Gerhard Badrian

Gerhard Badrian (1905–1944)

Gerhard Joseph Badrian (born October 13, 1905 in Beuthen , † June 30, 1944 in Amsterdam ) was a German photographer and resistance fighter against the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II .

biography

Gerhard Badrian was of Jewish origin. Together with his parents and his sister, he was after the " seizure of power " by the Nazis escaped from Germany to the Netherlands. There he worked as an assistant to the later court photographer Marius Meijboom .

Badrian joined the resistance group around Gerrit van der Veen . He had an impeccable SD uniform which he used for resistance activities. He freed prisoners from overcrowded police vans or hospitals with the help of forged papers. He played his role as a rotmof (German = dirty German or similar) so convincingly that even people who knew him were briefly scared. He not only benefited from the fact that he spoke German without an accent, but that his external appearance corresponded to that of the “ Aryan ” prototype. He also used the SD uniform on April 29, 1943 in the attack on the state printing plant in The Hague , in which around 10,000 blank ID cards were stolen. Van der Veen was seriously injured in an unsuccessful attempt to free prisoners. Badrian carried him to his underground hiding place, where van der Veen was arrested a few days later. Badrian became one of his successors in the management of Persoonsbewijzencentrale , where forged papers were produced.

Gerhard Badrian himself was arrested on June 30, 1944. He was betrayed by the Jewish informant Betje Wery , who worked as an agent for the foreign exchange protection command. She had previously given him an address where he and his wife could hide, but it was a trap, because an SD special unit was waiting there. When the SD tried to arrest him, there was an exchange of fire and Badrian was gunned down in front of the house, where he died. Wery received 1000 guilders as a reward from the SD .

Gerhard Badrian's parents were killed in the Sobibor extermination camp on March 13, 1943 , his sister on June 11, 1944.

Honors

Badrian was accepted into the Erelijst van Gevallenen 1940–1945 . He found his final resting place on the Ereveld Loenen . A plaque with his name in front of the house at Rubensstraat 26 in Amsterdam, where he was shot, reminds of him.

literature

• Konrad Kwiet, Helmut Eschwege: Self-assertion and resistance - German Jews in the struggle for existence and human dignity. 2nd edition Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-7672-0850-4 (p. 190)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} vijzelstraat. joodsamsterdam.nl, accessed December 18, 2014 (Dutch). 
2. ^ René van Heijningen: Gerhard Joseph Badrian. NIOD, April 2012, accessed December 18, 2014 (Dutch).