Harro Schulze Boysen

Early life

Schulze-Boysen was born in Kiel as the son of decorated naval officer Erich Edgar Schulze. His mother was Marie Luise (née Boysen). On his father's side, he also counted Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz among his kin. He had a sister, Helga (born 1910) and brother, Hartmut (born 1922).

He spent his youth in Duisburg. In 1923, when he was 14, he found himself in the middle of the occupation of the Ruhr by French and Belgian troops. Schulze-Boysen's participation in the struggle against the occupiers brought about his swift arrest by the French.

Political activities

In 1928, he joined the Jungdeutscher Orden, a youth organization in the Weimar Republic and the Studentenverbindung Albingia. He studied law in Freiburg (Baden-Württemberg), and Berlin, without finishing. In 1930, he supported an intellectual-nationalistic group called the Volksnationale Reichsvereinigung ("People's National Imperial Union"), had contacts with the French magazine Plans in 1931, which sought the establishment of a Europe-wide collective economic system. The same year, he published the left-liberal Der Gegner founded by Franz Jung and modelled on Plans. Although he was leaning towards the political left, he maintained his contacts with nationalistic circles.

In 1932, he organized the Treffen der revolutionären Jugend Europas ("Meeting of Europe's Revolutionary Youth"), with over a hundred participants. He also advocated the abolition of the capitalist system, and the liquidation of the Diktat of Versailles.

In April 1933, the offices of Der Gegner were destroyed by Brown Shirts, and Schulze-Boysen was roughed up, had swastikas scratched in his skin, and was held in confinement for several days. He was released after his parents intervened. In May 1933 he began pilot training at Warnemünde and from 1934 he was working in the communications department of the Reich Air Transport Ministry (Reichsluftfahrtministerium) in Berlin.

Resistance activities

Beginning in 1935, he gathered around himself a circle of left-leaning anti-fascists, among them artists, pacifists, and Communists. The circle published anti-fascist writings. In 1935 he contacted the Russian embassy in Berlin and offered his services as a spy. His offer was accepted and he was given the codename "Corporal" and the NKVD file 34122.

On 16 July 1936 he married Libertas Haas-Heye in Liebenberg with Hermann Göring giving away the bride. At one time a press officer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, his wife joined the resistance group. In 1936, Schulze-Boysen made contact with Arvid Harnack and his circle, and also with the Communists Hilde and Hans Coppi. From these meetings arose what the Gestapo called the Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle) group.

In 1940-1941, the group was in wireless contact with Soviet agents, and was thereby trying to thwart the forthcoming German aggression upon the Soviet Union. (As a first lieutenant on the Luftwaffe Leadership Staff, Schulze-Boysen had access to secret documents.)

Arrest and death

In July 1942, the Decryption Department of the Oberkommando des Heeres managed to decode the group's radio messages, and the Gestapo pounced. On 31 August, Harro and Libertas Schulze-Boysen were arrested. They were sentenced to death on 19 December and executed by hanging three days later at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. Their bodies were released to Hermann Stieve, an anatomist at what is now Humboldt University, to be dissected for research. Their final resting place is not known.

Memorials

In the Berlin borough of Lichtenberg in 1972, a street is named after the Schulze-Boysens (see link below). There are stolpersteine for them in the Dellviertel quarter of Duisburg, at Karl-Lehr-Straße 9.

In the picture at right appear the following lines:

"Wenn wir auch sterben sollen,So wissen wir: Die SaatGeht auf. Wenn Köpfe rollen, dannZwingt 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 seedBears fruit. If heads roll, thenThe spirit nevertheless forces the state.""Believe with me in the just time that lets everything ripen."