Hans Coppi

Hans-Wedigo Robert Coppi (25 January 1916 – 22 December 1942) was a German resistance fighter against the Nazis. He was a member of a Berlin-based anti-fascist resistance group that was later called the Red Orchestra by the Gestapo.

Life Coppi was born in Wedding, Berlin to a working-class family. His parents were Robert Coppi, a house painter who specialised in lacquer cutting and gilding and Frieda née Schön (1884–1961), a seamstress and dressmaker who worked to supplement the family income. Both his parents were ardent communists who in 1930, became members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). This resulted in Coppi becoming politicised at an early age and that led to him becoming a communist activist and later agitator. From 1929 to 1932, Coppi attended the , a left-wing progressive "school-farm" on the island of Scharfenberg in Lake Tegel in Berlin. During 1931–32 Coppi became a member of the "Red Boy Scouts" (Roten Pfadfinder) and the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD).

World War II

At the start of World War II, Coppi was conscripted, but was classed as "Unworthy of military service" ("Wehrunwürdiger") due to his background. As the war progressed the nature of the meetings changed from discussion to resistance at some point during October or November 1940. During the period from the late 1920s to mid-1930s, Schürmann-Horster was a dedicated promoter of political propaganda (agit-prop, political theatre) and had staged a number of political plays in both bars and factories. The group used these contacts of Schürmann-Horster's and their own contacts to organise a network of resistance activities in the factories who at the time worked as a payroll accountant in the (Reich employee insurance corporation). and who was a close friend of Schulze-Boysen. Schulze-Boysen had been collaborating with Harnack in what was then a resistance group. It was planned by Schulze and Soviet intelligence that Kurt Schumacher would be the groups radio telegraphist, but he was drafted into the German army on 6 June 1941, so Schulze-Boysen asked Coppi to be the replacement radio operator in Coppi for the espionage organisation. Schulze-Boysen persuaded Coppi to establish a radio link to the Soviet Union for the resistance organisation. Karl Behrens volunteered to deliver the coded message to Coppi and be a backup operator. Soviet espionage had settled on using the novel "Der Kurier aus Spanien" by Hans Rabl as the book cipher and a copy was entrusted to Coppi by Korotkov. Coppi collected the radio from a contact on underground station. The shortwave radio set was built into a disguised suitcase and had a battery that lasted two hours. On 26 June 1941, Coppi began transmitting and sent the greeting, "1000 Grüsse an alle Freunde" ("A thousand greetings to all friends"). Moscow replied "We have received and read your test message. The substitution of letters for numbers and vice versa is to be done using the permanent number 38745 and the codeword Schraube", and directing them to transmit at a predefined frequency and time. Coppi failed to send any other messages during that night due to inexperience At the same time a courier channel between Berlin and Gurevich in Brussels was established. It is unknown how many attempts Coppi made in the next few months but he made no connection during the critical period of the latter-half of 1941.

Soviet Paradise exhibition

In May 1942, the Nazis publicised propaganda as an exhibit known as The Soviet Paradise. Massive photo panels depicting Russian Slavs as subhuman beasts who lived in squalid conditions and of pictures of firing squads shooting young children and others who were hung, were shown at the exhibit. The message on the stickers that were posted over the exhibition posters was as follows:

Permanent Exhibition The Nazi Paradise War, Hunger, Lies, Gestapo How much longer?

Parachutists On 5 August 1942, Soviet NKVD agent along with Red Army Intelligence agent Robert Barth were parachuted into Germany. Schumacher introduced Hoessler to Schulze-Boysen who in turn introduced him to Coppi in an attempt to help Coppi establish radio communication. Even with Hoessler's help, who was a trained radio telegraphist, Coppi was never able to establish communication with Moscow.

Arrest On 12 September 1942, Coppi and his pregnant wife were arrested, Coppi in Schrimm, now in central Poland, after reporting for duty in the Wehrmacht, and Hilde and family in Berlin. Due to the Nazi German idea that the family shared responsibility for a crime, known as Sippenhaft, Coppi's parents Robert and Freida, his brother Kurt Coppi and his mother-in-law Hilde gave birth to their son, Hans, on 27 November 1942, while detained at the Barnimstrasse women's prison in Berlin. The couple met for the last time at a meeting at the RSHA office. Hilde was executed less than a year later, on 5 August 1943, on the same day as Ursula Goetze, Maria Terwiel, Oda Schottmüller, Rose Schlösinger, Eva-Maria Buch, Cato Bontjes van Beek, Liane Berkowitz and many others.

Awards

Coppi was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War Second Degree by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on 6 October 1969. In 1986, a memorial plaque was placed on Scharfenberg island on Lake Tegel that commemorates him and former Scharfenberg student Hanno Günther.