Love in Times of High Treason

Love endures even in times of high treason—behind bars, in jails, and even in the shadow of the gallows. For Joy und Günther Weisenborn it was a kind of sustenance that gave them confidence and courage. Their diaries and letters are touching documents that show how two opponents of the Third Reich survived the final phase of the Second World War. On September 26, 1942, the Weisenborns were arrested. They were part of the circle of friends around Harro Schulze-Boysen, who carried out various forms of resistance against National Socialism. The Gestapo considered him to be a member of a resistance group called the “Red Chapel” controlled by Moscow. During their imprisonment, the prominent writer and his wife wrote letters to each other. With their correspondance they preserved their own private world and even protected themselves against the intrusion of the seemingly almighty National Socialist regime. After their release in April 1943, Joy kept a diary that is being published for the first time in this volume. These very personal documents attest to a great love and a resistant alternate world that persevered in the face of isolation and mortal fear. Christian und Sebastian Weisenborn are the sons of Joy und Günther Weisenborn. The documentary filmmaker Christian Weisenborn’s most recent film is “Die guten Feinde. Mein Vater, die Rote Kapelle und ich” (The Good Enemies. My Father, the Red Chapel, and I), which will be shown on the German television station ZDF on September 2017 for the anniversary of the arrest of the “Red Chapel.” Hans Woller is a research assistant at the Institute for Contemporary History and from 1994 to 2015 he was the editor-in-chief of the Quarterly Yearbook for Contemporary History. C.H.Beck is also the publisher of his books Mussolini (2016), and Geschichte Italiens im 20. Jahrhundert (A History of Italy in the 20th Century, 2010).