Harro Schulze-Boysen

Heinz Harro Max Wilhelm Georg Schulze-Boysen (German: [ˈha.ʁoː ˈʃʊl.t͡sə ˈbɔɪ̯sn̩] (listen); 2 September 1909 – 22 December 1942) was a German publicist and Luftwaffe officer during World War II. Schulze-Boysen would become a leading German resistance fighter as a member of a Berlin anti-fascist resistance group that was later called the Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle) by the Gestapo. He was arrested and executed in 1942.[1]

Harro Schulze-Boysen in Luftwaffe officer's uniform
20+5 DDR Pfennig-Stamp with Harro Schulze-Boysen
Harro Schulze-Boysen (right) with Marta Husemann and Günther Weisenborn

Shulze-Boysen's career as a Soviet agent lasted slightly longer than a year, from just before June 1941 to August 1942.[2] His activities against the Third Reich from 1933 to 1941 were therefore not carried out as part of the Rote Kapelle organization. Like numerous groups in other parts of the world, however, the undercover political factions led by Harnack and Schulze-Boysen later developed into espionage networks.[2]

Life

Schulze-Boysen was born in Kiel as the son of decorated naval officer Erich Edgar Schulze. [1] His mother was Marie Luise (née Boysen). On his paternal side he was the grandnephew of Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz and on the maternal side, the German economist and philosopher, Ferdinand Tönnies. In 1913 the family moved to Berlin when his father received a posting. His sister Helga was born a year later and his brother, Hartmut was born in 1922 and died in 2013.[1]

In 1913, Harro attended primary school and later the Heinrich-von-Kleist-Gymnasium in the district of Schmargendorf in Berlin.[3] From 1920, he regularly spent his summer holidays with the Hasselrot family in Sweden. In 1922 his father was transferred to Duisburg, and Harro succeeded him in the autumn. As a student at the Steinbart Gymnasium in Duisburg, he took part in the underground struggle against the French occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 and was temporarily imprisoned by the French and Belgian occupying forces.[4] To get him out of this political firing line, his parents organized a slightly longer stay in Sweden. In particular, Harro's trip to England in 1926 had inspired comparison and reflection. He had found that his experiences in the country did not match the perception of England within Germany.

In 1927 he wrote his first major newspaper report about a scandal in Duisburg to erect a monument to the sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck.[3] On the occasion of the 80th birthday of the Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, Schulze-Boysen gave a commemorative speech at the school. In general, his political involvement in high school was perceived as unusually intense. He passed the Abitur with the overall rating "good". In particular, his dexterity was emphasized in the written and oral expression. From his spiritual attitude he was at that time in agreement with the values and traditions of the family. From then on, he appeared in public and in written statements, using the mother's birth name, with the double name Schulze-Boysen.[5]

Political awakening

In 1928, he joined the Jungdeutscher Orden, a youth organization in the Weimar Republic and the Studentenverbindung Albingia.[4] In April 1928 he studied law and political science at the University of Freiburg in Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, and later Berlin, without finishing.[4] In the same period he joined the Young German Order, a para-military organisation, which influenced him ideologically at the time. The aim of this association was to ethically revive the "Comradeship from the trenches of the First World War" as a model for the Volksgemeinschaft to be developed. It rejected any form of dictatorship, whether from the ideological left or right.

In the summer of 1929 he took part in an academic fencing club at the university and a course of the Hochsee-Wehrsportverein high sea defense, sailing club in Neustadt. In November he moved to the Humboldt University of Berlin in Berlin to continue his studies in law.[4] Here he joined the International Students' Association. For the first time during this period he dealt intensively with Nazi ideology and searched for the causes of the sudden victory of the Nazi Party in Reichstag elections in March 1933. He studied the program of the Nazi Party and also read Mein Kampf in search of answers, describing it as a "jumble of platitudes" and commenting, "There's nothing here but nonsense".[6] It became clear to him that a further gain in votes by the Nazis would lead to a sharp intensification and polarization in society. In 1930, Schulze-Boysen supported the intellectual-nationalistic group called the Volksnationale Reichsvereinigung ("People's National Reich Association"). During this period, Schulze-Boysen was also a member of the National Socialist Black Front.[7]

As a publicist

In July 1931, during a stay in France, Harro Schulze-Boysen met French intellectuals associated with the magazine Plans, which sought the establishment of a Europe-wide collective economic system and whose influence resulted in him being reorientated politically to the left. However he still maintained his contacts with the nationalists. However as time went on, Shulze-Boysen increasingly distanced himself, more and more from the views of the Young German Order. As the realization matured in him that the daily struggle in Germany must primarily be directed against the emerging fascism and all reactionaries.[4]

