Karl Behrens

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Memorial plaque on the house at Yorckstrasse 22, in Berlin-Kreuzberg

Karl Behrens (born November 18, 1909 in Berlin ; † May 13, 1943 Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a tool designer and resistance fighter against National Socialism . He belonged to the circle around the Rote Kapelle and worked together with Walter Homann and others in a resistance group in the AEG .

Life

Karl Behrens completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith and then became unemployed. Coming from the boy scouting youth, he joined the SA in 1929 and joined the NSDAP . In April 1931 he was expelled from the party because he had supported Walther Stennes in his attempted coup against Hitler . In 1931 he temporarily joined Otto Strasser's “Black Front” and at the end of 1932 switched to the KPD . From 1932 he attended an evening grammar school in Berlin and, after graduating from high school, the Beuth School in Wedding (now Beuth University of Technology Berlin ). The American Mildred Harnack-Fish gave English lessons at the Berlin evening high school . Karl Behrens joined the opposition discussion group around her husband Arvid Harnack . Karl Behrens, who worked as a designer at the AEG turbine factory, became one of Arvid Harnack's closest colleagues in the resistance. He made political, economic and military information available to the Soviet intelligence service NKGB , which led him under the code name Lutschisti (luminous).

In May 1942, Behrens was drafted into the artillery. Karl Behrens was arrested in his unit on the Eastern Front in front of Leningrad because of his contacts with the Harnacks in mid-September 1942 , brought to Berlin, after long interrogations by the Gestapo , convicted by the Reich Court Martial on January 19, 1943 , and on May 13, 1943 in prison in Berlin- Plötzensee executed. He left a wife, two sons and a daughter.

Honors
  • On November 18, 2009, the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg District Office inaugurated a memorial plaque on the former home of Karl Behrens at Yorckstrasse 22 (corner house at Möckernstrasse 91 ).
  • Karl Behrens is honored with a stumbling block at Huttenstrasse 12 in Berlin-Moabit .

literature

  • Regina Griebel, Marlies Coburger, Heinrich Scheel : Recorded? The Gestapo album for the Red Orchestra. A photo documentation. Halle 1992, ISBN 3-883840-44-0
  • Brigitte Oleschinski : Plötzensee Memorial . Berlin: German Resistance Memorial Center, 1995 (2nd edition), ISBN 3-926082-05-4 ; PDF
  • Gert Rosiejka: The Red Chapel. "Treason" as an anti-fascist resistance. Results publisher: Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-925622-16-0
  • Luise Kraushaar et al .: German resistance fighters 1933–1945. Biographies and letters. Dietz-Verlag: Berlin 1970, Volume 1, pp. 98-101
  • Ingo Juchler (Ed.): Mildred Harnack and the Red Chapel in Berlin , Universitätsverlag Potsdam, 2017, ISBN 978-3-86956-407-4 .

Web links

Commons : Karl Behrens  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Karl Behrens on the website of the German Resistance Memorial Center

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans Coppi, Jürgen Danyel, Johannes Tuchel: The Red Orchestra in the Resistance to National Socialism, Berlin 1994, p. 121.
  2. ↑ a b Awarded posthumously with the Order of the Patriotic War, First Stage. In: New Germany . December 23, 1969, p. 4 , accessed on August 10, 2016 (free registration required).
  3. ^ Peter Koblank: Harro Schulze-Boysen. Rote Kapelle: Resistance against Hitler and espionage for Stalin , online edition Mythos Elser 2014. Retrieved on January 27, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Behrens, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German anti-fascist resistance fighter, member of the Red Orchestra
DATE OF BIRTH November 18, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 13, 1943
Place of death Berlin-Plötzensee