Vierergruppe ( German Resistance ) A Vierergruppe ( " group of four " ) was a small German resistance group that fought the National Socialists . There were three " groups of four " working simultaneously and independently of each other in Hamburg , Munich and Vienna . Each of the groups consisted of four young males aged 16 to 18 and each group was led by someone whose precociousness set him apart . The groups had no political agenda , no background in party politics and moved in a religious environment . All twelve young men came from predominantly Christian , lower - and lower - middle - class families . All were influenced by having heard foreign radio broadcasts , which affected their actions . All of them used leaflets and wall slogans to agitate against the war , against the regime of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi s , and all came to the conclusion that the war Germany was leading , then two years old , could not be won . They all hoped for an Allied invasion and victory and the resulting liberation from the domination of the Nazi regime . Vierergruppe Hamburg . The Hamburg group centered around Helmuth Hübener , a 16 - year - old Mormon . He and his friends listened to " enemy radio " broadcasts of the BBC and then transcribed the news reports as leaflets , which they then disseminated . Hübener and his friends Karl - Heinz Schnibbe , age 17 , and Rudolf Wobbe , age 16 , also Mormons and a co - worker , Gerhard Düwer made their own dissident documents and satirical verses and began distributing the leaflets in working - class neighborhoods in August 1941 . The 60 leaflets , containing three to five pages each , were prepared on a church typewriter and left in telephone booths , mailboxes and the lobbies of buildings . At the end of January 1942 , Hübener and Düwer asked an acquaintace to translate their leaflets into French and were observed and afterward denounced . Hübener , Schnibbe and Wobbe were arrested by the Gestapo on February 5 , 1942 . Schnibbe and Wobbe were arrested a few days later . They were tried on August 11 , 1942 before the Nazi People ' s Court . Hübener took full responsibility for the group , its actions and the fliers . He was sentenced to death for conspiracy to commit high treason and for aiding and abetting the enemy , his three co - defendants were condemned to prison terms of 4 – 10 years and spent the rest of the war in prison . Hübener was executed at the age of 17 on October 27 , 1942 at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin . Vierergruppe Munich . Munich resident Walter Klingenbeck , who was raised in a religious Catholic environment , regularly listened to German - language broadcasts of " enemy radio " stations , such as the BBC and Radio Vatican with his friends , Hans Haberl , Daniel von Recklinghausen and a fourth , only peripherally involved . After the BBC called for the V for Victory sign of the Allies to be spread about , they decided to do their part . Klingenbeck and von Recklinghausen painted the " V sign " on some 40 buildings in Munich . They were planning to produce leaflets and even to build a pirate radio transmitter , but before they were able to carry these plans out , Klingenbeck , Haberl and von Recklinghausen were arrested in January 1942 . Klingenbeck had blabbed about what they had done and was denounced . On September 24 , 1942 , Klingenbeck , Haberl and von Recklinghausen were sentenced to death , the fourth member of the group was sentenced to 8 years at hard labor in a " zuchthaus " . The following August , Haberl and von Recklinghausen had their sentences reduced to 8 years in a " zuchthaus " . Klingenbeck was executed on August 5 , 1943 in Munich at Stadelheim Prison . Vierergruppe Vienna . Josef Landgraf , a high school student in Vienna , listened to banned radio stations and in autumn of 1941 , began to create leaflets from what they heard . He was denounced three weeks later , but in that time , had already produced 70 leaflets and an equal number of stickers . The leaflets discussed the anti - religious activities of the Nazi Party and a critical comparison of Nazi propaganda with reports from the BBC . Three of his classmates , Ludwig Igalffy , Friedrich Fexer and Anton Brunner , helped him produce and disseminate the leaflets . Brunner had already been arrested by the Nazis in May 1938 , and had spent his 16th birthday on May 29 , 1938 in prison . Landgraf was arrested at the entrance of his school , in possession of anti - nazi leaflets . Igalffy and Fexer were arrested on January 19 , 1942 and the Gestapo arrested Brunner the next day . Landgraf and Brunner were convicted and sentenced to death on August 28 , 1942 by the Nazi " People ' s Court " . The other two were sentenced to eight and six years in prison . Brunner ' s sentence was reduced on March 15 , 1943 . Landgraf ' s sentence was reduced to seven years in prison after spending 406 days on death row . Legacy . In 1998 , a lane in the center of Munich , previously unnamed , was named after Klingenbeck . A realschule in Taufkirchen is also named for him . Hübener and the Hamburg group have been the subject of several books and dramatic works , including the 1969 book by Günter Grass , called " Local Anaesthetic " , about Hamburg group . A documentary called " Truth & Conviction , " was released in 2002 about Hübener and his friends . It was written and directed by Rick McFarland and Matt Whitaker and sponsored by Brigham Young University . A movie , " Truth & Treason " starring Haley Joel Osment and Max von Sydow , due to be released in 2011 , is being produced by the makers of the documentary . In 2004 , a traveling exhibit , " Widerstandsgruppe Landgraf " ( Landgraf Resistance Group ) , was organized under the auspices of Vienna ' s Landstrasse Museum , in cooperation with JUNA , an independent research group dedicated to documenting history from eye witnesses , especially that of youth during the Third Reich , both their involvement in and resistance to Nazism . The opening of the exhibit was attended by two surviving members of the Vierergruppe Vienna , Josef Landgraf and Ludwig Igalffy . On October 26 , 2007 , a commemorative plaque dedicated to Anton Brunner , who later became a priest , was unveiled in the Emmersdorf suburb of Melk , Austria . See also . List of Germans who resisted Nazism