In 1932 and 1933, he published the left-liberal magazine Der Gegner or The Opponent, which was founded in 1931 by Franz Jung and modelled on the Plans magazine.[8] The poet Ernst Fuhrmann, the artist Raoul Hausmann, the writers Ernst von Salomon and Adrien Turel and the Marxist theoretician Karl Korsch, among others all collaborated in writing the magazine. The aim was to build a unified front of young people against the "liberal, capitalist and nationalist spirit" in Europe.[9] For the French, Harro Schulze-Boysen was the actor for Germany in this field. He tried to develop an independent German youth movement [10]with the "Gegner-Kreis", which also included Robert Jungk, Erwin Gehrts, Kurt Schumacher and Gisela von Pöllnitz [10] and began to organize Enemy Evenings in Berlin cafés. "There was hardly an opposition youth group with which he did not keep in touch with."[11] At the end of 1931, he took a leave of absence from his studies because he had come to the conclusion that the contents discussed here had nothing to do with the daily political disputes. In February 1932, Schulze-Boysen, in coordination with his French partners of Plans, organized the Treffen der revolutionären Jugend Europas or Meeting of Europe's Revolutionary Youth. A total of about 1,000 young people attended the meeting and he formulated the political goals for the German delegation. In view of the crisis in Germany, these consisted, on the one hand, in the abolition of the capitalist system and on the other, in the assertion of Germany's own role without foreign diktat and interference.[12] In search of alternatives to crisis-ridden Western Europe, he began to become more interested in the Soviet system. This in turn was also influenced by his disappointment with the national and conservative parties in Germany, which in his opinion did not fight the nascent Nazis enough. In March 1932, he wrote his first article, the Der Neue, Gegner, The New, Opponent that defined his concept of publication goals, stating "Let us serve the invisible alliance of thousands, who today are still divided..".[13]In April 1932, in a letter to his mother, he stated that his goal was the intellectual reconciliation of the young generation. Essentially his politics were driven by the idea of a united youth fighting the older generations.[13]

In May 1932, an investigation was opened against Franz Jung and the office premises of the Der Gegner were sealed. Schulze-Boysen took over the business as the new editor and gave the publication a new name, Gegner or opponent (now small in writing) but with the same network of the most diverse political camps. At the depths of the crisis, he also saw a clear opportunity to implement a new policy approach, "Opponents of today – comrades of tomorrow,".[14] Thus he had become the leading head and the centre of the enemy circle. Schulze-Boysen considered the seizure of power by Hitler to be probable at that time, but believed that he would soon be overthrown by a general strike. After the seizure of power by the Nazis and the Reichstag fire in Berlin, Schulze-Boysen helped several friends and colleagues who were being threatened to escape abroad. As early as February 1933, the Gestapo had rated the actions of the magazine as "radical" in an official communication, and inevitably in April 1933, the offices of Der Gegner were destroyed by Sturmabteilung in a raid and had detained all those present. The editorial staff were deported to a special camp of the 6th SS-Standarte. Schulze-Boysen himself was severely abused and detained for several days. The Sturmabteilung demolished his Jewish friend and colleague Henry Erlanger, before his eyes, who died shortly afterwards.[15] It had become clear to him, as a self-confessed anti-Nazi that he had to find new ways to implement his convictions.[4] It was during this time, that a chance encounter in the street, led to Schulze-Boysen meeting the sculptor Kurt Schumacher who had been working on the opponent with him. Schulze-Boysen had invited Schumacher to a discussion. This was beginning of the intellectual discussion group that would move the conversations from evenings in Berlin cafés into a more meaningful intellectual discussions, that would later change to a direct-action, anti-facist resistance group.[16]

Military

In May 1933, his father organized a pilot training place for him at the German Aviation School in Warnemünde as a sea observer, in order to get his son out of the political front line in Berlin.[4] The place was far away from Berlin and provided enough opportunity to enable Schulze-Boysen to reflect on his past and enable him to prepare plans for the future. Even before his departure, he advised his friends and colleagues to look around Nazi Germany and to go into the institutions of the Nazi regime. He read books that the rulers appealed to and tried to return with due caution to his publication work. In the spring of 1934, this resulted in an opportunity through a contact with the publisher Erich Röth. He published the magazine Wille zum Reich under a pseudonym and dealt with cultural policy issues but with the goal of undermining the Nazi movement with its own themes.

Every fortnight he held picnic-evenings in his apartment with the interested parties in which they discussed philosophical and well as political questions.[17] Under a pseudonym (presumably the abbreviation E.R. – for Erich Röth), Schulze-Boysen wrote individual editorials and essays. It was important for him to explore what possibilities of influence existed with regard to the new situation. At the same time, from 10 April 1934, he was employed as an auxiliary officer in the 5th department,[4] in the section Foreign Air Powers of the Ministry of Aviation (German: Reichsluftfahrtministerium) (RLM) in Berlin. As an adjutant of the head of maritime aviation intelligence, he was responsible for evaluating the foreign literature and press on the subject of air armament. He analysed tactics, organisation, training and technology and to do this he studied foreign magazines, lectures, photo collections and journals.[18]

Marriage

In order to protect himself from further persecution, Schulze-Boysen surrounded himself with a group of politically incorruptible friends who were left-leaning anti-fascists, among them artists, pacifists and Communists. In the summer of 1934, he met 20-year-old Libertas Haas-Heye, while they were sailing on the Wannsee.[19] Libertas Haas-Heye worked at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Berlin as a press officer.[19][20]

On 26 July 1936, they were married. The wedding took place in the chapel of Liebenberg Castle under a painting of Guido Reni,[19] with Hermann Göring giving away the bride.[21] Liebenberg Castle was the ancestral estate of her parents.[19] Schulze-Boysen spent his honeymoon in Stockholm as a language study trip for his employer and upon his return he submitted a confidential report.[22] Libertas was an impulsive woman of great personal ambition.[23] She held evening discussions at her house, where she sought to influence her guests on behalf of Shulze-Boysen. She was fully aware of his activities in resistance and was one of his most active agents, taking part in writing pamphlets and acting as a both a courier and recruiter for the group.[23]

