Heinrich Bayer (resistance fighter)

Heinrich Bayer (born September 30, 1909 in Uchtelfangen ; † May 15, 1944 in the Brandenburg prison ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism . He was executed as a conscientious objector in 1944 .

Life

Bayer grew up in Uchtelfangen, where he also attended school and from 1926 worked as a miner in the Göttelborn mine . Bayer was raised Catholic , but came into contact with the Bible Students through his uncle in early 1940 . In Uchtelfangen he attended illegal meetings of the Bible Students and, to the displeasure of his wife, switched to Jehovah's Witnesses . On July 15, 1940 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and stationed in Pirna . There he repeatedly refused to do military service . In the meantime, his wife denounced the group of Bible Students from Uchtelfangen, all at two to three years ' imprisonment were convicted.

On November 21, 1940, Bayer was sentenced to death for subverting the military . Under the influence of his wife, he changed his faith and was pardoned. His sentence was set at two years in prison, which was suspended until the end of the war due to the Second World War . As a soldier he then took part in the Balkan campaign and in Operation Barbarossa . After Japan entered the war , Bayer expressed disrespect for the question of war guilt and stated that he had not voted for Adolf Hitler . He then fled the force, but was picked up again ten days later. He was sentenced to one and a half years in prison, which he served until December 6, 1942 in the Torgau Wehrmacht prison.

Due to a chronic kidney disease, he was subsequently unable to fight, but had to work in several armaments factories. In his last job in an energy company in Oberleutendorf , he publicly refused to obey and again confessed to the Bible Students. When he was found sleeping on a night shift, he stated that he did not want the war and that he would neither carry nor want to carry arms. He was then reported and arrested on December 17, 1943. On March 23, 1944, the field war tribunal of the Wehrmacht headquarters in Berlin sentenced him to death. Colonel General Friedrich Fromm refused a pardon on April 21, 1944 . The sentence was then carried out on May 15, 1944 in the Brandenburg prison. He thus became one of a total of 253 Bible Students who were executed by the National Socialists.

literature

• Klaus Michael Mallmann / Gerhard Paul: The splintered no. Saarlanders against Hitler . Dietz, Bonn 1989, ISBN 3-8012-5010-5 , p. 15-19 .
• Gerhard Paul: Disobedient Soldiers: Dissent, Refusal and Resistance by German Soldiers (1939–1945) . Röhrig Universitätsverlag, St. Ingbert 1994, ISBN 3-86110-042-8 , p. 47–50 ( oszbueroverw.de ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gerhard Paul: Disobedient soldiers: dissent, refusal and resistance of German soldiers (1939-1945) . Röhrig Universitätsverlag, St. Ingbert 1994, ISBN 3-86110-042-8 , p. 47–50 ( oszbueroverw.de ).