Georg Maus
Georg Maus was the eldest child of Pastor Anton Maus and his wife Philipine, née Engelhard. After graduating from high school with excellent grades, he studied theology at the universities of Marburg and Göttingen and at Bethel Theological Seminary. After failing his exam on the second try, too, he switched to an educational degree program, specializing in theology, German and history. His undergraduate studies were interrupted by military service and then four years of service at the front. He successfully earned his secondary school teaching certificate in Kiel in 1920.
Once the thirty-three year old had also passed his teacher’s exam in 1921, he taught for eleven years at different schools in Braunfels, Betzdorf, Köln-Mülheim, Wetzlar, Koblenz and Düsseldorf. In 1936, he was finally given a full-time position at Hindenburg High School in Wuppertal.
Although Maus had joined the National Socialist Teachers’ Association in 1933, he soon clearly disassociated himself from the regime. He joined the Confessing Church in Düsseldorf-Benrath in 1934 and resigned from the Nazi Teachers’ Association in 1939 out of personal conviction. The Word of God was an absolute principle guiding his life. After he and his family had lost everything in an air raid on Wuppertal in June of 1943 and even the high school where he taught had been destroyed, the school administration transferred him to Idar-Oberstein him in September.
Given an unfriendly reception, Maus, did not hide his Christian views at all in the classroom and this repeatedly gave rise to critical situations. Matters escalated when, during a classroom discussion on the subject, he declared that love for one’s enemies also extended to the English who bombed German cities. Maus was arrested during class on May 16, 1944 and initially interrogated in Koblenz. On the basis of the state prosecutor’s investigation, he was charged with undermining the war effort. The trial against Maus was held before the People’s Court in Berlin. On November 23, 1944, he received a rather light sentence of two years of prison.
In a wretched state of health, Maus did not survive imprisonment. He died from malnourishment and emaciation on February 14, 1945 during a transport from Berlin to Dachau near Hochstadt am Main.
