Willi Belz came from a working class background:family and was active in Kassel all his life: In March 1933 He is arrested with his father Konrad and his brother Ernst and taken to the Bürgersäle restaurant, an SA torture cellar.
After his release, Willi maintained contact with the Central Committee in Berlin as part of the communist youth association. He arranges accommodation for couriers, organizes itself in the Coco-Cola factory in Kassel and secretly raises the red flag.
1941 After a stay in the Lichtenburg concentration camp, he was called up as a soldier to fight against the Soviet Union. As soon as he arrived, he defected to the Red Army and fought alongside them from then on.
Willi Belz returns 1947 finally back to Kassel, where he runs for the KPD. Even after the communist party was banned, he remained active in the DKP and the VVN-BDA.
More about Willi Belz: https://www.die-dezentrale.net/der-kasseler-der-zur-roten-armee-ueberlief/