Heinrich Klaustermeyer

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Klaustermeyer in the Warsaw Ghetto. Detail of a photo from a report by Jürgen Stroop , 1943.

Karl Heinrich Klaustermeyer (* 22. February 1914 in frets ; † 21st April 1976 in Bielefeld ) was a member of the security police in the era of National Socialism .

Life

Heinrich Klaustermeyer was the son of an independent master painter. After an apprenticeship as a motor vehicle mechanic, he became unemployed during the Great Depression in 1932. He became a member of the SA , the NSDAP and troop leader in the NSKK . As a self-proclaimed “Jew hater”, he took part in the anti-Semitic riots in Bünde. After the handover of power to the National Socialists , he was employed as a messenger in the city administration. In 1935 he became a regular soldier (Z12) in the Wehrmacht , but had to retire from service in 1937 due to illness. In August 1939 he was employed with the Gestapo in Bielefeld with the rank of Oberscharführer . From November 1940 Klaustermeyer was sent to the office of the Commander of the Security Police (KdS) in occupied Warsaw , where 2000 people were employed, 800 of them German.

Klaustermeyer was employed in Department IVb - Jewish Affairs and checked the Jewish forced laborers of the German business enterprises in the Warsaw Ghetto established by the Germans in the field . He was also used in raids. He was bribable, led an expensive life and was able to afford a stay at the Hotel Bristol with the proceeds from his ancillary business . It was considered brutal and unpredictable and was feared by the Jewish ghetto population.

From July 22, 1942, under the leadership of SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle , the dissolution of the ghetto began, which Klaustermeyer accompanied as a local expert. During the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, he accompanied the SS General Jürgen Stroop, who was called in for the crackdown . At the end of 1943 he was briefly posted in Warsaw for special action 1005 , which excavated and burned the bodies of the Jews murdered in previous years.

After the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising in autumn 1944, he left Warsaw. After the end of the war he was interned by the British occupying forces in the Vennebeck and Staumühle camps until the end of 1947 . During the denazification process , he was classified as incriminated because of his denunciations by Jews from his hometown in 1938 , but his activities in Poland were not discussed in the court proceedings in Herford . From then on he worked as a driver until he was arrested in custody in February 1961, when his name was mentioned in the investigation against Ludwig Hahn and he admitted that he had been a member of the Jewish department at the Gestapo in Warsaw from 1941 to 1944 .

In a sensational trial from November 23, 1964 to February 4, 1965, the Bielefeld Regional Court sentenced Klaustermeyer to life imprisonment in nine cases for murder . Pardoned on April 8, 1976 because of advanced cancer, Klaustermeyer died a few days after his release on April 21, 1976.

literature

  • LG Bielefeld, February 4, 1965 . In: Justice and Nazi crimes . Collection of German convictions for Nazi homicidal crimes 1945–1966, Vol. XX, edited by Irene Sagel-Grande, HH Fuchs, CF Rüter . Amsterdam: University Press, 1979, No. 586, pp. 649–691 Subject matter of the proceedings: individual shooting of a total of 20 Jewish men, women and children during patrols in the Warsaw ghetto
  • Rudolf Sawitzki: The dark nights in Pawiak . Paris 1948 (Rudolf Sawitzki is the pseudonym of NN.Hirschau, the book contains a chapter on Klaustermeyer. The book is mentioned as evidence in the judgment , 1979, p. 666. Not verified)
  • Andreas Mix: The ghetto in court. Two criminal trials against criminal offenders from the Warsaw ghetto before West German and GDR courts in comparison . In: Stephan Alexander Glienke, Volker Paulmann, Joachim Perels (eds.): Success story Federal Republic? Post-war society in the long shadow of National Socialism . Wallstein Verlag Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0249-5 , pp. 319-345
  • Harald Darnauer: "The scariest trial that was ever negotiated in Bielefeld ...", the criminal trial against the Bünder SS man Heinrich Klaustermeyer before the Bielefeld Regional Court in 1964/65 . In: Historical yearbook for the Herford district 16. 2009 (2008), pp. 221–251.

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personal data
SURNAME Klaustermeyer, Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klaustermeyer, Karl Heinrich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German police officer in the time of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH February 22, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Frets
DATE OF DEATH April 21, 1976
Place of death Bielefeld