Schulze-Boysen considered himself a libertine and the couple had an open marriage.[24]

Schulze-Boysen's friends

In 1935, Walter Küchenmeister joined the group. Küchenmeister had known Schulze-Boysen since 1930, but had been reintroduced to him through Kurt Schumacher. Küchenmeister very quickly became an important member of the group and was used as the writer.[23] In the same year, Schulze-Boysen visited Geneva, disguised as a private trip, for a series of lectures on international legal issues. The playwright Günther Weisenborn had known Schulze-Boysen since 1932 when he had met him at a left-wing student gathering and had become good friends.[25] In 1937 Weisenborn had introduced the actor Marta Wolter to Shulze-Boysen and became part of the group. Later Walter Husemann who at the time was in Buchenwald concentration camp would marry Marta Wolter and join the group.[25] Other friends were found by Schulze-Boysen among former students of a reform school on the island of Scharfenberg in Berlin-Tegel. These often came from communist or social - democratic workers' families, e.g. Hans and Hilde Coppi, Heinrich Scheel, Hermann Natterodt and Hans Lautenschlager. Some of these contacts existed before 1933, for example through the German Society of intellectuals. John Rittmeister's wife Eva was a good friend of Liane Berkowitz, Ursula Goetze, Friedrich Rehmer, Maria Terwiel and Fritz Thiel who met in the 1939 abitur class at the secondary private school, Heil'schen Abendschule at Berlin W 50, Augsburger Straße 60 in Schöneberg. The Romanist Werner Krauss joined this group, and through discussions, an active resistance to the Nazi regime grew. Ursula Goetze who was part of the group, provided contacts with the communist groups in Neukölln.[26]

Approaching war

In January 1936, Schule-Boyzen completed basic military training in the 3rd Radio Intelligence Teaching Company in Halle.[27] He was subsequently promoted to corporal. His superiors appreciated his work. However, in order to be promoted, he would have had to either prove an academic degree or take part in a reservist exercise. However, the Luftwaffe personnel Office blocked this possibility because he was registered in the files as "politically unreliable". In September 1936 Hermann Göring had asked the head of the human resources department what reports they had on Schulze-Boysen. When he received the answer that political activities from the Weimar period were noted here, he replied that one should "leave the old camels" and send him on an aviator course.[28] He completed his course in November in List on Sylt and was subsequently promoted to sergeant of the Reserve. Further courses followed in May and July 1936. In the meantime, he was also commissioned by the Reich Aviation Ministry to work on the handbook of the military sciences and the Luftwaffe magazine.

While he was taking his basic military training in Halle, he learned of the banning of the magazine Wille zum Reich. This was an occasion for Schulze-Boysen to dilute his existing contacts to the outside world. His atelier that he Libertas had purchased together in Charlottenburg as their wedding apartment, became more and more a popular meeting place for numerous people who wanted to maintain social interaction with each other. A second discussion group developed in Libertas's parents' estate, in Liebenberg. Of course, among these people there were also many acquaintances from the former environment of Der Gegner In the internal circle of these contacts and encounters, those who exchange internal information with each other, form an opinion about certain developments of the Nazi regime or also wanted to raise money for families whose relatives had been imprisoned for political reasons moved a little more securely. In order to safeguard these covered activities, some basic conspiratorial rules were agreed. Schulze-Boysen code name was Hans when he attended these regular discussion groups.

Resistance

During the summer of 1936, Shulze-Boysen had become preoccupied by the Popular Front in Spain and through his position at the Reich Aviation Ministry and had collected detailed information of the support that Germany was providing to the group.[29] The documents were passed to the Antimilitarist Apparatus or AM Apparat (Intelligence organisation) of the German Communist Party.[30]

At the end of 1936, Libertas Schulze-Boysen and Walter Küchenmeister, on the advice of Elisabeth Schumacher wife of Kurt Schumacher, sought out Elfriede Paul, a doctor, who would become a core member of the group.[31]

The Civil War in Spain galvanised the inner circle of Schulze-Boysen's group with Kurt Schumacher demanding that action be taken and a plan was hatched to take advantage of Schulze-Boysen position at the ministry. In February 1938, Schulze-Boysen had compiled a short information document about a sabotage enterprise planned in Barcelona by the German Wehrmacht. It was an action from "Special Staff W", an organisation established by Luftwaffe general Helmuth Wilberg to study and analyse the tactical lessons learned by the Legion Kondor during the Spanish Civil War.[32] The unit also directed the German relief operations that consisted of volunteers, weapons and ammunition for General Francisco Franco FET y de las JONS Party.[32] The information that Schulze-Boysen collected included details about German transports, deployment of units and companies involved in the German defence.[32] The group around Schulze-Boysen didn't know how to deliver the information. They discovered that Schulze-Boysen's cousin, Gisela von Pöllnitz was planning to visit the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne that was being held in Paris between 25 May to 25 November 1937.[33] After extensive discussion the group decided that she should deliver the letter to the Soviet Embassy in Paris.[33] In due course, Von Pöllnitz fulfilled her mission and placed the letter in the mailbox of the Soviet Embassy on the Bois de Boulogne. [33] Unfortunately Von Pöllnitz was being watched by the Gestapo and after posting the letter she was arrested in November 1937 by the Gestapo.[32]

In preparation for the upcoming military occupation of Czechoslovakia, just after 5 June 1938, a game of planning took place in the Foreign Air Powers Department and shortly afterwards in August a combat exercise took place in the Wildpark-Werder area that is directly south-west of Potsdam. The Gestapo also prepared for the impending war and following orders from Heinrich Himmler, updated their registers of potential enemies of the state. Schulze-Boysen was classified as a former editor of the opponent. The Gestapo were aware of his status.[34] On 20 April 1939, he was promoted to Lieutenant and promptly called upon to carry out a study on the comparison of air armaments between France, England and Germany.

