Erich Scheffler

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Erich Scheffler (* 1898 in Berlin ; † 1945 in Berlin) was a Berlin freight forwarder whose company was involved in the transport of Jews to the extermination camps, but who also saved individual Jews from being transported to the extermination camps.

Life

In 1940, Erich Scheffler founded a freight forwarding company in Berlin, whose headquarters were between the assembly center at Grosse Hamburger Strasse  26 and the Berlin Gestapo's Jewish department at Burgstrasse 28. From summer 1942 at the latest, Scheffler took over orders from the Gestapo , providing trucks, moving vehicles and drivers for evacuating apartments, transporting prisoners and transferring machines and equipment to the Litzmannstadt ghetto . Around 50 Jewish forced laborers worked in the company itself.

Scheffler and his wife Charlotte, b. On the other hand, Buxel, with the support of her daughter Anneliese and her husband Johannes Draheim, helped Jewish neighbors and employees of the company to survive the persecution from 1943 until the end of the war. Both the private house in the former village of Marzahn , Schönagelstrasse 20, and the forwarding agent's office on the 1st floor of the house at Große Praezidentstrasse 9 in Berlin-Mitte served as hiding places . In the same building, R. Kühnel, who was married to a Jew, ran a cigar wholesaler. After Kühnel died in an interrogation by the Gestapo at the beginning of August 1944, his wife had to go into hiding with the children and found refuge with the Schefflers in Marzahn from August 1944 to February 1945, where they were passed off as family members. Then the family was helped to escape to Goslar .

Jacques Abraham had been dismissed without notice in 1933 as an employee representative on the works council of a department store group because he was Jewish. Since he was married to a Christian woman, he was not taken to a camp. After the outbreak of war he was used as a forced laborer for the Reichsbahn. He later got a job as a furniture carrier at the Scheffler forwarding company. In January 1945 Abraham was arrested for "insulting the leader" and " defeatism ". Mrs. Abraham asked Erich Scheffler for help, who was able to buy Abraham free with the help of several thousand cigarettes and several bottles of champagne and cognac. Jacques Abraham then hid in the basement of Boddinstrasse 9 until the end of the war.

Erich Scheffler also saved many Torah scrolls from the Jewish community by means of a large, secret transport .

Erich Scheffler was shot after the Red Army marched in for opposing rape.

literature

• Akim Jah: The deportation of the Jews from Berlin and the assembly camp Große Hamburger Straße in the context of the National Socialist extermination policy . Dissertation Free University of Berlin 2012.

Web links

• Berlin.de on the history of the Scheffler company

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Marcel Gäding: The man with the two faces , in: Bezirks-Journal Marzahn-Hellersdorf, January 2015
2. ↑ Deporter and helper - Erich Scheffler forwarding agency ( Memento of the original dated February 11, 2015 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.