Germany

Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz

Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz was born in Bremen to an old patrician family in the Hanseatic city. After finishing commercial college, he pursued a career in the international coffee trade, residing for several years in Scandinavian countries. In 1939, the Nazi Foreign Ministry assigned him to the German embassy in Copenhagen as an expert in maritime affairs. As Duckwitz was intimately acquainted with local conditions and enjoyed good connections with Danish leaders, after 1942, he became a close... Read More Here

Dr. Hans Georg Calmeyer

Hans Calmeyer was born on June 23, 1903 in Osnabrück. The son of a judge, he was known in his native city to be an eminent lawyer. Unidentified with any particular political party, he had a private practice with only two employees, one of whom was a Jewish woman. When the NSDAP rose to power in January 1933, Calmeyer was forbidden to practice on suspicion of being “politically unreliable” and engaging in “communist intrigues” (Umtriebe). The latter accusation was based on the fact... Read More Here

Berthold and Elsa Beitz

Berthold Beitz, one of the leading industrialists in postwar Germany, was born on September 26, 1913 in Zemmin/Pommerania.  Many years after the war, reflecting on his experiences in Boryslaw during the German occupation, Berthold Beitz, director-general of the Krupp Corporation in Essen and an honorary member of the German Olympic Committee, was at pains to clarify that his motives had in no way been grounded in any kind of principled political opposition to National Socialism: That was no... Read More Here

Dr. Albert Battel

Albert Battel was born on January 21, 1891 in Klein-Pramsen.  As a fifty-one-year-old reserve officer and lawyer from Breslau, Dr. Battel was stationed in Przemysl in south Poland as the adjutant to the local military commander, Major Max Liedtke.  When the SS prepared to launch their first large-scale  “resettlement” (liquidation) action against  the Jews of Przemysl on July 26, 1942, Battel, in consort with his superior, ordered the bridge over the River San, the only access into the... Read More Here