The Gestapo itself gave the resistance group the name Rote Kapelle. The men and women gathered around Air Force Lieutenant Harro Schulze-Boysen and the economist Arvid Harnack were believed to be a strict organization of traitors to the fatherland controlled by the Soviet Union. “Chapel” means the association of “pianists”, as the Gestapo called spies because they passed secrets to the enemy with the keys of Morse code machines. And the red was meant to represent their communist leanings. Neither is true and distorts the perspective.
The Gestapo arrested more than 120 people in autumn 1942. A radio message sent by the Soviet military intelligence service from Brussels to Moscow contained the addresses and meeting places of the resisters. The Nazis managed to intercept and decode it. Almost 50 members of the Red Orchestra were sentenced to death in the weeks that followed, and others were murdered without trial. Because these events will be 80 years old in 2022, the special exhibition “Survivors of the Red Orchestra Speak” opened at the German Resistance Memorial Center on July 14. It was curated by artist and son of a survivor, Stefan Roloff.
Hitler had a gallows erected in Plötzensee for the resistance fighters
The Red Orchestra was not a tightly organized homogeneous communist resistance group, but, as curator Roloff says, a “diagonal through society”. Among its members were believing Christians, social democrats, communists and, above all, military and ministry officials. This infuriated Hitler all the more, so he ordered the resisters to be hanged. This form of capital punishment was used for the first time under the National Socialists. The “traitors” were to die a humiliating death on the gallows.
In his speech at the opening of the exhibition on Thursday, Johannes Tuchel, head of the German Resistance Memorial Center, said: “Apart from the July 20 conspirators, there was no group who hated Hitler as much as the Red Orchestra. The resistance came from parts of society that National Socialism believed it had long since taken over.”
Memorial to the German Resistance
Artist and curator Stefan Roloff in front of the installations in his exhibition “Contemporary Testimonies – Red Chapel Survivors Speak”
Nineteen-year-old Liane Berkowitz was among those sentenced to death. Even the Reich Court Martial had recommended that the young woman be pardoned. But Hitler ignored this and ordered them to be executed as well. Her so-called crime: She had put around 50 sticky notes critical of the government on the walls of houses. This instruction alone shows for Tuchel with what “blind hatred” Hitler acted against the Red Orchestra.
Resistance against the Nazis was possible in mainstream society
It is the ideological and social versatility of the loose, above all friendly circle around Harro Schulze-Boysen and Arvid Harnack that distinguishes him – and the determination to take serious action against the National Socialist dictatorship. Many young couples, many women were among the conspirators. They show that resistance to the Nazis was not only possible from the military, but also from within society. With leaflets, stickers and meetings, the resistance fighters tried to create a kind of counter-publicity and to draw society’s attention to the crimes and murders of the Nazis, to turn them against Hitler.
Nevertheless, many decades after the end of the war, the memory of the Rote Kapelle was characterized by the defamation of its members and historically incorrect representations. While in West Germany the Gestapo narrative about a traitorous espionage organization was long maintained, in East Germany the group was reduced to its connections to the Soviet Union and a communist orientation was claimed. It was only in 2009 that the verdicts of the Reich Court Martial on most members of the Red Orchestra were overturned, together with all verdicts of war treason. Until then, all attempts to overturn the entirety of these judgments had failed.
What can you see in the new exhibition?
Stefan Roloff’s exhibition wants to clear up the erroneous and disparaging memories of the Rote Kapelle. Survivors and relatives speak directly to the visitors on screens. In strangely colorfully wallpapered booths, one can listen to Harro Schulze-Boysen’s brother, among others, explaining why his brother “didn’t want to give Hitler a child” and that he was an “anti-Nazi from the very beginning”.
And why the wallpaper? Stefan Roloff: “I once uncovered wallpaper from the 1920s by accident. For me, the pattern testified to a time before the Nazis, which was characterized by immense freedom and a love of life. To this day it is difficult for me to understand why people who were so free then joined the Nazis.” Very few had the courage to oppose it. Stefan Roloff’s exhibition helps us not to forget them and to finally understand them for what they were: people with different worldviews and social backgrounds with a common vision: to put an end to the crimes of the National Socialists.
Testimonies – Red Chapel survivors speak. A special exhibition at the German Resistance Memorial Center, Stauffenbergstraße 13–14, until December 4. Mon–Fri 9 a.m.–6 p.m., weekends, public holidays: Information on Tel.: 26 99 50 00 or: www.gdw.de