Wilhelm-Leuschner Memo­rial

In the year 2003 the city set up a memorial of Wilhelm Leuschner in the district of Mörtzhöfen and the house he was born in, which shows in three rooms the different stations of his life. The house is privately owned.

Wilhelm Leuschner was born as a son of a furnace builder, went to school in Bayreuth and
absolved an appren­ti­ce­ship. In 1907 he left Bayreuth to settle in Darm­statt. In the Twen­ties
he made his carrier there as a union func­tionary, a social demo­cratic poli­ti­cian and secre­tary
of the inte­rior, warning early about Nazism.

After 1933 he lived in Berlin and was a member of the resis­tance. In connec­tion with the
failed assas­si­na­tion attempt by count Stauf­fen­berg on July 20th 1944, Wilhelm Leuschner
was also arrested. The resis­tance figh­ters intended him to be the vice chan­cellor in the
“Germany after Hitler”. After a judge­ment of the noto­rious people court he was sentenced
and hanged in Berlin-Plöt­zensee on September 29th 1944.

The Wilhelm Leuschner foun­da­tion offers addi­tional guided tours through the memo­rial and
more educa­tional events.