Havemann Robert

Groscurth, Georg Groscurth, Anneliese Havemann, Robert Rentsch, Paul Richter, Herbert Robert Havemann’s initial attitude towards Jews was questionable, nevertheless, once he grasped what the Nazi regime was leading to, he became a rescuer. In his research about German antisemitism historian Goetz Aly quoted from a letter written on 31 March 1933 by 23-year-old Robert Havemann to his father. “Will we succeed to extract the disproportional privileges enjoyed by the Jews?”. He went on to say that after all the “national movement in Germany” had the “necessary iron energy” to do so. “almost no work is being done in the institute because of this. After all there are far over fifty percent Jews here, which is fifty times more than should be permitted”. Robert Havemann was a Chemist from Munich. He was 22 when he met and became friends with the 28-year-old doctor Georg Groscurth. The two worked together in the department of physical chemistry at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin-Dahlem in 1932. After the rise of the Nazis to power, they were both fired because of their political views. Robert was a Communist, while Georg was closely associated with the Social-Democrat Party. Thanks to the research grants they had received, the two were able to find work in a hospital in Berlin-Moabit. The laboratory where they worked became a meeting place for opponents of the Nazi regime among the hospital staff. From 1933-1935, Robert was also a member of the underground group, Neu Beginnen (Beginning Anew). In 1937, he began working in the pharmacology Institute of Berlin University. This job enabled him to establish contacts with scientists and military men who later became important for him in his underground activity. Georg himself became the private physician of people in the top ranks of the Nazi Party, such as Rudolf Hess and his brother Adolf, and through them, he obtained information for the underground. In 1943, the two established, together with the architect Herbert Richter, b.1901, and the dentist Paul Rentsch, b.1898, an underground group known as “The European Union”, which at its peak had more than fifty German members. This group formed a communications and information network with foreign forced laborers and prisoners of war in the Berlin area and tried to prepare for the period after the fall of the Nazi regime. At the same time, it also engaged in humanitarian activity and aid to Jews who had escaped deportation. Elisabeth von Scheven, (neé Weidenrich), a Jewish woman from Frankfurt a/Main, who was married to a non-Jew, and knew Georg from their student days, obtained false identification papers through the group and at first hid in the home of Georg and his wife Anneliese, b.1910, for three weeks, and from August 1943 in the summer home of the Rentsch family in Diensdorf. There she was caught and deported to Auschwitz on September 5, 1943. A couple, Alfred and Marie-Luise Michailowitsch, were hidden in the homes of Rentsch and Richter. Georg obtained false papers for them, and also for Mrs. Lindemann and for Walter Caro. Hertha Brasch (neé Abraham), received a false identity card with the help of Robert and Paul Rentsch. Robert also paid a monthly sum of 100 marks for Heinz Günter Wolff, whom he apparently knew from their joint Communist activity, and Heinz’s mother Agnes, (neé Grätzer), to hide in the home of a relative of a “European Union” member in Berlin-Schönwalde from March 1943. He also supplied the two of them with ration cards and bought them items on the black market. In the end, the Gestapo discovered the group’s activities and on September 4-5, 1943, the Groscurths, the Rentsches, Robert Havemann and Herbert Richter were arrested. Anneliese Groscurth and Margarete Rentsch were released two months later, but Georg Groscurth, Robert Havemann, Paul Rentsch and Herbert Richter were sentenced to death by the peoples’ court (Volksgerichtshof) in Berlin, on December 16, 1943, charged with treason against the state and with aiding Jews. The verdict stated: “How lacking in shame is evident from the fact that the four accused systematically supported Jews who lived illegally and even filled them with food; but that was not enough, they obtained false papers for them that were intended to conceal their true identity from the eyes of the police, as if they were not Jews but rather Germans.” Georg Groscurth, Paul Rentsch and Herbert Richter were executed in the Brandenburg Prison on May 8, 1944. In a letter to his wife written several hours before his execution, Georg wrote: “Think about the fact that we are dying for the sake of a better future, for the sake of a life without the hatred of other human beings. I very much loved people and would certainly have done much more good”. Robert Havemann was saved from execution because he was involved in a secret project to manufacture poison gas for use in the war. A laboratory was set up in the prison so that he could continue his research, but the project never reached the manufacturing stage. The laboratory, which had a typewriter, enabled Robert to distribute an underground information sheet to the prisoners from the fall of 1944. After the war, Robert was given a chair in chemistry in East Germany and at first was loyal to its ruling Communist Party (SED). In the mid-fifties his criticism of the regime increased, and as a result he was discharged from his position in 1964, and until his death in 1982 remained under police surveillance. The regime did not hesitate to slander him and spread the false claim that he had collaborated with the Nazi regime and had handed over fellow members in the underground network. Apparently, except for Elisabeth von Scheven who survived Auschwitz, all the Jews who were helped by the members of “the European Union” were caught and murdered in the Holocaust. On April 18, 2005, Yad Vashem recognized Georg and Anneliese Groscurth, Paul Rentsch as well as Herbert Richter as Righteous Among the Nations. On November 3, 2005, Yad Vashem recognized Robert Havemann as Righteous Among the Nations.