Arthur Hoffmann ( resistance fighter ) Arthur Hoffmann ( 29 September 1900 in Neumannswaldau , Silesia – 12 January 1945 , executed in Dresden ) was a German resistance fighter against the Nazi régime in World War II . Life . Arthur Hoffmann ' s beginnings were very humble . He was from a tiny hamlet in Silesia which contained only six houses . His father was a bricklayer and his mother ran a small agricultural enterprise . An hour - long walk took Hoffmann to a second - rate rural school when he was a boy , where the teacher ' s favour could be bought with gifts of sausages , something well beyond the Hoffmann family ' s means . After finishing the eighth year of school , Hoffmann was apprenticed as a carpenter . In 1917 , he joined the " Deutscher Holzarbeiterverband " ( " German Woodworkers ' Union " ) . In February 1917 , during World War I , Hoffmann was called into the " 29er Pionieren " in Posen ( now Poznań , Poland ) , where his comrades in arms saw fit to elect him to the Soldiers ' Council . In 1919 , he met his future wife , Dora Hörig while she was visiting a cousin in Silesia . Shortly thereafter , however , Hoffmann went travelling . He wended his way through Germany , finally arriving at Delitzsch , where Weimar Republic political events were brought home to him very clearly . He actively took part in defending the results of the November Revolution in Germany , and for this , he was given two years and ten months in prison for what the court in Torgau deemed to be a breach of the peace . He was , however , freed after one year and nine months under an amnesty . Hoffmann finally wed Dora on 19 May 1923 . They would have a daughter and three sons . Political activities . Arthur Hoffmann joined the Communist Party of Germany ( KPD ) in 1922 , and the " Rotfrontkämpferbund " ( RFB ) in 1926 ; from 1927 , he was a member of the West Saxony RFB ' s district leadership . In 1929 , after the RFB was banned , Hoffmann spent three weeks in custody for organizing demonstrations thanks to then Interior Minister Carl Severing . In the same year , however , he became a representative in the Leipzig city parliament . In 1931 , after trying to buy some weapons , he was sentenced to five years in prison . He was released the next year , however – again , under an amnesty . Resistance activities . After the Nazis seized power in 1933 and his flat was stormed by police and SA troops meaning to arrest him – he managed to get away – Hoffmann was sent by the KPD as an organizer of antifascist resistance into the underground in Chemnitz , but was nevertheless arrested in November . In 1934 , he was sentenced to three years in Waldheim Labour Prison ( " Zuchthaus " ) for " spreading a high - treasonous undertaking " . In 1937 , his time over , he was then taken into " protective custody " , but released on 20 December for good behaviour after having spent a few months in Sachsenburg , and later Buchenwald concentration camp , after the former was shut down . He had to put in writing that he would no longer take up any political activities . From 1938 to 1944 , Hoffmann belonged to the Organizers of Antifascist Resistance in Leipzig , a group about Georg Schumann , a part of the so - called Schumann - Engert - Kresse group . He worked zealously in various armament plants ; his political goal was to disrupt and spoil production . From 1943 on , he also worked together with the National Committee Free Germany ( " Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland " ; NKFD ) . Arrest , trial , and death . In 1944 , Hoffmann was once again arrested , along with his family on 19 July . The proceedings against him before the Second Senate of the " Volksgerichtshof " on 22 and 23 November ended with a conviction for undermining the fighting forces ( " Wehrkraftzersetzung " ) , conspiracy to commit high treason , and furthering the enemy ' s cause ( " Feindbegünstigung " ) , along with the attendant death sentence . Alfred Frank , Karl Jungbluth , Georg Schwarz and William Zipperer were tried along with Hoffmann . On 12 January 1945 , the sentence was carried out in the execution yard at Münchner Platz in Leipzig . Honours . Since 1 August 1945 , a main street in Leipzig leading from " Bayrischer Platz " to Connewitz has borne the name " Arthur - Hoffmann - Straße " ( its former name is " Bayrische Straße " ) . Arthur Hoffmann and his family lived there . Until 1992 , the Third Polytechnic Secondary School ( " 3 . Polytechnische Oberschule " ) in Leipzig ( Bernhard - Göring - Straße 107 ) bore the name " Arthur - Hoffmann - Oberschule " .