Monday, June 12, 2017

Pencil sketch of an anti Nazi by Dr K Prabhakar Rao

PAUL LEJEUNE JUNG



Paul Adolf Franz Lejeune-Jung, (actually Lejeune genannt Jung, meaning called Jung) (16 March 1882 in Cologne – 8 September 1944 Berlin, executed) was a German economist, politician, syndic in the pulp industry, and resistance fighter against Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.

The failure of the 20 July Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a briefcase bomb at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia, to whose concrete planning, going by statements that he made before the Volksgerichtshof, Lejeune-Jung was not privy, brought all plans for a democratic government in the German Reich to an abrupt end. Like thousands of others who were to a greater or lesser extent involved in the 20 July resistance movement as a whole, Lejeune-Jung became a victim of the Nazi rulers' barbaric revenge operation, which was unparalleled in German history. After being arrested on 11 August 1944, he was brought to the Gestapo prison on Lehrter Straße in Berlin. On 3 September, the Volksgerichtshof chief prosecutor Lautz laid charges of high treason and treason against him. Among the co-accused were Goerdeler, Wirmer and Leuschner, all members of the formerly foreseen new government.In the course of the proceedings on 7 and 8 September, Lejeune-Jung became just as much a victim of Volksgerichtshof President Roland Freisler's infamous handling of trials as many others before and after him. On 8 September 1944, the second day of the trial, the accused Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, Wilhelm Leuschner, Josef Wirmer, Ulrich von Hassel and Paul Lejeune-Jung were sentenced to death by hanging. Together with the aforesaid charges, Leujeune-Jung was also found guilty of defeatism and supporting the enemy. Leujeune-Jung, Wirmer and von Hassel were put to death that same day at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. Paul Lejeune-Jung went to his death with the words "My Jesus, mercy." His family's inquiries brought to light that the bodies had been taken on Hitler's orders to the Wedding Crematorium, where after the ashes had been scattered at an unknown location.

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