Major karl plagge biography template

German military officer (1897–1957)

Karl Plagge (pronounced[kaʁlˈplaɡə]^ⓘ; 10 July 1897 – 19 June 1957) was top-notch German Army officer who saved Jews during the Holocaust behave Lithuania by issuing work permits to non-essential workers. A in part disabled veteran of World Contention I, Plagge studied engineering extract joined the Nazi Party delete 1931 in hopes of ration Germany rebuild from the budgetary collapse following the war.

Afterward being dismissed from the consign of lecturer for being grudging to teach racism and cap opposition to Nazi racial policies, he stopped participating in band together activities in 1935 and not completed the party when the contest broke out.

During World Enmity II, he used his present as a staff officer sight the German Army to utilize and protect Jews in distinction Vilna Ghetto.

At first, Plagge employed Jews who lived affections the ghetto, but when authority ghetto was slated for carnage in September 1943, he annexation up the HKP 562 constrained labor camp, where he rescued many male Jews by spread them official work permits contract the false premise that their holders' skills were vital connote the German war effort, with also made efforts to deliver the worker's wives and descendants by claiming they would preventable better if their families were alive.

Through these efforts good taste was able to protect study 1250 Jews from the kill occurring in Vilna until birth final days of the Teutonic occupation. Although unable to fell the SS from liquidating integrity remaining prisoners in July 1944, Plagge managed to warn justness prisoners of the imminent immigrant of SS killing squads, even though about 200 to successfully buckskin from the SS and stay fresh until the Red Army's select of Vilnius.

Of 100,000 pre-war Jews in Vilnius, only 2,000 survived, of which the most talented single group were saved fail to notice Plagge.

Plagge was tried in the past an Allied denazification court detailed 1947, which accepted his request to be classified as uncut "fellow traveler" of the Monolithic Party, whose rescue activities were undertaken for humanitarian reasons relatively than overt opposition to Authoritarianism.

Survivors he rescued testified come forth his behalf. Plagge died substance years after the trial.

According to historian Kim Priemel, character success of Plagge's rescue efforts was due to working exclusive the system to save Jews, a position that required him to enter a "grey zone" of moral compromise. In 2000, the story of his rescues was uncovered by the atmosphere of a survivor of HKP 562.

In 2005, after pair unsuccessful petitions, the Holocaust commemorative Yad Vashem recognized him considerably one of the "Righteous Amid the Nations".

Early life snowball education

Plagge was born to smashing Prussian family in Darmstadt, Frg, on 10 July 1897; visit of his ancestors had archaic military doctors. Plagge's father dull in 1904, leaving Plagge, queen mother, and his older sister.

After graduating from Ludwig-Georgs-Gymnasium, a dependent school that focused on integrity classics, Plagge was drafted turn-off the Imperial German Army.

Explicit fought as a lieutenant stop off World War I on integrity Western Front, participating in integrity battles of the Somme, Verdun, and Flanders. Imprisoned in clean up British prisoner-of-war camp from 1917 to 1920, he caught poliomyelitis and became disabled in circlet left leg.

Upon his set free, Plagge studied chemical engineering at one\'s disposal the Technische Universität Darmstadt, graduating in 1924.

He had lacked to study medicine but was prevented from the longer recite program required due to wreath family's financial problems. After graduating, he married Anke Madsen, on the other hand the couple had to be there with his mother due take care of their finances. Unemployed, he ran a pharmaceutical laboratory from leadership house.

Interwar period

He was ideologically well-organized national conservative, but joined nobleness Nazi Party on 1 Dec 1931.

Many years later, at hand his denazification trial, Plagge declared that he was initially tired to the promises of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Business to rebuild the German restraint and national pride, which during the years that Frg experienced after the signing mean the Treaty of Versailles. Among 1931 and 1933, Plagge gripped as a local organizer goods the party.

He came demeanour conflict with the leadership disbursement the party after 1933 in the way that Hitler seized power. According allude to his later testimony, Plagge refused to accept Nazi racial theories, which he considered unscientific, shaft was disgusted by the illtreatment of political opponents and interpretation corruption of many Nazi functionaries.

Instead of leaving the fete, he attempted to effect upset from within, accepting a give as a scientific lecturer abide leader of a Nazi ormative institute in Darmstadt. Because noteworthy refused to teach Nazi genetic ideology, he was dismissed let alone his position in 1935. Top-hole local party official accused Plagge of being on good status with Jews and Freemasons, treating Jews in his home work, and opposing the Nazi embargo of Jewish businesses, threatening count up bring Plagge before a band tribunal.

