Helmut Hirsch (; January 27, 1916 – June 4, 1937) was a German Jewish artist and activist who was executed for his part in a bombing plot intended to destabilize the Third Reich. While a full and accurate account of the plot is unknown, his targets were understood to be the Nazi Party headquarters in Nuremberg, and/or the plant where the antisemitic weekly propaganda newspaper Der Stürmer was printed.

Early life

Hirsch was the elder of two children of Marta Neuburger Hirsch and Siegfried Hirsch. In 1935, after the Nuremberg Laws excluded Jews from German universities, he moved to Prague, then capital of Czechoslovakia, where he enrolled as a student of architecture at the Deutsche Technische Hochschule (German Institute of Technology).

The Black Front

Shortly after arriving in Prague, Hirsch became involved in the Black Front, a nationalist group of anti-Hitler German expatriates who advocated Strasserism. He was encouraged to introduce himself to its head, Otto Strasser, by his mentor, Tusk (Eberhard Köbel). Tusk had been a leader of Deutsche Jungenschaft, a branch of the German youth movement (Bündische Jugend) to which Hirsch belonged. The Jungenschaft itself was outlawed in 1935 and Tusk escaped arrest by fleeing to London.

Hirsch's family joined him in Prague in 1936, after his sister, Kaete, graduated from gymnasium (high school) and, like him, was forbidden to attend a German university. By then, he was deeply enmeshed in clandestine Black Front activities, which he kept secret from his family. According to letters he wrote to his family from prison, he was wavering in his commitment to the plot and hoped his friend would talk him out of the attack.

Arrest and imprisonment

Hirsch arrived in Stuttgart late in the evening of December 20. When his friend failed to meet him as arranged, he checked into the Hotel Pelikan, across the street from the railway station. In the early hours of the morning of December 21, agents of the Gestapo arrested him in his hotel room.

Hirsch was interrogated, first in Stuttgart, then after his transfer to Berlin's Plötzensee Prison. He was charged with conspiracy to commit high treason, and was indicted for possession of explosives with criminal intent, despite the fact that he had no explosives at the time of his arrest. Hirsch was held in solitary confinement for nine weeks while awaiting trial. He was permitted to communicate with his family or relatives who still lived in Germany. A letter he wrote to his uncle, in Stuttgart, was held back by censors.

Trial

Testimony at the trial made it clear that there was at least one double agent in the Black Front, who had informed on Hirsch. A witness for the prosecution described the plot in detail that no one but a trusted member of the Black Front could have known. Under questioning, Hirsch did not deny involvement in the plot, though the public defender assigned to his case argued that he should be acquitted since he had never carried it out. When asked whether he would, if given the chance, have attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Hirsch acknowledged he would.

Hirsch was found guilty and condemned to death. His friend was acquitted. Although the proceedings of the trial remained secret, the verdict was made public. It was only upon hearing on the radio on March 20 that "the stateless Jew, Helmut Hirsch," had been condemned to death that his family learned what had become of him after he left home three months earlier.

International appeals for clemency

Hirsch's family and friends launched a campaign to free him, or at least have his sentence commuted to life in prison. The International Red Cross, the Society of Friends, and an international association of lawyers made appeals on his behalf. A human rights organization convinced the government of Norway to offer him asylum if the Germans would release him. An appeal was made to the League of Nations, and the case was brought up in the House of Commons in London. Even though Hirsch was born in Germany and lived in Stuttgart for most of his life, he never held German citizenship.

Hirsch's cousin, George Neuburger, who had moved to New York, enlisted the aid of an American lawyer, Irving S. Ottenberg, who was married to Hirsch's father's first cousin. Ottenberg petitioned to have Siegfried's citizenship reinstated. Their appeal was initially rejected, but a month later the decision was reversed. On April 22, 1937, by virtue of his father's newly restored citizenship, Helmut Hirsch was also declared an American citizen, albeit he'd never set foot on American soil.

American diplomacy

Hirsch's American citizenship immediately changed the situation. William E. Dodd, the American ambassador in Berlin, was instructed by Secretary of State Cordell Hull to intervene on Hirsch's behalf. Dodd chronicled his efforts in his diary. These included meetings with Konstantin von Neurath, the German Foreign Minister, and Otto Meissner, a key aide of Hitler.

Even with the force of American diplomacy, Hitler refused Dodd's eleventh-hour request that Hirsch's life be spared. His execution by decapitation was carried out at 6:00 am, June 4, 1937. His sister, Katie Sugarman (Kaete Hirsch), died in 2016 having moved to the United States and possibly spared from the Nazi regime due to her family's immediate entry due to her brother.

See also

  • Assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler

Notes and references

  • Helmut Hirsch collection held by the Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections at Brandeis University

<!--Categories-->