Eugen Schönhaar

Eugen Schönhaar (29 October 1898 – 1 February 1934) was a German political activist (KPD) who became a resistance activist after the National Socialists took power. He died when he was one of four men shot by Gestapo officials, reportedly while escaping during an overnight transport following arrest. He and his three murdered comrades were rescued from anonymity thanks to a poem by Erich Weinert entitled "John Schehr und Genossen".

Biography Eugen Schönhaar was born at Esslingen am Neckar, a prosperous industrial town to the east of Stuttgart. His father was a skilled industrial worker . Schönhaar completed an apprenticeship which prepared him to follow in his father's footsteps. In 1912, the year of his fourteenth birthday, he joined the Young Workers' movement ("Arbeiterjugendbewegung"). During the war which broke out in July 1914 he joined the anti-war Spartacus League.

In Berlin he headed up the Central Europe office ("Mitteleuropäischen Büros" / MEB) of the IRA. He was also actively involved with the AM-Apparat, a consciously misleadingly named intelligence service that operated under the direction of the Communist Party. It was through this connection that he learned that he faced the risk of arrest: in 1927 he therefore went back to Moscow where he resumed his work for the Executive Committee of the IRA. In July 1928 this organisation sent him to the United States of America where he "continued with his illegal activity" In 1929 he returned to Germany, where politics were becoming increasingly polarised.

Celebration After the Second World War Eugen Schönhaar's earthly remains were disinterred and reburied in the "Gedenkstätte der Sozialisten" (area set aside for heroes of socialism)) in East Berlin's Central Cemetery.

A trawler was named "Eugen Schönhaar" during the early 1970s

At least one street in Berlin has been named in his honour and in 2016 a Stolperstein was laid in the town of his birth, Esslingen, commemorating Eugen Schönhaar, alongside another commemorating his son who later also became a victim of the National Socialists.