Helene Delacher

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Helene Delacher (born August 25, 1904 in Burgfrieden (Leisach community) , † November 12, 1943 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was an Austrian Jehovah's Witness and a victim of Nazi military justice.

Life and activity

Delacher worked as a kitchen helper and later as a cleaner in the service of the city of Innsbruck . In 1938 she left the Catholic Church and became a member of Jehovah's Witnesses. By judgment of the special court at the Innsbruck Regional Court on August 28, 1940, she became a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses classified by the Nazi regime as an anti-military association in accordance with Section 53 of the Ordinance to Supplement the Criminal Regulations for the Protection of the Wehrmacht of the German People of November 25, 1939 Sentenced to eight months in prison for the first time.

On June 14, 1943, Delacher was stopped by a border police officer on a mountain pasture near the Austrian-Italian border while traveling from Innsbruck to Brennersee. During the search of her luggage, the border guards seized six issues of the Bible researcher magazine Der Wachtturm, which the Nazi regime classified as anti- subversive . Delacher was then arrested.

She was then taken to Berlin and charged there with the Reich Court Martial on charges of undermining military strength and the "treasonous hate speech" . In the judgment of October 4, 1943, she was found guilty and sentenced to death. In the grounds of the judgment, she was admitted that, due to her low level of education, she was not able to understand all the passages of the editions of the watchtower that she was transporting, and further that her judgment and sanity were reduced (this is what Delacher probably became because of her pronounced hearing loss), but at the same time found that she was aware of the criminality of her act and the ideological tendencies of the watchtower. Delacher had stated in court that because of her belief she would not be willing to work in an ammunition factory, for example. The court disbelieved her statement that she had only wanted to give the copies of the watchtower she had carried with her to her fiancé, but considered it proven that she was a courier who had taken on the task of sending the magazines for further distribution in Italy via the Smuggle border. Due to the “particularly dangerous nature of the act” and Delacher's membership of the Jehovah's Witnesses as a fundamentally anti-state organization, the judgment went on to argue, attenuating circumstances were not considered to be taken into account, so that the result of the court was that “the breach of loyalty and the possible serious consequences ”of Delacher's act would make the death penalty mandatory. The death sentence was carried out with the guillotine in the Plötzensee prison . Her body was turned over to the Anatomical Institute, whose director, Hermann Stieve , researched the influence of stress on the menstrual cycle.

In August 1999, the Austrian section of Jehovah's Witnesses applied to the Vienna Regional Court to set aside the judgment against Delacher of October 1943 in accordance with the law on the annulment of criminal judgments and the suspension of criminal proceedings of July 3, 1945. The court complied with this application by ruling on September 8, 1999, whereby the ruling against Delacher was deemed to be “not carried out” in the legal sense.

swell

  1. ↑ Christoph Redies, Anatomy in National Socialism: Without Any Scruples , Deutsches Ärzteblatt 2012; 109 (48): A-2413

literature

  • Helene Delacher. A Jehovah's Witness with strong faith , in: Horst Schreiber / Gerald Steinacher / Philipp Trafojer: National Socialism and Fascism in Tyrol and South Tyrol: victims, perpetrators, opponents , 2008, p. 172f.
  • Wolfgang Form, Wolfgang Neugebauer, Theo Schiller (eds.): Nazi justice and political persecution in Austria 1938–1945 , De Gruyter Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-598-11721-3 , pp. 316–319.
  • Rolf Steininger / Franz Aigner: Forgotten Victims of National Socialism , 2000, p. 46.
  • Office of the Tyrolean Provincial Government: Those who died for Austria's freedom. The Liberation Monument and Memory. An intervention. Innsbruck 2011, p. 64f.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Delacher, Helene
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Jehovah's Witness and a victim of Nazi war justice
DATE OF BIRTH August 25, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Burgfrieden (municipality of Leisach)
DATE OF DEATH November 12, 1943
Place of death Plötzensee prison , Berlin