9 - Carl von Ossietzky
Carl Von Ossietzky (1889 - 1938) |
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Courageous editor of Die Weltbuhne (The World Stage) - Germany's most celebrated and hated anti-militarist journal in the mid 1920s and early 1930s - Carl von Ossietzky was a staunch democrat and republican. He criticised the pre-Nazi Weimar Republic for failing to curb right-wing and militarist forces. He exposed the German army's secret rearmament programme and its condoning of paramilitary organisations.
Accused of treason and libel, he spent nearly four years in prisons and concentration camps, resulting in his death aged 48. His friends abroad organised a large campain to have him awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, hoping that would ease his predicament. The Nazis were outraged by the award, preventing Ossietzky from accepting the Prize and banning all Germans from accepting any future Nobel Prize. |
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