Heinz Schweizer

Heinz Schweizer (* 18th July 1908 in Berlin , † 5. June 1946 in Biesenthal ) was a German officer of the Air Force of the Armed Forces , most recently in rank captain . From around 1940, Schweizer belonged to a bomb clearance unit stationed in Düsseldorf , where in 1945 he saved around 100 to 150 forced laborers from certain death by lying to his superiors.

Life

Heinz Schweizer was born in Berlin in 1908, nothing is known about his youth. In the 1930s he became an officer, later in the Luftwaffe, which was newly founded in 1935, and in 1936 enlisted in the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War . Around 1940, Schweizer came to Düsseldorf- Kalkum as an expert in explosives as head of a bomb clearance squad and was responsible with his comrades for the defusing and removal of duds . From 1942 this command was reinforced by prison inmates, and from 1943 by about 50 forced laborers from the Buchenwald concentration camp . In this life-threatening work, those involved were regularly killed, due to this fact and because he regularly developed new methods of defusing, Schweizer received the Knight's Cross for the Iron Cross in 1943 , as the first non-pilot in the Air Force, at the same time he was also recognized by Nazi propaganda as "Man with steel nerves" stylized.

Initially transferred to a research center, Hauptmann (W) (the “W” identified him as a fireworker) Swiss returned a short time later to the command in Kalkum and increasingly distanced himself from National Socialism . In March 1945, Schweizer was supposed to send around 100 forced laborers involved in an evacuation back to their camp in Lüttringhausen , which would have meant certain death, since 60 other prisoners were murdered there during an end- stage crime. He refused to accept this order and, on the pretext of needing even more staff, called on 50 more forced laborers, with whom he surrendered to the US Army a short time later in Bergisches Land .

Based on statements by former prisoners and forced laborers, Schweizer was released from captivity in the summer of 1945 and returned to his family in Biesenthal near Eberswalde in the Soviet-occupied zone . There he was shot dead by a drunken Soviet soldier on June 5, 1946, the exact circumstances of his death are not known.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Concentration camp satellite camp in Düsseldorf - Kalkum bomb clearance command. In: Dusseldorf memorial site. Support group of Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Düsseldorf eV, accessed on April 2, 2020 . 
2. ^ ^{A b c} Julia Brabeck: Propaganda figure as a lifesaver. In: Rheinische Post. August 5, 2015, accessed April 2, 2020 .