Erwin Gehrts

Erwin Gehrts (* 18 April 1890 in Hamburg , † 10 February 1943 in Plötzensee Prison) was a German conservative socialist,[1] resistance fighter, journalist and colonel in the Luftwaffe.[2] Trained as a teacher, Gehrts was conscripted as flying officer during world war one. During the interwar period he became a journalist. However with the emergence of the Nazi states, his newspaper, the Tägliche Rundschau was banned. Finding work with the Luftwaffe, he became disillusioned with the Nazis. He became a member of the Rote Kapelle resistance group in Berlin and an informer to Harro Shulze-Boysen, passing secrets from the air ministry.

Identity picture of Erwin Gehrts in his Luftwaffe uniform

Life
A Stolperstein, a stumbling block of Erwin Gehrts, located at 41a Uhlandstraße, Lichtenrade Berlin

Gehrts was the son of a merchant. [1] Gehrts grew up in the time before the first world war, known as the Wilhelminism period.[1] As a youth he became a member of the Wandervogel[1] a bourgeois youth movement, that he remained involved with in his whole life. After he completed his early education in 1913, he decided to study literature and Natural science at the University of Freiburg.[1]

In 1922 he married Hildegard Kremer, but suffered despair at bereavement, when his young daughter died in July 1924.[1] In 1925, his wide died after giving birth to their son, Hans-Erwin on 12 November 1925.[1] In 1927 he remarried but again suffered bereavement when his child died only after 3 months. On the 1 October 1930 his daughter Barbara was born.[1]

Career

During World War I Gehrts served as a flying officer[3] achieving the rank of Lieutenant.[4] Gehrts was editor-in-chief until 1932, when he worked as a journalist for the Tägliche Rundschau newspaper in Berlin.[3] When the Nazis came to power, the Tägliche Rundschau was banned and Gehrts became unemployed.[1] In 1935, his former superior officer, now Generalmajor Waldemar Klepe offered Gehrts a position in the Nazi Ministry of Aviation at the rank of Captain.[1] He initially worked in the long-range reconnaissance and aerial photography department before later moving to the regulations and teaching materials department.[1] In 1937 Gehrts published "Der Aufklärungsflieger".[1] By 1938 he was adjutant to the General of the Air Force at the Commander in Chief of the Army.[1] After promotion several times, by 1942 he was responsible for the Special Missions branch of the Luftwaffe.[3] This gave him access to a wide variety of top-secret information including advance notice of airborne missions in the east.[3] His primary responsibility was to arrange transport for paratroopers.[3]

As a person, Gehrts was an adherent of the Confessional Movement[5] who considered the invasion of Russia to be criminal lunacy.[3] He was interested in Metaphysics and the occult but led a life that was extraordinary superstitious.[5] He visited the fortune teller Anna Kraus for advice, [5] and allowed himself to be swayed by the advice that Krauss's offered.[5] In 1928, Gehrts met Harro Schulze-Boysen while in discussion at the left-liberal magazine Der Gegner or The Opponent. Gehrts had many conversations with Shulze-Boysen over many years while in Communist discussion groups, whose purpose was to prepare Germany anew.[5] In 1941-1942 Gehrts, came into direct contact with the resistance group around Schulze-Boysen that would later be called the Red Orchestra by the Abwehr. Gehrts became an informer to Schulze-Boysen, supplying him with all the documents that he received in his capacity as a staff officer.[5] Schulze-Boysen incorporated much of this information into his own reports, that were sometimes passed to Arvid Harnack to be written into his own reports, then couriered to Soviet intelligence.[5] Gehrts became an important part of the resistance group and took an active part in the discussion groups.[1]

Arrest

Erwin Gehrts was arrested on 9 October 1942 and his trial took place on 10 January 1943 at the Reichsgericht (Military court). In January 1943 he was sentenced to death for "undermining military strength".[1] On February 10, 1943, he was executed in Plötzensee Prison by guillotine.[6] His wife, Erika Gehrts exerted significant effort in her endeavours for a more lenient sentence.[6]

Bibliography
  • Gehrts, Erwin (1939). Der Aufklärungsflieger, seine Aufgaben und Leistungen und die Überraschung im künftigen Kriege [The reconnaissance pilot, his tasks and achievements and the surprise in future wars] (in German). Berlin: E.S. Mittler & Soh. OCLC 44104612.

References
  1. Federspiel, Ruth. "Erwin Gehrts". Stolpersteine in Berlin (in German). Koordinierungsstelle Stolpersteine Berlin. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
  2. "Stolpersteine im Bezirk". Berlin Online (in German). Internet Archive: Anbieterkennzeichnung des Betreibers. 26 February 2006. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
  3. Perrault, Gilles (1969). The Red Orchestra. New York: Schocken Books. p. 269. ISBN 0805209522.
  4. Möller, Reimer (2007). Eine Küstenregion im politisch-sozialen Umbruch ;die Folgen der Industrialisierung im Landkreis Steinburg (Elbe) : (1860-1933) [A coastal region in political and social upheaval ;the consequences of industrialisation in the district of Steinburg (Elbe) : (1860-1933)] (Dissertion). Veröffentlichungen des Hamburger Arbeitskreises für Regionalgeschichte (HAR), Bd. 22. Lit Verlag. ISBN 9783825891947. OCLC 874717795.
  5. Kesaris, Paul. L, ed. (1979). The Rote Kapelle: the CIA's history of Soviet intelligence and espionage networks in Western Europe, 1936-1945 (pdf). Washington DC: University Publications of America. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-89093-203-2.
  6. Hamida Bosmajian (13 September 2013). Sparing the Child: Grief and the Unspeakable in Youth Literature about Nazism and the Holocaust. Routledge. p. 82. ISBN 978-1-135-72030-8. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
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