The overall situation in Germany, which was moving more and more towards the state of war, did not leave the actors gathered around Schulze-Boysen inactive. In October 1938 Küchenmeister together with Schulze-Boysen wrote the leaflet entitled Der Stoßtrupp, The Shock Troop for the imminent affiliation of the Sudetenland.[35] Around 50 copies were mimeographed and distributed. In the spring of 1939, Paul, the Schumachers and Küchenmeister travelled to Switzerland, ostensibly to treat Küchenmeister's tuberculosis but also with a secondary agenda that was to contact the KPD director Wolfgang Langhoff, in order to be able to exchange information.[36] In August, he helped Rudolf Bergtel to reach Switzerland[37], and provided him with information on current German aircraft and tank production, as well as deployment plans for a German submarine base in the Canary Islands.

On his 30th birthday on 2 September 1939, Schulze-Boysen had an intensive conversation with the German industrialist Hugo Buschmann, with whom he had agreed to receive literature on the Russian Revolution as well Lenin, Stalin, and Leon Trotsky. He was primarily concerned with questions of what alternatives there were to the capitalist system of the Western European countries, and he considered writing his thesis on the Soviet Union during his studies. Schulze-Boysen invalidated the concerns that Buschmann had regarding the literature handover by remarking, "I regularly receive Pravda and Izvestia and have to read them because I am a rapporteur on Russian issues. My department requires a thorough study of this literature. Besides, we are allies of Soviet Russia".[38]

Schulze-Boysen spent much of 1940 looking for new contacts[39] Parallel to his work in the RLM, he began studying at the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik of the Humboldt University of Berlin in Berlin. Towards the end of his studies, he led a seminar on foreign studies as an employee of SS Major Franz Six who was director of the Hochschule.[40] In 1941 Libertas Schulze-Boysen became an English language lecturer, to teach translators the language.[40] Shulze-Boysen who also lectured there, would met three people at the institute who would become important members of his group. These were the student and interpreter Eva-Maria Buch, Horst Heilmann, a confirmed Nazi and Hitler Youth member and Herbert Gollnow, a Luftwaffe officer.[40]

Eva-Maria Buch would eventually go on to translate the resistance magazine Die Innere Front ("The Internal Front") into French.[40] Little was known about Herbert Gollnow.[40]

Heilmann met Schulze-Boysen when he wrote a paper called The Soviets and Versailles that was presented at a political seminar for the Hitler Youth that was being attended by Schulze-Boysen.[41] It was through Schulze-Boysen that Heilmann was introduced to Albrecht Haushofer.[41] This wasn't the first meeting between Schulze-Boysen and Haushofer but was perhaps the first political meeting. According to new evidence that was presented in 2010[42] Schulze-Boysen and Haushofer met at least twice before, and understood each other's motives, allowing a compromise to be reached between the two men, that in turn enabled the turning of Heilmann away from Nazism.[13] At Schulze-Boysen and Haushofer's first meeting, also attended by Rainer Hildebrandt whose apartment they were using, they discussed the possibility of cooperation between Germany and the Soviet Union. Haushofer was antipathetic towards the Soviet Union and believed that the only way to establish mutual agreement with Stalin's regime was to confront Soviet power with Europe's right to self-assertion. Schulze-Boysen pleaded for mutual collaboration between the two countries, believing that German communism would emerge as an independent political doctrine, while anticipating a role for the Soviet Union in Europe.[42] At a second meeting, with trust established between two sides, Haushofer was known to tell Schulze-Boysen that an assassination attempt against Hitler was being planned.[13] These two meetings created a level of trust between the two men that reduced their risk of exposure when trying to turn the Wehrmacht officer. In August 1941, after a weekend sailing on the Großer Wannsee, on Schulze-Boysen's boat, the Duschika, Schulze-Boysen confided in Heilmann that he was working for the Russians as an agent.[15]For almost a year, Heilmann supplied intelligence to Schulze-Boysen.

Schulze-Boysen/Harnack Group

In that same year, Schulze-Boysen had access to other resistance groups and had started to cooperate with them. The most important of these was a group run by Arvid Harnack who had known Schulze-Boysen since 1935 [43] but been reintroduced to him sometime in late 1939 or early 1940 through Greta Kuckhoff.[44] Kuckhoff knew Arvid and Mildred Harnack when she was studying in America at the end of the twenties and had brought the poet Adam Kuckhoff together with the couple.[44][45] Kuckhoff had known the Schulz-Boysen's since 1938 and started to engage them socially in late 1939 or early 1940 by bringing Mildred and Libertas together while on holiday in Saxony.

