Helene Delacher

born 1904 in Burgfrieden near Lienz
died 1943 in Berlin

Memorial. A wall with the words: Den Opfern der Hitlerdiktatur der Jahre 1933 — 1945 — "To the victims of Hitler's dictatorship in the years 1933-1945”, Berlin-Plötzensee Memorial, 2010 (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons / Alter Fritz)

Among the persons who disagreed with the NS-regime for religious reasons, Jehovah’s Witnesses were among the most consistently persecuted, as they did not recognize the authority of Hitler and his party.

Helene Delacher was born in 1904 in Burgfrieden, municipality of Leisach near Lienz (Tyrol), as an Austrian farmer’s daughter. She and her SouthTyrolian partner, Alois Hochrainer, joined Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1938, the year of the National Socialist annexation of Austria.

Copy of a handwritten letter — Farewell letter from Helene Delacher to Alois Hochrainer, November 12, 1943 (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

After their imprisonment for religious activity in 1940, her partner had to return to South Tyrol, while Helene Delacher remained in Austria. She continued to smuggle religious pamphlets over the border, which were considered to be “undermining the military”.

She was intercepted on one of these clandestine trips on June 14, 1943, and imprisoned. Her trial was staged at the Volksgerichtshof in Berlin on October 4, 1943, and she received the death penalty, which was executed in Berlin-Plötzensee on November 12, 1943.

Her body was transferred to the anatomy department at Berlin University to be studied by anatomist Professor Hermann Stieve (1886–1952).

On September 8, 1999, Helene Delacher was officially rehabilitated by the state court of Vienna.