Groups of four

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The groups of four are three youth resistance groups against National Socialism , which emerged in the summer of 1941 simultaneously and independently of one another in Hamburg , Munich and Vienna .

They each consisted of four people, apprentices between the ages of 16 and 18. Each was led by a distinct, precocious boy. The groups had no political program, had no party political background and moved in a religious environment. All twelve boys came mainly from Christian families of the lower and lower middle class. What they all had in common was that listening to foreign stations and their reports influenced their actions. All agitated against the war, the Hitler regime and the NSDAP by means of leaflets and wall slogans . The young people all came to the conclusion that the war that had raged for two years could not be won. They hoped for the invasion and victory of the Allies and with it liberation from the rule of the Nazi regime.

Group of four Hamburg

The Hamburg group around Helmuth Hübener began after initially listening to " enemy broadcasters " to write down the content they heard and to multiply it as leaflets. They also produced their own texts critical of the regime and ridiculous verses. Since August 1941, Hübener, his friends Karl-Heinz Schnibbe and Rudi Wobbe and his colleague Gerhard Düwer distributed the leaflets created on a typewriter (60 sheets in an edition of 3 to 5 pieces) in telephone booths, mailboxes and house corridors. In February 1942, Hübener was denounced, in the subsequent trial he was sentenced to death and his three co-defendants to long prison terms (four to ten years).

Group of four Munich

Walter Klingenbeck from Munich , who comes from a Catholic background and is Christianly motivated, listened to his friends Hans Haberl, Daniel v. Recklinghausen and a fourth, only peripherally involved youth "enemy broadcasters" such as Vatican Radio and the BBC. After an appeal by the BBC to spread the V-sign (Victory) as a symbol of Allied victory, the group decided to follow suit. Klingenbeck and Recklinghausen put the V symbol on around 40 buildings in Munich. Leaflet campaigns and even the construction of a pirate transmitter were also planned; these projects could no longer be carried out because of the arrest of Klingenbeck, Haberl and Recklinghausen in January 1942. Klingenbeck had gossiped and was denounced. In September 1942 the three were sentenced to death, the fourth to 8 years in prison. Haberl and Recklinghausen were pardoned in August of the same year for eight years in prison. Klingenbeck was executed on August 5th in Munich-Stadelheim .

Group of four Vienna

Like the other groups, the Viennese student Josef Landgraf also listened to forbidden stations and in autumn 1941 began to spread what he had heard on leaflets. He was denounced after three weeks, but by then had already produced 70 leaflets and just as many sticky notes. The contents dealt with the anti-religious activities of the NSDAP and a critical comparison of the Nazi propaganda with the reports of the BBC. His schoolmates Ludwig Igalffy, Friedrich Fexer and Anton Brunner helped him with the production and distribution. Landgraf and Brunner were sentenced to death by the People's Court in 1942 , the other two to eight and six years in prison. Landgraf was pardoned to seven years in prison in 1943, Brunner received five years in prison when his trial was retried.

See also: List of resistance fighters against National Socialism

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