The Protestant pastor Theodor Burckhardt was appointed to Zum Heilsbronnen Church in Berlin-Schöneberg in 1931, remaining there until 1945. He lived at Heilbronner Strasse 20 with his wife Bolette and their nine children.
He was an early member of the Confessional Church, and was reported to the Gestapo in 1937 for his activities on behalf of this opposition movement within the Protestant church. The case against him was closed after he spent three weeks in custody. Burckhardt was also placed under house arrest on several occasions, but he and his wife nonetheless helped people at risk. They harbored two Jewish couples in their home: Max and Ines Krakauer in the first week of August 1943, and Paul and Helene Helft in November 1943 and March 1944. Both couples survived.
Since Theodor Burckhardt left his post shortly before the end of the war without consent from the church authorities, to take his severely ill wife to Schleswig-Holstein, his permission to work as a pastor was revoked. He headed a congregation in Soest in Westphalia from 1949 until his retirement in 1955.
In 2010, a plaque was installed at Zum Heilsbronnen Church, commemorating Theodor and Bolette Burckhardt’s brave actions.