Wehrmacht Hauptmann Wilm Hosenfeld served in Warsaw during World War Two and took action to save Polish civilians including Jews from certain death. Hosenfeld encountered the pianist Szpilman and sequestered him in Warsaw Wehrmacht HQ whiile supplying him with food until the German Army left Warsaw.
Wilm Hosenfeld's Military Service
Wilm Hosenfeld was born 2 May 1895, a Catholic, in Rhoendorf Mackenzell. He served in the 1914-18 War as an Infantryman. He was seriously wounded in 1917 and returned to Germany to recover. He became a school teacher in Spessart, Germany. He married Annemarie Krummacher, with whom he had five children. With the outbreak of World War Two at 44 years of age he served with a Homeland Security Battalion. From 1940 to 1944 he served as a Reserve Officer with the Commanding Officer of Fortress Warsaw and was appointed to the Warsaw School of Physical Education. With the arrival of Russian troops near Warsaw in autumn 1944 he was a Company Commander and was captured in January 1945 and sent to a Russian Prisoner of War camp. During his incarceration, information on his location was sought. He was detained near Minsk where six months of solitary confinement with beatings left him a broken man. The Russians did not believe a German Officer would save Jewish lives. With little evidence he was convicted of War Crimes in 1950 and sentenced to 25 years hard labour. Wilm Hosenfeld died 13.8.1952, aged 57, in a POW camp near Stalingrad, Russia.
A Decent Upbringing
Wilm Hosenfeld had strong Catholic principles he was a firm family man, with a patriotic Prussian upbringing he became an idealistic teacher who was much influenced by his wife's pacifist Protestant thinking.
In Poland he learnt Polish and sought contact with the people and was welcomed by Polish families. He employed Polish Jews as Sports Officer in charge and when the Gestapo sought them he supplied false names.
In June 2004 the diary and letters of Wilm Hosenfeld were published in book form : Ich Versuche Jeden zu Retten, von Wilm Hosenfeld
Hauptmann Wilm Hosenfeld meets Wladyslaw Szpilman
Hauptmann Hosenfeld's saving Jewish lives is on record in his diary which was published in 2004. A number of Polish families came forward post war, with details of Hosenfeld's timely interventions to save Polish peoples lives. In November 1944, Wladyslaw Spilman took refuge in a bomb damaged house with two wings attached remaining intact. Hosenfeld encountered Szpilman and asked him to play the intact piano which remained in the house. Szpilman played the piano and Hosenfeld directed him to hide in the attic of the house, while he supplied him with food, until the Russians arrived. Szpilman was saved.
Szpilman wrote his memoir of survival in Warsaw in 1946 Smierc Miasta (Death of a City) which was immediately suppressed by the Polish/Russian authorities. The book reappeared in 1999 with the Roman Polanski's film of the book, The Pianist winning the Palme d'Or in 2002. German actor, Thomas Kretschmann played Hosenfeld in the film which launched his highly successful film career in Hollywood, California, USA.
Sources
- Ich Versuche Jeden Zu Retten, von Wilm Hosenfeld, 2004
- The Pianist by Wladyslaw Szpilman Phoenix 2002
- Thomas Kretschmann played Wilm Hosenfeld
- Szpilman and Hauptmann Hosenfeld
Michael Manning - ' The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity' W.B.Yeats
