Günter Pappenheim – The Marseillaise – a “subversive attitude”

Günter Pappenheim came from a Social-Democratic-minded family. After the Nazi accession to power, his father was murdered in a concentration camp. His mother and the four children had to fend for themselves and were subjected to constant harassment. In 1940 he began training as a fitter. In the factory he had contact to French forced labourers. They got along well, and on the French national holiday he played the Marseillaise for them on the accordion. Colleagues denounced him. He was committed to the Buchenwald concentration camp in October 1943. There he came into contact with acquaintances of his father’s. He survived the camp and after liberation was himself politically active for many years.