Heinz Brenner
Heinz Brenner (* 1924 in Ulm , † 24. April 2008 in the Allgäu ) was as a student member of the "Ulmer graduates group" of white rose in the era of National Socialism . As a soldier in World War II, he deserted for reasons of conscience.
Life
From 1935 Heinz Brenner attended the Ulm Humanist High School . There, at the Humboldt-Gymnasium Ulm , he and his classmates Franz J. Müller , Heinrich Guter , Hans Hirzel and Walter Hetzel belonged to a solid group that was skeptical about National Socialism . When religious instruction in schools was banned in 1939, the Catholic students in the group attended extracurricular religious instruction. A father and member of the Missionary Order of the “White Fathers” introduced them to the thinking of Thomas Aquinas , which led the students to reflections and discussions about the just and unjust war , about voluntary and extorted oaths . The boys concluded that Hitler's war was an unjust war of aggression and that a Christian who participated in an unjust war incurs grave guilt ; this is not alleviated by the oath on the Fiihrer, since he is blackmailed. In the group, the young people developed a consistently moral way of thinking that was based on a Christian- humanistic worldview.
Heinz Brenner formed his own resistance group with other Catholic boys in order to implement these religious insights. He transferred letters from the Münster bishop, Clemens August Graf von Galen , in which the latter opposed the inhuman practices of the Nazi state, such as the persecution of Polish Catholics and the murder of disabled people , onto reproduction matrices, in order to then distribute them in a conspiratorial manner in letter boxes . To this end, the students took trips disguised as hiking trips. In order to cover their tracks - Brenner's father was a member of the NSDAP - the boys posted the letters mainly in Stuttgart, some also in Ulm, among others with the parents of Hans and Sophie Scholl .
With his friend Hans Hirzel, Brenner contacted a Polish slave laborer to learn more about the attack on Poland ; he did not trust the Nazi propaganda .
After graduating from high school in 1942, Heinz Brenner was drafted into the Reich Labor Service and then into the Wehrmacht . The cruelty of German soldiers against Russian civilians and soldiers outraged him. He refused to give orders to shoot a wounded Russian soldier who was walking towards him with his hands up. Heinz Brenner did not want to be complicit. He deserted on October 7, 1944 while on convalescence leave in Germany. He hid with friends in and around Ulm until the end of the war in May 1945. He used the network that he had built up as a student.
After the end of the war, Brenner turned away from the newly formed Federal Republic of Germany when he realized that former National Socialists were returning to office and dignity. He accepted a position in a Swiss industrial company.
Heinz Brenner died on April 24, 2008 in his house in the Allgäu.
Commemoration
Heinz Brenner is portrayed in the White Rose Memorial in Ulm . A street is named after him in the Lettenwald building area in Ulm.
Fonts
- On the other hand. Report on the resistance of students of the Humanist High School Ulm / Donau against the German National Socialist dictatorship . Roth, Leutkirch 1992, ISBN 3-9800035-4-X .
Web links
- Short biography on weisse-rose-stiftung.de
- Benedikt Samuel Pfister : “Stand up to the Nazis!” The Ulm high school graduates under National Socialism. Licentiate thesis at the University of Basel 2005.
Individual evidence
- ^ Announcements, Issue 46, November 2006, Documentation Center Oberer Kuhberg, Ulm e. V., Concentration Camp Memorial (PDF; 2.1 MB), accessed in January 2008
- ^ Announcements, issue 50, 2008, Documentation Center Oberer Kuhberg, Ulm e. V., concentration camp memorial , accessed in January 2018
- ↑ Benedikt Samuel Pfister: “Stand up to the Nazis!” The Ulm high school graduates under National Socialism. Licentiate thesis at the University of Basel 2005. online ( Memento of the original from August 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) 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.
- ^ Karl-Heinz Mallow: Heinz-Brenner-Straße , Regional Planning Group Böfingen, March 2014, ulm-boefingen.de, accessed on August 24, 2020.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Brenner, Heinz |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German student, member of the White Rose high school graduate group |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1924 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ulm |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 24, 2008 |
| Place of death | Allgäu |