Heinz Schubert (SS member)

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Heinz Schubert during the task force process

Heinz Schubert (* 27. August 1914 in Berlin , † 17th August 1987 in Ahrensburg ) was a German obersturmführer , who as adjutant of Otto Ohlendorf , commander of Einsatzgruppe D , the murder of Jews in the occupied Ukraine , on the Crimea and the Caucasus was involved. Schubert was sentenced to death in the Einsatzgruppen trial in 1948 , but released in 1952 after his death sentence had been converted to prison.

Life

Origin and advancement in the RSHA (1914-1940)

Heinz Hermann Schubert was born in Berlin shortly after the outbreak of World War I , but first went to school in Eisenberg / Thuringia and then again in Berlin-Lichterfelde , where he also attended a commercial college . He left this in March 1931 after acquiring the upper secondary qualification . From April 1931 to August 1933 Schubert worked for a lawyer.

From August 1933 Schubert worked as a civilian employee for the Reich Governor of Bremen and Oldenburg, based in Bremen . On May 1, 1934, at the age of 19, Schubert joined the NSDAP directly from the Hitler Youth ( membership number 3,474,350). On October 10, 1934, Schubert joined the SS (SS no. 107.326), and on the same date began work for the security service of the Reichsführer SS (SD). Before his assignment in Einsatzgruppe D, Schubert worked in Department I A 4 (Personal Data of the SD) of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA).

Use in the Second World War (1941–1945)

Schubert broke in October 1941 his predecessor Mayr as adjutant of Otto Ohlendorf on the staff of Einsatzgruppe D from. As was established in the task force process, Schubert was Ohlendorf's adjutant "more than an office boy with shoulder pieces ". (“... he was more than an office boy with shoulder straps. ”) In December 1941, Schubert was commissioned by Ohlendorf or his deputy Willi Seibert to organize and supervise the killing of around 700 to 800 people near Simferopol . The shooting itself was carried out by Sonderkommando 11b. Schubert determined the location of the shooting - conveniently located and yet secluded enough to avoid witnesses, had the victims loaded onto trucks in the gypsy quarter of Simferopol, and he supervised the collection of money and valuables from the victims. After all, Schubert supervised the shootings himself, which were to take place in the manner preferred by Ohlendorf - with a greater distance between the shooter and the victim and in a quasi-military manner in order to reduce the “emotional burden” for the shooters.

At the beginning of July 1942, Ohlendorf left Einsatzgruppe D, which was now led by Walther Bierkamp , and returned to the RSHA in Berlin to again head Office III (SD Inland and German areas of life). Schubert remained Ohlendorf's adjutant and returned to Berlin with him. Schubert's successor as adjutant to the Einsatzgruppenführer was Hans Thielecke in July 1942 . Schubert remained Ohlendorf's adjutant at the RSHA until the end of 1944. He then worked up to the end of the war for Hans Ehlich in the Office Group III B.

After the end of the war (from 1945)

1947-48 Schubert was the youngest of 24 defendants in the Einsatzgruppen trial in which he was represented by lawyer Josef Kössel, assisted by Rudolf Meyer. The judge was Michael A. Musmanno . On April 9, 1948, Schubert was found guilty of all three charges - (1) crimes against humanity , (2) war crimes, and (3) membership in a criminal organization - and sentenced to death on April 10, 1948 . In addition to Schubert's concrete involvement in the mass murder of Simferopol, he was charged with his joint responsibility for the actions of Einsatzgruppe D as a whole. Despite his young age and rather low rank, Schubert belonged together with Willi Seibert and Hans Gabel (company commander of 4./Res.-Pol.-Btln. 9) to the small leadership team of Einsatzgruppe D, which murdered around 90,000 people under the leadership of Ohlendorf . Until the death sentence was confirmed, he was taken to the Landsberg War Crimes Prison .

Imprisonment and release

In the course of the intensified discussion of the West German rearmament after the outbreak of the Korean War from the summer of 1950, High Commissioner John McCloy changed four of the 15 death sentences against prisoners in Landsberg to life imprisonment on January 31, 1951 on the recommendation of the Advisory Board on Clemency for War Criminals six were sentenced to between ten and twenty-five years in prison, while five death sentences were to be carried out. Schubert's death sentence was commuted to ten years' imprisonment. In 1952, Schubert was released after he was released from his remaining prison term.

literature

  • Andrej Angrick : Die Einsatzgruppe D. In: Peter Klein (editor): The Einsatztruppen in the occupied Soviet Union 1941/42. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-89468-200-0 . (Volume 6 of the publications of the House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial and Education Center)
  • Hilary Earl: The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgruppen Trial, 1945–1958: Atrocity, Law, and History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009, ISBN 978-0-521-45608-1 .
  • Norbert Frei : Politics of the past: the beginnings of the Federal Republic and the Nazi past. Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-41310-2 .
  • Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. 4 : United States of America vs. Otto Ohlendorf, et al. (Case 9: “Einsatzgruppen Case”) . US Government Printing Office, District of Columbia 1950. In: National Archives Microfilm Publications. NM Series 1874-1946, Microfilm Publication M936. National Archives and Record Service, Washington 1973. (Schubert statement under oath: S. 97 - 98 , excerpts from the judgment against Heinz Schubert: S. 581 - 584 ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Grave in the New Cemetery of Ahrensburg
  2. ↑ a b c Records of the United States Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. Vol. 4, United States Government Printing Office , District of Columbia 1950, pp. 97-98.
  3. ↑ Ronald Headland: Messages of murder: a study of the reports of the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the Security Service, 1941-1943. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Madison NJ 1992, ISBN 0838634184 , p. 237, footnote 80.
  4. ↑ a b Andrej Angrick: Die Einsatzgruppe D. In: Peter Klein (Ed.): The Einsatztruppen in the occupied Soviet Union 1941/42. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1997, p. 105.
  5. ^ A b Records of the United States Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. Vol. 4, US Government Printing Office, District of Columbia 1950, pp. 581-584.
  6. ^ Records of the United States Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. Vol. 4, US Government Printing Office, District of Columbia 1950, p. 11.
  7. ↑ Norbert Frei: Politics of the Past. Beck, Munich 1996, pp. 195-233.
  8. ↑ Eberhard Jäckel (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Vol. 3. S - Z, Argon, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-87024-303-1 , p. 1747.
personal data
SURNAME Schubert, Heinz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schubert, Heinz Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS leader and adjutant to Otto Ohlendorf
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH 17th August 1987
Place of death Ahrensburg