Emanuel Schäfer (20 April 1900 – 4 December 1974) was a high-ranking SS functionary (SS-''

Oberführer __NOTOC__ ''Oberführer'' (short: ''Oberf'', , ) was an early paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) dating back to 1921. An ''Oberführer'' was typically a NSDAP member in charge of a group of paramilitary units in a particular geographic ...

'') and a protégé of

Reinhard Heydrich Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( ; ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (inclu ...

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. Born in 1900, Schäfer served in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Post-war, he participated in far-right ''

Freikorps (, "Free Corps" or "Volunteer Corps") were irregular German and other European military volunteer units, or paramilitary, that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenary or private armies, regar ...

'' groups such as the

Marinebrigade Ehrhardt The Marinebrigade Ehrhardt, also known as the Ehrhardt Brigade, was a Freikorps unit of the early Weimar Republic. It was formed on 17 February 1919 as the Second Marine Brigade from members of the former Imperial German Navy under the lead ...

and from 1925–28, ''

Der Stahlhelm ' (German, 'The Steel Helmet, League of Front-Line Soldiers'), commonly known as ''Der Stahlhelm'' ('The Steel Helmet'), was a German First World War veteran's organisation existing from 1918 to 1935. It was part of the "Black Reichswehr" and ...

'' (The Steel helmet). Schäfer joined the paramilitary ''

Sturmabteilung The (; SA; literally "Storm Detachment") was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi ral ...

'' (SA) in 1933. He was an active member of the ''

Sicherheitsdienst ' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the ''Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization ...

'' (SD), the SS security service, in 1933, and entered the SS in September 1936. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Schäfer was head of the Nazi security police in

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...

. Between January and May 1942, Schäfer supervised the murder by gassing of around 7,300 Jews from the Semlin camp across the

Sava river The Sava (; , ; sr-cyr, Сава, hu, Száva) is a river in Central and Southeast Europe, a right-bank and the longest tributary of the Danube. It flows through Slovenia, Croatia and along its border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, and finally t ...

from

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...

. A Saurer

gas van A gas van or gas wagon (russian: душегубка, ''dushegubka'', literally "soul killer"; german: Gaswagen) was a truck reequipped as a mobile gas chamber. During the World War II Holocaust, Nazi Germany developed and used gas vans on a large ...

was used to kill the 7,300. A further 1,200 Jews died as a result of the camp's harsh conditions, or from executions. The van was used for the last time on 10 May 1942. In May 1942, Schäfer sent a cable to the

Reich Security Main Office The Reich Security Main Office (german: Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA) was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as ''Chef der Deutschen Polizei'' (Chief of German Police) and ''Reichsführer-SS'', the head of the Nazi ...

boasting "with pride" that "Belgrade was the only great city in Europe that was free of Jews." After the war, Schäfer was briefly detained by U.S. occupation authorities. In February 1951, he was arrested by West German authorities for his Gestapo and SD membership. On 20 June 1951, Schäfer was sentenced to 21 months in prison by a denazification court. He was released from prison in February 1953. Schäfer was then re-arrested for his involvement in mass murder as an

Einsatzkommando During World War II, the Nazi German ' were a sub-group of the ' (mobile killing squads) – up to 3,000 men total – usually composed of 500–1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to exterminate Jews, Polish intellectu ...

. On 20 June 1953, Schäfer was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for over 5000 counts of being an accessory to murder and two counts of being an accessory to manslaughter. He was released from prison early in 1956. Schäfer died in 1974.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schaefer, Emanuel 1900 births 1974 deaths People from Hlučín 20th-century Freikorps personnel German Army personnel of World War I Nazi Party officials SS-Oberführer Nazis convicted of war crimes People from the Province of Silesia Holocaust perpetrators in Yugoslavia Sturmabteilung personnel Einsatzgruppen personnel Serbia in World War II Jewish Serbian history German police chiefs Prisoners and detainees of the United States military