Heinz Strelow

Heinz Strelow (born 15 July 1915 in Hamburg, died 13 May 1943 in Plötzensee Prison) was a German journalist, soldier and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.

Life Strelow grew up in Hamburg and attended the left-leaning co-educational in the Winterhude ward. Strelow's mother was Meta Strelow née Dannat from Hamburg, who ran an arts and craft business there. His father was a journalist, who was killed during World War I. He began to resist against the Nazis in 1933. When Strelow was released he left school, and continued to support his mother, by working at her business. Strelow continued his resistance activity in the workers' youth movement and organized a Hamburg group that also had contacts with and Gustav Böhrnsen in Bremen. This brought Strelow into contact with the instructor of the northern section leadership of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). He was deployed to a construction company in the polish, where he worked to repair destroyed bridges. While in Poland, Strelow witnessed the beginning of World War II. intervened to request that Strelow be posted back in Hamburg and was successful. At the same time, Strelow was stationed at the Altengrabow military training area, located between Potsdam and Magdeburg. In April 1941, Strelow was transferred to the Army Ammunition Inspection Office in Wannsee. While he was there, he was promoted to a non-commissioned officer. in her father's home in September 1941. Through Cato, Strelow was introduced to the Schulze-Boysen couple. Cato had begun to resist the Nazi's before she met Strelow. to produce a master copy, that was typed up by Maria Terwiel, on her typewriter for duplication in a mimeograph machine. One copy survives today. Strelow and Van Beek realised the danger they were in, and began to withdraw from the group and their resistance activities. However, by that time, the group members were already under observation by the Abwehr.

Arrest Strelow was arrested on 1 October 1942 by the Gestapo. Van Beek was arrested by Gestapo agents on 20 September 1942 in her father's pottery shop in Berlin. On 18 January 1943, she was found guilty at the Reichskriegsgericht military court of "abetting a conspiracy to commit high treason" and sentenced to death. A clemency appeal of the 22-year-old was personally denied by Adolf Hitler, though the court itself had suggested a reprieve. She was guillotined on 5 August 1943 at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.