Wilhelm Batzler was born in Mutterstadt on 27 August 1904, the son of mason Michael Batzler and Katharina Nagel, and had seven siblings. He worked for the municipality and lived in Lindenstraße, then number 34, now Lindenstraße 30. In May 1942, while visiting the wine tavern “Zum Deutschen Haus”, he said that Germany would lose the war. He was soon denounced and sentenced by the Ludwigshafen district court to four weeks in prison. After serving the sentence, the Gestapo placed him in “protective custody”, also classifying him as a KPD supporter. On 28 October 1942 he was deported to Natzweiler concentration camp as political prisoner no. 1499. He died there on 17 March 1943, officially of “acute heart failure with furunculosis.”
