Herbert Budzislawski

Herbert Budzislawskis memoriał stone in front of his apartment building in Berlin in the lower right corner.

Herbert Budzislawski (December 30, 1920 – September 7, 1943) was a German-Jewish resistance fighter and a member of the Herbert Baum Group, an anti-fascist resistance organization in Nazi Germany. He was arrested in 1942, sentenced to death for high treason by the Volksgerichtshof (People's Court) in June 1943, and murdered at Plötzensee Prison during the Bloody Nights of Plötzensee in September 1943.

Early life and education Budzislawski was born in Berlin on December 30, 1920, into a Jewish family. His father died when he was 11 years old, leaving his mother as the family's sole provider. After the Nazi rise to power in 1933, his life became increasingly restricted due to antisemitic laws. He was forced to leave school early due to education restrictions against Jews and began training as a metalworker and later as a construction laborer.

Sexual orientation and Gestapo surveillance Budzislawski was openly gay, which was highly dangerous under the Nazi regime. Homosexuality was criminalized under Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code, and gay men were frequently arrested and sent to prison or concentration camps. His sexual orientation, combined with his Jewish background and political affiliations, led to Gestapo surveillance as early as 1938.

Trial and sentencing Budzislawski was tried before the Volksgerichtshof (People's Court) on June 29, 1943, a show tribunal known for politically motivated trials and mass death sentences.

The court explicitly framed his Jewish identity as part of its judgment, describing him as a Volljude (full Jew) and claiming that he was part of a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy against the Nazi regime. Nazi legal documents emphasized his Jewish heritage and alleged communist ties as justification for sentencing him to death. These mass executions were personally ordered by Hitler following a British air raid on Berlin on September 3, 1943, which damaged Plötzensee Prison and its execution facilities.

Official documents from the time, shows that Budzislawski was executed alongside Felix Israel Heymann and Martin Israel Kochmann, both members of the Herbert Baum Group. The official Nazi execution report lists him among the victims. his last known residence. He is listed among the many resistance fighters executed at Plötzensee. His story is recognized as part of the persecution of Jewish and LGBTQ+ resistance members under the Nazi regime.