35. The Man Who Refused to Follow the Crowd
August Landmesser was a German shipyard worker from Hamburg, who is best known for appearing in a 1936 photograph in which he conspicuously stood out from the crowd by refusing to perform a Nazi salute. Born in 1910, August had joined the Nazi Party at age 21, but was kicked out four years later when he fell in love with and got engaged to a Jewish woman, Irma Eckler. The couple were prevented from marrying by the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, which forbade marriage and intercourse between Aryans and Jews. They had a daughter out of wedlock later that year. Thus, when the photo that made Landmesser famous was taken, he did not bother hiding his disdain for the Nazis.
Unfortunately, the story did not have a happy ending. Landmesser tried to flee with his daughter and pregnant wife to Denmark in 1937, but they were stopped at the border and turned back. He was charged with violating the Nuremberg Laws, but got off with a warning. However, when he refused to abandon his wife and family, he was sent to a concentration camp in 1938. His wife was also sent to a concentration, where she was most likely murdered in 1942. Landmesser was released in 1941, and drifted into menial jobs until 1944, when he was drafted into a penal battalion. He was killed in action, fighting in Croatia on October 17th, 1944. Landmesser and Eckler were survived by two daughters, who survived the war in an orphanage.
