Willy Schürmann-Horster

Wilhelm "Willy" Schürmann-Horster (21 June 1900 – 9 September 1943) was a German actor, dramaturge, and director, who was a marxist and dedicated communist, and who became a resistance fighter against the Nazis. As a young man, Schürmann-Horster trained as an actor at the Düsseldorf Drama School. During the 1920s he worked in various acting troupes in theatres in the Rhineland. By the mid 1930s, he had become a communist and in 1934 and 1935 he was arrested for political agitation but acquitted for lack of evidence. After moving to Berlin in 1937, he met and became friends with Cay and Erika von Brockdorff. Through them, a discussion group of like-minded friends was formed who openly discussed current affairs and Schürmann-Horster became their spokesman. Through contacts in the group, connections were made with a resistance organisations that was run by Harro Schulze-Boysen and Arvid Harnack in 1940. Although Schürmann-Horster wasn't a physical resistance fighter in the cast of Harro Schulze-Boysen, he was an intellectual opponent of the Nazis who displayed his convictions on the stage and as a result never took part in any of the operations that his friends undertook. After falling ill in 1941, Schürmann-Horster moved to Konstanz where he worked as a dramaturge at the Grenzland Theatre. In October 1942, he was arrested and sentenced to death for "high treason", "dissemination of illegal writings" and "aiding and abetting the enemy" by the 2nd senate of the Volksgerichtshof. In October 1940, Schürmann-Horster married his second wife, Klara Harprath who was an elementary school teacher. After leaving Düsseldorf in 1920, he staged and acted in political theatre in Rhineland. On 28 September 1924, he formed an acting troupe known as "Junge Aktion" ("Young Action"). From 1926 to 1928, Schürmann-Horster worked in an acting engagement at the Schauspielhaus Bad Godesberg In 1929, he became a dedicated promoter of political propaganda (agit-prop, political theatre) with a troupe known as "Truppe im Westen" that performed the plays of the German doctor and playwright Friedrich Wolf. until the Nazi seizure of power led to the theatre being closed down by the police. by the Gestapo. Schürmann-Horster had known Quedenfeldt, a stage designer and later theatre director since 1919 and had become partners in 1923. The acquaintance developed into discussion group soon afterwards. In 1938, several other people with similar artistic interests and ideological significance joined the group. Through Cay von Brockdorff, who studied sculpture with at the Berlin Arts Academy, Schürmann-Horster met the student sculptor Ruthild Hahne who became part of the group In 1938, the group met the married couple Jutta and Viktor Dubinsky through Cay von Brockdorff. The couple were students and committed communists as members of the KPD. Schauer along with Walter Hoffmann and Willi Sänger were already working in a resistance cell and were looking for like-minded contacts. Later in 1939, the commercial clerk and KPD member, Karl Böhme became part of the group.

In 1940, the group came into contact with Harro Schulze-Boysen and Arvid Harnack via through Coppi's friend Heinrich Scheel, who knew Schulze-Boysen personally. Schulze-Boysen had been collaborating with Harnack in what was then a resistance group that would be reformulated into espionage organisation that began in September 1940, that sent German intelligence to the Soviet Union. It is unknown whether Schürmann-Horster knew Harro Shulze-Boysen or Arvid Harnack personally. In October or November 1940, the group decided to take a more robust approach to resistance instead of being a talking-shop. Schürmann-Horster selected three people using the same organisational structure as the KPD. One would be a political leader, one would be an organisational leader and one would be selected to be agitation propaganda leader. However, within two weeks it was decided by the group that was far too dangerous a task and the whole exercise was abandoned. Hans Coppi knew the electrician Eugen Neutert and he became part of the secret group, in the autumn of 1941.

Konstanz From early-1941, Schürmann-Horster was ill and lived outside Berlin, and he failed to attend any of the regular meetings that were being held by the group. In November 1941, he gained employment as the director and dramaturge (dramatic adviser, essentially head of propaganda) at the in Bodensee, Konstanz on Lake Constance for the 1942-1942 season. sentenced Schürmann-Horster, Neutert and Thiess to death.