Hans Coppi jr.: Annäherung an meine Eltern Hans und Hilde Coppi

In September 1942, Hans and Hilde Coppi were arrested. They belonged to a resistance network that the Gestapo, using the investigative term “Red Orchestra” (“Rote Kapelle”), associated with Soviet military intelligence in Western Europe. They were sentenced to death by the Reich Court-Martial, the highest military court of the Wehrmacht.

On 27 November 1942, Hilde Coppi gave birth to her son Hans in the Barnimstraße women’s prison in Berlin. She was able to breastfeed her child for several months before she was executed by guillotine at Berlin-Plötzensee on 5 August 1943. Hans Coppi had already been beheaded there on 22 December 1942.

Hans Coppi Jr. never knew his parents. He grew up in the GDR, where he was primarily familiar with the official account of his parents and became a public figure because of their resistance activities. It was not until the late 1980s that he began researching his parents’ lives and activities. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he continued this work at the German Resistance Memorial Center. In numerous archives, he was able to examine previously unknown documents and discover new facts about his parents. Through books and exhibitions, he has also contributed to dismantling the myth of the “Red Orchestra” as an allegedly communist espionage organisation.

For health reasons, Hans Coppi Jr. is no longer able to write comprehensive biographies of his parents. In consultation with him, historian Dr Geertje Andresen, a close colleague of his and a long-standing freelance researcher at the German Resistance Memorial Center, has edited a publication based on material from his personal archive. It brings together several texts on Hans and Hilde Coppi and the “Red Orchestra”. She will present the publication at this event.

Women’s history researcher Claudia von Gélieu of the Frauentouren network, author of the book “Barnimstraße 10. Das Berliner Frauengefängnis 1868–1974” (“Barnimstraße 10: The Berlin Women’s Prison, 1868–1974”), will speak about Hilde Coppi’s time in the prison’s mother-and-child unit.

Actress Ruth Reinecke will read letters published in the book that were written in 1942/43 from the prisoners’ death-row cells: Hans Coppi to his wife, and Hilde Coppi to her mother and parents-in-law.

The book, published by Verlag Walter Frey, will be available for purchase at the event.

An event by Frauentouren, funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

In German.

Admission free. Registration: frauentouren@t-online.de

Location:
Gedenkort Berliner Frauengefängnis Barnimstraße / Gelände der Verkehrsschule Friedrichshain
Weinstraße 2
10249 Berlin