1943: Elise and Otto Hampel, postcard writers

ExecutedToday.com ^ | April 8, 2011 | Meaghan Good

[CheshireTheCat]

On this day in 1943, a working-class German couple were executed for treason and sedition in Berlin, Germany: Otto and Elise Hampel’s reign of postcard-writing terror had finally come to its conclusion.

On the surface, the Hampels seemed like two very ordinary people. Elise had an elementary school education and worked as a domestic servant before she married Otto in 1935. Otto, a World War I veteran six years older than Elise, was a factory laborer.

They lived modest, anonymous lives in Berlin and doubtless would have continued to do so if Elise’s brother, a soldier in the German Army, had not been killed in action in France in 1940.

Elise’s brother’s death was the catalyst for the Hampels’ tragically brave and utterly ineffectual two-year campaign of resistance against Hitler’s Germany.

Together the couple hand-wrote over 200 postcards and leaflets speaking out against the Nazi regime. The postcards urged people not to serve in the German Army, to refuse to donate to Nazi organizations, and generally do everything they could to resist the government. Otto and Elise scattered the cards in mailboxes, stairwells and other locations all over Berlin. The idea was that people would find the cards, read them and show them others, and thus the seed of rebellion would take root.....

[Joe 6-pack]

You have to admire people that made any effort to resist the regime from within. Their efforts sound like a domestic version of what the OSS tried to do with Operation Cornflakes.

[knarf]

This is my this morning's creation

[PghBaldy]

There was a somewhat recent movie made about them, though I think they changed the brother into a son. I see there was a novel based on them, and other productions years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alone_in_Berlin_(film)

[Joe 6-pack]

I love your meme and the painting behind it. I have a Brown Bess (repro) hanging on the wall in my office, and it always gives me a little thrill to see artists that take pains to depict it accurately :-)

[pierrem15]

Ordinary people can sometimes be very surprising because something happens and they just say, "No more!"

Reminds me of the Wehrmacht unit who given two weeks of R&R behind the lines of the Eastern Front.

Their "relaxation" was to be given the duty of guarding a ghetto on the verge of liquidation.

They may have already participated in atrocities. If not, they certainly knew about them or witnessed them.

For whatever reason, their commander decided he had had enough. He called a meeting with the Judenrat, had them assemble as many fit younger Jews as possible, gave them food and supplies and told them to get away as fast as possible into the forests.

The SS were furious when they returned and the SS commander tried to arrest the Wehrmacht commander for treason. When he drew his pistol, the Wehrmacht troops raised their weapons.

I read that nothing was done to the Wehrmacht commander, probably because the Nazis were terrified of provoking open resistance from combat units.

[knarf]

I've been trying to get a T shirt business off of the ground and not doing well, so I remembered Nathan Hale was a pamphleteer.

America was founded on some basic principles we've either forgotten, don't give much attention to or were never taught.

I've been playing around with that illustration for about a year and this morning the words came to me ... on the back of the T shirt is

20 bucks only on white T shirt

(You can have any color you want as long as it is white ... Henry Ford paraphrased)

[punknpuss]

Hans Fallada wrote about them. The book is titled Every Man Dies Alone. It’s very good.