Hermann Diamanski

Hermann Helmut Diamanski , also Dimanski (born May 4, 1909 in Danzig ; † August 10, 1976 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism , a communist, fighter in Spain and prisoner of function in Auschwitz .

Life

Diamanski, son of a marine machinist, went to sea from 1924 to 1935 after graduating from elementary school . At the age of 16 Diamanski became a member of the Communist Youth Association of Germany and in 1929 the KPD . A visit to the party school in Lüneburg followed in 1931 . He married his first wife in 1932; he said she was later shot in the Ravensbrück concentration camp , as he learned from female Ravensbrück prisoners. After the seizure of power by the Nazis , he emigrated to England and from there In October 1937, according to Spain , where he on the Spanish Civil War as a member of the 11th International Brigade took part and then in the third artillery group. After the defeat of the Republicans, he fled via Belgium to France and from there back to Spain, where he was arrested in Barcelona in 1940 .

In 1940 he was transferred to the Gestapo in the German Reich . Diamanski was sent to the Welzheim concentration camp and from there to the Gestapo prison at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8 in Berlin . During the imprisonment there, he also met Wilhelm Boger , with whom he was in a detention cell. In February 1941 he was assigned to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and in autumn 1941 assigned to the work command for the Drögen Security Police School in Fürstenberg / Havel .

In May 1942, Diamanski was transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp , where he was immediately transferred to the Auschwitz-Monowitz camp. He was then transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau with other prisoners , as he was considered to be suspect of typhus . In the men's camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau he was a preferred prisoner because he had saved the child of the concentration camp guard Erna Hermann from drowning in Drögen. He was also known to the camp leader Johann Schwarzhuber from Sachsenhausen, so that he became block elder of Block 9 in the men's camp. He then became Kapo in the men's camp and finally camp elder in the gypsy camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau . According to his own account, Diamanski was involved in an intrigue against the brutal report leader Gerhard Palitzsch , through which Palitzsch was relieved of his position. Diamanski, known as the “gypsy baron” in the camp jargon, stood up for his fellow inmates, for example by organizing food illegally. Before the summer of 1944 he was released from his position as a camp elder in the gypsy camp because of favoring prisoners and assigned to the penal company . From there he came back to Auschwitz-Birkenau in January 1945 and worked in the camp's pumping station. After the "evacuation" of Auschwitz came Diamanski a death march through Gliwice in the Buchenwald concentration camp , where he on 11 April 1945 members of the US Army was liberated.

After the end of the war

After the end of the war, Diamanski worked as an interpreter for the US Army and in a transport company. From July 1946 to June 1947 Diamanski was unemployed. Diamanski, who was married for the second time for a few months in 1946, remarried in 1947. Together with his wife, he moved to the Soviet occupation zone in 1947 and on June 1, 1947, became a member of the protection police of the Thuringian state police. After promotions, he joined the People's Police in November 1947 and the Border Police in September 1948 . Due to untenable accusations, Diamanski was given a short leave of absence, but was able to resume his police service in June 1949 after being transferred to the Schwerin water police. Due to the western lifestyle of his wife and the suspicion of working with the CIC , he was dismissed from the police force at the end of December 1950. He then became a teacher and temporarily deputy director at the seafaring school in Wustrow (Fischland) . Due to a denunciation that Diamanski is said to have stayed in West Berlin without permission, he was transferred to Magdeburg , where he held the position of cultural director at the German Shipping and Handling Center .

In the spring of 1953 at the latest, Diamanski moved illegally with his family to West Berlin, where he worked for the American secret service. Diamanski was monitored by the Ministry of State Security until the 1970s and unofficial employees were assigned to him. In December 1953 Diamanski moved with his family to the Federal Republic of Germany . He lived in Frankfurt and after doing some odd jobs was a travel agent for the editorial community of German home newspapers.

Diamanski suffered from memory loss, anxiety and anxiety, particularly as a result of the mistreatment during his detention. On March 19, 1964, Diamanski testified as a witness during the first Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt, in particular about Boger and the liquidation of the gypsy camp . Diamanski testified that he was not bothered by Boger during his time in the Auschwitz concentration camp because he was imprisoned together in the Gestapo prison. Yet he weighed heavily on Boger.

literature

• Heiko Haumann : Hermann Diamanski: Survival in the catastrophe: A German story between Auschwitz and the State Security Service (1910-1976) , Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3412207878 .
• Heiko Haumann: Hermann Diamanski: A German Fate Between Auschwitz and the State Security Service. Perspectives of Memory , in: Birgit E. Klein ; Christiane E. Müller, (ed.): Memoria - Ways of Jewish Remembrance. Festschrift for Michael Brocke on his 65th birthday , Berlin 2005, pp. 505–529. (pdf; 6.1 MB)
• Hermann Langbein: People in Auschwitz. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin Danzig, Ullstein-Verlag, 1980, ISBN 3-548-33014-2