Red Chapel
Hopefuls
Ground relief
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A resistance network that never called itself that.
People:
Schoolgirl Liane Berkowitz
Typist Erika Gräfin von Brockdorff
Dreher Hans Coppi
Administrative Assistant Hilde Coppi
Oberregierungsrat Dr. Arvid Harnack
Literature scholar Dr. Mildred Harnack
Dramatic Director Dr. Adam Kuckhoff
Interpreter Greta Kuckhoff
Writer and interpreter Bodo Schlösinger
Youth counselor Rose Schlösinger
Dancer and sculptor Oda Schottmüller
Journalist and Oberleutnant in the Luftwaffe Harro Schulze-Boysen
Journalist Libertas Schulze-Boysen
Graphic designer Elisabeth Schumacher
Woodcarver Kurt Schumacher
In the mid-1930s, around Arvid Harnack seven Berlin resistance groups formed in Berlin: a senior council in the Reich Ministry of Economics, his wife Mildred, and the employees of the Reich Ministry of Aviation Harro Schulze-Boysen and his wife Libertas’s circle of friends, discussions, and training. Through personal contacts, a loose network of seven Berlin resistance groups was formed in 1940/41. They included more than 150 opponents of National Socialism of diverse social backgrounds and worldviews: students, artists, publicists, and civil servants, including many women.
Their forms of struggle against National Socialism are diverse. They discuss political and artistic issues, help persecuted people and document the Nazi crimes of violence. Beyond their immediate circle, they turn to the public by distributing flyers and stickers. Finally, they make contacts with like-minded people in other parts of Germany.
In 1940/41, Harnack and Schulze-Boysen also transmitted important military information to the Soviet Union. However, the group primarily strengthened its political intelligence work by distributing leaflets and letters.
In the summer of 1942, the Gestapo uncovered the resistance organization led by Harnack and Schulze-Boysen and investigated them under the collective name „Red Chapel“. They discredited this resistance group as a Soviet espionage organization. The members were therefore charged with „treason against the Reich“. At the end of 1942, the Reich War Tribunal handed down the first death sentences; a total of more than 50 members of the Red Chapel were murdered.
© Memorial to the German Resistance
Ardi Goldman Kunst-
und Kulturstiftung gGmbH
Uniongelände
Hanauer Landstraße 188, 60314 Frankfurt am Main