Hilde Coppi

Betti Gertrud Käthe Hilda Coppi ( Rake; 30 May 1909 – 5 August 1943), known as Hilde Coppi, was a German communist and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.

She was a member of the anti-fascist resistance group that was later called the Red Orchestra by the Abwehr, during the Nazi period.

Betti Gertrud Käthe Hilda Rake was born in Berlin, and grew up in Mitte area of Berlin.

Her mother ran a small leather shop.

After finishing vocational school, she worked as a general practitioner's assistant through much of the 1930s.

Coppi was working in Berlin as a clerk at the Reich Insurance Institute for Clerical Workers when she got to know Hans Coppi, who had only just been released from prison.

By 1933, Rake had contact with members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).

Together, Hilde and Hans Coppi – who wed on 14 June 1941 – hid persecution victims of the Nazi régime.

During the war, Hilde Coppi listened to "Voice of Russia" (ie Radio Moscow) and shared the information broadcast over the radio with the Red Orchestra and other resistance groups.

She also relayed greetings and any other signs of continued life heard on Radio Moscow from German prisoners of war to their kin.

This was especially important, as Nazi propaganda had it that Soviet troops shot their enemies out of hand, and did not take prisoners.

Moreover, she busied herself by broadcasting her group's messages through leaflets and stickers.

She conducted a sticker campaign against the Nazis' anti-Soviet propaganda exhibition called The Soviet Paradise.

Coppi and her husband were both arrested on 12 September 1942, along with Hans' parents and brother, and Hilde's mother.

Hilde was pregnant by this time, later giving birth to the couple's son at the Barnimstrasse women's prison on 27 November.

On 22 December 1942, her husband was put to death, and Hilde, too, was sentenced to death in the new year, on 20 January.

A petition for clemency was made in her case in July, but Hitler refused to grant it.

The execution was delayed until August, so that she could nurse her child, Hans.

On 5 August 1943, Hilde Coppi was beheaded at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin seven months after her husband.

After the end of the war, her son was raised by her husband parent's, Freda and Robert Coppi, in the Garden colony Am Waldessaum.

In 1950, the family moved to Karlshorst.

A film based on events of her life titled as From Hilde, With Love directed by Andreas Dresen will be screened at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2024, and scheduled for theatrical release on 17 October 2024 in Germany.