutthof concentration camp , Hugo Hecht in January 1945 on an "evacuation transport" from Auschwitz to the Groß-Rosen concentration camp . During the selection process at Auschwitz's death ramp, Max Kristeller was placed in a work detachment and survived in Ebensee concentration camp until liberation . Erika Etter was murdered on April 21, 1945 in Neuengamme concentration camp during an end- stage crime.
Many members of the group had also been arrested. Wilhelm Clasen , Barbara Dollwetzel's stepfather, died after the "evacuation" from Neuengamme when the Cap Arcona went down . Wilhelmine Hundert was murdered in a work detail in Oranienburg after deportation to the Ravensbrück concentration camp . Richard Schönfeld (senior) died in custody on January 18, 1945 in Neuengamme concentration camp, as well as Adolf Schulz , Erika Etter's father, on March 14, 1945 and Friedrich Stoltenberg on April 6, 1945, both in the Hamburg remand prison . Erich Schulz , Erika Etter's brother, was released on April 12, 1945 from the Wehrmacht prison in Altona to the Vistula probation company , and had been missing there since April 15, 1945.
Commemoration
Max Löwe and Hugo Hecht were honored on a plaque of honor for the resistance fighters in Auschwitz . A stone was set for Erika and Werner Etter in the honor grove of Hamburg resistance fighters in the Ohlsdorf cemetery . The streets Erika-Etter-Kehre , Liesbeth-Rose-Stieg and Wilhelmine-Hundert-Weg in Hamburg-Neuallermöhe were named in honor of the resistance fighters.
Stumbling blocks can be found for
- Wilhelm Clasen on Bundesstrasse 95 in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel ,
- Erika and Werner Etter in Alsterdorfer Strasse 40 in Hamburg-Winterhude ,
- Ernst Hampel at Quickbornstrasse 31 in today's Hamburg-Hoheluft-West ,
- Friedrich Stoltenberg at Amandastraße 41 in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel as the last place of residence, as well as in front of the Hansatheater at Steindamm 17 in Hamburg-St. Georg , which was his place of work.
See also
literature
- Franziska Bruder, Heike Kleffner (ed.): ... memories must not die. Barbara Reimann - A biography from eight decades in Germany, Unrast Verlag 2001, ISBN 3-89771-802-2 - book review
- Herbert Diercks : Freedom lives. Resistance and persecution in Hamburg 1933–1945. Texts, photos and documents. Published by the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name in the Hamburg City Hall from January 22 to February 14, 2010
- Ursel Hochmuth , Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance. 1933–1945 , second edition, Frankfurt 1980, ISBN 3-87682-036-7
- Gertrud Meyer : Night over Hamburg. Reports and Documents , Hamburg 1971 (Supplementary Volume on Hochmuth / Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance 1933–1945 )
- Ulrike Sparr : Stumbling blocks in Hamburg-Winterhude. Biographical search for traces ; published by the State Center for Political Education Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-929728-16-3