Theo Hespers

Personal

Passions

Vocation

German resistance fighter in the era of National Socialism (Nazism) who was religiously and politically motivated. Hespers was born into a bourgeois Catholic family. Since 1917 he was a member of Quickborn, a Catholic abstinence student federation opposed to alcohol and nicotine. He was also involved in the Peace Association of German Catholics. From 1928 to 1930 he worked intensively in the Christian Socialist Party founded by the Vitus-Heller movement, from which he resigned in the autumn of 1932. From 1931 to 1933, Hespers was a businessman and textile engineer active in the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition. After his candidacy failed on 5 March 1933 for the Reichstag on the "Unity List of Workers and Peasants" and for the City Assembly as the top candidate of the list of "Workers' Combat Front", he fled in April in view of the emergency decree of 28 February 1933 to Roermond in neighbouring Netherlands. In July his family crossed the border to join him. From 1935 he worked with Hans Ebeling. They founded the youth working group (AKBJ). After a two-year stay in Helmond, Hespers went to Eindhoven in May 1936. Meanwhile, on 31 May 1935 a search warrant for him was issued and on 1 February 1937 his German nationality was withdrawn for alleged treasonable ambitions. The Essen trial against the Young National Alliance in June 1937, in which Hans Böckling was sentenced to 12 years in prison, ultimately led to the establishment of the German Youth Front as a democratic alternative to the Hitler Youth at the Brussels Conference of the AKJB in July 1937. It was decided to issue a magazine for the German Youth Front titled Kameradschaft. It first appeared in November 1937 with a circulation of 600 copies, the next were each about 2000 copies. On 8 September 1938, the "Comradeship" was banned by the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda throughout the German Reich. In 1939 Hans Ebeling fled to England, Hespers still remained in the Netherlands. The Wehrmacht attack of 10 May 1940 on the Netherlands and the associated occupation meant the end of the personal resistance work of Theo Hesper after seven years. He had to go underground, but only barely succeeded for two years. On 10 February 1942, Theo Hespers was arrested by the Gestapo in occupied Antwerp when he was trying to fetch food for his family with false papers. His wife was also arrested and detained in Vechta until 14 November. From September 1942 until July 1943, he was repeatedly tortured for information about resistance fighters. On 22 July 1943 Theo Hespers was sentenced to death and hanged on 9 September, together with 250 other victims in Berlin-Plötzensee prison. Link to Wikipedia biography (German)