In January 1941 Schulze-Boysen, now promoted to lieutenant[46], was assigned to the attaché group of the 5th department of the Reich Aviation Ministry. His new place of work was the air force command staff in Wildpark in Potsdam, where the headquarters of the Luftwaffe was located. His job here was to process the incoming reports from the Luftwaffe attachés working in the individual embassies. At the same time, Harnack learned from him that the Reich Aviation Ministry was now also involved in the preparation of the Russian campaign and that reconnaissance flights had begun over Soviet territory.[47][48]

On 27 March 1941 in a meeting at the apartment of Arvid Harnack, Schulze-Boysen met the 3rd secretary member of the Soviet embassy, Alexander Korotkow who was known to Harnack as Alexander Erdberg.[49] Korotkov was Soviet intelligence agent, who had been operating clandestinely in Europe for much of the 1930's as an employee of the foreign intelligence service of the Soviet People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB). Korotkow assigned the code name Starshina to Schulze-Boysen, a Soviet military rank, as Harnack brought him into the operation.[50] Without being aware of the exact activity of his counterpart at the time, Schulze-Boysen informed him in the conversation that the attack on the Soviet Union had now been finally decided and would take place in the shortest possible time.[51] On 2 April 1941, Schulze-Boysen informed Korotkow that the invasion plans were complete and provided Korotkow an initial list of bombing targets of railways. On the 17 April, Schulze-Boysen reported that the Germans were still indecisive. He stated that German generals in North Africa were still hopeful of a victory over Great Britain, but the preparations for the invasion were continuing.[52] In mid-April, in the hope of increasing the intelligence flow, the Soviets ordered Korotkow to create a Berlin espionage operation.[52] Harnack was asked to run the operation. The groups were given two radio transmitters.[53] Schulze-Boysen selected Kurt Schumacher as their radio operator.[52] In the same month, Korotkow began to pressure both groups to break contact with any communist friends and cease any kind of political activity.[54] Schulze-Boysen had a number of friends with links to the Communist Party of Germany including Küchenmeister, but the activity continued.[55] In May 1941, a suitcase based radio transmitter was delivered to Harnack via his wife, Greta.[56] Eventually, Libertas was drawn into the espionage operation.[57] As the month progressed, the reports provided to the Soviets became ever more important, as they in turn devoted ever more time to ensure the supply of information continued.[58] On 6 June 1941, Schumacher was drafted in to the German army and Shulze-Boysen found a replacement radio operator in Hans Coppi.[58] Schulze-Boysen persuaded Coppi to take on the task of establishing a radio link to the Soviet Union for the resistance organization. Both Harnack and Coppi were trained by a contact of Korotkov, in how encipher text and how to transmit it, but Coppi failed to send any messages, due to inexperience and technical problems with the radio.[59] Harnack did manage to transmit messages but the operation was largely a failure.[53] Around 13 June 1941, Schulze-Boysen prepared a report that gave the final details of the Soviet invasion including details of Hungarian airfields containing German planes. [60]

When the Soviet invasion launched on 22 June 1941, the Soviet embassy was closed and due to the radio transmitters that had become defective, intelligence from the group failed to reach the Soviet Union.[61] However, they still gathered information and collated it, as dutifully as before, although it had an effect on them, as many in the group had personal links to Russia.[61] The couple had read about Franz Six murders in the Soviet Union and the group were aware of the capture of millions of Russian soldiers.[61] Schulze-Boysens position in the Luftwaffe gave them a more detailed perspective than most Berliners and by September 1941, they realised that the fate of Russians and Jews had begun to converge.[62]

On 18 October 1941, Anatoly Gurevich was ordered by Leopold Trepper to drive to Berlin to find out why the group were no longer transmitting.[63] Trepper had received a message on 26 August 1941 with a set of instructions for the Schulze-Boysens, Harnacks and Kuckoff's, to re-establish communications. [64] Although it took several weeks for Gurevich, travelling under the pseudonym of Victor Sukolov[65], to reach Berlin, the visit was largely a failure and the groups remained independent.[63] Gurevich received intelligence from Schulze-Boysen who was pleased to see him, in a 4 hour meeting they held at his apartment.[66]

AGIS leaflets

On December 1941 or January 1942 (sources vary), the couple met psychoanalyst John Rittmeister and his wife Eva.[67] Rittmeister was happy to hear the reports from him that informed him of the German military setback on the Eastern Front and convinced Schulze-Boyse that the reports should be shared with the German people, that would destroy the myth of German propaganda. However, Rittmeister didn't share the activist politics of Schulze-Boysen, nor know about espionage activities.[68]So the idea of the AGIS leaflet was born, named in reference to the Spartan King Agis IV, who fought against corruption.[67] The AGIS signature was a call to action, vis-à-vis their readers.[69] Rittmeister would help to write them, along with Schulze-Boysen and Küchenmeister. These had titles like The becoming of the Nazi movement, Call for opposition, Freedom and violence[70] and Appeal to All Callings and Organisations to resist the government.[71]

