21 Facts About John Graudenz

Wolfgang Kreher Johannes "John" Graudenz was a German journalist, press photographer, industrial representative and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.

John Graudenz was the son of a saddler, and came from a large family with 10 siblings.

John Graudenz was married three times and had an illegitimate daughter.

John Graudenz was the daughter of art publisher Ernst Wasmuth.

In 1901, aged 16 or 17, John Graudenz left the family home after a quarrel with the father, to work in various German cities before travelling to England via Italy, France and Switzerland.

John Graudenz worked as a waiter, tourist guide and hotel manager and learned a number of different languages before arriving in Berlin in 1908.

In 1916, John Graudenz started journalistic his career as an assistant to the Berlin correspondent of the United Press International and in the same year took over responsibility of the management of the Berlin office of United Press.

In March 1920 John Graudenz was involved in the Kapp Putsch that took place in Berlin and was an attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic.

At the time John Graudenz worked in the information office of the coup's opponents and became a comrade-in-arms of the opponents of the coup and for a short time was a member of the Communist Workers' Party of Germany.

In 1924, John Graudenz organised a Steamboat River cruise along the Volga River along with a group of journalists where they discovered the desolate and famine-stricken state of the Soviet Union.

In 1938, John Graudenz met the Luftwaffe officer and anti-fascist Harro Schulze-Boysen through his neighbour, the supposed fortune-teller and clairvoyant, Anna Krauss who owned a lacquer and paint wholesaler.

John Graudenz became one the members of the anti-fascist resistance group of friends that was led by Schulze-Boysen and that would be later be named by the Gestapo as the Red Orchestra.

Krauss become a core part of the group and used her apartment to host two mimeograph machines that produced leaflets, with John Graudenz running the operation.

John Graudenz became one of the core members of the group and was considered by Schulze-Boysen as one of his most valuable informants, who had many contacts in the German aviation industry.

In February 1942, John Graudenz organised the preparation and production of the leaflet called The concern for Germany's future goes through the people German: Die Sorge um Deutschlands Zukunft geht durch das Volk.

Schulze-Boysen asked John Graudenz to establish a link with a contact in Switzerland through Melliand and both John Graudenz and Melliand agreed.

The Melliand contact was tried in August 1942 when Shulze-Boysen instructed John Graudenz to ask Melliand to make the trip.

John Graudenz continued to produce political, military and economic reports for the resistance group.

John Graudenz worked for the firm, Blumhardt of Wuppertal that produced aircraft undercarriages and this enabled him to obtain information from a wide group of business and personal contact within the Nazi Ministry of Aviation.

John Graudenz was the initiator the campaign to post adhesive sticker across five Berlin neighbourhoods containing the message:.

John Graudenz was arrested on 12 September 1942 and sentenced to death by the Reichskriegsgericht on 19 December 1942.