Uncle Emil

Berlin memorial plaque on Hünensteig 6 in Berlin-Steglitz

Uncle Emil was a Berlin resistance group in the Third Reich . It was not ideologically but humanitarian motivated and consisted mainly of journalists, doctors and other intellectuals.

The group came together in the winter of 1938 around the journalist Ruth Andreas-Friedrich and the conductor Leo Borchard . According to the group's activity report, the inner circle of the association also included the actress Karin Friedrich (the daughter of Ruth Andreas-Friedrich), the writer Fred Denger , the confectioner Walter Reimann and his wife Charlotte, the doctor Josef Schunk and the specialist Walter Seitz . There were a number of other active employees.

It was named after its warning call and, in a kind of private network, helped Jews persecuted at high personal risk with hiding places, food and papers. She also supported the families of politically persecuted people and distributed "White Rose" leaflets .

The group members Ruth Andreas-Friedrich and Karin Friedrich were awarded the Yad Vashem Medal as “ Righteous Among the Nations ”.

There is a memorial plaque on the founder's former home in Steglitz , Hünensteig 6.

In 2012 the White Rose Foundation published an extensive exhibition on the Uncle Emil resistance group.

literature

• Ruth Andreas-Friedrich: The shadow man. Diary entries 1938-1945. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 1947, new edition 1983, ISBN 3-518-04466-4 , paperback with afterword by Jörg Drews 1986 ISBN 3-518-37767-1 ; New edition Suhrkamp TB 3189, 2000, ISBN 3-518-39689-7 (also: Union, Berlin (GDR) 1972 & 1977 slightly abridged version with numerous b / w illustrations and facsimiles, epilogue by Klaus Drobisch ).
• Karin Friedrich : Spark of time. Family biography. CH Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-45868-8 .
• Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): Survival in the Third Reich. Jews in the underground and their helpers. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-51029-9 .
• Wolfgang Benz: Protest and Humanity. The resistance group "Onkel Emil" in National Socialism , Stuttgart: Reclam 2020, ISBN 978-3-15-011258-8 .

Web links

Commons : Onkel Emil  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Berlin-judentum.de
• The forgotten opponents of Hitler
• Steglitz resistance group "Uncle Emil": Rescuing others at risk of death , Berliner Zeitung , June 11, 2020

notes

1. ↑ Ruth Andreas-Friedrich: Der Schattenmann (1986), p. 301 ff.
2. ↑ White Rose Foundation: Exhibition Onkel Emil ( Memento from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive )