December 21: Helmut Hirsch and the Black Front

Helmut Hirsch, a German Jew who was part of a plot to destabilize Nazi Germany by bombing Nazi Party headquarters (and the printing plant for Der Stürmer) in Nuremberg, was arrested by the Gestapo on this date in 1936. Hirsch was living in Prague after the passage of the Nuremberg laws and became deeply involved in the Black Front, an anti-Nazi organization of German expatriates, but was betrayed by a double agent. The International Red Cross, the Society of Friends, and an international lawyers group made appeals on his behalf, and the government of Norway offered him asylum — as did the United States, which had naturalized Hirsch’s father as a citizen years earlier. Hitler ignored these appeals and had Hirsch beheaded on June 4, 1937, at age 21. To view a Brandeis University Library exhibit of his artwork and biography, click here.
“The plan was for Hirsch to take a bomb in a suitcase and blow up the Nazi Party headquarters in Nuremberg. What Hirsch didn’t realize was that the bomb was constructed to kill himself along with destroying the Nuremberg building. Furthermore, the Nazis were informed of Hirsch’s entry into Germany.” —Brandeis University