Born: June 26, 1899 in Stolp, Pomerania
Died: November 13, 1940 near Cologne

The trained metalworker, who had spent his childhood and youth in a very poor social democratic home in Elmshorn, initially went on the road as a traveling journeyman after the First World War. During this period, he also attended the Heimvolkshochschule at Schloss Tinz in Thuringia and then the Akademie der Arbeit in Frankfurt am Main, both of which had just been established as educational institutions for the labor movement to train young functionaries in particular. From 1923, Arndt worked in Bautzen as a workers' secretary for the German Metalworkers' Association.

In 1926, he took up the position of workers' secretary at the local committee of the General German Trade Union Federation in Wiesbaden. He soon became involved as a local leader of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold and Eiserne Front organizations in the fight against the growing threat of Nazi fascism. On March 24, 1933, three SA men in civilian clothes carried out a knife attack on the SPD city councillor, in which he was critically injured.

The National Socialists' attempt to persuade him to join their forced organization, the German Labour Front, failed due to his loyalty to his beliefs. Despite constant surveillance, house searches and repeated imprisonment for days and even weeks, he maintained contact with a group of like-minded people who were conspiratorially linked to opposition circles in nearby Frankfurt. At the time, Arndt earned his living as a flying grocer and insurance agent.

He was arrested again in the summer of 1935 and sent to Esterwegen concentration camp at the beginning of October. The following year, he was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, where he again suffered terrible ordeals. During this time, his wife Betty and their two sons Günter and Rudi were continuously supported by the local social democratic solidarity community. In the fall of 1938, Arndt was released on the condition that he move to Frankfurt am Main and report regularly to the Gestapo.

Despite this, he continued to engage in anti-Nazi activities, while once again making a living as an insurance agent. After the Gestapo forbade him to carry out this activity, he enlisted as a private in the Frankfurt motor pool in the fall of 1939. A resistance group working at Karlsruher Lebensversicherung, led by the later Federal Minister of Finance Alex Möller, had set up another base there. One of Arndt's tasks was to maintain contact with resistance groups in Belgium. During a business trip from Brussels back to Frankfurt, he died in an accident under circumstances that were ultimately unexplained. His urn was buried in the family grave at Frankfurt's main cemetery. In Wiesbaden, a street, the Old Trade Union House in Wellritzstraße and a retirement home run by the Workers' Welfare Association in the Bierstadt district are named after Konrad Arndt. A collection of material about him can be found in the Wiesbaden City Archives.