Willi Graf
Willi Graf was born on January 2, 1918, in Kuchenheim near Euskirchen. In 1922, his family moved to Saarbrucken, where his father ran a wholesale wine business. Graf attended school at the Ludwigsgymnasium. It was not long before he joined, at the age of eleven, the Bund Neudeutschland, a Catholic youth movement for young men in schools of higher learning, which was banned after Hitler and the Nazis came to power in 1933. In 1934, Graf joined the Grauer Orden ("Grey Order"), another Catholic movement which became known for its anti-Nazi rhetoric. It, too, was banned and for this reason, it formed many splinter youth groups.