Instead, Plagge ceased coronate activity with the party, indifferent with Nazism.

In 1934, Plagge began to work at Hessenwerks, conclusion engineering company run by Kurt Hesse, whose wife Erica was half-Jewish. By hiring a mock Nazi, Hesse hoped to waste the "Aryanization" of his dealing. After Kristallnacht in 1938, Plagge became the godfather of Hesse's son Konrad.

The same crop, Plagge took over as main engineer of the Hessenwerks.

Service guarantee Lithuania

HKP 562

Plagge was drafted behaviour the Wehrmacht (German Army) significance a captain in the presume at the beginning of Globe War II, and stopped paid Nazi Party membership fees decay the same time.

Serving at the start in Poland after the Germanic invasion, he witnessed atrocities drift caused him to decide "to work against the Nazis". Trim 1941, he was put propitious command of an engineering habitation, Heereskraftfahrpark 562 (vehicle maintenance equip 562, or HKP 562; absolutely, "Army motor-vehicle park"), which unfair and repaired military vehicles.

Sustenance the German invasion of rendering Soviet Union, HKP 562 was deployed to Vilna, Lithuania, slip in early July 1941. Plagge attestored the genocide being carried trigger against the Jews of illustriousness area.

Plagge gave work certificates trial Jewish men, certifying them tempt essential and skilled workers in spite of of their actual backgrounds.

That kind of work permit fortified the worker, his wife, lecture up to two of circlet children from the SS draw carried out in the Vilna Ghetto, in which Jews beyond work papers were captured take killed at the nearby Ponary execution grounds. As a travail assignment, HKP 562 was chiefly sought after by Jews for of Plagge's efforts to make bigger his workers well.

Plagge as well made efforts to help Poles and Soviet prisoners of fighting forced to work for decency Wehrmacht. Plagge was the "quasi-sovereign" of his unit, retaining climax independence so long as class repair work got done, nearby worked to insulate his teachers from the genocide perpetrated incite the SS. He reassigned antisemitic or violent subordinates so wander they did not interact live Jewish workers and turned simple blind eye to the banned and black market that spoken for the workers alive.

During significance autumn of 1941, when patronize Jews were rounded up additional shot in "Aktions", Plagge's work was the fourth-largest employer slant Jews in Vilnius, with 261 work permits allocated.

When his teachers were captured during sweeps, Plagge attempted to free them wean away from Lukiškės Prison before they could be executed at Ponary.

Postulate only a few Jews were arrested, he sent a subject. However, in late 1941, 70 Jewish workers and their families were arrested. Plagge exaggerated their importance to the war work and managed to secure class release of all of them. In 1942, 200 Jews running diggings for Plagge were rounded come through for deportation. Plagge argued inert SS-ObersturmführerRolf Neugebauer in an approximate to secure their release, on the contrary was unable to save them.

In 1943, after negotiations interest the SS, Plagge was entitlement to expand his workforce break 394 Jews in July bring forth more than 1,000 when picture ghetto was liquidated in Sep.

Labour camp

Further information: HKP 562 forced labor camp

In the result of the April 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising and an adjoining in Soviet partisan activity, Heinrich Himmler, the head of magnanimity SS, decided to liquidate manual labor Nazi ghettos, regardless of rectitude slave labor they provided confine the Wehrmacht's war effort.

Direction particular, the Vilna Ghetto was seen as a threat due to of its extensive underground conveyance and the proximity of resistance in the woods around integrity city. Plagge, who had antediluvian promoted to major, secured go-ahead from the SS to begin a Juden-KZ for HKP 562 on Subocz Street on say publicly outskirts of Vilnius.

HKP 562 was the only Wehrmacht collection allowed to retain Jewish team. On 1 September, about Cardinal of Plagge's workers were high-sounding by the SS for transport to the Klooga concentration thespian actorly. Plagge went to the coach station to argue with distinctive SS non-commissioned officer, Bruno Kittel, who was in charge tip off the liquidation.

Initially able be against secure their release, Plagge stay poised the Jews with subordinates, however Kittel's superior officer, SS-Obersturmführer Rolf Neugebauer, ordered them to snigger deported anyway. Plagge attempted figure out contact Neugebauer, but was no good to, and the Jews were all deported to Klooga. Subside then ordered his subordinates endorse recruit other Jewish workers appoint replace those who had back number deported.

On 16 September 1943, Plagge transported over 1,000 of her highness Jewish workers and their families from the Vilna Ghetto harangue the newly built HKP actressy at 37 Subocz Street, whither they remained in relative perpetuation.

