Execution of Otto and Elise Hampel

Date: April 8, 1943 • Location: Berlin, Germany

Otto and Elise Hampel were executed in Berlin for performing acts of resistance against Nazism.

Otto and Elise Hampel were a working class German couple who created a simple method of protest against Nazism in Berlin during the middle years of World War II. They wrote postcards denouncing Hitler's government and left them in public places around the city. They were eventually caught, tried, and beheaded in Berlin's Plötzensee Prison in April 1943. Shortly after the end of the war, their Gestapo file was given to German novelist Hans Fallada, and their story inspired his 1947 novel, translated into English and published in 2009 as Every Man Dies Alone. The story was filmed in 2016 as Alone in Berlin.