In social media I had seen this photo of a German who refused to give a Nazi salute, but I had never bothered to read the background story.
After his engagement to a Jewish woman was discovered, Landmesser was expelled from the Nazi Party.
Landmesser and Eckler decided to file a marriage application in Hamburg, but the union was denied under the newly enacted Nuremberg Laws.
The couple welcomed their first daughter, Ingrid, in October 1935.
And then on June 13, 1936, Landmesser gave a crossed-arm stance during Hitler's christening of a new German navy vessel. ...
In 1937, fed up, Landmesser attempted to flee Nazi Germany to Denmark with his family. But he was detained at the border and charged with "dishonoring the race," or "racial infamy," under the Nuremberg Laws.
A year later, Landmesser was acquitted for a lack of evidence and was instructed to not have a relationship with Eckler.
Refusing to abandon the mother of his child, Landmesser ignored Nazi wishes and was arrested again in 1938 and sentenced to nearly three years in a concentration camp.
He would never see the woman he loved or his child again.
The secret state police also arrested Eckler, who was several months pregnant with the couple's second daughter. She gave birth to Irene in prison and was sent to an all-women's concentration camp soon after her delivery.
Eckler is believed to have been transferred to what the Nazi's called a "euthanasia center" in 1942, where she died with 14,000 others.
For more on August Landmesser, check out the Wikipaedia page on him. What a tragic, disgusting, amazing story.