Wilhelm Knöchel

Wilhelm Knöchel (; 8 November 1899 – 24 July 1944) was a German Communist Party activist and organizer who after 1933, became an anti-government resistance activist. His trial lasted ten minutes. He was executed/murdered at the Brandenburg-Görden penitentiary, a short distance outside Berlin, to the west of the city.

Life

Early life and provenance Wilhelm Knöchel was born into a Social Democratic working-class family on 8 November 1899 in Offenbach am Main, a short distance upriver from Frankfurt. He qualified and worked as a factory machine operator. In 1917, he was conscripted into the Imperial Army, shortly after which he was badly wounded. He also worked as a mines maintenance engineer. In 1920

National Socialist years In late 1931 or early 1932, Wilhelm Knöchel relocated via Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Union, where he worked as a miner. On 30 January 1943, Wilhelm Knöchel was also arrested, in the Berlin apartment of comrades Charlotte and Erich Garske. The arrest of this exceptionally productive anti-Nazi activist represented a major triumph for the security services. When the meeting had failed to take place Seng had also been persuaded to disclose Knöchel's Berlin hiding place. Alfred Kowalke, and Wilhelm Beuttel were sentenced to death at the same time. Wilhelm Knöchel was executed/murdered at the Brandenburg-Görden penitentiary on 24 July 1944.

Personal life During his time in the Ruhr region, in 1922, Wilhelm Knöchel married a war widow who came to the marriage with two children. The couple's third child, Inge, was born in 1921. His wife died young in 1930, however.