Helene Schwärzel
Helene Schwärzel (born January 16, 1902 in Königsberg (Prussia) , † after 1992 ) was a German accountant who betrayed the German resistance fighter Carl Friedrich Goerdeler to the National Socialists in 1944 when he was on the run after the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 before the state power. Helene Schwärzel received the award of one million Reichsmarks for this . In 1946, it was as informer by a German court in the first instance to 15 years, in the second to six years in prison convicted.
Apart from her, no judge, no public prosecutor, no Gestapo man, no soldier, no civilian was convicted of the judicial murder of Carl Friedrich Goerdeler. Her defense took over, with the consent of Goerdeler's wife Anneliese Goerdeler , his friend Paul Ronge . She was the first of 490 informers who were convicted in the post-war period.
A movie and a book were released in May 1993 under the title Die Denunziantin . The Bremen historian Inge Marßolek and the Hamburg filmmaker Thomas Mitscherlich told this story together. The book and the film made numerous details from Schwärzel's life known that were previously unknown: after her release from prison, Schwärzel was on the run for a long time. She moved to Sweden , Berlin and Düsseldorf . She cleaned for private individuals and believed she was being persecuted. She gave her relatives and acquaintances one last sign of life in the sixties; then she was considered dead for a long time. In the winter of 1985/1986, after two years of searching, the historian Marßolek and her Bremen colleague Hans-Josef Steinberg tracked her down. They could talk to Helene Schwärzel for three hours. Schwärzel refused a second meeting - she suddenly thought the strangers were "emissaries from the realm of evil" (Marßolek).
The team of authors received the last message in 1992: Schwärzel (now 90 years old) lives in a north German retirement home. Finally she answered a letter: “The piece of life story also has its value, please do not envy! It is my precious life, thank God! "
literature
- Inge Marßolek : The denouncer. Helene Schwärzel 1944–47. Edition Temmen , Bremen 1993, ISBN 3-86108-215-2 .
Web links
- Hitler's last reckoning
- Inge Marszolek: Schwärzel, Helene , in: Kurt Groenewold , Alexander Ignor, Arnd Koch (Ed.): Lexicon of Political Criminal Trials , Online, as of March 2015
supporting documents
- ↑ a b c Der Spiegel 18/1993 of May 3, 1993: The evil was stronger. - SPIEGEL editor Clemens Höges on the book and the film "The Denouncer"
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schwärzel, Helene |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German accountant who betrayed the resistance fighter Carl Friedrich Goerdeler to the National Socialists |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 16, 1902 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Königsberg (Prussia) |
| DATE OF DEATH | after 1992 |