Heinz Droßel

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Heinz Droßel , also Heinz Drossel (born September 21, 1916 in Berlin ; † April 28, 2008 in Waldkirch ) was first lieutenant in the German Wehrmacht during World War II . He became a judge after the war and was named Righteous Among the Nations .

Life

In November 1939, one day after the state examination in law , Heinz Droßel was drafted into service in the Wehrmacht. His attempt to emigrate a year earlier had failed. In 1940 he took part in the campaign in the West and from 1941 to 1945 in the German-Soviet War . In the summer of 1941, his unit captured a Soviet officer. Instead of taking him to the company further back, where he would have been executed according to the commissioner's order, which was contrary to international law , Droßel let him run secretly near the Soviet troops.

On home leave in 1942, Droßel helped a Jewish woman in Berlin who, initially terrified by her uniform, wanted to flee and jump off a bridge. He calmed the woman down, let her rest at home and also gave her money to help her find a place to hide. Shortly after the end of the war, he met her again by chance and they married.

A home leave in February 1945 brought him to live with his parents in Senzig . A Jewish family had found shelter there for years under the code name "Hesse". When a neighbor was about to betray the family, they asked the Droßel family for help. Heinz Droßel gave the family the key to his Berlin apartment, gave them a pistol and destroyed treasonous documents.

On May 4, 1945, four days before the end of the war, Heinz Droßel refused to send his unit on a suicide squad. He was therefore sentenced to death . The unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht saved his life.

In the post-war period after the Second World War in Germany , Heinz Droßel completed his legal training. He became a judge and ended his career as President of the Freiburg Social Court . He lived in Simonswald until his death . He was hospitalized on April 27, 2008, where he died of severe pneumonia that night .

Righteous Among the Nations - inscription in the memorial in Yad Vashem

Honors

Works

literature

  • The savior . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , January 25, 2006, p. 40.
  • Wolfgang Benz: Survival in the Third Reich: Jews in the Underground and their Helpers . Munich: Beck, 2003, ISBN 3-406-51029-9 .
  • Tungsten bet (ed.): Rescuer in uniform: leeway in Vernichtungskrieg of the Armed Forces . Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-596-15221-6 .
  • Beate Kosmala and Claudia Schoppmann (eds.): Solidarity and help for Jews during the Nazi era: Survival in the underground . Berlin: Metropol, 2002, ISBN 3-932482-86-7 .
  • Katharina Stegelmann: Always stay human. Heinz Drossel. A silent hero 1916 - 2008 . Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-351-02759-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinz Droßel: The time of the foxes. Waldkirch 2001, pp. 88 f., 162 f., 256.
  2. ↑ Heinz Droßel on the website of Yad Vashem (English)
  3. ↑ List of the bearers of the Federal Order of Merit (Federal President's Office).
  4. ↑ 2004, Heinz Drossel - Wallenberg Legacy, University of Michigan. In: wallenberg.umich.edu. Retrieved November 1, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Droßel, Heinz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Drossel, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, Righteous Among the Nations
DATE OF BIRTH September 21, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 2008
Place of death Waldkirch