Heinrich Döppel (26.1.1910 Abensberg – 13.4.1961 Munich) and Maria Döppel (20.6.1910 Munich – 15.5.2002 Munich)

Heinrich Döppel, who was raised in Abensberg, had lived in Munich-Neuhausen since 1928. The trained electrician, who had been unemployed since 1932, became involved in the Communist Youth League (KJVD) and also joined the KPD. After the mass arrests of well-known Munich communists immediately following the National Socialist seizure of power, it was primarily worker athletes and members of the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD) who sought to establish contacts and print and distribute illegal publications from the summer of 1933 onwards. Heinrich Döppel established a link with Augsburg youth to supply them with literature too. In September 1933, the group was discovered; over 20 police officers surrounded Döppel’s residence on Horemannstraße. After being remanded in custody and brutally interrogated in prison, he was sentenced to one year and six months in prison by the Munich Higher Regional Court in a treason trial against a total of six young defendants for distributing illegal publications. After serving his sentence in Nuremberg and Straubing, however, he was not released but imprisoned in Dachau Concentration Camp until April 11, 1938. In 1939, shortly before he was drafted into military service, he married his childhood sweetheart, Maria Dengler, sister of Centa Beimler.

Maria Dengler was arrested on September 12, 1933 at her workplace at the Sendling Consumer Co-op where she worked as a shop assistant and, like her sister, was detained in “kin imprisonment” - without any charges or explanation. She initially served her ‘protective custody‘ in Stadelheim Prison, then from February 10, 1936 to June 15, 1937 in Moringen Women’s Concentration Camp. After her release, she had great difficulty finding a job as a former political prisoner. Like her sister Centa, she eventually found employment again at the ‘Oberbayerische Aktiengesellschaft für Kohlenbergbau’ (Upper Bavarian Coal Mining Corporation).