The Wrestler Who Took on Nazi Germany
Seventy-five years after the Nazis murdered him, we celebrate the life of German anti-fascist athlete and communist resistance fighter Werner Seelenbinder.
People carrying wreaths in memory of the dead at a mass anti-fascist rally in Berlin’s Werner-Seelenbinder Stadium, September 1945.Fred Ramage / Keystone / Getty
Seventy-five years ago, at around noon on October 24, 1944, Werner Seelenbinder was beheaded with an axe — a penalty for treason against the Nazi state.
At the time, the bulky former Olympic wrestler weighted just 132 pounds. After being arrested for resistance activities, he spent almost three years and faced weeks of torture in nine camps. Seelenbinder’s incredible life, filled with opposition to fascism and advocacy for the rights of working people, made him a national hero in East Germany.
In the Federal Republic, however, his legacy was deliberately buried, a victim of Cold War anticommunism.
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