Wilhelm Steeg

Wilhelm Steeg (born May 31, 1885 in Solingen-Ohligs ; died February 16, 1944 in Cologne ) was a German electroplating worker and opponent of National Socialism , who was executed for his resistance .

biography

Wilhelm Steeg took part in the First World War as a soldier . From 1920 to 1923 he ran an electroplating plant in Solingen, which he lost due to the economic crisis. From 1930 he worked as a nickel maker. Steeg was a devout Catholic. In September 1944 he expressed himself critical of the German army reports to a former colleague who was on leave from the front. On this occasion - according to witnesses - he estimated the daily death rate of the "Germans running like rabbits" at 10,000 soldiers and then asked his colleague to "stay here", "throw the chunks" and "come home", then listen "The whole hoax on its own". The manager Gustav Koch of the DAF then denounced him. A few days later Steeg was arrested and imprisoned in Solingen, then until December 14, 1944 in Wuppertal-Bendahl. He was then taken to Bonn and brought before the Senate of the Berlin People's Court that met there. On December 16, 1944, he was sentenced to death for “public disruption of the military” and executed in the Klingelpütz prison in Cologne on February 16, 1944 after a petition for clemency had been rejected. The relatives only found out about the trial and verdict after the execution and only after the end of the war did the widow manage to have her husband buried in the Catholic cemetery in Ohligs.

After the end of National Socialism, the company chairman Koch was sentenced as an informer to 18 months in prison for crimes against humanity.

A stumbling block in Ohligs has been reminding of Wilhelm Steeg since 2005.

literature

• Inge Sbosny / Karl Schabrod, resistance in Solingen. From the life of anti-fascist fighters, Frankfurt a. M. 1975

Individual evidence

1. ↑ All information, unless otherwise stated, from: Inge Sbosny / Karl Schabrod , Resistance in Solingen. From the life of anti-fascist fighters, Frankfurt a. M. 1975, pp. 116f .; Armin Schulte, Wilhelm Steeg Stolperstein: Merkurstraße 34a (August 26, 2005), in: Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (There as incorrect information: "1943" instead of 1944). 

Web links

• Armin Schulte, Wilhelm Steeg. Stumbling block: Merkurstraße 34a (August 26, 2005), in: [1]