Wilhelm Guddorf


Wilhelm Guddorf was a journalist and resistance fighter against the Third Reich. He was reputedly a member of the Red Orchestra resistance group. Guddorf was the editor of the Die Rote Fahne newspaper.

Life

Born in Melle, Belgium, Guddorf completed studies in philology. In 1922, he joined the Communist Party of Germany and from 1923 worked for several of the party's newspapers. After the Nazi party seized power in 1933, he began distributing articles against the régime under his alias. He was arrested in April 1934 and later sentenced to hard labour at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was held until 1939.
After he was released from Sachsenhausen, Guddorf developed contacts with the Red Orchestra and introduced Eva-Maria Buch to the group. He was arrested once again in 1942 and in February 1943 was sentenced to death. He was executed at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin on 13 May. In 1972, a street in Lichtenberg, a Berlin borough, was named after Guddorf.

Leafletting

Guddorf was known to have written some of the Agis leaflets. The leaflets were produced by the Harnack and Schulze-Boysen Groups and had names like What is a Majority, Freedom and Violence and Call to the workers of the mind and fist not to fight against Russia. The Agis was a reference to the Spartan King Agis IV. The leaflets were distributed in Berlin and Germany.

Award and honours

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