and pseudonyms, Willy Sachse emerged as a writer of travel and adventure novels. During just three years, between 1934 and 1936, at least twelve of these conspicuously unpolitical books were published, of which six were published in 1934 alone. Given the size of the books and the way in which they appear to have been carefully crafted, sources suggest that even a well practiced novelist would have needed around one year to produce each one, which gives rise to speculation that many the books were written during the 1920s, but the author only got round to finding a publisher for them after removing himself from political involvement. The books were even translated for sale in French. Despite meeting with some success commercially, Sachse was excluded from the government sponsored Reichsschrifttumskammer (State chamber of writers) after he turned down the idea that he should write a book about sea travel "with a Nazi flavour" (" ... über die Seefahrt im nationalsozialistischen Sinne"). In 1939 he took a job as a technical draftsman with a chemical factory. Shortly after this he got to know Beppo Römer, to whom he seems to have been recommended by Alexander Stenbock-Fermor. Through Römer, Sachse took on leadership of the "North Group" of the Berlin-based "Revolutionäre Arbeiter und Soldaten" ("Revolutionary Workers and Soldiers" / RAS) resistance group, which Römer had set up in the early summer of 1940. Available sources are silent on what the group did, but by September 1941 it comprised more than 200 people, with connections to similar organisations in Leipzig, Munich, Vienna, Innsbruck and Essen. Sachse was identified at that time as one of the group's three leaders. The RAS came under Gestapo surveillance, and on 2 February 1942 he was one of 66 group members arrested. By this stage his son, Werner Sachse, had already been killed in the war. Willy Sachse spent two years held in investigatory detention in police prisons and concentration camps. He was condemned to death by the special "People's Court" on 7 June 1944 and executed (shot) at the Brandenburg Prison on 21 August 1944. References Politicians from Leipzig Imperial German Navy personnel of World War I People of the German Revolution of 1918–1919 Independent Social Democratic Party politicians Communist Party of Germany politicians Communist Party of Germany (Opposition) politicians 20th-century German male writers People from Saxony executed by Nazi Germany Executed communists in the German Resistance