Dr. Theodor Haubach

Theodor Haubach, a journalist, Social Democrat politician and opponent of Nazism, was born on 15 September 1896 in Frankfurt am Main, the only child of Emil Haubach, a merchant, and his wife Emilie. His father died just one year later and his mother moved with him to Darmstadt, where he spent his childhood and youth.
Theodor Haubach attended the Ludwig-Georgs-Gymnasium school in Darmstadt, where he met Carlo Mierendorff, who was to become a life-long friend. The two Social Democrats became political comrades in the fight against Nazism.
After gaining his Abitur school-leaving diploma in 1914, Haubach volunteered for the army. He was wounded several times and highly decorated. Deeply affected by the horrors he experienced during the war, he became an ardent fighter for peace and democracy, and developed an interest in social democracy. In 1920 he participated as a commander in the armed suppression of the Kapp Putsch in Darmstadt.
From 1919 to 1923, Haubach studied philosophy and sociology, gaining a PhD under Karl Jaspers. In 1920 he joined the Hamburg branch of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), and from 1924 to 1929 he worked as a journalist for the social-democratic newspaper “Hamburger Echo”. In 1927 he became a member of the Hamburg Parliament. In 1924, realizing that the fledgling Weimar democracy was in jeopardy, he co-founded the democratic union for the protection of the Weimar Republic (“Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold”) of which he was also a leading member. In 1929 Haubach moved to Berlin to become press officer for the Reich Minister of the Interior. One year later, he became head of the press office of the Berlin police headquarters.
As a Social Democrat who was well known for actively defending democracy, he was hated by the Nazis and arrested shortly after they seized power in 1933. On his release, he built up an underground SPD organization, essentially consisting of his companions from the “Reichsbanner” days. In 1934 he was rearrested and imprisoned for almost two years, first in the Columbiahaus concentration camp in Berlin, then in Esterwegen concentration camp. In 1939 he was arrested once again but, undeterred, subsequently joined another resistance group, the Kreisauer circle, with the help of his friend Mierendorff. In the provisional government that they planned to install, Haubach was to take the post of government spokesman.
Shortly after the 20 July attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, on 9 August 1944, Theodor Haubach was arrested at his house at Falterweg 11 in Eichkamp. On 15 January 1945, he was sentenced to death by the People’s Court. On 23 January 1945, Dr. Theodor Haubach, an upright Social Democrat and resistance fighter, was murdered by the Nazis by hanging.
Haubach was convinced that “the limit of violence now lies in their ability to annihilate the person offering resistance. […] But this extermination cannot eradicate the memory of what actually happened.” He was proven right: The Nazis may have killed him, but they did not extinguish the memory of him and his commitment to peace, democracy and human rights.
He is commemorated in Charlottenburg, where the street Haubachstraße and the school Theodor-Haubach-Schule is named after him. To mark the 60th anniversary of his death in 2005, the Federal Press Office named its briefing hall after him. On 5 March 2013, 150 years since the SPD was founded, a stumbling stone was laid outside the former home of Dr. Theodor Haubach.