Red Orchestra (63 page)

Harro and Libertas's salon included a number of left-wing artists and intellectuals, including prize-winning sculptor Kurt Schumacher. One of his works was selected for Hermann Göring's country estate.

In June 1941, Kurt Schumacher was drafted and sent to guard French workers in Poznań. He continued his resistance activities in Poland.

Soviet agent Alexander Korotkov sought Arvid Harnack's help as an intelligence source.

In late 1940 Harro Schulze-Boysen (second from left) pictured here in the German Ministry, learned of the Nazis' secret plans to invade the Soviet Union. He and Arvid Harnack supplied the Soviets with a vast store of intelligence to use against Hitler. But Stalin chose to ignore the warnings.

Following the German invasion, the Soviets were desperate to restore the flow of intelligence from Berlin. Soviet intelligence sent several radios, but they were a nightmare to operate.

Herbert Engelsing's dentist friend Helmut Himpel and his fiancée, Marie Terwiel, brought many new members into the group. The couple was forbidden to marry because she was half-Jewish. They supported Harro Schulze-Boysen's work by producing and distributing anti-Nazi flyers, and helped persecuted Jews.

Helmut Roloff, a classical pianist with conservative politics, was brought into the group by Helmut Himpel. Roloff was angered by Nazi anti-Semitism and helped the Schulze-Boysens with anti-Nazi leafleting campaigns. He offered his Jewish neighbors, including the Kuttner family, critical moral and logistical support.

John Graudenz, pictured here with his daughters, had been a United Press and
New York Times
correspondent in Berlin in the 1920s. He worked with Harro Schulze-Boysen on anti-Nazi flyers and helped Jewish friends, including young Sophie Kuh and her stepfather.

Cato Bontjes van Beek, a skilled ceramicist, recruited students and artists to help with leafleting and other resistance activities. Cato came to doubt Harro's judgment in the period before their arrests.

Katja Casella and Lisa Egler-Gervai were two of Cato's art student friends who joined the resistance group. The two beautiful young women hid in plain sight of the Nazis, who were unaware that they were Jewish. Katja hid fugitives in her studio.

In May 1942, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels organized an exhibit in the heart of Berlin called “The Soviet Paradise,” designed to justify Nazi atrocities. The exhibit attacked the “Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy” and portrayed horrific executions on the Russian front as security measures.

These stickers were Harro Schulze-Boysen's response to Goebbel's “Soviert Paradise” exhibit. His group used a child's stamp set to print stickers reading “Permanent Installation: The Nazi Paradise: War, Hunger, Lies, Gestapo. How much longer?” Schulze-Boysen's young band roamed Berlin on their idnight “sticker-posting operation.”