Werner Scharff (August 16, 1912 – March 16, 1945) was a Jewish-German resistance activist against the Nazi regime. He was executed in Sachsenhausen concentration camp because of his activities in the "Community for Peace and Development" (German: "Gemeinschaft für Frieden und Aufbau"), which he founded together with Hans Winkler in Luckenwalde. Life Werner Scharff was born into a Jewish family in Posen in 1912. The family moved to Berlin in 1918. After the early death of his father in 1929, Scharff took up an apprenticeship as an electritician to be able to take care of his mother and his two younger siblings. In 1938, he married Gertrud Weissman. A planned emigration of the Jewish couple failed. In 1941, Scharff started to work as an electrician in the synagogue Levetzowstraße in Berlin-Moabit, which was misused as a deportation site from 1942 by the SS. This provided Scharff with a deep insight into the cruelty of the Nazis and the bitter fate of their victims. As the electrician, Scharff was allowed to move freely within the deportation site and to leave it at any time. He used this to smuggle messages, food and clothes from the relatives of the detained into the deportation site on a large scale. Thanks to the occupation of his new girlfriend Fancia Grün, who worked as a secretary in the registration office of the Jewish Community and who was responsible for writing deportation lists, he was also able to warn many of his friends and acquaintances from imminent deportations. Deportation and escape When the other community members where deported in the summer of 1943, Scharff fled to the underground on June 10, 1943. Four weeks later, on July 14, the Gestapo found him and deported him to the Theresienstadt Ghetto. He did not stay long however and escaped on September 7 together with Fancia Grün. His destination was the address of resistance member Hans Winkler, which had been recommended to him in Theresienstadt as a possible hideout in Berlin. Active resistance and execution Werner Scharff was full of ideas how to actively encourage other citizens to passive resistance against the Nazis, but he needed people to help him. When Winkler heard of Scharff's plans, he was instantly willing to participate. Together with Günter Samuel and Erich Schwarz, Winkler had already been operating a loose resistance group since before the outbreak of the war to help saving Jews