Karl Deibel

Karl Deibel, born in 1897, was an advertising agent. Between 1938 and 1945 he was involved with groups of people of similar political opinions engaging in activities like disseminating anti-war leaflets in public places. He met Otto Weidt in 1943, if not before. Deibel worked in the dispatch department of the Workshop for the Blind from 1943 to 1944.

In 1942 Deibel started hiding Jews and victims of political persecution in his home. Otto Weidt arranged for Deibel to use his old workshop premises at Großbeerenstraße 92 in the Kreuzberg district to shelter more people. In the course of time, Deibel hid more than ten persons.

When Hermann Rachmann, one of the people he was sheltering, was arrested, he betrayed Karl Deibel to the Gestapo. Deibel was arrested and interrogated in July 1944. The Gestapo tried unsuccessfully to get information from him about Jews in hiding and their helpers. Deibel was released on October 9, 1944. But he was arrested again shortly after and interned until the end of the war with other political suspects in Schönwalde near Berlin. He survived the war.

In 1946 he was officially recognized as a victim of political persecution and a victim of fascism. In 1960 the Berlin Senate honored him as an “Unsung Hero.”