Herbert Grasse

Herbert Grasse

Herbert Grasse (born October 9, 1910 in Berlin ; † October 24, 1942 there ) was a German communist and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

After an apprenticeship as a printer , Grasse joined the Communist Youth Association of Germany and the Communist Party of Germany in his hometown . After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists in 1933, Grasse helped to produce and distribute the illegal newspaper Neuköllner Sturmfahne . In 1936 he was arrested and sentenced to two and a half years in prison. After his release in January 1939, Grasse was able to contact his friends again, including the resistance group around Wilhelm Schürmann-Horster . Grasse secretly produced leaflets in the printing works where he was employed . In close association with John Sieg , Grasse also supported the production of the illegal magazine Die Innere Front for the Red Orchestra . Grasse distributed pamphlets and leaflets in various resistance circles and was able to use his good relationships with employees of various Berlin armaments companies, including workers at the AEG transformer factory, the German arms and ammunition factories , at Knorr-Bremse and Hasse & Wrede . Together with Eugen Neutert , Grasse tried to win over foreign forced laborers for joint actions in order to disrupt war production. Grasse was arrested on October 23, 1942. A day later he committed suicide on the way to the interrogation at the Berlin police headquarters .

literature

• Luise Kraushaar : German resistance fighters 1933-1945. Biographies and letters . Volume 1. Dietz, Berlin 1970, pp. 326-328.
• Peter Steinbach , Johannes Tuchel (ed.): Lexicon of Resistance 1933–1945 . 2nd Edition. CH Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-43861-X , pp. 73-74.

Web links

• Die Rote Kapelle - Actions and pamphlets (with a short biography of Grasses) on the website of the German Resistance Memorial Center .