SS-Obersturmführer Hermann Schaper
Encyclopedia
Hermann Schaper was a German member of the NSDAP (card number 105606) and SS (No. 3484) during the Second World War. He was responsible for atrocities committed by the Einsatzgruppen
in Poland
and the Soviet Union
and was convicted after the war of numerous war crimes.
on 20 April 1935. He achieved the rank of Obersturmführer
on 20 April 1937. Before the 1939 invasion of Poland, Schaper worked at the SD
principal offices in the Third Reich
. During the German occupation of Poland
Schaper served as Hauptsturmführer
, the captain of kommando SS Zichenau-Schröttersburg – a Nazi Einsatzgruppe, one of five such formations created in eastern Poland and composed of 500–1000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo
. Schaper operated in the Płock district (renamed Zichenau) administered by Count van der Groeben. His superior was a Gestapo chief based in Ciechanów
(Schröttersburg).
Schaper's death squad was deployed in the newly-formed Bezirk Bialystok
district soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union
. Himmler himself visited Białystok on 30 June 1941 and pronounced that more forces were needed in the area, because the massive chase after the fleeing Red Army left behind a security vacuum. On July 3 additional formation of Schutzpolizei arrived in the city from the General Government, led by SS-Hauptsturmführer Wolfgang Birkner
, veteran of Einsatzgruppe IV from the Polish Campaign. The relief unit, called kommando Bialystok, was sent in by SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Eberhard Schöngarth on orders from the Reich Main Security Office, due to reports of Soviet guerrilla activity in the area with Jews being of course immediately suspected of helping them out. On 10 July 1941 Schaper's Einsatzgruppe was subdivided into dozens of smaller commandos (Einsatzkommando
s) numbering from several to several scores of people whose mission was to kill Jews, communists and the NKVD
collaborators in the captured territories often far behind the advancing German front. The entire Einsatzgruppe employed the same, systematic method of mass killing across many Polish villages and towns in the vicinity of Białystok. Schaper's murderous rampage south-east of East Prussia
is fairly well documented, and included Wizna (end of June), Wąsosz
(July 5), Radziłów (July 7), Jedwabne
(July 10), Łomża (early August), Tykocin
(August 22–25), Rutki
(September 4), Piątnica
, Zambrów as well as other locations.
. The prosecutors had called a key witness, the German Kreiskommissar in Łomża, who named the Gestapo paramilitary Einsatzgruppe B under SS-Obersturmführer Hermann Schaper in the course of Birkner's investigation. Schaper was charged in 1964 with personally directing the Einsatzkommando responsible for the mass killing of Jews in the city. Two witnesses from Israel
– Chaja Finkelstein from Radziłów and Izchak Feler from Tykocin – recognized Hermann Schaper from photographs as the one responsible also for the pogrom in Radziłów on 7 July 1941, as well as the pogrom
in Tykocin
of 25 August 1941. The methods used by Schaper's death squad in these massacres were identical to those employed in Jedwabne (a few kilometers distance) only three days later. Schaper denied the charges, and the Germans found the evidence insufficient to prosecute him at that time. He lied to interrogators that in 1941 he had been a truck driver and used false names. Legal proceedings against him were terminated on 2 September 1965 despite his positive identification.
During the subsequent investigation, Count van der Groeben confirmed that it was indeed Hermann Schaper who conducted mass executions of Jews in his district. Schaper's case was reopened in 1974. In 1976, a German court in Giesen
(Hessen) pronounced Schaper guilty of executions of Poles and Jews by the kommando SS Zichenau-Schroettersburg. Schaper was sentenced to six-years imprisonment, but was soon released for medical reasons. He was still alive in 2002, but had since died of old age in his nineties. According to statement received by the IPN
from German prosecution, the documentation of his trial is no longer available and, it has most likely been destroyed after the case was terminated.
Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen were SS paramilitary death squads that were responsible for mass killings, typically by shooting, of Jews in particular, but also significant numbers of other population groups and political categories...
in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and was convicted after the war of numerous war crimes.
Wartime Activities
Schaper joined the SS and was promoted to the rank of UntersturmführerUntersturmführer
Untersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the German Schutzstaffel first created in July 1934. The rank can trace its origins to the older SA rank of Sturmführer which had existed since the founding of the SA in 1921...
on 20 April 1935. He achieved the rank of Obersturmführer
Obersturmführer
Obersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi party that was used by the SS and also as a rank of the SA. Translated as “Senior Assault Leader”, the rank of Obersturmführer was first created in 1932 as the result of an expansion of the Sturmabteilung and the need for an additional rank in...
on 20 April 1937. Before the 1939 invasion of Poland, Schaper worked at the SD
Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
principal offices in the Third Reich
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. During the German occupation of Poland
Occupation of Poland
Occupation of Poland may refer to:* Partitions of Poland * The German Government General of Warsaw and the Austrian Military Government of Lublin during World War I* Occupation of Poland during World War II...
Schaper served as Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer was a Nazi rank of the SS which was used between the years of 1934 and 1945. The rank of Hauptsturmführer was a mid-grade company level officer and was the equivalent of a Captain in the German Army and also the equivalent of captain in foreign armies...
, the captain of kommando SS Zichenau-Schröttersburg – a Nazi Einsatzgruppe, one of five such formations created in eastern Poland and composed of 500–1000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
. Schaper operated in the Płock district (renamed Zichenau) administered by Count van der Groeben. His superior was a Gestapo chief based in Ciechanów
Ciechanów
Ciechanów is a town in north-central Poland with 45,900 inhabitants . It is situated in Masovian Voivodeship . It was previously the capital of Ciechanów Voivodeship.-History:The grad numbered approximately 3,000 armed men....
(Schröttersburg).
