Wilhelm Olschewski sen. (18.8.1871 Ełk/East Prussia – 30.4.1943 Munich-Stadelheim prison)

A businessman and World War II officer, Olschweski was a leading figure in the soviet movement in Augsburg of 1918/19: this led to him being sentenced to seven years in prison for high treason in June 1919, though he was amnestied at the end of 1924. Having since become a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), he worked in Munich from 1925 onwards as the director of the communist newspaper Neue Zeitung. With his large family – he and his wife Sophie had five children – their apartment in Augustenstraße formed a center for communist activities that extended far beyond Munich. Due to his military experience and his contacts, Olschewski was actively involved in the Munich group Aufbruch (‘Awakening’) from the early 1930s onwards: with its magazine Aufbruch (‘Awakening’), this group attempted to win over national-conservative circles throughout the Reich to support a revolutionary but anti-Nazi agenda.

Olschewski was arrested on March 7, 1933 and imprisoned for three months. This was followed by three more short-term imprisonments and repeated house searches up until fall 1937 (at certain times, Olschewski’s two sons Erich and Willy spent several years in Dachau Concentration Camp). But Olschewski was still prepared to help build a nationwide network around his friend, retired captain Beppo Römer ,a former Free Corps Leader with the ‘Upland League’. After the war broke out in 1939, Römer came to Munich several times for talks with Hans Hartwimmer and Olschewski to discuss their aims, which were to establish small conspiratorial groups for training purposes, take measures to disrupt the war machinery, and finally prepare activities to eliminate the Nazi rulers in the event of defeat in the war, in collaboration with members of the military and also resistance groups in companies. To this end, Olschewski also endeavored to extend the network to Augsburg.

But at the beginning of 1942 the Gestapo was able to swiftly arrest not only the group members in Berlin but also a total of 43 individuals in Munich. Olschewski was arrested on February 4, 1942 and taken first to the Gestapo prison at Wittelsbacher Palais, then to Corneliusstraße prison, and finally, on April 19, to Stadelheim prison infirmary, where he died shortly afterwards on April 30, 1943 under ambiguous circumstances, possibly as a result of mistreatment. In several trials conducted a year later, six members of the resistance group were sentenced to death, including Olschewski’s son Willy and his son-in-law; others received lengthy prison sentences.

The street Olschewski-Bogen in Munich-Milbertshofen was named after the resistance activist in 1987.