Hans Koepcke

Hans Karl Alfred Köpcke (born December 12, 1909 in Brüel ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism . Hermann Köpcke was his brother.

Life

Hans Köpcke grew up as the son of a bricklayer in Brüel and attended the local elementary school. He then learned the painting trade and joined the association of painters, varnishers, whitewashers and white binders. He became a supporter of the SAJ and later the SPD . He was also a member of the Reich Banner and a workers gymnastics and sports club. In 1932 he did labor service in Brüel, then went to Berlin to look for work.

Like his brother Hermann, he became a member of the Red Strike Troop in 1933 . Together with others, the brothers distributed the illegal material of the Red Strike Troop, as well as other socialist and communist underground newspapers such as Neue Vorwärts and Die Rote Fahne , in Berlin and Brüel. The attempt to set up an independent local group in Brüel was severely disrupted by a wave of arrests in the ranks of the Red Shock Troop in Berlin at the end of 1933. Nevertheless, Hans Koepcke and other members of the resistance group managed to publish a first edition of their own resistance newspaper in Brüel. Then this group of people in Brüel and the surrounding area came into the focus of the prosecuting authorities.

From March 5, 1934 to June 1, 1934, Hans Köpcke was held in protective custody in the Bützow Central Prison . This was followed by official pre-trial detention in Schwerin. On October 10, 1935, the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court sentenced him to one year in prison. Köpcke served the sentence in Berlin-Tegel. In January 1943 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and at the beginning of 1945 he was taken prisoner of war in Liège, from which he did not return to Brüel until 1946. It seems that Hans Köpcke became a member of the SED and worked as a teacher in a party school.

literature

• Dennis Egginger-Gonzalez: The Red Shock Squad. An early left-wing socialist resistance group against National Socialism . Lukas Verlag, 2018, ISBN 978-3-86732-274-4 , pp. 440 .