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Wilhelm Boller * 1904

Ausschläger Billdeich Ecke Großmannstraße (Hamburg-Mitte, Rothenburgsort)

HIER WOHNTE
WILHELM BOLLER
JG. 1904
VERHAFTET
’VORBEREITUNG ZUM HOCHVERRAT’
ZUCHTHAUS BRANDENBURG
HINGERICHTET 19.10.1943

further stumbling stones in Ausschläger Billdeich Ecke Großmannstraße:
Otto Groth

Wilhelm Boller, born 22 Oct. 1904 in Hamburg, executed 19 Oct. 1943 at the Brandenburg hard labor prison (Zuchthaus Brandenburg)

Ausschläger Billdeich/Grossmannstraße (Ausschläger Billdeich 51)

Robert Boller, a laborer and the son of a bricklayer, born 24 Jan. 1882 in Hamburg, and Pauline Therese Amanda Jutzi, the daughter of a carpenter, born 5 Aug. 1884, both lived on the street Hermannsthal in Hamburg-Horn when they got married on 21 Oct. 1904. Their first son Wilhelm was born the day after their wedding. Three more children followed, the last one being the girl A., born on 11 June 1918. At that time, Wilhelm had just finished the compulsory eight years of schooling (Volksschule) and was beginning a commercial apprenticeship in a sawmill in Schiffbek, which at the time was still a village in Stormarn county at the edge of Hamburg. In 1925, he joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the "Alliance of Red Front-Fighters” ("Roter Frontkämpferbund”, RFB) and soon took on positions as a young front leader and group leader (Jungfront- und Gruppenführer). After the Prussian Minister of the Interior had banned the RFB in 1929, Wilhelm Boller was involved in re-establishing it underground, and in early 1930, he took over its political leadership in Hamburg-Hamm. In 1932, he married Frieda Junge. They had two children and were later divorced.

Wilhelm Boller was a member of the RFB leadership from early July 1932 until his arrest in Oct. 1932. He was released on Christmas 1932 thanks to Reich Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher’s amnesty. Wilhelm Boller was again active with the RFB. After he had been in "protective custody” ("Schutzhaft”) in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp three times in 1933 and 1934, he fled to Copenhagen in Nov. 1934 and became a member of the KPD leadership there. At first, he was given a position in the Red Aid ("Rote Hilfe”). In Oct. 1936, he took on its northern sector leadership of defense, using the code name "Arne.” Boller supported Etkar André, who had been sentenced to death, by filing a plea for clemency from Copenhagen.

In spring 1938, he began working as a courier under the then leader of this sector, Heinrich Wiatrek. In 1938, he was deprived of his German citizenship.

Wilhelm Boller and Kamma Poulsen, a Danish woman, became a couple. They lived at the Orsted garden club in Copenhagen with their son Willi. When the German Wehrmacht had occupied Denmark in Apr. 1940, Wilhelm Boller became active in an illegal KPD group. Danish police officers arrested him in Oct. 1942. After his internment in the Horseröd camp, he was extradited to the German Reich and taken to the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp. When he was moved to detention centers in Hamburg and Berlin to await trial, the conditions of his imprisonment were eased, and his parents were permitted to visit him.

The President of the "People’s Court” ("Volksgerichtshof,” VGH) Roland Freisler, conducted the hearing in the People’s Court proceedings in June 1943. The charge was "preparations for high treason” and activity in the northern sector leadership of the KPD. The verdict was handed down on 21 June 1943: capital punishment. Pleas for clemency to the Justice Minister of the Reich were unsuccessful. The execution was carried out a few days before Wilhelm Boller’s 39th birthday on 19 Oct. 1943 in the Brandenburg hard labor prison (Zuchthaus Brandenburg).

The urn with Wilhelm Boller’s ashes was buried in the grove of honor for the Hamburg resistance fighters at the cemetery in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf in 1946.

Translator: Sandra H. Lustig
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: VAN-Totenliste 1968; StaH 241-1 II, Abl. 1998/1, jüngere Untersuchungshaftkartei Männer; 332-5 Standesämter, 3028+535/1904; 621-1/90 Firmen, 1-18, Fa. Dres Kehlenbeck und Grisebach; Hochmuth, Ehrenhaingedenkbuch; dies./Gertrud Meyer, Streiflichter; Weber/Herbst, Deutsche Kommunisten.