Die rote Kapelle

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The Red Orchestra was a group of very different people...

... In terms of temperament, sex,

political direction and education

... that were connected to each other...

... by their clear rejection of National Socialism...

... and the desire to end

the Nazi regime and bring an end to the war.

It was a group of people...

... who quickly wanted to

make that terrible war end.

They fought for human freedom.

They were idealists,

whatever their background

The feeling was getting stronger...

... that something had to be done against Hitler

.

There were people who had been

in concentration camps

... and they had not forgotten it, of course .

This is a film that recalls one of her phrases:

You can talk,

but no one does anything.

That was said by Cato (Bontjes van Beek).

Harro (Schulze-Boysen) often took us as children

on his sailing boat.

Then we went on picnics and had

delicious baking and roast food

A new world open to us.

They played guitar and harmonica and sang beautiful songs.

I did not want to discuss what our beloved Fuhrer was up to every day.

We met in the Grunewald,

just for a day out.

Kurt Schuhmacher disappeared. He had a practice grenade of the Wehrmacht.

Wooden, but it looked

like a grenade.

He was practising in the bushes

to throw a grenade.

To throw and take cover.

He was preparing for the revolution.

There were people who were not living

in the brown crap

I do not understand why they were so excited...

... those guys running around in their mustard yellow uniform.

It looked like baby poop.

Some said 'Heil Hitler',

...others said nothing

It could have been a Nazi

who pretended to be opposed...

... or someone who just did not care.

And I often felt everywhere

a dark cloud was over us.

Most people were just scared...

... because there was hardship

if they were arrested...

... and a sore head as the pianist Kreiten

(executed 1943) discovered ...

He had made negative remarks about Adolf Hitler in the house of one of his mother's friends

You always kept your ears open, so you

would hear if something was up.

You also learned not to talk with

people you did not know.

It is hard to imagine.

You could only really talk freely

in the bathroom, with running water...

... or in a moving car.

We listened to BBC London

with that famous pom-pom-pom-pom.

When I hear that now,

I still get a chill

If you did not listen to it alone

you could get the death penalty.

It surprised me that in 1939,

when Hitler started the war...

that there were about 800,000 people

... mostly Social Democrats and Communists...

...awaiting trial

or who were already in camps...

... for being a dissenter, opposition, etc.

.

Germany was not a monolithic place, and

we are only discoverring this now.

You had the Fertsch family, who lived

just around the corner in the Landhausstrasse.

I met them through a dentist called Himpel.

who was a staunch anti-Nazi.

I got on well with him

His fiance was a girl called Terwiel.

We were there together and started talking.

Later he asked me,

when we were alone somewhere...

... if I wanted to work with him.

I first I did not understand

what he meant.

But when he said :

" I put my fate in your hands."

I knew what he meant and I said: Yes, I will.

Helmut Himpel went to the homes of

his Jewish patients and treated them.

Free, of course.

There was a Jewish architect, called Nachtlicht

Helmut (Himpel) always brought them food

when they got together

My sister wore the Star of David, of course.

Helmut Roloff (father of the man making this film, a Pianist) was with her at that time.

There was this policeman

who said:

Stay away from that woman.

She is a Jewish.

But Helmut Roloff did not support

that ridiculous Nazi propaganda.

and he just kept on walking together

along with my sister.

On the corner was a shop where

the exterior was completely destroyed.

All the shop's windows were broken.

There were a lot of people watching.

But inside there

still hung curtains or something.

Behind the curtains there was

apparently a Jewish family.

At one point she was foolish

One of the sons, who was about

15 or 16, suddenly looked out

As soon as they saw him,

they broke his legs

All those people who were watching,

were gone ...

..so afraid were they . But had they behaved bravely they would have been beaten

I was in the S-Bahn

from Wannsee to the Zoo.

suddenly I saw that the synagogue in the

Fasanenstrasse was on fire

we were in the train, everyone saw it

and nobody said anything.

I looked around and asked:

Why do they not get the fire-service

Why does that not happen?

The people sat there quietly

and no one looked up or said anything.

I was so wound up about it.

The people knew what was going on.

And that the Jews were rounded up...

.. at Grunewald station and then

taken to the east.

How did you know about something like that?

- The news went around quickly

Some people happened to know, or

railwaymen who were there...

... who told it to their wives, and it

gets back to her mother or aunt...

... and so it came out

They disappeared and died,

you came to know about it ...

... because it was your friends.

We asked for a Visa to immigrate to the U.S..

They said:
Fine, your turn is in

about eight years, in 1944.

Then you can emigrate

By then my parents were all killed

and my sister survived in hiding.

And I was in England with the Kindertransport.

Resistance in Berlin had no hierarchical system.

They were different circles of friends

who formed the resistance...

... these circles overlapped.

Loose groups coalesced

at the end of the 30s.

The centre point was (Harro) Schulze-Boysen,

an Air Force officer

and Arvid Harnack (A lawyer and economist)

Arvid Harnack worked at the Ministry of Economic Affairs

... And since the 30s he had been in

contact with people of the Soviet embassy.

In early 1941 SchuIze-Boysen and Harnack

went to the Soviet embassy.

There, they told someone

... that Hitler would probably attack the Soviet Union soon

Harnack did not see himself as a traitor.

.. he thought it his duty to warn others...

... that the Nazis were

criminals and traitors.

They were renegades, because of the policies of Hitler

... so they opposed Hitler

wherever they could.

... with information for the enemies

of Hitler, amongst other means

Just as there was contact with the Soviet embassy...

... there was also contact with the U.S.,

by Mildred Harnack.

... she came from Wisconsin and was the only American...

... who was executed for treason by the Nazis, in 1943.

My mother had met Mrs. Harnack

and my father was excited...

... that Harnack had been in to the U.S.

sought him out and asked:

maybe we can go to lunch sometime?

And Arvid said:
I would really like that.

Donald Heath befriended Arvid Harnack in 1938

Heath was 1st secretary of the

U.S. Embassy in Berlin.

But he was also gathering information

for Henry Morgenthau...

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