In 15 February 1942, Shulze-Boysen led the group to write the large 6 page pamphlet called Die Sorge Um Deutschlands Zukunft geht durch das Volk! ("The Concern for Germany's Future Goes Through the People!"). Co-authored by Schulze-Boysen and Rittmeister[72], the master copy arranged by the potter Cato Bontjes van Beek, a fried of Libertas, and the pamphlet was written up by Maria Terwiel[73] on her typewriter, five copies at a time.[74] A copy survived to the present day. [75][76] The pamphlet posited the idea of active defeatism, that was a compromise between principled pacifism and practical political resistance.[72] It stated the future for Germany lay in establishing a socialist state that would form alliances with the USSR and progressive forces in Europe. It also offered advice to the individual resistor, do the opposite of what is asked of you.[72] The group produced many hundreds of pamphlets that were spread over Berlin, in phone boxes, and sent to selected addresses. To produce the leaflets required a small army of people and a complex approach to organisation, to avoid being discovered.[77]

The Soviet Paradise exhibition

In May 1942, the Nazis designed a new propaganda effort in the form of an exhibit, known as The Soviet Paradise.[78] Massive photo panels depicting Russian Slavs as subhuman beasts who lived in squalid conditions and pictures of firing squads shooting young children and others who were hung, were show at the exhibit.[79] Greta Kuckhoff was horrified by the exhibition.[80] The group decided to respond, creating a number of stickers. On 17 May 1942, Schulze Boysen stood guard on each of the 19 members, travelling over five Berlin neighbourhoods at different times, to paste the stickers over the original exhibition posters.[81] The Harnacks despaired at Schulze-Boysen and decided not to participate in the exploit, believing it to be reckless and unnecessarily dangerous.[82]

Discovery

It was the discovery by the radio counterintelligence organization Funkabwehr of the illegal radio transmissions by Johann Wenzel, and his capture by the Gestapo on 29-30 June 1942[83] that eventually revealed the Red Orchestra, and led to the arrest of the couple.[84] Wenzel decided to collaborate after he was tortured. It was his exposure of the radio codes that enabled Referat 12, the cipher bureaux of the Funkabwehr, to decipher Red Orchestra message traffic. The unit had been tracking Red Orchestra radio transmissions since June 1941 and in December 1941 had raided a house in Brussels where Wenzel was transmitting, that was found to contain a large number of coded messages.[85] When Vauck received the ciphers from Wenzel, he was finally able to backtrack and decipher some of the older messages.[86] Vauck found a message that was dated 10 October 1941.[87] The message was addressed to KENT, (Anatoly Gurevich) and had the format:KL3 3 DE RTX 1010-1725 WDS GBD FROM DIREKTOR PERSONAL.[88]When it was decrypted, it gave the location of three addresses in Berlin.[89] The first address, 19 Altenburger Alle, Neuwestend, third floor right and addressed to CORO was the couples apartment.

When Vauck decrypted this message, it was forwarded to Reich Main Security Office IV 2A, where they easily identified the people living at the three addresses. From 16 July 1942, they were put under surveillance. Unknown to Vauck, there was also a member of Schulze-Boysens group working in Referat 12 in Vauck's team, Horst Heilmann, who was supplying Schulze-Boysen with intelligence. Heilmann tried to contact Schulze-Boysen but was unsuccessful and left a message with him to phone him back. He eventually did this, but Heilmann was absent. Vauck, however answered the phone and when he requested the name of the caller to take a message, and was met with Schulze-Boysen, who was already identified as CORO, the deception was revealed.[90]

Arrest and death

On 31 August 1942, Schulze-Boysen was arrested in his office in the RLM, and his wife Libertas a few days later, when he did not return home in the evening, she panicked and fled to a friends house.[91] On 15 December, Harro and Libertas, along with many close friends including the Harnacks, the Schumacher's, Hans Coppi, John Graudenz and Horst Heilmann, were tried in the Reichskriegsgericht, the highest military court in Nazi Germany.[92] The group were prosecuted by Manfred Roeder and tried by five military judges consisting of a vice admiral, two generals and two professional judges.[93] Evidence was presented to the court by Roeder along with an indictment, that contained a juridical estimation of the case.[94] There was no jury and prosecution witnesses were Gestapo agents. At the end of the trial, Roeder demanded the death sentence.[95] On 19 December, the couple were sentenced to death for preparation for high treason and war treason.[96]

Harro Shulze-Boysen was executed by hanging on 22 December 1942 at 19:05 in Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. Libertas Schulze-Boysen was executed at about an hour after her husband's murder.

Their bodies were released to Hermann Stieve, an anatomist at what is now Humboldt University, to be dissected for research.[91] Their final resting place is not known.