Schaper's death squad was deployed in the newly-formed Bezirk Bialystok
Bezirk Bialystok
The Bezirk Bialystok , also Belostok was an administrative unit that existed during the World War II occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany...
district soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
. Himmler himself visited Białystok on 30 June 1941 and pronounced that more forces were needed in the area, because the massive chase after the fleeing Red Army left behind a security vacuum. On July 3 additional formation of Schutzpolizei arrived in the city from the General Government, led by SS-Hauptsturmführer Wolfgang Birkner
Wolfgang Birkner
SS-Hauptsturmführer Wolfgang Birkner was a Nazi war criminal and Holocaust perpetrator. He was a member of the NSDAP party with card number 3,601,309, and...
, veteran of Einsatzgruppe IV from the Polish Campaign. The relief unit, called kommando Bialystok, was sent in by SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Eberhard Schöngarth on orders from the Reich Main Security Office, due to reports of Soviet guerrilla activity in the area with Jews being of course immediately suspected of helping them out. On 10 July 1941 Schaper's Einsatzgruppe was subdivided into dozens of smaller commandos (Einsatzkommando
Einsatzkommando
During World War II, the Nazi German Einsatzkommandos were a sub-group of five Einsatzgruppen mobile killing squads—up to 3,000 men each—usually composed of 500-1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to kill Jews, Romani, communists and the NKVD collaborators in the captured...
s) numbering from several to several scores of people whose mission was to kill Jews, communists and the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
collaborators in the captured territories often far behind the advancing German front. The entire Einsatzgruppe employed the same, systematic method of mass killing across many Polish villages and towns in the vicinity of Białystok. Schaper's murderous rampage south-east of East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
is fairly well documented, and included Wizna (end of June), Wąsosz
Wasosz, Podlaskie Voivodeship
Wąsosz is a village in Grajewo County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Wąsosz. It lies approximately south-west of Grajewo and north-west of the regional capital Białystok...
(July 5), Radziłów (July 7), Jedwabne
Jedwabne pogrom
The Jedwabne pogrom of July 1941 during German occupation of Poland, was a massacre of at least 340 Polish Jews of all ages. These are the official findings of the Institute of National Remembrance, "confirmed by the number of victims in the two graves, according to the estimate of the...
(July 10), Łomża (early August), Tykocin
Tykocin pogrom
The Tykocin massacre , of August 25, 1941, was the mass murder of Jewish residents of Tykocin in occupied Poland during World War II, soon after Nazi German attack on the Soviet Union.- Circumstances surrounding the massacre :...
(August 22–25), Rutki
Rutki
Rutki may refer to the following places:*Rutki, Masovian Voivodeship *Rutki, Opole Voivodeship *Rutki, Pomeranian Voivodeship *Rutki, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship...
(September 4), Piątnica
Piatnica
Piątnica is a village in Łomża County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland. It is the seat of gmina called Gmina Piątnica...
, Zambrów as well as other locations.
Postwar trials
At the beginning of the 1960s, the war crimes committed by Schaper were investigated by the German Judicial Centre for Prosecuting Nazi Crimes in LudwigsburgLudwigsburg
Ludwigsburg is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, about north of Stuttgart city centre, near the river Neckar. It is the largest and primary city of the Ludwigsburg urban district with about 87,000 inhabitants...
. The prosecutors had called a key witness, the German Kreiskommissar in Łomża, who named the Gestapo paramilitary Einsatzgruppe B under SS-Obersturmführer Hermann Schaper in the course of Birkner's investigation. Schaper was charged in 1964 with personally directing the Einsatzkommando responsible for the mass killing of Jews in the city. Two witnesses from Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
– Chaja Finkelstein from Radziłów and Izchak Feler from Tykocin – recognized Hermann Schaper from photographs as the one responsible also for the pogrom in Radziłów on 7 July 1941, as well as the pogrom
Tykocin pogrom
The Tykocin massacre , of August 25, 1941, was the mass murder of Jewish residents of Tykocin in occupied Poland during World War II, soon after Nazi German attack on the Soviet Union.- Circumstances surrounding the massacre :...
in Tykocin
Tykocin
Tykocin is an old, smaller size town in north-eastern Poland, with 1,800 inhabitants , located on the Narew river. Tykocin has been situated in the Podlaskie Voivodeship since 1999. Previously, it belonged to Białystok Voivodeship...
of 25 August 1941. The methods used by Schaper's death squad in these massacres were identical to those employed in Jedwabne (a few kilometers distance) only three days later. Schaper denied the charges, and the Germans found the evidence insufficient to prosecute him at that time. He lied to interrogators that in 1941 he had been a truck driver and used false names. Legal proceedings against him were terminated on 2 September 1965 despite his positive identification.
During the subsequent investigation, Count van der Groeben confirmed that it was indeed Hermann Schaper who conducted mass executions of Jews in his district. Schaper's case was reopened in 1974. In 1976, a German court in Giesen
Giesen
Giesen is a village and a municipality in the district of Hildesheim, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approx. 6 km northwest of Hildesheim, and 22 km southeast of Hanover.The municipality includes five villages:* Ahrbergen...
(Hessen) pronounced Schaper guilty of executions of Poles and Jews by the kommando SS Zichenau-Schroettersburg. Schaper was sentenced to six-years imprisonment, but was soon released for medical reasons. He was still alive in 2002, but had since died of old age in his nineties. According to statement received by the IPN
Institute of National Remembrance
Institute of National Remembrance — Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation is a Polish government-affiliated research institute with lustration prerogatives and prosecution powers founded by specific legislation. It specialises in the legal and historical sciences and...
from German prosecution, the documentation of his trial is no longer available and, it has most likely been destroyed after the case was terminated.