Dieter Schenk (born March 14, 1937) is a German author, former high police officer of the Bundeskriminalamt, and a member of

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

. He is best known for his work and activism which led the German court in

Lübeck Lübeck (; or ; Latin: ), officially the Hanseatic League, Hanseatic City of Lübeck (), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 220,000 inhabitants, it is the second-largest city on the German Baltic Sea, Baltic coast and the second-larg ...

to overturn a 1939 verdict from

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, regarding the defenders of the Polish Post Office in Danzig (Gdańsk),"Dieter Schenk", profile a
Web page of the city of Gdańsk
, last accessed 3/29/2011 as well as his books on the widespread influence of ex-

Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

in post

Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). Schenk is a former '' Kriminaldirektor'' of Federal Criminal Police Office (''Bundeskriminalamt''), located in

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden (; ) is the capital of the German state of Hesse, and the second-largest Hessian city after Frankfurt am Main. With around 283,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 24th-largest city. Wiesbaden form ...

, where he was the agency's contact with

Interpol The International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL (abbreviated as ICPO–INTERPOL), commonly known as Interpol ( , ; stylized in allcaps), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime cont ...

. He left the agency in 1989 because of what he describes as "the ignorance of the BKA concerning the violation of human rights in torturing regimes".

Work on the defense of Gdańsk post office

During the

Nazi invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet ...

, the Germans also carried out attacks on Polish controlled building in the

Free City of Danzig The Free City of Danzig (; ) was a city-state under the protection and oversight of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) and nearly 200 other small localities in the surrou ...

(Wolne Miasto Gdańsk), including the

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

, which constituted

extraterritorial In international law, extraterritoriality or exterritoriality is the state of being exempted from the jurisdiction of local law, usually as the result of diplomatic negotiations. Historically, this primarily applied to individuals, as jurisdict ...

Polish property. The Polish defense of the building, carried out by 55 lightly armed postmen against more than 200 German SS (''Schutzstaffel''), SA (''Sturmabteilung'') and police troops, lasted for 15 hours. The Poles surrendered after the German forces used automatic pumps, gasoline tanks and

flamethrowers A flamethrower is a ranged incendiary device designed to project a controllable jet (fluid), jet of fire. Greek fire, First deployed by the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century AD, flamethrowers saw use in modern times during World War I, and ...

to set the building on fire. Polish casualties were 6 killed during the fighting and 2 more killed while they were trying to surrender with a white flag. Four of the defenders managed to escape and six died in a

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

hospital. The rest were imprisoned, tortured, tried (with a single

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

officer as defense lawyer) by a Wehrmacht

court-martial A court-martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the arme ...

and sentenced to death. 28 of the judgements were countersigned, and thus became legally valid, by General Hans Günther von Kluge, another 10 by Colonel

Eduard Wagner Eduard Wagner (1 April 1894 – 23 July 1944) was a general in the Army of Nazi Germany who served as quartermaster-general during World War II. Life Wagner was born in Kirchenlamitz, Upper Franconia. After service during World War I, he was ...

A clemency appeal was rejected by

Walther von Brauchitsch Walther Heinrich Alfred Hermann von Brauchitsch (4 October 1881 – 18 October 1948) was a German ''Generalfeldmarschall'' (Field Marshal) and Commander-in-Chief (''Oberbefehlshaber'') of the German Army during the first two years of World War ...

(who was to be charged after the war with

crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as ...

, but died while in custody) and carried out on September 8 and 30. Schenk began researching the events in 1993 and published a book, ''Die Post von Danzig: Geschichte eines deutschen Justizmords'' ("The Post Office of Gdańsk: History of a German

judicial murder Judicial murder is the intentional and premeditated killing of an innocent person by means of capital punishment; therefore, it is a subset of wrongful execution. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' describes it as "death inflicted by process of law ...

"), which led to the revision of the verdict. He figured out that the German forces were Danzig police-, SS- and SA-men, commanded by a Danzig police officer, and only at a subsequent stage regular Wehrmacht forces did take part in the fighting. Thus a Wehrmacht court martial was not competent to convict the defenders. Instead, the Free City of Danzig's penal law would have been applicable, without the alternative of a death penalty. As a result, the judgements were nullified and the Polish defenders were "rehabilitated" by the Lübeck court. A symbolic reparation was made to the victims' families. On their initiative, Schenk was declared an honorary citizen of Gdańsk in 2003.

