Willibald Schallert

Willibald Schallert (born April 2, 1896 in Charlottenburg ; † September 9, 1961 in Schenefeld ) was the head of the labor deployment for Jews in Hamburg between 1940 and 1945, who called himself "Jewish Commissioner".

Live and act

Schallert was the son of a warehouse clerk and a trained window dresser. He made during the First World War voluntary military service in the Imperial Navy and then fought in a volunteer corps in the Baltic States . He then moved to Altona , where he worked as a waiter, shipyard worker, taxi driver and housekeeper, among other things. From 1930 to 1933 he was unemployed, but became Sturmführer of the SA , of which he had belonged since 1930. He also became a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 341.597). As an old fighter , Schallert, with no administrative experience, got a job as a clerk at the employment office in Altona after the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933. He was drafted into the Navy for six months in 1939 and returned to his job at the employment office in January 1940.

Schallert briefly headed the Ozorkow branch of the Litzmannstadt employment office in the district of Wartheland from May to December 1940 , but had to give up the office after shooting a Pole in a pub. This led to his resignation from the SA in 1942 and proceedings before the Hanseatic Special Court . He did not have to serve the three-month prison sentence for attempted homicide. However, he was expelled from the SA due to the trial.

From January 1940 - interrupted by his six-month assignment in Wartheland - he organized forced labor for Jewish residents of Hamburg in an outsourced office . After all, he had power over all men and women aged between 14 and 65 and women from 15 to 55 years of age. He cooperated closely with the State Police Headquarters in Hamburg and the Reich Association of Jews in Germany . Schallert assigned people to jobs in companies, municipal and Jewish institutions, took control of workplaces and living spaces, and terminated employment. He was able to report directly to the Gestapo all “work misconduct”, which resulted in arrest warrants against the workers. Schallert was bribed, unscrupulously enriched himself with victims who were dependent on his favor and extorted sexual violence against women.

The Hamburg adviser to Jews, Claus Göttsche , ordered Schallert as part of the “ factory campaign ” on February 27/28, 1943, to name Jewish employees who were unwilling to work. Schallert listed 17 people, including the fashion house owner Benno Hirschfeld , who died after deportation in Auschwitz .

After the end of the Second World War , Schallert was dismissed from the employment office on July 9, 1945 because of his party membership. He was then held in the Neuengamme internment camp for ten months , but released due to health issues. Schallert earned his living by trading in textile goods and his wife also earned a living from home. A first preliminary investigation against him was closed in 1948. In 1950, Schallert had to answer again in court, but denied any responsibility against the accusations made to him (including the creation of the arrest list from February 1943). He was found guilty and sentenced: In addition to a three and a half years in prison because of crimes against humanity that he realized Hamburg District Court , the civil rights down to five years.

literature

• Beate Meyer: Schallert, Willibald . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 1 . Christians, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7672-1364-8 , pp. 267-268 .
• Beate Meyer: "Jewish mixed race". Racial policy and experience of persecution 1933–1945 . 2nd Edition. Dölling and Galitz, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-933374-22-7 ( Studies on Jewish history. 6), (Partly at the same time: Hamburg, University, dissertation, 1998: Persecution and persecution experiences of “Jewish mixed-race” during the Nazi era ), (First edition: ibid 1999).