Even before 1933, the lawyer and Center Party politician Werner Hilpert publicly warned against the Nazis. As a tax and economic advisor, he later advocated on behalf of Jews who were to be dispossessed. At the outbreak of war, he was therefore among those whom the regime had preventively imprisoned. At Buchenwald concentration camp, he was initially assigned to the hardest labor detail, and later to the tailor shop. From there, during the winter months, he organized clothing for other prisoners. As a member of the International Camp Committee, he oversaw the camp’s supplies after the liberation. After the war, he co-founded the CDU, served as a minister in Hesse, and became president of the Deutsche Bundesbahn.
