Wilhelm Schürmann-Horster

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Wilhelm Schürmann-Horster (born June 21, 1900 in Cologne , † September 9, 1943 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a German actor and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Wilhelm Schürmann-Horster spent his school days and attending the drama school of Luise Dumont and Gustav Lindemann in Düsseldorf. In the First World War he served as a soldier and returned as a war opponent. From 1920 he staged political-revolutionary theater with contemporary authors in the Rhineland. In 1923 he became a member of the KPD . Until 1933 he worked as an actor at several theaters in the Rhineland and Westphalia, including in Hagen , Godesberg and Düsseldorf , where he was married to the actress Hedda, née Lindner-Leuschner. In 1934 he was arrested for his illegal activities for the KPD, but acquitted by the Hamm Higher Regional Court for lack of evidence . From 1937 Schürmann-Horster worked as a freelancer for various film companies. In November 1941 he became a director and dramaturge at the Grenzlandtheater in Konstanz .

At a costume party at the Academy of Arts in Berlin in 1938, Schürmann-Horster met the sculptor Cay von Brockdorff and his wife Erika . From this acquaintance a discussion group developed, which also included Jutta and Viktor Dubinsky (1912–1942), the sculptor Ruthild Hahne , the dancer Hanna Berger and the architect Friedrich Schauer . In 1939 the worker Karl Böhme , the lathe operator Hans Coppi and the commercial clerk Wolfgang Thiess joined them, in mid-1941 the printer Herbert Grasse and the trained electrician Eugen Neutert joined them . The resistance group created by the circle in 1940 maintained connections with other cells of the resistance and exchanged information with them. Illegal scriptures were also written, produced and distributed. Schürmann-Horster and the group belonged to the circle of the resistance organization Rote Kapelle . In October 1940 he married the elementary school teacher Klara Harprath, whom he had known from his time in Rhineland since 1923.

Wilhelm Schürmann-Horster was arrested in Konstanz on October 29, 1942 and sentenced to death by the People's Court on August 21, 1943 . He was hanged in Berlin-Plötzensee .

Honors

Since September 2007, a stumbling stone in front of the city theater in Konstanz has been remembering him. Another stumbling block lies in Düsseldorf-Golzheim at Schwerinstrasse 41. In addition, the Schürmann-Horster-Weg in Constance is named after him.

literature

  • Luise Kraushaar : German resistance fighters 1933-1945. Biographies and letters . Volume 2. Dietz, Berlin 1970, pp. 240-243.
  • Gert Rosiejka: The Red Chapel. "Treason" as anti-fascist resistance (with an introduction by Heinrich Scheel ). results, Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-925622-16-0 .
  • Arnulf Moser: Wilhelm Schürmann-Horster (1900–1943). A political actor as a victim of the National Socialists . In: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings , Issue 125 (2007), pp. 141–152 ( digitized version )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Property law register matter: For the marriage of Willy Schürmann-Horster, game manager in Düsseldorf, Rosenstr. 28, and Hedda born. Lindner-Leuschner, actress, was agreed to separate property by contract dated November 2, 1928 , in the official gazette for the Düsseldorf administrative region. Public Gazette No. 47, year 1928, p. 758
personal data
SURNAME Schürmann-Horster, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Resistance fighters against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH June 21, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 1943
Place of death Berlin-Plötzensee