Anneliese Groscurth

Dr. Anneliese Groscurth (1910–1996) was the wife of Georg Groscurth and a member of the European Union, (Europäische Union) an antifascist German resistance group in Berlin, during the Nazi era. Her husband and all but one of the other central members of the group were executed, but she survived.

Resistance activity

Groscurth was supportive of the "European Union" (EU) and was involved in its activities. The EU was founded by Groscurth's husband, also a doctor and Robert Havemann, a chemist, as well as two other of their friends, architect Herbert Richter and his neighbor, dentist Paul Rentsch. The EU produced political leaflets and hid Jews and other people hunted by the Nazis, feeding them, supplying them with new identification papers, and giving them information. The group grew to about 50 people, including Germans and many non-German forced laborers.

Arrest and punishment

The Gestapo happened to observe two parachute landings and the EU member, Paul Hatschek, who had gone to meet them. After the Gestapo felt they had enough information from their investigations, they arrested Hatschek on September 3, 1943, subjecting him to intensive interrogation on that same day. Two days later, the Gestapo arrested every single person Hatschek had named. By the end, they had over 40 members of the EU; the number of forced laborers arrested, but not brought before a court, is unknown. The Jews hidden by the EU were sent to Auschwitz, where about half of them were killed.