Location
Seidelstr. 23
Historical name
Kolonie am Waldessaum
District
Tegel
Stone was laid
05 August 2011
Born
31 May 1909 in Berlin
Occupation
Sachbearbeiterin RVA
Verhaftet
12 September 1942
in
Berlin, Laubenkolonie .,Am Waldessaum“
Verhaftet
in
Polizeigefängnis am Alexanderplatz
Verhaftet
in
Frauengefängnis Barnimstraße
Excecuted
05 August 1943 in Berlin-Plötzensee
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Fotografie von Hilde Coppi. Fotorechte: GDW. -
Stolperstein für Hilde Coppi. Foto: OTFW.
Betty Gertrud Käthe Hilda, known as Hilde, was born under her maiden name Rake on 31 May 1909 in Berlin.
Hilde grew up in Berlin-Mitte. Her mother had a small shop selling leather goods in Invaliden Strasse. After attending school and a commercial college, she worked from 1927 as a doctor’s receptionist at various practices and, from 1939, as a clerk for the Reich insurance company.
While taking a course at an adult education centre in the early 1930s, she became friends with some Communists, whom she supported when they faced persecution and arrest after 1933. Her Jewish boyfriend, Franz Karma, was forced to migrate to Scandinavia in 1939. In June 1941 she married Hans Coppi, with whom she been close friends since 1940. She supported his resistance work and took part in campaigns to paste up notices against the anti-Soviet propaganda exhibition “The Soviet Paradise” in Berlin’s Lustgarten. She listened to Moscow radio to note signs of life of German prisoners of war and inform their families. She obtained paper for flyers from the insurance company where she worked and helped hide her husband’s radio equipment at friends’ homes.
In the morning of 12 September 1942, the Gestapo arrested the highly pregnant Hilde Coppi, her parents-in-law and brother-in-law in the garden colony “Am Waldessaum” as well as her mother at her home at Frankfurter Allee 108. Detained at first in the police prison at Alexanderplatz, Hilde Coppi was transferred to the women’s prison in Barnim Strasse a few weeks before the birth of her son. The prison chaplain, August Ohm, took the following notes based on their conversations together: “Hilde Coppi, treason and high treason, Schulze-Boysen circle, gentle, delicate, brave, entirely selfless. Gave birth to her baby on 27.11.42. Was not to be told of her husband’s execution, so did not express her pain. Baby was not collected by her mother until the week of her execution. Proud, self-controlled and kind. No hate. A touching person. Never counted on people’s ‘mercy’. No regrets.”
The Reichskriegsgericht (the high court of the German armed forces) sentenced Hilde Coppi to death on 20 January 1943; Hitler rejected a plea for clemency in July 1943 and she was executed on 5 August 1943 in Ploetzensee. After 1945 her son Hans was raised by Frieda and Robert Coppi, her husband’s parents, in the garden colony “Am Waldessaum”. In 1950 they moved to Berlin-Karlshorst. The avenue in Tegel named after Hans and Hilde Coppi in 1946 was returned to its former name, Hatzfeld Allee, in 1948.
Hilde grew up in Berlin-Mitte. Her mother had a small shop selling leather goods in Invaliden Strasse. After attending school and a commercial college, she worked from 1927 as a doctor’s receptionist at various practices and, from 1939, as a clerk for the Reich insurance company.
While taking a course at an adult education centre in the early 1930s, she became friends with some Communists, whom she supported when they faced persecution and arrest after 1933. Her Jewish boyfriend, Franz Karma, was forced to migrate to Scandinavia in 1939. In June 1941 she married Hans Coppi, with whom she been close friends since 1940. She supported his resistance work and took part in campaigns to paste up notices against the anti-Soviet propaganda exhibition “The Soviet Paradise” in Berlin’s Lustgarten. She listened to Moscow radio to note signs of life of German prisoners of war and inform their families. She obtained paper for flyers from the insurance company where she worked and helped hide her husband’s radio equipment at friends’ homes.
In the morning of 12 September 1942, the Gestapo arrested the highly pregnant Hilde Coppi, her parents-in-law and brother-in-law in the garden colony “Am Waldessaum” as well as her mother at her home at Frankfurter Allee 108. Detained at first in the police prison at Alexanderplatz, Hilde Coppi was transferred to the women’s prison in Barnim Strasse a few weeks before the birth of her son. The prison chaplain, August Ohm, took the following notes based on their conversations together: “Hilde Coppi, treason and high treason, Schulze-Boysen circle, gentle, delicate, brave, entirely selfless. Gave birth to her baby on 27.11.42. Was not to be told of her husband’s execution, so did not express her pain. Baby was not collected by her mother until the week of her execution. Proud, self-controlled and kind. No hate. A touching person. Never counted on people’s ‘mercy’. No regrets.”
The Reichskriegsgericht (the high court of the German armed forces) sentenced Hilde Coppi to death on 20 January 1943; Hitler rejected a plea for clemency in July 1943 and she was executed on 5 August 1943 in Ploetzensee. After 1945 her son Hans was raised by Frieda and Robert Coppi, her husband’s parents, in the garden colony “Am Waldessaum”. In 1950 they moved to Berlin-Karlshorst. The avenue in Tegel named after Hans and Hilde Coppi in 1946 was returned to its former name, Hatzfeld Allee, in 1948.