Hermann Schaper

Hermann Schaper (August 1911 – 2002), was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. He was a Holocaust perpetrator responsible for atrocities committed by the Einsatzgruppen in German-occupied Poland and the Soviet Union and was convicted after the war of numerous war crimes.

Schaper's death squad was deployed in the newly formed Bezirk Bialystok district soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Himmler 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 3 July an 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-Obersturmbannführer Eberhard Schöngarth on orders from the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), due to reports of Soviet guerrilla activity in the area with Jews being “of course” immediately suspected of helping them. On 10 July 1941 Schaper's Einsatzgruppe was subdivided into dozens of smaller commandos (Einsatzkommandos) numbering from several to several scores of people whose mission was to kill Jews, alleged communists and Soviet NKVD collaborators in captured territories often far behind the advancing German front. The entire Einsatzgruppe employed the same, systematic method of mass killing in many Polish villages (sometimes in the role of facilitating violence by civilians) and towns in the vicinity of Białystok. Schaper's murderous rampage south-east of East Prussia included Wizna (end of June), Wąsosz (5 July), Radziłów (7 July), Jedwabne (10 July), Łomża (early August), Tykocin (22–25 August), Rutki (4 September), Piątnica, Zambrów as well as other locations.

He was retried in Germany in 1976 for other crimes against Poles and Jews and was sentenced to six years in prison, however following an appeal this was overturned and his health was declared too fragile for a new trial. Schaper was convicted along with Franz Hartmann, Hans Doermage, Kurt Baresel also from the Gestapo station at Ciechanów for their complicity in holocaust-related crimes. Another defendant, Ernst Schardt was acquitted. Charges against Otto Roehr were dropped.

Schaper died of old age in his nineties. According to statement received by the Polish IPN from German prosecution, the documentation of his trial is no longer available and was most likely destroyed after the case was terminated.

Notes and references

Hauptsturmführer Hermann Schaper - dowódca speckomanda SS Ciechanów-Płock Fotogaleria miasta Płocka Lessons and Legacies VII: The Holocaust in International Perspective By Dagmar Herzog Artykuły, Polemiki, Listy Czytelników; 2000–2002, Rzeczpospolita