Karl Mörchel worked as a miner in Dortmund’s coalmines, and until 1933 was a member of the KPD, the German Communist Party.
On 13 September 1934, he was reported to the police for disseminating illegal written matter; towards the end of the year, he was found guilty of “preparation of acts of treason” and sentenced to imprisonment for two years and three months. After being released from Herford prison in late 1936, it took him until May 1937 to find work once more as a face worker at Zeche Hansa mine and later at Zeche Westhausen mine in Dortmund.

On 9 February 1945, along with his brother Erich Mörchel (see link to Stolperstein for → Erich Mörchel) and a further 26 men and women of the Resistance movement, he was arrested and tortured. In the course of the so-called “end-phase crimes” committed by the Gestapo around Eastertime of 1945, they were all killed by a bullet to the back of the head and found dead in Romberg Park on 19 April 1945. Altogether, in March and April 1945, around 300 people, above all slave labourers and members of the Resistance – both male and female – were murdered by the Dortmund Gestapo. They are commemorated today by the memorial in Bittermark.

From August 1926 until his death, Karl Mörchel was registered as resident at Georgstr. 12 (now Eicktelgenweg), where he lived with his family and the families of his brothers.