Anton Schmid (Sergeant)

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Anton Schmid (born January 9, 1900 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; † April 13, 1942 in Wilna ) was an Austrian plumber and entrepreneur and from 1940 to 1942 a soldier ( sergeant ) in the German Wehrmacht . Schmid saved hundreds of Jews in the Vilna ghetto from certain death and was executed for it by the German Wehrmacht.

Act

Anton Schmid was a trained plumber who owned a radio shop in Vienna's Brigittenau workers' district (20th district). He did not belong to any political party. After the “Anschluss” of Austria in 1938, he helped some Jewish acquaintances to flee abroad.

In 1940 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and in September 1941 he was stationed in Vilna, which was conquered on June 24, 1941, where 60,000 Jews lived. As head of a "scattered collection point" in Vilnius, he also employed Jewish workers in workshops. He was granted 15 work permits. These so-called “yellow notes” were life-saving for these Jews and their families and protected against access by the task forces . By January 1942 Schmid had issued around 90 employment certificates. He rescued some of his workers from Lukiszki prison several times, and he procured forged papers for at least two people.

By January 1942, he had sent more than three hundred Jews from the Vilna ghetto to Belarus , where they were not threatened by the Holocaust in Lithuania .

Schmid's contribution to building a Jewish resistance movement has recently been highlighted as "historically significant". He hid members of the Jewish resistance movement in his house to protect them from possible arrests. Schmid was also involved in the preparation of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising by trucking a delegation of the Jewish resistance to Warsaw. The Jewish writer Hermann Adler , who had lived hidden with his wife Anita for several months in Schmid's official apartment, later characterized Schmid as follows: He was an anti-Nazi, but probably not primarily for political reasons, but rather emotionally because he ... the persecution of the Jews ... refused.

Condemnation

In February 1942 Schmid disappeared from his apartment - apparently after a tip-off - but was arrested a few days later. On February 25, 1942, a court martial was opened against him in Vilnius . He was charged with removing Jews from the ghetto. Anton Schmid was sentenced to death under Section 90 of the Military Criminal Code and Section 32 of the Reich Criminal Code and shot on April 13, 1942. He was buried on the edge of the Vilna-Antokol military cemetery.

Only two letters from Anton Schmid have survived as written personal testimonies. In a letter of April 9, 1942, shortly before the execution , he wrote to his wife: I want to tell you how it all came about: there were always a lot of Jews here who were rounded up by the Lithuanian military and shot in a meadow outside the city so 2000 - 3000 people. The children hit them on the trees on the way. You can imagine. In this letter he asked his family for forgiveness: I only acted as a person and didn't want to hurt anyone.

The conviction became known in Vienna. Several neighbors threatened Ms. Schmid, once her window was broken.

Honors

Action Allee der Gerechten - A Letter To The Stars in Vienna (2011)

In 1961, Abba Kovner , the head of the Jewish resistance in Vilnius, reported on Anton Schmid at the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem. Hannah Arendt mentioned this in her 1963 Eichmann report in Jerusalem .

In May 1967, Yad Vashem posthumously honored him as Righteous Among the Nations . The Israeli ambassador to Austria presented the medal and honorary diploma to the widow Schmid, who lives in Vienna.

The English poet Thom Gunn paid tribute to Schmid in a poem in 1967. On March 22, 1968, the first feature film "Feldwebel Schmid" was broadcast on ZDF .

The communal residential complex “Anton-Schmid-Hof” in Brigittenau was named that way by the mayor of Vienna, Helmut Zilk, on December 11, 1990, following a decision by the municipal council committee for culture; a memorial plaque was also unveiled there. The Anton-Schmid-Promenade on the left bank of the Vienna Danube Canal has existed parallel to Brigittenauer Lände since 2002 .

On May 8, 2000, the barracks of the Army Air Defense School of the German Bundeswehr in Rendsburg was renamed Feldwebel-Schmid-Kaserne . At the end of March 2011, Rendsburg became "military-free"; thus the traditional public name "Feldwebel Schmid" became extinct. The classroom building in Todendorf has been named "Feldwebel-Schmid-Haus" since April 13, 2012, the 70th anniversary of his death, in memory of the former location of the Army Air Defense School in the Feldwebel-Schmid-Kaserne in Rendsburg.

In Haifa , Israel, the traffic area at the southern entrance to the city is named Anton-Schmid-Platz .

The historian, entrepreneur and Auschwitz survivor Arno Lustiger dedicated his book Rescue Resistance to   the “Heroes of Rescue Resistance in Europe” and named Anton Schmid in the first place.

In 2012, a classroom at the Army NCOs Academy in Enns , Upper Austria, was named after Anton Schmid.

On July 10, 2013, at the annual memorial service reception , the Austrian Federal President Heinz Fischer presented the memorial servants with 50 copies of the new book by the historian and peace researcher Wolfram Wette , Feldwebel Anton Schmid: Ein Held der Humanität, bought by the City of Vienna . The memorial servants were asked to pass the book on to their place of work. At the invitation of the then Federal German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping , Fischer, as President of the National Council , took part in the naming of the barracks in Rendsburg on May 8, 2000.

In August 2013, the main access road to the former barracks in Rendsburg was named after Anton Schmid.

On June 22nd, 2016, the 75th anniversary of the attack by the Wehrmacht on the Soviet Union , the Harz barracks in Blankenburg was renamed "Feldwebel-Anton-Schmid-Kaserne".

At the initiative of Defense Minister Thomas Starlinger , the Rossauer Kaserne was renamed Rossauer Kaserne Bernardis-Schmid , after Robert Bernardis and Anton Schmid , at the beginning of 2020 .

See also

  • Hannah Arendt: Eichmann in Jerusalem , English: 1963, German: 1964

literature

Movie

Contents: The Austrian Wehrmacht sergeant from Vienna Anton Schmid was stationed in Vilnius, Lithuania, in 1941/42. There the sergeant saved the lives of around 300 Jews through his courageous efforts and was executed by the National Socialists himself for this.

Web links

Commons : Anton Schmid (Unteroffizier)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfram Wette (Ed.): Civil courage. Outraged, helpers and rescuers from the Wehrmacht, police and SS. Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt 2004, ISBN 3-596-15852-4 , p. 313 / number 140 from Arno Lustiger: Feldwebel Anton Schmid. In: Wolfram Wette (Ed.): Retter in Uniform ..., Frankfurt 2002, ISBN 3-596-15221-6 , p. 49
  2. ^ Arno Lustiger: Feldwebel Anton Schmid. In: Wolfram Wette (Ed.): Retter in Uniform ..., Frankfurt / M 2002, ISBN 3-596-15221-6 , p. 53f.
  3. ↑ Christian Staas: Foolhardy out of charity , in: Die Zeit , No. 27, June 27, 2013, p. 47
  4. ^ Farewell letter of April 9, 1942, printed as document VEJ 7/232, p. 609 / The shootings in Lithuania were carried out by members of the Sk 7a and Ek 9 as well as the Ek 3 and Lithuanian police officers.
  5. ↑ VEJ 7/232; Arno Lustiger: Sergeant Anton Schmid. In: Wolfram Wette (Ed.): Retter in Uniform ... , Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-596-15221-6 , p. 63
  6. ^ Wolfram Wette: Sergeant Anton Schmid. A hero of humanity. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt 2013, ISBN 978-3100912091 , p. 163.
  7. ^ Christian Staas: Reckless out of charity. In: Die Zeit , No. 27, June 27, 2013, p. 47.
  8. ↑ Classics of the German television game.
  9. ^ Arno Lustiger: Rescue Resistance - Rescuers of Jews in Europe during the Nazi Era , Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 3-8353-0990-0
  10. ↑ Late honor for unknown lifesaver . Online at ORF.at from September 25, 2012, accessed on July 3, 2013.
  11. ^ Gerhard Vogl: New names for Viennese barracks. In: The press . December 26, 2019, accessed January 27, 2020 .
  12. ^ New names for Viennese barracks. In: ORF.at . January 27, 2020, accessed January 27, 2020 .
  13. ^ Vienna: Rossauer barracks and collegiate barracks got new names. In: DerStandard.at . January 27, 2020, accessed January 27, 2020 .
  14. ↑ A barracks for two brave men. In: science. ORF.at . January 29, 2020, accessed January 29, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Arendt wrote "Schmidt" instead of Schmid; the error therefore also permeates the related secondary literature
  16. ↑ The production company, at hrb.at, via Feldwebel Schmid ( Memento of the original from March 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Quote: Anton Schmid was also referred to as the "Austrian Oskar Schindler". @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hrb.at
  17. ↑ ORF documentary “Anton Schmid - The Good Man of Wilna” presented in the Rossauerkaserne Bernardis-Schmid. January 28, 2020, accessed January 29, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Schmid, Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Righteous Among the Nations
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH April 13, 1942
Place of death Vilnius