Gustav Sobottka was born in Turowen (Turowo), in the administrative district of Johannisburg (Pisz) in East Prussia.

[1] After the Nazi Party seized power, as communists were threatened by arrest and attack, he worked underground, then went to the Saarland, then still under foreign occupation.

He was arrested by the NKVD on February 5, 1938, as part of the so-called Hitler Youth Conspiracy,[2] after which his mother had a nervous breakdown.

[1] In 1943, Sobottka was condemned to death in absentia for high treason by the Reich Military Court (Reichskriegsgericht).

[6] Sobottka's group was sent to Mecklenburg,[7] (today Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) where he prepared reports on the state of the agriculture for the Soviet Central Committee.

[1] Sobottka retired with an honorary pension as an "Honored Miner of the German Democratic Republic", but was depressed about his son's death in Moscow and his wife's ill health.

Sobottka received an "Honorary pension, Fighter against Fascism" and was awarded "Honored Miner of the German Democratic Republic".

Some have since been renamed, but in Zeitz, there is still a Gustav-Sobottka-Straße[10] A number of units in the National People's Army were named after Gustav Sobottka, as well.

It was made by Hans-Dieter Rusch[11] and was called Vom Geheimnis eines Revolutionärs — Nachdenken über Gustav Sobottka.