Hans Winkler worked as a court clerk at Luckenwalde district court. After 1933 he witnessed several Gestapo interrogations as a registrar and became a determined opponent of the Nazi regime.
In 1943 Winkler and his wife Frida tried unsuccessfully to save the Samuel family from deportation. From August 1943 the couple hid the 17-year-old Eugen Herman in their home.
In September 1943 Winkler met Werner Scharff, who had escaped from the Theresienstadt ghetto. On Scharff’s initiative, they formed the resistance group Community for Peace and Reconstruction. The group provided Jews in hiding with food, money, and accommodation. They wrote flyers together against the Nazi regime.
In the weeks after the failed attempt on Hitler’s life of July 20, 1944, members of the resistance group distributed and dispatched hundreds of printed leaflets. They called on soldiers to lay down their weapons.
In October 1944, the Gestapo managed to arrest Scharff and Winkler. Winkler survived to be liberated from Bayreuth penal institution.
The Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem honored Hans Winkler posthumously as Righteous Among the Nations in 2008.
Members of the Community for Peace and Reconstruction. From right to left: Hans Winkler, Gerd Rosin, Henry and Heinz Landes, Mrs. Landes, unknown, Luckenwalde, 1943. Source: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand
Hans Winkler’s identity card, Luckenwalde, issued May 12, 1943. Source: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand
Hans Winkler’s identity card, Luckenwalde, issued May 12, 1943. Source: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand
Flyer “We Are Shedding Light!” by the Community for Peace and Reconstruction resistance group, August 1944. Source: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand
