Erwin Gehrts

, a stumbling block of Erwin Gehrts, located at 41a Uhlandstraße, Lichtenrade Berlin The son of a merchant, Gehrts grew up before the period known as "Wilhelminism". As a youth he became a member of the Wandervogel a bourgeois youth movement, that he remained involved with in his whole life. After he completed his early education in 1913, he decided to study Literature and Natural science at the University of Freiburg. In 1922, he married Hildegard Gehrts née Kremer, but suffered despair at bereavement, when his young daughter died in July 1924. In 1925, his wife Hildegard died after giving birth to their son, Hans-Erwin on 12 November 1925. In 1927 he remarried but again suffered bereavement when his child died only after 3 months. On 1 October 1930, his daughter Barbara was born. ==Career==

During World War I Gehrts served as a flying officer achieving the rank of Lieutenant. Gehrts was editor-in-chief until 1932, when he worked as a journalist for the Tägliche Rundschau newspaper in Berlin. In 1941-1942 Gehrts came into direct contact with the resistance group around Schulze-Boysen that would later be called the Red Orchestra by the Abwehr. Gehrts became an informer to Schulze-Boysen, supplying him with all the documents that he received in his capacity as a staff officer on the General Staff of the Luftwaffe.. Schulze-Boysen incorporated much of this information into his own reports, that were sometimes passed to Arvid Harnack to be written into his own reports, then couriered to Soviet intelligence. ==Arrest==

Erwin Gehrts was arrested on 9 October 1942 and his trial took place on 10 January 1943 at the Reichskriegsgericht (Military court). In January 1943 he was sentenced to death for "undermining military strength". His wife, Erika Gehrts exerted significant effort in her endeavours for a more lenient sentence. ==Bibliography==