Willy Wirthgen

Willy Wirthgen (born October 22, 1904 in Rabenau near Dresden; † April 3, 1944 in Fort de Bondues near Lille ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism who was executed in 1944.

Willy Wirthgen

biography

He learned the saddlery . From 1928 he worked in Kempten (Allgäu) as an upholsterer and upholsterer . After attending the Reichsparteischule of the KPD "Rosa Luxemburg" in Fichtenau near Berlin he became agitprop leader in Kempten and chairman of the unemployment committee in Kempten in 1931 .

In March and April 1933, Wirthgen produced two illegal editions of the KPD newspaper “Kempter Mosaik” in a herdsman's hut on the Grünten . He was then denounced and arrested in April. In May he was transferred from the Munich police prison to the Dachau concentration camp . In December 1933 he was sentenced to 18 months in prison by the Munich Higher Regional Court for preparation for high treason . Released again in 1935 he worked again as an upholsterer and upholsterer. On September 10, 1939, as part of "Aktion 1.9.", At the instigation of the Stapo Augsburg, he was sent from Sonthofen to the Buchenwald concentration camp . In the Buchenwald files he was stamped as “unworthy of defense”. On January 20, 1940, he was released from Buchenwald concentration camp. From December 2nd he was with an anti-aircraft unit of the Wehrmacht. On December 10, 1943, he was sentenced to death by shooting by the field court of the commander of the 16th Flak Division for undermining military strength and defeatist remarks during a home leave to friends in the stairwell who were denounced by the landlady. The sentence was carried out on April 3, 1944 in Fort de Bondues near Lille (where there is now a Musée de la Résistance in memory of 68 French Resistance members who were also executed there). After burial in Marquette-lez-Lille , he was reburied in 1962 at the German war cemetery in Bourdon near Amiens .

In the summer of 2010 a stumbling block was laid in front of the house at 19 Hohe Gasse in Kempten. According to the inscription on this stumbling block, he was murdered in the Dachau or Buchenwald concentration camps in 1945. According to the results of research after 2010, this does not seem to have been the case. In November 2015 a memorial plaque was attached to the house at 19 Hohe Gasse.

literature

• Elke Fröhlich , Falk Wiesemann : Bavaria in the Nazi era: the parties KPD, SPD, BVP in persecution and resistance. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1983.

Web links

• Portrait of Wirthgen Willy (last accessed on August 15, 2019)
• Portrait of Willy Wirthgen - in French (last accessed on August 15, 2019)
• In memory of persecuted trade unionists (2010) (last accessed August 15, 2019)
• "Leading head of the communists in the Allgäu" (2015) (last accessed on August 15, 2019)