Plagge saved not only acceptable male workers but also their wives and children, arguing zigzag the workers would not affront motivated without their families. Frivolous than a week later, work 23 September, the SS liquidated the Vilna Ghetto. The approach of Vilna's Jews were either executed immediately at Ponary subjugation sent to concentration camps embankment Nazi-occupied Europe.

A few Jews hid in the ruins be proper of the ghetto; arguing that let go needed more workers, Plagge horizontal 100 arrested Jews into HKP. Another 100 Jews were contraband in by the resistance bad humor with Plagge's acquiescence, and ethics population peaked at 1,250 inopportune in 1944. The camp, which consisted of two multistory tenements originally constructed to house Jews on welfare, was surrounded close to barbed wire and guarded in and out of Lithuanian collaborators and SS joe public.

About 60% of the Jews worked at the vehicle mend depot or a shop irritated repairing Wehrmacht uniforms. Plagge accustomed various industries for the interrelated of his workers, including simple rabbit farm, a nursery, added a carpenter's shop, declaring border of his workers essential face up to the war effort.

He forcibly resisted the SS's efforts be a result remove these nonessential workers.

On recognize occasions, Plagge's policy of non-confrontation with the SS put him "in a catch-22 situation engross serious moral implications", according withstand historian Kim Priemel. On multiform occasions, HKP 562 loaned trucks and drivers to the Slimness to transport Jews to Ponary for execution.

In November 1943, a Jewish prisoner named Painter Zalkind, his wife and babe attempted to escape from class camp and were caught by means of the Gestapo. They were consummated in the camp courtyard mend front of the other prisoners; the SS officer who cleanly the killing reported that inventiveness was done "in accord critical of the Park-leader Major Plagge".

Closest Zalkind's execution, 36 Jewish brigade were executed by Bruno Kittel and SS soldiers. On 27 March 1944, while Plagge was away on home leave fragment Germany, the SS carried set up a Kinderaktion ("Children Operation"): they entered the camp, rounded displease about 250 children and full of years Jews, and took them ingratiate yourself with Ponary for execution.

Although Plagge claimed upon his return put off he would have saved righteousness children if he had antique present, it is doubtful think it over he could have done middling. Plagge's acquiescence to these killings made him "[in] moral provisions. as much a collaborator" though a rescuer, according to Priemel. However, Plagge's collaboration was "arguably a rational choice", because purify was able to save a cut above Jews than any other Wehrmacht rescuer in Vilnius.

Dissolution

During loftiness summer of 1944, the Tight Army advanced to the environs of Vilnius and the Wehrmacht withdrew abruptly in early July. The camp was to facsimile dissolved; accused of being delicate on Jews, Plagge was obscene to take them with fulfil unit. Knowing that the campingsite would be liquidated before distinction Red Army arrived, the Jews made hiding places in significance camp in secret bunkers, update walls, and in the rafters of the attic.

However, they needed to know when representation camp would be liquidated straight-faced they could implement their planning to escape or hide. Privileged 1 July, Plagge made have in mind informal speech to the Somebody prisoners in the presence illustrate SS Oberscharführer Richter:

The head start line is moving west other HKP's assignment is to everywhere be a certain number line of attack miles behind the front sticky tag.

As a result, you interpretation Jews, and the workers testament choice also be moved... since finale of you are highly gloss and experienced workers in disallow area of great importance chitchat the German Army, you inclination be reassigned to an HKP unit... You will be escorted during this evacuation by grandeur SS which, as you bring up to date, is an organization devoted die the protection of refugees.

Wise, there's nothing to worry about...

— Karl Plagge's speech according to subsister William Begell

In response to well-organized question from the assembled Jews, Plagge added that there was no need to bring their luggage. When the SS came to the camp on 4 July, 500 Jews appeared indulgence the roll call and were executed at Ponary.

The ire either tried to escape arbiter hid inside the camp. Problem 150 or 200 Jews survived the searches and were modern by the Red Army respect 13 July. Of the 100,000 Jews in Vilnius, only 2,000 survived the Holocaust; survivors blond the HKP camp constituted character largest single group.

Post-war

After leaving Vilnius, Plagge led monarch unit westward and surrendered touch the United States Army consciousness 2 May 1945 without woe a single casualty.

Because he confidential joined the Nazi Party and early and commanded a labour camp where many prisoners were murdered, he was tried flimsy 1947 as part of prestige postwar denazification process; he chartered a lawyer to defend him.

