Josef Wirmer

Josef Wirmer (19 March 1901 – 8 September 1944) was a German jurist and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.

Life

Born in

Pius XII

, to intervene personally cannot be proved by any sources from that time.

In 1936, Wirmer came into contact with the trade-unionist resistance circles about

Hitler

right from the beginning.

After Stauffenberg's plans failed and Hitler survived the bombing at the

Volksgerichtshof was recorded in court records and in a film that was secretly shot on Hitler's orders. When Roland Freisler

, who presided over the court, accused Wirmer of having a cowardly attitude,

"Joseph Wirmer, yes you belong to a black faction (black meant Catholic Centre Party at the time), yes that's what you're taken for, that can't be otherwise. It's weird. How important the position as a civilian lawyer that you have had must have been that you never once became a soldier at that age. And from then on you have been mobilized, which also speaks for your attitude, that you first wait, until someone mobilizes you. Fine rascal. (Shouting loudly) Yes, yes, yes, fine rascal!"

he replied,

"When I hang, I'll have no fear, but you will!"

When Freisler retorted that Wirmer would soon be going to hell, he answered with a "courtly bow",

"I'll look forward to your own imminent arrival, Mr. President!"

On 8 September 1944, Josef Wirmer was sentenced to death by the Volksgerichtshof. Two hours after the sentence had been handed down at the

Plötzensee Prison

in Berlin. Roland Freisler died five months afterwards during an Allied bombing raid.

Wirmer flag

Taking up long-lasting controversies surrounding the

Nordic Cross. His draft was meant as a proposal on a new German flag for the event that the conspirators of the 20 July plot would assume power following a successful attempt on Hitler by Stauffenberg. He thereby approached to conservative circles despising the black, red and gold tricolour of the Weimar Republic (and also remedied the breach of the rule of tincture

).

After the war, when the West German Herrenchiemsee convention worked out a new constitution in 1948, Wirmer's flag design was again discussed. Though initially backed by Christian Democrats and German Party delegates, it was ultimately rejected in favor of a former black, red and gold tricolour.^[1] In the 1950s, the Christian Democratic Union as well as the Free Democratic Party temporarily adopted the Cross flag as party banners.

In recent times the Wirmer flag has come to be adopted by Neue Rechte movements, such as Hogesa or pro NRW, and is regularly displayed at Pegida rallies. This is a source of condemnation by many, who see it as an insult to the resistance, but others claim the use of the Wirmer flag is justified, as the aforementioned groups claim they resist just as the German resistance did.^[2]