Honors and awards

Schenk is also an

honorary professor Honorary titles (professor, president, reader, lecturer) in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties. This practice primarily exists in the UK and Germany, as ...

University of Łódź The University of Łódź (, ) is a public research university founded in 1945 in Łódź, Poland, as a continuation of three higher education institutions functioning in Łódź in the interwar period — the Teacher Training Institute (192 ...

where he has taught classes as a lecturer, and a recipient of the

Fritz Bauer Prize The Fritz Bauer Prize () is a prize awarded by the Humanist Union, established in 1968 in memory of its founder, Fritz Bauer, the longtime Attorney General of Hesse. The Humanist Union presents the award to those who have excelled in contributions ...

from the Humanist Union (2003), named after

Fritz Bauer Fritz Bauer (16 July 1903 – 1 July 1968) was a German Jewish judge and prosecutor. He played an instrumental role in the post-war capture of former Holocaust planner Adolf Eichmann, and in bringing about the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials. Early ...

the German prosecutor and judge who strove to obtain justice and compensation for victims of the Nazi regime, and contributed to the capture of

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ;"Eichmann"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; 19 March 1906 – 1 Ju ...

in Argentina. He is a founding member of the task group Amnesty International Police Working Group, Germany (''Sektionsarbeitsgruppe Polizei bei Amnesty International'').

Other works

Dieter Schenk has also published books on the Nazi

Gauleiter A ''Gauleiter'' () was a regional leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) who served as the head of a ''Administrative divisions of Nazi Germany, Gau'' or ''Reichsgau''. ''Gauleiter'' was the third-highest Ranks and insignia of the Nazi Party, rank in ...

of Danzig-West Prussia,

Albert Forster Albert Maria Forster (26 July 1902 – 28 February 1952) was a German Nazi Party politician, member of the SS and war criminal. During the Second World War, under his administration as the ''Gauleiter'' and ''Reichsstatthalter'' of Danzig ...

, ''Hitlers Mann in Danzig'' ("Hitler's man in Gdańsk"). In this book, Schenk documented that even after the end of the ''Intelligenzaktion'' in Pomerania (an organized Nazi action aimed at the elimination of the Polish intelligentsia in Pomerania during which the Germans executed between 36,000 and 42,000 Poles and Jews in the region), the

continued to carry out

s (Justizmord).Andrzej Gasiorowski, in Chrzanowski et al, ''Polska Podziemna na Pomorzu w Latach 1939-1945'', Oskar, Gdansk, 2005, pg. 570 His other books include ''Krakauer Burg: Die Machtzentrale des Generalgouverneurs Hans Frank 1939-1945'' ("Krakow's Castle: The power center of the Governor General Hans Frank 1939-1945") (2010)"About the author", fro
''Krakauer Burg: Die Machtzentrale des Generalgouverneurs Hans Frank 1939-1945''
Ch. Links Verlag, 2010, pg. 208 about the Governor-General of Nazi-occupied portion of Poland called

General Government The General Government (, ; ; ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovakia and the Soviet ...

Hans Frank Hans Michael Frank (23 May 1900 – 16 October 1946) was a German Nazi politician, lawyer and convicted war criminal who served as head of the General Government in German-occupied Poland during the Second World War. Frank was an early member ...

, ''Die braunen Wurzeln des BKA'' ("The Brown roots of the BKA") (2001), which deals with the extensive influence that ex-Nazis held in post-war German Federal criminal police, ''Der Lemberger Professorenmord und der Holocaust in Ostgalizien'' ("The Murder of Lwow professors and the

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

East Galicia Eastern Galicia (; ; ) is a geographical region in Western Ukraine (present day oblasts of Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil), having also essential historic importance in Poland. Galicia was formed within the Austrian Empire during the year ...

") (2007) and ''BKA - Polizeihilfe für Folterregime'' ("BKA - Police assistance to torture regimes") (2008).

References

External links

dieter-schenk.info
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schenk, Dieter 1937 births Living people Writers from Frankfurt People from Hesse-Nassau German male writers