Johanna Nitschke worked as a nanny from 1916. After that she cared for her severely ill mother, who died in 1928. In 1929 she married the clerk Hans Schallschmidt. Their son was born that same year.
In 1939 Johanna Schallschmidt was conscripted to work for Siemens. Her husband was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1940. Johanna Schallschmidt then came into contact with the Community for Peace and Reconstruction resistance group. She and Werner Scharff wrote the group’s leaflets and duplicated them in her home. Her son and husband helped to distribute them. Johanna Schallschmidt also hid the Jewish couple Ilse and Gerhard Grün in her home and provided them with food.
Johanna Schallschmidt was arrested on October 19, 1944. After being held in several Berlin prisons, she was transferred to Fehrbellin labor education camp, where she was liberated in April 1945.
In November 1960, the West Berlin senate honored her as an Unsung Heroine. The Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem recognized her posthumously as Righteous Among the Nations in 1983.
Johanna Schallschmidt with her husband Hans and son Werner, Berlin, 1939. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Report by Johanna Schallschmidt for the Berlin compensation office on her activities in the Community for Peace and Reconstruction, 1951. Source: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand
