Mayor Hanno Benz commemorates the Darmstadt resistance fighter and companion Wilhelm Leuschners
Darmstadt. For the 125th birthday of Elly Deumer on July 28, 2025, the science city of Darmstadt is reminiscent of a significant but previously little-known woman of the German resistance against the Nazi regime. Mayor Hanno Benz emphasizes in his appreciation:
"Elly Deumer is one of the wrongly forgotten women of the overthrow attempt of July 20, 1944, who were shocking to the Nazi dictatorship."
Life stages and resistance
Born on July 28, 1900 in Darmstadt , Elly Deumer was the close confidante and lover of Wilhelm Leuschner , one of the leading heads of German resistance from 1928 at the latest. After the failed assassination attempt on Hitler, Deumer hid her partner for several days to protect him from the gestapo from arrest. After Leuschner was denounced and arrested in August 1944, Deumer tried to obtain his pardon-among other things through efforts to meet the Darmstadt SS General Karl Wolff . However, the meeting did not come about.
In her diary, Elly Deumer noted on September 11, 1944:
"Judgment on helmet. The strand." -A few weeks later, on September 29, 1944 , Leuschner was executed in Berlin-Plötzensee .
Survival and live in post -war Germany
Elly Deumer survived the Nazi era, also because Leuschner did not reveal any names even under heavy torture. After the end of the war, she took up her medical studies in Berlin. Among other things, she received support from Leuschner's son after losing her apartment at Herdweg 67 at the 1944 fire night.
in Darmstadt until her death in 1985 Her recordings and diary notes are now archived in the Darmstadt Hessian State Archives .
(Darmstadt - Red/PSD/Fre/Stip)
