Hans Gasparitsch

A typesetter apprentice, Hans Gasparitsch forms with friends in Stuttgart the “Group G” in 1934, which amongst other activities distributes pamphlets critical of the Nazi regime. In 1935 he writes the slogans “Red Front” and “Hitler = War” on statues in Stuttgart’s palace gardens, for which he receives a prison sentence of two-and-a-half years. After serving the term in the state prison in Ulm, in the fall of 1937 the Gestapo send him first to the Gestapo prison at Welzheim and then to the Dachau concentration camp. He has to perform forced labor in road construction, in the carpentry workshop, and the orderly room. The SS transfers him to the Flossenbürg concentration camp for a time. In July 1944 Hans Gasparitsch is transported to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he is then liberated by U.S. Army troops on April 11 1945. He carries out investigations as part of the denazification proceedings for the US military government and in 1947 is a founding member of the Union of the Persecutees of the Nazi Regime in Baden-Württemberg. For a time he lives in the GDR, where he completes his high-school diploma and then studies journalism. Back in Stuttgart, he works for the Communist Party organ “The People’s Voice” until the party is banned in 1956. After completing further studies he begins to work as a building engineer. From 1982 Hans Gasparitsch is the chairman of the “Upper Kuhberg Document Center”. Up until his death he is active as a contemporary witness and guides visitors around the memorial sites in Ulm, Dachau, and Buchenwald.