Heinrich Andergassen

Heinrich Andergassen (30 July 1908 – 26 July 1946) was an Austrian-born German member of the Nazi Party, an engineer, Schutzstaffel (SS) officer, and convicted war criminal. Andergassen was sentenced to death and subsequently executed for the torture and murder of seven Allied prisoners of war and members of the Italian resistance.

Early life and career Andergassen was born on 30 July 1908 in Hall in Tirol, Tyrol (then part of Austria-Hungary). He trained as a machinist at Swarovski, Wattens. In 1929, he voluntarily joined the Austrian Federal Army and experienced training at the Arsenal (Vienna). He was promoted to the agency Gendarm in 1937. Following the 1938 Anschluss, Andergassen joined the NSDAP and became active within the Gestapo.

During the German occupation of the Czechoslovak Sudetenland in October 1938, Andergassen served in a 100-strong police detachment. He subsequently began working as a Gestapo officer in Innsbruck. He was later reassigned to Italy, and serving as a Sicherheitsdienst (SD) officer in Merano. On the night of 15 September 1943, he led a raid that resulted in the arrest of 25 Jewish citizens living in Merano. Andergassen confined the detainees to a basement converted into a temporary jail before deporting them to the Reichenau concentration camp in Austria, from where they were eventually transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp. Only one of those abducted—Valeska von Hoffmann—survived the Holocaust.

During his deployment in Northern Italy, Andergassen held the rank of SS-Sturmscharführer and was later promoted to SS-Untersturmführer.

War crimes On 15 December 1944, the SS captured Manlio Longon, a leader of the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale within the Italian Resistance in Alto Adige. Under the orders of August Schiffer, Longon was tortured and subsequently hanged by Andergassen at the Bolzano Army Corps headquarters on 1 January 1945.

On 26 January 1945, OSS Captain Roderick Stephen Hall, who had been operating behind enemy lines in occupied Italy for several months, was captured by the SS in Cortina d'Ampezzo and transferred to the Gestapo headquarters in Bolzano. On 19 February 1945, Hall was executed by Andergassen and accompanying SS personnel.

Arrest, trial, and execution On 30 April 1945, as American forces advanced, and Andergassen fled toward Brennero alongside Schiffer and their driver, Albert Storz, in a black Mercedes. On 8 May, he, Schiffer, and Storz were captured by the 206th Counterintelligence Corps detachment outside Innsbruck.

Andergassen, Schiffer, Storz, and Gestapo officer Hans Butz were collectively charged with war crimes. During the trial, held by a U.S. military tribunal in Naples, Andergassen provided a voluntary statement asserting that the execution of Roderick Hall had been sanctioned by higher Nazi authorities.

On 16 January 1946, Andergassen, Schiffer, and Storz were sentenced to death by hanging for the torture and killing of Hall, four other American personnel, and two British soldiers. Butz received a life sentence due to his limited involvement and lack of direct participation in the murders. On 26 July 1946, Andergassen, Schiffer, and Storz were executed at a military stockade in Livorno.

Postwar reception Following the war, Arthur Schuster, a Criminal Investigation Department Commissioner in the Province of Bolzano, described Andergassen as "the incarnation of sadism and brutality." Schuster noted that Andergassen "was incredibly blood-thirsty, especially when under the influence of strong drink, for which he had a great fondness, and was encouraged in all his excesses by his superior," August Schiffer.