Honours
Stolperstein for the Schulze-Boysens in the castle courtyard of Liebenberg Castle
Berlin memorial plaque for the Schulze-Boysens at Haus Altenburger Allee 19 in Westend Berlin
Quotation from Harro Schulze-Boysen at the German Federal Finance Ministry
  • In 1964, the German Democratic Republic issued a special stamp series on the Communist Resistance, the 20+5-penny stamp of which was dedicated to Schulze-Boysen.
  • In 1967, The National People's Army News Regiment 14 was named after Schulze-Boysen.
  • In 1969, Schulze-Boysen was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Banner by the Soviet Union.[97]
  • In 1972 in the Berlin borough of Lichtenberg, a street is named after the Schulze-Boysens.[98] In the picture at right appears the following lines:
"Wenn wir auch sterben sollen,
So wissen wir: Die Saat
Geht auf. Wenn Köpfe rollen, dann
Zwingt doch der Geist den Staat."
"Glaubt mit mir an die gerechte Zeit, die alles reifen lässt!"
"Even if we should die,
We know this: The seed
Bears fruit. If heads roll, then
The spirit nevertheless forces the state."
"Believe with me in the just time that lets everything ripen."
There is also a Schulze-Boysen-Strasse in Duisburg, Leipzig, Rostock, Magdeburg and Ludwigsfelde.
  • In 1983, the GDR issued a block of stamps in memory of the Schulze-Boysen/Harnack resistance group
  • In 1984, the sculpture Freedom Fighter by Fritz Cremer in Bremen was erected in memory of Mildred Harnack and Harro Schulze-Boysen at the Wilhelm Wagenfeld House in Bremen's Wallanlagen.
  • In 1991, the picture Red Chapel Berlin (Tempera auf Nessel, 79 × 99 cm), painted by Carl Baumann in 1941, was the picture of the month for July in the Westphalian State Museum of Art and Cultural History in Münster.[99]
  • In 2009, the Harro Schulze-Boysen-Weg was inaugurated on November 26 on the occasion of his 100th birthday in Kiel.
  • In 2017, two Stolperstein were laid at Liebenberg Castle in memory of Harro and Libertas Schulze-Boysen.[100]

Literature
  • Alexander Bahar: Sozialrevolutionärer Nationalismus zwischen Konservativer Revolution und Sozialismus – Harro Schulze-Boysen und der GEGNER-Kreis Fölbach Verlag, Koblenz 1992, ISBN 978-3-923532-18-6
  • Bahar, Alexander (1992). Sozialrevolutionärer Nationalismus zwischen konservativer Revolution und Sozialismus : Harro Schulze-Boysen und der "Gegner"-Kreis [Social revolutionary nationalism between conservative revolution and socialism: Harro Schulze-Boysen and the "enemy" circle] (in German). Koblenz: D. Fölbach. ISBN 978-3-923532-18-6.
  • Boysen, Elsa (1992). Harro Schulze-Boysen : das Bild eines Freiheitskämpfers (3rd ed.). Koblenz: Fölbach. ISBN 3-923532-17-2.
  • Buschmann, Hugo (1949). "Da la réstitance au défaitisme" [Resistance to defeatism]. Les Temps modernes (in French). 5.
  • Geoffrey Cocks (1 January 1997). Psychotherapy in the Third Reich: The Göring Institute. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4128-3236-6. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
  • Hans Coppi: Harro Schulze-Boysen und Alexandre Marc. Die Gruppe Ordre Nouveau und der Gegner-Kreis. Oder: Der Versuch, die deutsch-französischen Beziehungen auf neue Grundlagen zu stellen. In: Ferdinand Kinsky / Franz Knipping (Hrsg.): Le fédéralisme personnaliste aux sources de l'Europe de demain. Der personalistische Föderalismus und die Zukunft Europas. Schriftenreihe des Europäischen Zentrums für Föderalismus-Forschung Tübingen, Band 7. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft: Baden-Baden 1996 pp. 153–167
  • Coppi, Hans (1995). Harro Schulze-Boysen, Wege in den Widerstand : eine biographische Studie [Harro Schulze-Boysen, Paths to Resistance: a Biographical Study] (2nd Prevailing ed.). Koblenz: Fölbach Verlag. ISBN 3-923532-28-8.
  • Johannes Hürter (2007), "Harro Schulze-Boysen", Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) (in German), 23, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 729–731; (full text online)
  • Friedrich, Sabine (2012). Wer wir sind : der Roman über den deutschen Widerstand ; Werkstattbericht [Who we are: the novel about German resistance; Workshop report]. Dtv, 2140 (in German) (Orig.-ausg ed.). Munich: Dt. Taschenbuch-Verl. ISBN 978-3-423-21403-2.
  • Kettelhake, Silke (2008). "Erzähl allen, allen von mir!" : das schöne kurze Leben der Libertas Schulze-Boysen 1913-1942 [Tell everyone, everyone about me! ": The beautiful short life of Libertas Schulze-Boysen 1913-1942] (in German). Munich: Droemer. ISBN 978-3-426-27437-8.
  • Paetel, Karl Otto (1999). Nationalbolschewismus und nationalrevolutionäre Bewegungen in Deutschland : Geschichte, Ideologie, Personen [National Bolshevism and National Revolutionary Movements in Germany: History, Ideology, People] (in German) ([Lizenzausg.] ed.). Schnellbach: S. Bublies. pp. 189–205. ISBN 3-926584-49-1.
  • Mielke, Siegfried; Heinz, Stefan (2017). Eisenbahngewerkschafter im NS-Staat : Verfolgung - Widerstand - Emigration (1933-1945) [Railway trade unionists in the Nazi state. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration] (in German). Berlin: Metropol. ISBN 978-3-86331-353-1.

