Heinrich Koenen
Heinrich Koenen (born May 12, 1910 in Königsberg ; † February 1945 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp ) was a German engineer , anti-fascist resistance fighter and agent of the Soviet military intelligence service GRU .
Life
Heinrich Koenen grew up in Berlin-Moabit and was elected political leader of the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD). He played in the ice hockey team of the workers' sports club "Fichte" . He studied engineering at the Technical University of Berlin , but was expelled for political reasons in 1933 shortly before his diploma examination and, as the son of the KPD Reichstag member Wilhelm Koenen, emigrated to the Soviet Union via Denmark and Sweden because of his particular risk . There he worked as an engineer in a Moscow tractor factory and became a Soviet citizen in 1940.
After Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, he volunteered for military service. He was trained as a parachutist and radio operator for a deployment in Germany. He was commissioned to restore the broken connection between the Moscow headquarters of the Comintern and the GRU , i.e. the military intelligence service of the Soviet Union , with the Berlin groups of the Red Orchestra. On October 23, 1942, Koenen jumped behind the German lines at Osterode in East Prussia with a parachute and came to Berlin. On October 29, 1942, Heinrich Koenen was arrested in the apartment of Ilse Stöbe , with whom he was supposed to contact, in Berlin's Westend . A Gestapo officer was waiting there for visitors to the previously arrested Stöbe.
Koenen was murdered in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in February 1945 without trial .
Honors
The name Heinrich Koenen was inscribed on a porphyry memorial stone on the right-hand side of the curtain wall of the socialist memorial.
literature
- Luise Kraushaar et al .: German resistance fighters 1933 - 1945. Biographies and letters. Volume 1, Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1970, page 513 ff.
- Hans-Joachim Fieber et al .: Resistance in Berlin against the Nazi regime 1933 to 1945: a biographical lexicon . Volume 4. Trafo-Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89626-354-4 , p. 115
- Helmut Roewer , Stefan Schäfer, Matthias Uhl : Lexicon of the secret services in the 20th century . Herbig, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7766-2317-9 , page 242 ff.
- Ulrich Sahm : Ilse Stöbe . In: Hans Coppi, Jürgen Danyel, Johannes Tuchel (eds.): The Red Orchestra in the resistance against National Socialism. Writings from the German Resistance Memorial Center, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-89468-110-1 , pages 262-276
Individual evidence
- ^ Leopold Trepper : The truth: autobiography of the "grand boss" of the red band , Ahriman-Verlag Freiburg 1995, ISBN 3894845546
- ^ Heinrich-Wilhelm Wörmann: Resistance in Charlottenburg; Volume 5 of the series of publications of the German Resistance Memorial Center , Berlin 1991 (2nd combined and expanded edition: Berlin 1998) page 133
- ^ Memorial of the Socialists ( Memento of July 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Koenen, Heinrich |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German resistance fighter and agent of the GRU military intelligence service |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 12, 1910 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Koenigsberg |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 1945 |
| Place of death | Sachsenhausen concentration camp |