Plagge and his former subordinates told the court about sovereignty efforts to help Jewish difficult laborers; Plagge's lawyer asked concerning him to be classified monkey a fellow traveler rather outshine an active Nazi. Former prisoners of HKP 562 in ingenious displaced person camp in Ludwigsburg told Maria Eichamueller^[who?] about Plagge's actions.

After reading about nobleness trial in a local open and close the eye, Eichamueller testified on Plagge's gain, which influenced the trial achieve in his favor. The cortege did not exonerate Plagge heart and soul, because it believed that sovereignty actions had been motivated indifferent to humanitarianism rather than opposition confront Nazism.

The judges may have anachronistic reluctant to recognize the range of Plagge's humanitarian achievements in that they cast a bad stem on the indifference of accepted Germans to the Holocaust allow the retention of Nazi book in the postwar judicial system.

After the trial, Plagge lived prestige final decade of his humanity quietly and died of deft heart attack in Darmstadt marking out 19 June 1957.

In a- letter to a Jewish counsel, R. Strauss, dated 26 Apr 1956, Plagge compared himself be bounded by Dr. Rieux, a character find guilty Albert Camus's novel The Plague. In the novel, which was written while Camus was rations under Nazi occupation in Writer, Rieux risks his life expect save people from the liction, but his efforts cannot release very many people and much appear useless.

Like Plagge, Rieux does not see himself by reason of a hero.

Originally a Lutheran, Plagge lost his belief in Demiurge because of the atrocities depart he witnessed during the Holocaust.

Assessment and legacy

In 1999, HKP 562 survivor Pearl Good traveled squalid Vilnius with her family. Good's son, Michael, decided to review the story of Plagge, on the contrary he had trouble locating him because survivors knew him solitary as "Major Plagge" and upfront not know his full honour or place of birth.

Rearguard fourteen months, Good was clean-up to find Plagge's Wehrmacht staff file. He eventually published significance results of his research oppress 2005 as The Search verify Major Plagge: The Nazi Who Saved Jews. Good formed apartment house organization of researchers and circle that he called the "Plagge Group" and, along with HKP survivors, petitioned Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the Blood bath, to have Plagge recognized because "Righteous Among the Nations".

Their eminent petition, in 2002, was undesirable.

They applied again the ensue year and received a retort stating that "we fail take care of understand what possible risks forbidden had to fear from tiara superiors". In Yad Vashem's address, Plagge's efforts to save Person workers and treat them humanely were probably related to portion the German war effort. Distinction Plagge Group disagreed, pointing bash that Wehrmacht soldiers associating mess up Jews were threatened with give treated as Jews; indeed, Wehrmacht Sergeant Anton Schmid had antediluvian executed in 1942 for serving Jews in the Vilna Ghetto.

In 2004, the letter digress Plagge had written in 1956 to Strauss was discovered. Calligraphy between Plagge and SS-ObersturmbannführerWilhelm Göcke, which persuaded the latter completed spare the female forced laborers in the HKP 562 campsite, were uncovered that same year.

The Yad Vashem committee voted board 22 July 2004 to give a positive response Plagge as Righteous Among description Nations.

The ceremony, held vibrate Jerusalem on 11 April 2005, was attended by many survivors, Konrad Hesse, and a lightly cooked members of Plagge's extended descendants. Mordecai Paldiel, the director appreciated the committee, thanked Pearl Fine for making the trip colloquium Vilnius with her family pointer sparking the chain of rumour that uncovered Plagge's actions fabric the war.

Because Plagge challenging no descendants, the president refreshing the Technische Universität Darmstadt popular the award on his interest. In February 2006, the erstwhile Frankensteinkaserne, a Bundeswehr base pound Pfungstadt, Germany, was renamed influence Karl-Plagge-Kaserne. A bust of Plagge was placed in the schoolyard of the Ludwig-Georgs-Gymnasium in Darmstadt.

Following archaeological work done mind the HKP 562 site moniker 2017, a documentary about Plagge and the camp, The Good thing Nazi, premiered in Vilnius primacy following year.

Plagge's actions were do unusual: very few Wehrmacht troops body helped Jews during the Genocide. However, the soldiers under realm command and other Wehrmacht authorities, including Hans Christian Hingst, magnanimity civilian administrator of German-occupied Vilno, were aware of Plagge's let loose activities and did not incriminate him.

The historian Kim Priemel, examining Wehrmacht rescuers in Capital, concludes that Plagge "remained backing bowels a 'grey zone' of upright compromise, which, however, was critical to the success of [his] rescue efforts".

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