Helmuth Hubener

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Mural for Helmuth Hübener by the artist Hildegund Schuster , financed by the Heinrich Stegemann Art Foundation in Hamburg-St. George
Street sign Helmuth-Hübener-Gang in Hamburg-St. George

Helmuth Günther Hübener (born January 8, 1925 in Hamburg , † October 27, 1942 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was the youngest resistance fighter against National Socialism to be sentenced to death by the People's Court and executed .

Origin and motive

Helmuth Hübener came from an apolitical working class family; like his mother and grandparents, he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ( Mormons ). His adoptive father, a Nazi fellow runner , gave him the name Hubener .

Until recently, Helmuth Hubener was a member of the Hitler Youth , in which, however, he fought numerous conflicts, for example because of the drill and the Reichspogromnacht . When the congregation to which he belonged banned Jews from attending services, he responded with contradiction and disgust. In 1941, after graduating from secondary school, Hübener began training as an administrative apprentice in the Hamburg social welfare office. He got to know apprentices whose parents had a communist background and was introduced by them to listening to so-called enemy broadcasts .

Actions

Hübener began listening to the BBC on his own in the summer of 1941 . He used what he had heard to formulate and reproduce anti-fascist texts and leaflets against the war. In the autumn of 1941 he involved two friends from his community, and later work colleagues, in listening to the foreign station and in the distribution of around 60 different pamphlets. Their edition was between three and five copies, all of which were made with typewriter copies. The content of the leaflets mostly reflected messages from the intercepted foreign so-called enemy broadcasters.

Arrest and verdict

At the beginning of February 1942, Helmuth Hübener was arrested at work in Hamburg's Bieberhaus . While trying to translate the leaflets into French and have them distributed among prisoners of war , he had been denounced to the Gestapo by his superior Heinrich Mohns, a holder of the NSDAP's golden party badge .

On August 11, 1942, the hearing before the 2nd Senate of the People's Court in Berlin took place under Vice-President Karl Engert , and on October 27, 1942, at the age of 17, he was executed by executioner Wilhelm Röttger . The three co-defendants - Karl-Heinz Schnibbe , Rudolf Wobbe and Gerhard Düwer - received long prison sentences.

In 1941, without knowing each other, several young groups of four emerged : around Helmuth Hübener in Hamburg, around Walter Klingenbeck in Munich and around Josef Landgraf in Vienna. The group members had a strong interest in radio technology and ethico-religious, mostly Christian, viewpoints. At the same time, Hübener and Klingenbeck began listening to so-called enemy transmitters and distributing leaflets. Almost simultaneously, Hübener and Klingenbeck were arrested in January and February 1942, and both and Landgrave were convicted in August and September 1942 at the People's Court in Berlin, who was responsible for serious cases. In contrast to Klingenbeck, Hubener's death sentence was carried out just a few months after the hearing in the execution site of the Berlin-Plötzensee prison . At 17, Hübener was the youngest resistance fighter to receive a death sentence from the People's Court.

Honors

Stumbling block for Helmut Hübener
  • In the administration school of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Normannenweg 26 in Hamburg-Borgfelde , there is a permanent exhibition on Helmuth Hübener and his resistance group. One event hall is named after Helmut Hübener. It is accessible to everyone during school hours.
  • A path in the Lohbrügge district and the Helmuth-Hübener-Gang in St. Georg are named after Hübener.
  • The youth center at Schilleroper 15 is named Helmuth Hübener Haus.
  • The Hamburg painter Hildegund Schuster created a mural on a gable of the Heinrich Wolgast School in St. Georg on Helmuth-Hübener-Gang in memory of the Helmuth-Hübener Group . The mural was presented to the public on November 14, 2010.
  • In front of the house at Sachsenstrasse 42 in Hamburg-Hammerbrook, a stumbling stone was set in his honor .
  • In 2011 the district school Benzenbergweg in the Hamburg workers' district Barmbek-Nord was renamed the district school Helmuth Hübener . The memory and orientation to the example of Helmuth Hubener is cultivated in a biennial competition in which creative and social projects are presented and awarded by students of the school. The competition motto MUT ÜBEN can also be found in the name (helMUTh hÜBENer).
  • On January 8, 2020, the school of the Berlin juvenile prison in Plötzensee was opened in the presence of the Berlin Senator for Justice, Consumer Protection and Anti-Discrimination, Dr. Dirk Behrendt, named after Helmuth Hübener.

literature

Textbooks:

  • Detlef Garbe : Institutions of Terror and the Resistance of the Few. In: Research Center for Contemporary History in Hamburg (ed.): Hamburg in the Third Reich. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-903-1 , pp. 568, 569.
  • Ulrich Sander : Helmuth Hübener. Youth resistance in war. ISBN 3-89144-336-6 .

Memoirs:

  • Karl-Heinz Schnibbe: Young people against Hitler. ISBN 3-921655-75-7 (report by a contributor).

Literary processing:

Movie

  • Truth and Conviction. The Helmuth Hübener Story (2002). Directed by Matt Whitaker
  • A feature film version called Truth & Treason is said to have been in production for several years. A release date is unknown.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Judgment, image on the website of the German Broadcasting Archive ( Memento of the original from March 10, 2007 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dra.de
  2. ↑ Mural for Helmuth Hübener inaugurated - the murderers were never punished
  3. ↑ Helmuth Hubener Competition
  4. ^ The school of the Berlin juvenile detention center becomes the Helmuth-Hübener-School
personal data
SURNAME Hübener, Helmuth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Guddat, Helmuth (maiden name); Kunkel (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighters against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1942
Place of death Berlin-Plötzensee