Notes
  1. "Harro Schulze-Boysen". Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand. German Resistance Memorial Center. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  2. Kesaris. Page 140.
  3. Schulze-Boysen. Page 415.
  4. Eckelmann.
  5. Juchler. Pages 59-60.
  6. Coppi,Danyel,Tuchel. Page 195.
  7. Hellman. Page 40.
  8. Steinbach,Tuchel. Page 177
  9. Schulze-Boysen. Page 132.
  10. Rosiekja.
  11. Rosiejka. Page 34.
  12. Schulze-Boysen. Page 138.
  13. Petrescu. Page 180.
  14. Schulze-Boysen. Page 152.
  15. Brysac. Page 112.
  16. Höhne, Heinz (17 June 1968). "ptx ruft moskau" (in German). 4. Fortsetzung: Spiegel-Verlag. Der Spiegel. Retrieved 10 December 2019.CS1 maint: location (link)
  17. Petrescu. Page 183.
  18. Andresen. Page 271.
  19. Brysac. Ref 39.
  20. Petrescu. Page 190
  21. Hastings. Page 29.
  22. Schulze-Boysen: Bericht über Sprachstudienreise nach Schweden vom 13 August 1936.[Report on language study trip to Sweden of 13 August 1936] In: Institute of Contemporary History, Munich Archive: ED 335/2
  23. Kesaris. Page 141.
  24. Hellman. Page 229.
  25. Nelson. Page 105.
  26. Tuchel. Die Zeit
  27. Schulze-Boysen. Page 214.
  28. Schulze-Boysen. Page 226.
  29. Petrescu. Page 190.
  30. The case of the Rote Kapelle. Page 45.
  31. Hans Coppi (1995). Harro Schulze-Boysen, Wege in den Widerstand: eine biographische Studie (in German). Fölbach. p. 183. ISBN 978-3-923532-28-5. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
  32. Höhne, Heinz (17 June 1968). "ptx ruft moskau" (in German). 4. Fortsetzung: Spiegel-Verlag. Der Spiegel. Retrieved 16 November 2019.CS1 maint: location (link)
  33. Ohler. Page 157.
  34. Schulze-Boysen. Page 263.
  35. Andresen. Page 207.
  36. Nelson. Page 147.
  37. Brysac. Page 112.
  38. Buschmann. Page 46.
  39. Nelson. Page 183.
  40. Brysac. Page 391.
  41. Brysac. Page 257.
  42. Petrescu. Pages 236-237
  43. "Arvid Harnack". Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand. German Resistance Memorial Center. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
  44. Donate.
  45. Donate, Claus (23 March 1973). "Aus den Lebenserinnerungen einer Widerstandskämpferin". 13 (in German). Zeit-Verlag Gerd Bucerius GmbH & Co. KG. Die Zeit. Retrieved 16 August 2020.
  46. Kesaris. Page 132.
  47. Nelson. Page 190.
  48. Nelson. Page 191.
  49. Brysac. Page 199.
  50. Nelson. Page 188.
  51. Nelson. Page 191.
  52. Nelson. Page 196.
  53. David J. Dallin (1955). Soviet Espionage. Yale University Press. p. 247. Retrieved 27 June 2020.
  54. Nelson. Page 198.
  55. Nelson. Page 198.
  56. Kesaris. Page 140.
  57. Nelson. Page 199.
  58. Nelson. Page 202.
  59. David J. Dallin (1955). Soviet Espionage. Yale University Press. p. 247. Retrieved 27 June 2020.
  60. Nelson. Page.204
  61. Nelson. Pages 211-213.
  62. Nelson. Page 214.
  63. Johannes, Tuchel (1988). "Weltanschauliche Motivationen in Der Harnack/Schulze-Boysen-Organisation: (Rote Kapelle)". Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte (in German). 1 (2): 267–292. JSTOR 43750615.
  64. Nelson. Pages 224-225.
  65. Nelson. Pages 226.
  66. Nelson. Pages 227.
  67. Nelson. Page 242.
  68. Cocks. Page 331.
  69. Petrescu. Page 199.
  70. Petrescu. Page=199
  71. Boehm. Page 10.
  72. Michael Geyer; Adam Tooze (23 April 2015). The Cambridge History of the Second World War: Volume 3, Total War: Economy, Society and Culture. Cambridge University Press. pp. 718–720. ISBN 978-1-316-29880-0. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
  73. Terwiel & Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand.
  74. Nelson 2009, p. 243.
  75. Schulze-Boysen 1942.
  76. Petrescu 2010, p. 219.
  77. Nelson. Page 243.
  78. Nelson. Page 254.
  79. Nelson. Page 254.
  80. Nelson. Page 254.
  81. Brysac. Page 300
  82. Brysac. Page 301
  83. Tyas. Pages 91–92
  84. Kesaris. Page 384
  85. Perrault. Page 83
  86. West. Page 205
  87. West. Page 205
  88. West. Page 205
  89. West. Page 205
  90. Tyas. Page 91
  91. Hastings. Page 246.
  92. Brysac. Page 376.
  93. Brysac. Page 376.
  94. Brysac. Page 377.
  95. Brysac. Page 377.
  96. Brysac. Page 377.
  97. O'Sullivan. Page 292.
  98. "Schulze-Boysen-Straße". Branchenbuch Berlin (in German). Kaupert media gmbh. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  99. "Das Kunst des Monats" (PDF). Westfälisches Landesmuseum. Münster: Westfälisches Landesmuseum-Lippe. July 1991. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  100. Ernst.
gollark: Anyway, it seems to be running fine in production, so good news there.
gollark: Never mind, that was just because the key was missing a letter.
gollark: I've encountered mysterious unforseen difficulties with the new SPUDNET thing, *somehow*.
gollark: Hi.
gollark: What do you mean "quantum tunneling device"? You mean portals? Do you know what quantum tunneling *is*?

References
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