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Wilhelm Adalbert Hosenfeld (German pronunciation: [ˈvɪl (hɛl)m ˈhoːzənfɛlt]; 2 May 1895 – 13 August 1952), originally a school teacher, was a German Army officer who by the end of the Second World War had risen to the rank of Hauptmann (captain). He helped to hide or rescue several Polish people, including Jews, in Nazi-German occupied ...
Added: Nov 28, 2005. Find a Grave Memorial ID: 12536116. Source citation. World War II German Army Officer. Despite being a member of the German Wehrmacht, he deplored the treatment of Poles and Jews in Nazi German-occupied Poland, and made many efforts to help and save them. Born in Mackenzell, Germany, the son of a Catholic teacher, he ...
- Attraction to and Differences from National Socialism
- World War II
- Correspondence with His Wife
- Separation from Nazism
- The Ghetto Massacre
- The Problem of Evil
- Meeting with "The Pianist
- Release Attempts
- Righteous Among The Nations
Hosenfeld was initially attracted to National Socialism. He even joined the Nazi party NSDAP in 1935, probably impressed by the "Law for the Creation of the Army" of March 1935, with which Hitler broke the Treaty of Versailles. Moreover, he twice attended the Party Convention in Nuremberg, in 1936 and 1938. However, with some aspects of National So...
The outbreak of World War II did not catch Wilm Hosenfeld unawares, for as early as 26 August 1939 he was called up, initially with the rank of sergeant with which he had ended the Great War. In the same month of September, his battalion was transferred to Poland, where he remained until he was arrested on January 17, 1945. His first assignment was...
Wilm Hosenfeld's extensive correspondence with his wife has been preserved, as well as several diaries, as he had the foresight to give them to his wife when he was on vacation, or she came to Warsaw. They have been published, occupying almost 1,200 pages, in a book with the significant title "Ich versuche, jeden zu retten" ("I try to save everyone...
The third aspect refers to the inner liberation from Nazism. It was a long process, which can be seen above all in his correspondence and in his notes of the years 1942/43, when he begins to learn about the Nazi cruelties in Poland and the Jewish holocaust. In an annotation of February 14, 1943 one reads: "It is incomprehensible that we could have ...
From July 1942 are the following words: "The last remnant of the Jewish population of the ghetto has been annihilated (...) The whole ghetto is a ruin. And this is how we want to win the war! They are beasts. With this horrible murder of the Jews we have lost the war. We have brought upon ourselves an indelible infamy, an indelible curse. We deserv...
Hosenfeld's reaction was not only to try to "save everyone" as many as he could, but he also reflects on the moral responsibilityfor such acts, also their own: "How cowardly we are, that precisely we, who wanted to be better, allowed all this to happen. For that we will also be punished and the punishment will also reach our innocent children; we a...
Shortly before the entry of the Red Army into Warsaw is when the meeting with the pianist takes place. Wladyslaw SzpilmanThe German officer helped him to find a hiding place in the building where the German command headquarters would be established shortly afterwards, and provided him with food that helped him survive the two months until the conqu...
Although Szpilman and many others such as Leon Warm-Warczynski and Antoni Cieciora petitioned for his release, these requests were unsuccessful. Hosenfeld was transferred to a special camp for officers in Minsk; later he went to Brobrujsk, where on July 27, 1947 he suffered a cerebral infarction, which left him paralyzed on his right side and made ...
On February 16, 2009, following a request by Wladyslaw Szpilman in 1998 and after several years of efforts by the "pianist's" son, Wilm Hosenfeld was named "righteous among the nations" by the committee of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. The extraordinariness of this honor is made clear in an official statement from this committee:...
Donate. Wilhelm "Wilm" Hosenfeld was a German officer during World War II. He saved two Jews from the Holocaust, one of whom was Wladyslaw Szpilman, whose story was the basis of Roman Polanski's 2002 Oscar-winning film "The Pianist." Hosenfeld was born in a village near Fulda in Hessen, Germany in 1895. He grew up in a conservative Catholic and ...
Jul 23, 2024 · Sadly, Wilm Hosenfeld’s story did not have a happy ending. After being captured by Soviet forces in 1945, he was imprisoned for alleged war crimes committed during his time as an officer. Tragically, Hosenfeld died in captivity in 1952 without ever seeing justice or recognition for his selfless acts of heroism.
Sep 7, 2024 · Wilm Hosenfeld, a German officer during World War II, defied the Nazi regime to save Jewish lives, showcasing the power of individual bravery and compassion in the face of overwhelming evil. Despite joining the Nazi party, Hosenfeld's actions of providing false identity papers and jobs to Jews in Warsaw highlight the impact of personal choices in shaping historical outcomes and inspiring future generations.
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Aug 17, 2022 · Wilhelm Adalbert Hosenfeld (2 May 1895 – 13 August 1952), originally a school teacher, was a German Army officer who by the end of the Second World War had risen to the rank of Hauptmann (Captain). He helped to hide or rescue several Polish people, including Jews, in Nazi-German occupied Poland, and helped Jewish pianist and composer ...
