Richard Heller (resistance fighter)
Richard Heller (born October 26, 1908 in Dessau ; † July 6, 1944 in the Hamburg remand prison ) was a German communist resistance fighter against National Socialism and victims of National Socialism .
Life
Heller came from a working class family in Dessau . After attending primary school , the parents were unable to pay for vocational training . So he worked as an unskilled farmhand for a farmer , in a brewery , went to work and construction in a quarry . In 1929 he joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Through the KPD functionary Robert Stamm , he came to Bremen , where from May 1931 he was secretary of the KPD's northwest district management. A year later he also acted as head of the Bremen " Combat League Against Fascism ".
After the transfer of power to the NSDAP , the Gestapo took him into " protective custody " on March 4, 1933 and took him to the Ostertorwache . From there he was transferred to the Mißler concentration camp . He was released from the Fort Langlütjen protective custody camp on December 22, 1933. From 1934 he worked for the company Später in Hamburg, where he continued his illegal resistance work. When the Gestapo became aware of this, he was arrested again on February 10, 1935 and deported to the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp. In proceedings before the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court he was four years penitentiary prison convicted. After serving his sentence in the Bremen-Oslebshausen prison , he went back to Hamburg on February 14, 1939. Here he contacted the resistance group " Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen ", which organized help for foreign forced laborers after the outbreak of war , carried out educational work on actual war events and carried out acts of sabotage on armaments . In the summer of 1942 he went to Bremen on behalf of the Bästlein group, where he set up resistance cells in the large companies there. When the Gestapo smashed the Bästlein network, Richard Heller was arrested again on October 20, 1942 and transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp . On May 5, 1944, the People's Court sentenced him to death. According to surviving inmates, Heller encouraged them before he was executed on July 6, 1944. He is said to have said:
“ ... the rule of the executioners will soon come to an end. "
Honors
- In front of his last house on Hansestrasse 201 in Bremen , the action artist Gunter Demnig laid a stumbling block in his memory .
literature
- Heller, Richard . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Karl Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .
Web links
- Richard Heller Biogram Retrieved August 24, 2011
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ludwig Eiber : Workers and Labor Movement in the Hanseatic City of Hamburg in the years 1929 to 1939 . P. Lang, 2000, ISBN 9783631317273 . Retrieved August 24, 2011
- ↑ Searching for traces Bremen. Accessed August 24, 2011
- ↑ Searching for traces Bremen. Accessed August 24, 2011
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Heller, Richard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German resistance fighters against National Socialism |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 26, 1908 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dessau |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 6, 1944 |
| Place of death | Hamburg |