German Resistance Memorial Center Biographie
Werner Seelenbinder
The transport worker Werner Seelenbinder was a successful member of the workers' sporting movement. He was the only German athlete to win in his discipline at the 1928 Spartakiad in Moscow. On his return from the Soviet Union, he joined the KPD. After the National Socialists took power, Seelenbinder joined the East Berlin Sports Association. He used international competitions for his illegal work. In 1933, he won the first in a total of six titles as German champion in light heavyweight wrestling and qualified for the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936, where he came fourth. From 1938, he was in close contact with Robert Uhrig, who succeeded along with friends in making Berlin a hub of communist resistance against the Nazi regime until the beginning of 1942. Werner Seelenbinder helped to establish a network of resistance groups in Berlin workplaces. He was arrested on February 4, 1942. After more than two years imprisoned in various concentration camps and penal institutions, Werner Seelenbinder was sentenced to death by the "People's Court" in Potsdam on September 5, 1944, and murdered in Brandenburg-Görden penal institution on October 24, 1944.