Emanuel Schäfer

Emanuel Paul Viktor Schäfer (20 April 1900 – 4 December 1974) was a German lawyer and police official who was also an SS-''Oberführer'' in the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) and a protégé of Reinhard Heydrich in Nazi Germany. During the Second World War, he was the commander of ''Einsatzgruppe'' II during the Polish campaign in 1939. He then served as commander of the security police (SiPo) and SD, first in Serbia and later in northern Italy. He was complicit in Holocaust atrocities and, after the war ended, he was put on trial and convicted of war crimes.

Early life

Schäfer was born in Hultschin (today, Hlučín) in Prussian Silesia, the son of a hotel owner. He attended local schools and enlisted in the Imperial German Army in June 1918 during the First World War, but was never deployed to the front. After the war, Schäfer joined the Upper Silesian Border Guard in early 1919 to repel the first Silesian uprising. He was a member of far-right militant groups such as the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt, a component of the ''Freikorps''. Schäfer enrolled as a law student at the University of Breslau (today, the University of Wrocław) for the winter semester of 1920–1921. As part of a student volunteer company, he participated in the Battle of Annaberg during the third Silesian uprising. After resuming his interrupted studies, he received his Doctor of Law degree on 1 August 1925. From 1925 to the spring of 1928, he was a member of '' Der Stahlhelm'', the paramilitary organization of German war veterans.

In April 1926, Schäfer joined the police force as a detective inspector candidate and completed his training at the police institute in Berlin-Charlottenburg. After passing his final state law examination in early 1928, he was hired by the Breslau police headquarters on 1 March 1928, and appointed a permanent detective inspector on 11 August 1928. At the end of 1928, he became head of the homicide squad and remained in this position until his appointment as head of the city's political police on 26 February 1933. He was promoted to criminal inspector on 1 September 1933.

At the beginning of 1933, Schäfer joined the Nazi Party's paramilitary unit, the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA), and was appointed an SA-'' Truppführer'' on 20 April 1933. He was subsequently promoted to head of the Gestapo in Opeln (today, Opole) in May 1934, was commissioned an SA-'' Sturmführer'' in 1935, and became a ''Regierungs- und Kriminalrat'' (government and criminal law councilor) on 1 October 1936.

Peacetime career in the SS

In 1933, Schäfer became a member of the ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD), the SS security and intelligence service headed by Reinhard Heydrich, and he entered the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS number 280,018) as an SS-'' Untersturmführer'' in September 1936. He was promoted to SS-''Obersturmführer'' on 20 April 1937, to SS-'' Hauptsturmführer'' on 1 August 1938, to SS-'' Sturmbannführer'' on 9 November 1938, and to SS-'' Obersturmbannführer'' on 10 September 1939. Schäfer did not formally become a member of the Nazi Party until August 1937 (membership number 4,659,879), on an application that was pending since May 1933 due to the national recruitment freeze imposed on new memberships.

The Second World War and Holocaust involvement

As head of the Oppeln Gestapo, Schäfer was involved in the false flag attack on the Gleiwitz transmitter, which served as a pretext for the German attack on Poland that precipitated the Second World War in Europe. Schäfer was designated as the commander of ''Einsatzgruppe'' II, one of five such groups initially set up by Heydrich to combat all elements perceived as hostile in the army rear areas and to destroy the Polish intelligentsia. Composed of 4 ''Einsatzkommando'' sub-units of 100 to 150 men, Schäfer's task force followed in the wake of the 10th Army commanded by General Walter von Reichenau. Armed with previously prepared lists, the units rounded up Polish officials, teachers, doctors, priests, landowners, businessmen and Jews. They were gathered into camps where executions without trial were carried out.

Following the conclusion of the Polish campaign, Schäfer was appointed head of the newly established Gestapo office in Katowitz (today, Katowice) in November 1939. Shortly after his promotion to ''Oberregierungs- und Kriminalrat'' (senior government and criminal law councilor) on 1 September 1940, he was transferred to the leadership of the Gestapo office in Cologne in October 1940. During his tenure in that city, he dispatched 3 transports of Jews to concentration camps in the east between October and December 1941.

On 6 January 1942, Schäfer succeeded Wilhelm Fuchs as the '' Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD'' or BdS (Commander of the Security Police and the SD) in Serbia and promoted to SS-'' Standartenführer'' at the end of the same month. Between March and May 1942, Schäfer utilized a Saurer gas van to murder around 7,300 Jews, predominantly women and children, from the Semlin camp across the Sava river from Belgrade. The van made one or two trips daily except for Sundays and holidays. The van was used for the last time on 10 May 1942 when the camp's Jewish prisoner functionaries were murdered. A further 1,200 Jews died as a result of the camp's harsh conditions, or from executions. It has been estimated that only 1,115 members of the Belgrade Jewish community, amounting to approximately 16% of its prewar count of 11,870, survived the war. In May 1942, Schäfer sent a cable to his superiors in the Reich Security Main Office boasting "with pride" that "Belgrade was the only great city in Europe that was free of Jews".

On 21 June 1943, Schäfer attained his final promotion to SS-''Oberführer'' and ''Oberst'' of police. The Red Army and Yugoslav partisans launched the Belgrade offensive and drove the Germans out of city by late October 1944. After leaving Serbia, Schäfer served briefly as the commander of ''Einsatzgruppe'' K with the 5th Panzer Army during the Battle of the Bulge from December 1944 to January 1945. He then was appointed as the BdS in the Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral, with headquarters in Trieste, from early 1945 until the surrender of German forces in Italy on 29 May. Schäfer then lived for a time under the assumed name of Ernst Schleiffer.

Postwar life

The American occupation forces discovered and detained Schäfer. 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 again arrested for his involvement in murder while heading the SiPo and SD in Serbia. On 20 June 1953, Schäfer was sentenced by the Cologne State Court to six-and-one-half years in prison for one count of aiding and abetting murder and two counts of aiding and abetting manslaughter while in Serbia. In July 1954, he was sentenced along with two others for his involvement in the deportations of Jews from Cologne, for which he was given a sentence of 6 years and 9 months, which took into account time served.War Crimes Trials: Dr. Emanuel Schaefer and others, UK National Archives
/ref> He was released from prison early in 1956 and subsequently worked in commercial advertising at Düsseldorf. Schäfer died at Cologne in December 1974.

See also

* The Holocaust in German-occupied Serbia

References

Sources

*
*
*

External links

*
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schäfer, Emanuel
1900 births
1974 deaths
20th-century Freikorps personnel
Einsatzgruppen personnel
German Army personnel of World War I
German police chiefs
German police officers convicted of crimes
German prisoners of war in World War II held by the United States
Gestapo personnel
Holocaust perpetrators in Italy
Holocaust perpetrators in Poland
Holocaust perpetrators in Yugoslavia
Jewish Serbian history
Lawyers in the Nazi Party
Nazis convicted of war crimes
People from Hlučín
People from the Province of Silesia
Prisoners and detainees of Germany
Serbia in World War II
SA-Sturmführer
SS-Oberführer
Stahlhelm members
University of Wrocław alumni