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The original European Union ((ドイツ語:Europäische Union)) was an antifascist resistance group during Germany's Nazi era, which formed around Anneliese and Georg Groscurth and Robert Havemann. Other important members were Herbert Richter and Paul Rentsch. == Activity and purpose == The Berlin-based resistance group was founded in 1939.〔("Israel honours memory of anti-Nazi 'European Union'" ) Reuters (June 20, 2006) Retrieved March 17, 2010〕 Founding members, Robert Havemann, a chemist and Georg Groscurth, a doctor, met each other at the beginning of the 1930s. Rentsch, a dentist, met Groscurth in 1934. Richter, an architect, was Richter's neighbor.〔Andrea Everwien. ("Doppelte Enteignung: Wie die Familie eines Widerstandskämpfers ihr Eigentum verlor" ) ("Double Loss: how the family of a resistance fighter lost their property") Official website of rbb (Television station Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg). (May 30, 2007) Retrieved March 18, 2010 〕 They became friends not because of politics, but because of common interests. They were intellectual, free spirits and came to their political views independently.〔Bernd Florath. "Die Europäische Union," essay in Johannes Tuchel, ''Der vergessene Widerstand — zu Realgeschichte und Wahrnehmung des Kampfes gegen die NS-Diktatur'', pp. 114-139. (2001) Wallstein Verlag. ISBN 978-3-89244-943-0 〕 Three of the four core members of the EU had direct contact with high-level Nazis. When war broke out, both Havemann and Groscurth tried to extend their work in such a way that they wouldn't be called upon to serve in the military. They took on projects from the Heereswaffenamt, biochemical research that was to put Germany in position to use chemical weapons, but neither they nor other scientists were terribly ambitious about the nominal goal. The architect, Richter, received contracts from the ''Reichshandwerkskammer'' and got to know and win the trust of Hermann Göring. He was already interested in the Communist Party and the information he learned from his personal contact with Göring filled him with hate for the Nazis and only pushed him further toward the idea of resistance. Groscurth, a doctor, had both Rudolph Hess and Wilhelm Keppler as his patients.〔〔Lars von Törne. ("Späte Versöhnung" ) ("Late Reconciliation") ''Der Taggesspiel'' (August 10, 2006) 〕 The European Union (EU) stood for the restoration of democratic rights and freedoms and a united, free and socialist Europe. They tried to strengthen the domestic German resistance through contacts with the resistance groups of the foreign forced laborers. It was an international organization organized as a network of smaller groups of individual resistance fighters. They weren't trying to bring down the Nazi regime themselves, which they expected to collapse of its own, rather they worked to create a political structure that could step in, which would be necessary when the Hitler-regime finally fall apart.〔 In the meantime, the group produced anti-Nazi leaflets and hid Jews and others hunted by the Nazi regime and supplied them with new identification papers, food and information.〔〔Claudia Keller. ("Späte Ehre für die selbstlosen Retter" ) ("Late Honor for the selfless Lifesaver") ''Der Taggespiel'' (July 6, 2005) Retrieved March 16, 2010 〕 Many members were already hiding Jews before 1939, feeding and taking care of them and saving them from deportation to concentration camps. Starting in 1942, they also helped foreign forced laborers. In addition, they stayed in contact with several other groups and individuals, through the various contacts of the core members of the group. The EU eventually numbered about 50 people〔 and included many forced laborers from Ukraine, Czechoslovakia and France, making it an international group with a larger perimeter than the Gestapo investigations reveal. This is underscored by the fact that even as the EU was brought down by the wave of arrests, Konstantin Žadkevič was able to keep working with the forced laborers for another month.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「European Union (resistance group)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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