European Union (resistance group)

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The European Union ( EU ) was an anti-fascist resistance group against National Socialism that formed around Anneliese and Georg Groscurth as well as Robert Havemann . Other important members were Herbert Richter and Paul Rentsch .

history

The group, which operates in Berlin, was founded on July 15, 1943. The founding members Robert Havemann and Georg Groscurth came from the left-wing socialist group Neu Beginnen . The EU stood up for the restoration of democratic rights and freedoms and a united, free and socialist Europe and tried to strengthen internal German resistance by establishing contact with the resistance structures of foreign forced laborers . The group hid those persecuted by the Nazi regime and obtained ID cards, food and information for them. In addition, members of the group had been in contact with the KPD resistance group around Robert Uhrig since 1941 ; some of them had previously had contact with resistance groups of the Red Orchestra .

In September 1943, members of the European Union were arrested by the Gestapo and 40 people were charged in twelve trials before the People's Court . Under Roland Freisler, he pronounced 14 death sentences, two people had already died in custody. In the justification of the judgment of the People's Court against the four main defendants (Havemann, Groscurth, Rentsch and Richter) it says: “How shameless the defendants are is also evident from the fact that they systematically supported, even fattened, Jews living illegally; But not only that, they even provided them with false IDs, which they were supposed to camouflage from the police, as if they weren't Jews but Germans. ”And“ All of the accused showed through their behavior that they were not educated. After all, education is not just about knowledge and technical skills. The prerequisite and basis for true education for every person is their loyalty in the national community to the Führer and Reich. They have become traitors to the people, leaders and empire. They are punished with death forever without honor. ”(The reasoning for the judgment signed in second place by Hans-Joachim Rehse , judge at the People's Court, until his death in 1969 a member of the Chamber Court in Berlin).

Robert Havemann escaped the enforcement of the judgment because his work as a chemist for the development of new weapons was considered important to the war effort. Groscurth, Richter (-Luckian) and Rentsch were executed on May 8, 1944 in the Brandenburg -Görden prison. Other members were indicted in other courts.

In 1949, the surviving dependents of the victims were denied benefits under the Law on Reparation for National Socialist Injustices .

program

"We are on the eve of the collapse of European fascism." Despite the toughest political repression, Nazism did not succeed in erasing "the old and eternal ideas of freedom that were born in Europe during the great revolutions ". "The future of tomorrow will be a united socialist Europe."

Leaflet No. 35: Future European socialism does not mean “the extermination of the bourgeoisie , the abolition of private property and the establishment of a bloody dictatorship of dogmatic Marxists”, but the “elimination of private interests from politics and economy”, a “liberation of the individual from economic tutelage. “The forced laborers abducted from all over Europe by the National Socialists would become agents of a revolutionary uprising and found the United States of Europe :“ Hitler's resettlement campaigns and the deportation of huge masses of foreign workers to Germany prepared the ground for a pan-European solution. ”“ Without overcoming of the nationalist, private-capitalist and imperialist structure of today's Europe, the victims and the nameless misery of the masses will be in vain this time too. "

Honors 2006 and 2008

Five members of the group - the couple Groscurth, Robert Havemann, Paul Rentsch and Herbert Richter - received the honorary title Righteous Among the Nations at the Israeli memorial Yad Vashem in 2006 . Many members had already started to hide and care for Jews before 1939 in order to protect them from deportation to the extermination camp ; from 1942 they also helped foreign forced laborers.

The Diensdorf-Radlow community inaugurated a memorial plaque for Paul Rentsch and Herbert Richter on May 15, 2008 “to commemorate the Richter and Rentsch couple and the […] Jew Elisabeth von Scheven who was hiding with them, and to commemorate the crime whose victims they became and which began in Diensdorf with the arrest by the Gestapo in the spring of 1943. ”Elisabeth von Scheven survived Auschwitz, where she was deported after her arrest, and was able to emigrate to the USA after 1945.

Other members

  • Other members of the group (executed):
    • Vladimir Boisselier (born September 19, 1907 in Moscow; † October 30, 1944), electrical engineer, French
    • Walter Caro (* May 23, 1899; † 1944/45), murdered in Auschwitz
    • Jean Cochon (born July 29, 1916 in Gensac-la-Pallue (Charente), † October 30, 1944), electrical engineer, French
    • Elli Hatschek (born July 2, 1901 - † December 8, 1944), 2nd wife of Paul Hatschek
    • Krista Lavíčková (born December 15, 1917 - † August 11, 1944), née Hatschek, daughter of Paul Hatschek, secretary, executed in Berlin-Plötzensee
    • Paul Hatschek (born March 11, 1888 - † May 15, 1944), engineer, Czech, executed in the Brandenburg-Görden prison
    • Kurt Müller (born February 2, 1903 in Berlin - † June 26, 1944), executed in the Brandenburg-Görden prison
    • Nikolai Sawitsch Romanenko (May 1, 1911 - October 30, 1944), technician, from the USSR
    • Galina Fedorowna Romanowa (* December 25, 1918 - November 3, 1944), doctor, from the USSR, executed in Berlin-Plötzensee
    • Alexander Westermayer (born October 29, 1894 in Goslar; † June 19, 1944), trained wood mechanic, executed in the Brandenburg-Görden prison
    • Konstantin Zadkevicz (also: Shadkewitsch, Zadkiewicz; * August 3, 1910 - October 30, 1944) chemist, Czech, executed in the Brandenburg-Görden prison
  • Not executed due to illness:
    • Heinz Schlag (born October 23, 1908; † 1961), doctor
  • Other known members
    • Miron Broser (born December 20, 1891 in Tula, Russia), translator, sentenced to two years in prison, freed by US troops, last known translation into German in 1949.
    • Oskar Fischer (1892–1955), acquitted
    • James Frichot (born March 2, 1918 in Boulogne (Seine)), French, electrical engineer, acquitted
    • Antje Hasenclever (1909–1985).
    • Helmut Kindler (1912–2008), journalist, publisher, acquitted
    • René Peyriguére (born June 1, 1917 in Paris), chemist, French, acquitted
    • Wilhelm Hartke (1879–1966), classical philologist and theologian
    • Enno Kind (1907–1972), press photographer
    • Elisabeth child

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Hillenbrand: Resistance against the Nazis: "European Union" founded in 1943 . In: The daily newspaper: taz . May 15, 2019, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed June 26, 2019]).
  2. ↑ Manifesto of July 15, 1943, thesis 1
  3. ↑ July 1943
  4. ↑ To the award of the honorary title "Righteous Among the Nations" to Georg and Anneliese Groscurth, Robert Havemann, Paul Rentsch and Herbert Richter
  5. ↑ European Union on the website of Yad Vashem (English)
  6. ↑ see short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center
  7. ↑ Enno child. (No longer available online.) In: fotografenwiki.org. Archived from the original on April 9, 2016 ; accessed on March 18, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fotografenwiki.org