Walter Helfsgott

Walter Ernst Helfsgott (* 11. January 1911 in perch village , Silesia ; † 23. July 1980 in Dusseldorf ) was a German hauptsturmführer , partial detachment commander of Einsatzkommando 6 of Einsatzgruppe C and leader of the Sonderkommando 1005 B .

Life

Helfsgott was the son of a farmer. He attended the local elementary school for two years . From 1919 to 1929 he graduated from secondary school in Liegnitz , where he also passed the school- leaving examination. Then he took part in a course at a commercial school and took up a job in a credit agency in Liegnitz. In the spring of 1930 he began studying law at the University of Vienna . He then moved to the University of Wroclaw . He interrupted his studies because of an eight-week black training with the Reichswehr in the winter of 1931/1932. After this break he continued his studies at the University of Jena .

From 1933 to 1934 he was active in the SA . Because of economic problems he broke off his studies in 1934 after six semesters. In the autumn of 1934 he volunteered for military service in the Reichswehr . From 1936 to 1937 he worked for an insurance company . On May 1, 1937, he joined the NSDAP .

On July 19, 1937, he took up a position as a detective inspector candidate at the criminal police headquarters in Breslau . In 1938 he took part in a two-month reserve exercise in the Wehrmacht , where he had the rank of sergeant of the reserve and officer candidate . Since June 1941 he was a member of the Wroclaw Security Police . On August 13, 1942, he was called to the Soviet Union with Einsatzgruppe C in Kiev . He was then transferred to Einsatzkommando 6 in Rostov at the beginning of September . On September 15, 1942, he took over the leadership of a partial command at Schachty until January 1943 . There he directed the shooting of Jews at a coal mine. In February 1943 he took over the training of local volunteers (Hiwis) in Mariupol . After completing his training in March 1943, he led these battles against partisans in the Pripjet swamp area . In 1944 he was transferred to Riga , where he succeeded Fritz Zietlow as head of Sonderkommando 1005 B (SK 1005 B). After the SK 1005 B was disbanded, he was deployed for six months in the "Iltis" task force in the border area between Austria and Yugoslavia as leader of a sub-command to combat partisans.

On May 11, 1945 Helfsgott was taken prisoner by the English and interned in Italy . In June 1947 he was released from captivity. After a court proceedings he was denazified in Lüneburg in 1949 as "exonerated" (group V). After denazification, he applied unsuccessfully for employment with the criminal police in Düsseldorf in August 1949, referring, among other things, to the head of the LKA in North Rhine-Westphalia, Friederich D'heil , with whom he had already worked in Breslau. This instructed another former Breslau police officer to issue Helfsgott with a good reputation sceunis, which was finally certified as not being Nazi-charged. Due to a lack of permanent positions, however, there was no recruitment at the Düsseldorf criminal police, not even as a result of a renewed application shortly thereafter.

Helfsgott earned his living from an insurance company as a representative for advertising. In Burgdorf he became managing director of a retail trade association . From November 1951 to November 1954 he worked for Siegert & Co. GmbH in Hamburg . From November 1950 to 30 November 1954, he worked as an undercover agent for the Gehlen organization active in the Hamburg area. In 1954 he succeeded in re-entering the police force. He then worked at the State Criminal Police Office in Düsseldorf, where he was finally promoted to Chief Criminal Investigator . At the LKA he was, among other things, head of department for “supra-local fight against crime (economic and corruption offenses)”. At the beginning of the 1960s there were investigations and interrogations into his crimes with Sonderkommando 1005b and as a former sub-commando leader in Einsatzkommando 6.

On January 8, 1962 he was arrested and remained until December 15, 1964 in custody . His former colleague D'heil, who was heard as a witness during the trial, gave Helfsgott a good testimonial. He also stated that when Helfsgott was hired at the LKA, he was not aware of his work in the task force in the east. The following was reported about the process in the daily press:

“The defendant Helfsgott defended himself yesterday in the Einsatzkommando trial in an astonishing way: 'I made every effort to persuade the mothers to separate from their young children. But they refused. For humanitarian reasons I left the children with their mothers and they were shot with them. ' With this, Helfsgott wanted to remind the witness Breuer (56) that he, Helfsgott, had not been a 'rioter' after all. Helfsgott conceded more of his own accord than any testimony had previously been able to accuse him of. […] Once, when Breuer was ordered to shoot, three mothers with their children - between 5 and 7 years old - were among the victims. Breuer: I couldn't, I refused to shoot. Helfsgott stood 15m from me and ordered: 'Get started!', I said: 'I can't!', Helfsgott shouted: 'You have probably not understood the whole thing, don't you know what this is about?' And after a long exchange of words, Helfsgott said scornfully to me: 'If you don't shoot, you have to shovel afterwards.' "

- NN, newspaper article from the press collection on the Wuppertal jury trial against Helfsgott and others, newspaper unknown, from June 21, 1963

The district court of Wuppertal sentenced him on August 7, 1963 for aid to the murder of 40 Jews to four years and three months in prison. But the judgment did not become final until 1967 , so that he remained free until December 1967 and worked in the legal department of a trading house for motor vehicles in Düsseldorf.

The Stuttgart public prosecutor's office then started investigations against Helfsgott, Zietlow and two other accused because of the shooting of prisoners as part of SK 1005. Helfsgott and a co-defendant were acquitted by the Stuttgart district court on March 13, 1969 , and Zietlow and another defendant were sentenced to imprisonment. According to the prison pastor, Helfsgott remained a staunch National Socialist until his death, which was also emphasized by a funeral orator during Helfsgott's funeral on July 31, 1980 in Düsseldorf.

literature

• Jens Hoffmann: You can't tell: "Aktion 1005", how the Nazis removed the traces of their mass murders in Eastern Europe , Konkret Verlag, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-930786-53-4 .
• Christina Ullrich: "I don't feel like a murderer" - The integration of Nazi perpetrators into post-war society . WBG , Darmstadt, 2011, ISBN 978-3-534-23802-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Christina Ullrich: "I don't feel like a murderer" - The integration of Nazi perpetrators in post-war society , Darmstadt, 2011, pp. 254–256.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Martin Hölzl: Expert report "Nazi past former head of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia " on behalf of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia (publisher), presentation at the press conference on December 16, 2019, long version, pp. 46-48
3. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 242.
4. ↑ LAV NRW R, RW 0794 No. 1, unpag., Source: Martin Hölzl: Expert opinion "NS past former head of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia " on behalf of the State Criminal Police Office in North Rhine-Westphalia (ed.), Presentation at the press conference on 16. December 2019, long version, p. 47.
5. ↑ Jens Hoffmann: You can't tell: “Aktion 1005”, how the Nazis removed the traces of their mass murders in Eastern Europe. Hamburg 2008, p. 135.
6. ^ Proceedings in justice and Nazi crimes .