Johanna Kirchner

At 14, she joined the Socialist Worker Youth, and at 18 became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands – SPD).

During the Ruhrkampf, a brief civil war in Germany in 1920, Kirchner helped evacuate thousands of children from the Ruhr district, sending them to stay with families in Hesse.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power, and the dedicated anti-fascist had to go underground, as her help in freeing an anti-Nazi from the Gestapo became known, leading to the danger of her possible arrest.

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, Kirchner fled to Forbach, Metz (both in Alsace-Lorraine, France), and then finally Paris.

Even while abroad, she helped the resistance movement in Germany: she led the Saar Refugees' Committee (Saarflüchtlingskommitee), drew up plans and reports for the SPD's executive in exile, and produced and distributed illegal leaflets.

This time, Roland Freisler, the Chief Justice at the Volksgerichtshof, sentenced her to death, and she was beheaded at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.