Karl Behrens

Karl Behrens (18 November 1909 – 13 May 1943) He was a design engineer and resistance fighter against Nazism. Behrens was most notable for being a member of the Berlin-based anti-fascist resistance group, that was later called the Red Orchestra by the Abwehr. Behrens acted as a courier for the group, passing reports between Arvid Harnack and Hans Coppi who was the radioman. Behrens was also active in a resistance group at the AEG turbine factory power together with Walter Homann and others.

Life

Behrens was the second child of Minna and Carl Behrens. His siblings were Lisa (born in 1908) and Walter (born in 1915). Behrens came from a working-class family. As a young man in 1927, he became a scout in the Rabenstein Scout group.

Career On 15 May 1924 Behrens started a locksmith apprenticeship in his attempted coup against Hitler, in what became known as the Stennes Revolt. In 1931, he temporarily joined Otto Strasser's Black Front before moving to join the Communist Party of Germany(KPD) at the end of 1932. and the interpreter Bodo Schlösinger, whose wife was Rose Schlösinger. Behrens joined the oppositional discussion circle around her husband Arvid Harnack. Through his work at the AEG factory as a designer and his contacts with former KPD officials, he was able to provide political, economic and military information to the Soviet People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB), where he was assigned the code name, Lutschisti (Shining One, Ray of Light or Beamer). In February 1939, Behrens married Clara Behrens, née Sonnenschmidt, a stenotypist in the OKH and they had two sons and a daughter together. Fischer was eventually captured and was executed at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In Haguenau he completed basic training. On 18 November 2009, a commemorative plaque was dedicated by the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district office at Karl Behrens' former home at 22 Yorckstraße (corner house to 91 Möckernstraße). Karl Behrens is honoured with a stumbling stone at 12 Huttenstraße in Moabit, Berlin.