"Throughout world war II, Nazi Germany, led by Hitler, carried out a brutal ethnic cleansing of Jews, killing nearly 6 million Jews, and this catastrophe became an indelible stain on the history of human civilization."
Oscar Schindler, a "Nazi businessman" who had been unknown on the eve of World War II, spent all this wealth on bribing German officers with all his money, but he did not get any benefits, it is reasonable to say that as a businessman, if the investment and return are not proportional, then this transaction can never be done, but Schindler insists on doing it, because behind him are thousands of living lives, and his purpose is only to protect them. If Schindler was the "savior" of the merchants who saved the Jews, then there was also a "Schindler of the army" in the Nazi German army, and he was William Hossenfeld.
"A German veteran who fought in World War I and World War II, a combination of patriotism and Prussian obedience, although he was a member of the Nazi Party, he did something contrary to Hitler"
Born on May 2, 1895, Hossenfeld was born into a family of Catholic teachers, and it was under the influence of his parents that he developed a strong Catholic identity and Christian values of social justice. After the outbreak of World War I, Hossenfeld, who had a strong patriotic ideology, resolutely chose to join the army of the German Empire and participate in the First World War, and then had to choose to retire and return to his hometown because he was seriously injured on the battlefield in 1917. Soon after the marriage, due to the intervention of the United States, the German offensive was contained, and the offensive had to be turned into a defense on the Western Front, but as the strength of the Allied armies continued to increase, Germany's allies could not hold back, first the Bulgarian army was completely defeated and then announced surrender, and then Turkey and Austria-Hungary also surrendered, and Germany faced the situation of fighting alone. In the face of the defeat of the war, the war weariness in Germany intensified, first the sailors held an uprising, then the workers and the army also carried out strikes and armed uprisings, the cry for peace resounded throughout Germany, and Hossenfeld, a veteran who had personally participated in the battle, also successfully transformed from a warrior to a pacifist under the influence of his new wife.
After the end of World War I, Kaiser Wilhelm II was forced to announce his abdication and flee to the Netherlands for asylum, the Weimar Republic was proclaimed, and Friedrich Albert was elected as the first president. On June 28, 1919, the Weimar government and the victorious powers signed the Treaty of Versailles, because of the harshness of the treaty, the content just reached Germany caused an uproar, the people rushed to protest the Treaty of Versailles, the German Navy expressed its dissatisfaction with the treaty by sinking ships, as if forgetting that he was the initiator and executor of the war, and when Hossenfeld learned the content of the Treaty of Versailles, his heart was the same as most of the German people. Filled with anger and humiliation, he was powerless and had to change careers to work as a music teacher. On June 29, 1921, Hitler became head of the Nazi Party and began to recruit soldiers in Germany, blaming the Weimar government and the Treaty of Versailles for the economic downturn, claiming that if he supported the Nazis coming to power, he would guarantee "milk and bread on the table of every household in Germany."
With the simple idea of serving the country and the people, Hossenfeld chose to join the Nazi Party, and resigned as a music teacher after Hitler completed the task of "unifying" the Wehrmacht, and successfully re-enlisted as a veteran of world war I, officially becoming a member of the Wehrmacht. On September 1, 1939, Germany suddenly attacked Poland and forced the Polish government to surrender within a month, and Hossenfeld followed the Germans into Poland after the outbreak of war, participating in the construction and management of the prisoner of war camp. In Poland, after seeing the atrocities persecuted by the Nazi SS against poles and Jews, Hossenfeld and a few conscientious German officers developed sympathy for the Poles in the occupied territories and were ashamed of their status as members of the Nazi Party, and slowly began to stop believing in the Nazi Party and its policies, and quietly began to help these ordinary people who were suffering.
"Transferred to Warsaw to manage the sports program of the local garrison, worked hard to learn the local language, often went to church to confess, and continued to help Poles and Jews at the risk of persecution and even arrest by the Gestapo"
In July 1940, Hossenfeld was assigned to Warsaw as a sports officer in the Staff Battalion, where he was mainly responsible for managing the sports facilities of the Warsaw garrison and organizing training and competitions in various sports. After coming to Warsaw, Hossenfeld was very distressed whenever he heard the sound of gunshots in the Jewish Quarter late at night, and as a devout Catholic, all he could do was disobey orders, often going into a Polish church in the middle of the night to repent, in order to find some peace in his heart. In addition to confessing his "sins", Hossenfeld also used his position to provide shelter to some Jewish civilians who were about to be persecuted, so that they successfully escaped the SS raid and massacre in the stadium he was responsible for, and during this time he met many Poles, including the famous Polish pianist Schippierman.
"Captured by the Soviets after the war, dragged to trial in a sick body, Spielmann tried to rescue but was rejected by the Soviet Union, the hero eventually died, and his deeds were adapted into a movie"
As a Jew, Spielmann's life was also seriously threatened, his parents and relatives were sent to concentration camps one after another, and he hid around with the help of friends, which did not let the SS seize it, until the emergence of Hossenfeld, two people who also loved music finally embarked on the road of "common suffering", and it was because of Hossenfeld's protection that Spielmann struggled to the rescue of the Allies, but with the end of World War II, His good friend and benefactor Hossenfeld was arrested by the Soviet army for being a Member of the Nazi Party, dragged to trial, sentenced to death for so-called "war crimes", and later commuted to 25 years of hard labor, until When Hossenfeld wrote to inform his wife of the situation, Spielmann and several other Jews who had been deeply protected by him knew the current situation of the benefactor, so they tried to ask the Polish government for rescue, but the Polish communist authorities replied: "If he is in Poland, we may give him freedom." But our Soviet comrades have no intention of releasing him. Later, although many people came to confirm Hossenfeld's wartime behavior, the Soviet Union refused to believe that he was not involved in war crimes.
On 13 August 1952, Hossenfeld died in a prisoner-of-war camp (after a long period of torture and eventually a ruptured thoracic aorta) at the age of 57. 50 years later, in 2002, a movie called "The Pianist" was released in France, and its prototype characters were Hossenfeld and Spielmann, and at the same time as word of mouth exploded, Hossenfeld's heroic deeds were gradually known to posterity, and Israel's Holocaust Memorial Museum officially posthumously named Hossenfeld as an international righteous person on February 16, 2009.