Martin Weise

{{Short description|German journalist and resistance fighter (1903–1943)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Use British English|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person | honorific_prefix = | name = Martin Weise | honorific_suffix = | image = File:Memorial plate martin weise (cropped).jpg | landscape =  | alt =  | caption = Portrait for Martin Weise taken from a Memorial plaque at 42 Jonasstrasse Berlin | native_name = | native_name_lang = | pronunciation = | birth_name =  | birth_date = {{Birth date|1903|5|12|df=y}} | birth_place = Torgau, German Empire | baptised =  | disappeared_date =  | disappeared_place = | disappeared_status = | death_date = {{Death date and age|1943|11|15|1903|5|12|df=y}} | death_place = Brandenburg-Görden Prison, Nazi Germany | death_cause = Guillotine | body_discovered = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates =  | burial_place =  | burial_coordinates =  | monuments = | other_names = | citizenship = | education = | occupation = Journalist | years_active = | era = | employer = | organization = | agent =  | known_for = | notable_works = | criminal_charge =  | criminal_penalty = | criminal_status = | spouse =  | partner = Baroness Frieda von Seidlitz }} '''Martin Weise''' (12 May 1903 – 15 November 1943) was a German journalist, member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and a resistance fighter against the Nazis during World War II.<ref name="gdw">{{cite web |title=Martin Weise |url=https://www.gdw-berlin.de/vertiefung/biografien/personenverzeichnis/biografie/view-bio/martin-weise/?no_cache=1 |website=Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand |publisher=German Resistance Memorial Centre |access-date=28 April 2022}}</ref><ref name="Sed">{{cite web |title=Weise, Martin |url=https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/de/recherche/kataloge-datenbanken/biographische-datenbanken/martin-weise |website=Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur |publisher=Karl Dietz Verlag |access-date=28 April 2022 |location=Berlin |language=de}}</ref> From 1929 to 1934, Weiss published the socialist Die Rote Fahne newspaper.<ref name="Sed"/> He was arrested and sent to a concentration camp until 1939.<ref name="Sed"/> When he was released, he decided to resist and made contact with Wilhelm Guddorf and the Hamburg based group around Bernhard Bästlein and Robert Abshagen<ref name="gdw"/> He became associated with an anti-fascist resistance group that was run by Harro Schulze-Boysen and Arvid Harnack, that was later called the Red Orchestra by the Abwehr.<ref name="Sed"/>

==Life== Wiese was the son of a teacher.<ref name="Sed"/> As a secondary school pupil, Weise joined the Wandervogel movement, then the {{ill|Freie sozialistische Jugend|de}} (FSJ), then later still in 1927, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), becoming a committed communist.<ref name="Sed"/>

Weise began studying history and philosophy in 1922. However, he had to abandon his studies in 1924 for financial reasons.<ref name="Sed"/> Before becoming unemployed in 1928, Weise worked for a few years as a clerk in an insurance company. From 1929 to 1933 he was a district councillor for the KPD in Neukölln in Bertlin. From 1930, he wrote articles for the central organ of the KPD, ''Die Rote Fahne''.<ref name="Sed"/> Weise was one of the editors who continued to publish this newspaper illegally after the Nazis Seizure of control in 1933.<ref name="Sed"/>

On 5 April 1934, he was sentenced by the Berlin Court of Appeal, to three years in prison, which he spent in the Brandenburg prison.<ref name="gdw"/> He learned that his fiancée Baroness {{ill|Frieda Seidlitz|de}}, who had worked as a courier for the KPD, had committed suicide in prison on 27 May 1936, after succumbing to Gestapo abuse while in custody.<ref name="gdw"/> After his release from prison in 1937, he was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. After his release from the concentration camp in April 1939, Weise re-established contact with his friends, including Wilhelm Guddorf.<ref name="gdw"/> Weise and Guddorf established links with the Hamburg communists, Bernhard Bästlein and Robert Abshagen. Together they collaborated on the pamphlet "Organised the Revolutionary Mass Struggle" (Organisiert den revolutionären Massenkampf).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hochmuth |first1=Ursel |title=Illegale KPD und Bewegung "Freies Deutschland" in Berlin und Brandenburg 1942-1945: Biographien und Zeugnisse aus der Widerstandsorganisation um Saefkow, Jacob und Bästlein |date=1998 |publisher=Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand |isbn=978-3-933471-08-6 |page=45 |language=de}}</ref> Together with John Sieg, Fritz Lange and Walter Husemann, Weise regularly distributed the underground journal ''Die Innere Front'' (The Home Front) in Berlin from the end of 1941, which contained appeals, information about the general situation and references to the broadcast frequencies of Moscow radio.<ref name="Sed"/><ref name="gdw"/>

== Death == Weise was arrested in December 1942. On 8 October 1943 the 2nd Senate of the People's Court condemned him to death because of "preparation for high treason and because of enemy favouritism". Weise was executed by beheading in Brandenburg prison on 15 November 1943.<ref name="gdw"/>

==Bibliography== * {{cite book |author1=Louise Kraushaar|author2=Hans Dress|author3=Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus beim Zentralkomitee der SED.|title=Deutsche Widerstandskämpfer 1933-1945 : Biographien und Briefe |date=1970 |publisher=Dietz |location=Berlin |language=de|volume=2|oclc=186649145|pages=412–415|trans-title=German Resistance Fighters 1933 - 1945 - Biographies and Letters}} * {{cite book |last1=Steinbach |first1=Peter |last2=Tuchel |first2=Johannes |last3=Adam |first3=Ursula |title=Lexikon des Widerstandes : 1933-1945 |date=1998 |publisher=C.H. Beck |location=München |isbn=9783406438615 |pages=215–216 |edition=2nd Revised, expanded |language=de|series=Beck'sche Reihe, Bd. 1061.|oclc=750843417}}

==References== {{Reflist}} {{Writers and Publishers of Die Innere Front}} {{People of the German Rote Kapelle resistance group}} {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weise, Martin}} Category:1903 births Category:1943 deaths Category:Executed Red Orchestra members Category:People from Torgau Category:Executed communists in the German Resistance Category:German journalists Category:People from Saxony executed by Nazi Germany Category:People executed by Nazi Germany by guillotine