William Zipperer

William Zipperer marks a Leipzig place of remembrance for resistance against National Socialism. Born in Dresden in 1884, he worked as an engraver and helped establish Leipzig’s KPD branch in 1919. He later became its first chairman and edited the Sächsische Arbeiterzeitung between 1923 and 1925. After 1933, he hid communist literature in his attic, wrapped inside old newspapers, while supporting networks opposing the dictatorship. The Gestapo arrested him in 1944, and a People’s Court in Dresden sentenced him to death. He was executed in Dresden during January 1945.

At Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig, a special exhibition brings his resistance together through recovered books, documents, and photographs. The hidden volumes resurfaced in August 2024, after remaining undiscovered for more than ninety years. The display explains how attic concealment protected forbidden reading from discovery. A farewell letter and three resistance leaflets join personal photographs and archival material from Saxony. His former Leutzscher Straße address now belongs to a street bearing his name, creating a visible link across Leipzig.