Robert Uhrig Group
Robert Uhrig was a journeyman toolmaker who joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1920. He worked at the Osram company and joined the KPD workplace cell. He took leadership of his cell in 1933. That same year, the Reichstag Fire Decree was signed into law and in effect outlawed all political parties but the Nazi party. By June of 1933, more than half of the KPD district leaders were in detention alongside thousands of other communists.
In 1934 Uhrig was arrested and sentenced to hard labor but was released in the summer of 1936. He quickly went underground and began working with the Berlin KGB. By 1938 he was running a network of resistance groups which existed in over 20 factories in Berlin. This became part of one of the largest anti-fascist resistance organizations in Berlin.
Uhrig was in regular contact with other resistance groups, including the famed Red Orchestra. In 1940-1941 he started working with Beppo Romer. It was Uhrig and Romer who published an underground paper which was one of the most important resistance newspapers during the war. The paper told of the economic and military situation and called for acts of sabotage.
In 1941 the Gestapo got the upper hand by infiltrating the Robert Uhrig group with informers. In February 1942, Uhrig and 200 others were arrested for their work within the group and trying to subvert the Nazi regime. Uhrig was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He was sentenced to death on June 7, 1944 and the sentence was carried out on August 21, 1944 by guillotine.