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This post refers to the judicial execution of a young German resistance fighter and mother in Plötzensee Prison in 1943. Shared solely for historical education and to honour those who resisted Nazi tyranny.

The Execution Of The Guillotined 19-Year-Old Mother – Liane Berkowitz (1923–1943)

On the afternoon of 5 August 1943, in the execution shed of Berlin-Plötzensee Prison, 19-year-old Liane Berkowitz became one of the youngest women ever beheaded by the German Fallbeil during the Third Reich.

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Born on 7 August 1923 in Berlin, Liane grew up in an anti-Nazi family. In 1941, at the age of 17, she joined the Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle) resistance circle led by Harro Schulze-Boysen and Arvid Harnack. Together with her fiancé and later husband Friedrich Rehmer, she distributed illegal leaflets, helped Jewish friends escape, and in June 1942 took part in a daring action: pasting anti-Hitler posters on the windows of a Nazi propaganda exhibition on Unter den Linden.

The group was betrayed in the summer of 1942. Liane was arrested on 26 September 1942 – while already several weeks pregnant. On 18 January 1943, the Reich Court Martial sentenced her to death for “treason and aiding the enemy”. Because she was pregnant, German law normally required postponement of execution until after birth, but Hitler personally overruled the provision and confirmed the sentence.

On 16 April 1943, in Plötzensee women’s prison, Liane gave birth to a healthy daughter, Irina. The baby was immediately taken away and placed with adoptive parents. Liane was allowed only a few brief visits with her child before the final separation.

Seven months after giving birth, on 5 August 1943 – just two days before her 20th birthday – she was taken to the execution room. Witnesses among the prison staff later reported that she walked calmly to the guillotine and refused the last rites. The blade fell at 19:52.

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In 2000, the German state posthumously annulled her sentence. Today a street in Berlin-Friedrichshain and a school bear her name.

We remember Liane Berkowitz today not to nurture hatred, but to honour a young mother who chose resistance over safety; to recognise the thousands of women of the German resistance who paid with their lives; and to ensure that future generations know that even in the darkest hours, courage and humanity can still shine.

Official & reputable sources

Bundesarchiv Berlin – Reichskriegsgericht files 2 J 225/42

Nelson, Anne – Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Anti-Fascist Resistance (Random House, 2009)

Brysac, Shareen Blair – Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestra (Oxford University Press, 2000)

Gedenkstätte Plötzensee – execution register 5 August 1943Tupolev, Andrei (ed.) – Die Rote Kapelle: Dokumente und Zeugnisse (Berlin, 1988)