Charlotte Garske

As early as 1934 they secretly accommodated Eugen Schwebinghaus [de], a close party colleague of Robert Stamm.

[1] From 1942 their Berlin apartment was the work-place and a communications hub for Wilhelm Knöchel, an exceptionally effective communist resistance organiser,[3] whose alias was "Alfred".

[1] Gestapo reports indicated that Charlotte Garske was suspected of being significantly more important to the political work of "Alfred" than her husband.

[3] She acted as a courier, delivering illegal published material to Willi Seng, a communist party instructor and co-ordinator in the economically and politically crucial Ruhr region.

[1] On 9 November 1943 the special "People's Court" sentenced Erich and Charlotte Garske to death.

The memorial stone to the Garskes was erected in 1944 by their friends at a lakeside camping place where they often stayed. Predating the collapse of the Nazi régime, it is one of the earliest public memorials in Germany to Nazi victims. It was renovated - washed and repainted - in 2013. The memorial enjoys "protected" status.