German Resistance Memorial Center
- Biographies

The son of a teacher, Martin Weise joined the Communist Youth Federation of Germany in 1927 and the KPD shortly later. He studied history and literature from 1921 to 1924 but had to abandon his studies for financial reasons. Before becoming unemployed in 1928, he spent several years working for an insurance company. Between November 1929 and January 1933 Weise was a local representative for the KPD in Berlin-Neukölln, and also a member of the welfare deputation. He began writing articles for the party's Rote Fahne newspaper in 1930 and was one of the editors who continued to publish it illegally after 1933. Martin Weise was arrested in the fall of 1933 and sentenced to three years in a penal institution for his communist activities in April 1934. After his release from Brandenburg penal institution in October 1936 he was imprisoned for seven months in Brandenburg prison. He had received this sentence in 1929 for "severe breach of the peace," having taken part in an unemployed demonstration. Weise's partner Frieda Seidlitz worked as a courier for the KPD. After being arrested by the Gestapo, she was badly mistreated and committed suicide in prison on May 27, 1936.

Martin Weise was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp on May 5, 1937. There, he was reunited with Wilhelm Guddorf, whom he knew from his time as a Rote Fahne editor. After his release from concentration camp on April 20, 1939, Weise made contact to his old friends, including Guddorf and the Hamburg communist resistance fighters Bernhard Bästlein and Robert Abshagen. They wanted to intensify and reorganize their resistance activities in the fall of 1941. Martin Weise was arrested on December 1, 1942, sentenced to death by the "People's Court" on October 8, 1943, and beheaded in Brandenburg-Görden penal institution on November 15, 1943.