Dieter Schenk
Encyclopedia
Dieter Schenk is a German
author, former high police officer of the Bundeskriminalamt, and a member of Amnesty International
. He is best known for his work and activism which led the German court in Lübeck
to overturn a 1939 verdict from World War II
, regarding the defenders of the Polish Post Office in Danzig (Gdańsk), as well as his books on the widespread influence of ex-Nazis in post World War II
Federal Criminal Police Office
(BKA).
Schenk is a former Kriminaldirektor of Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt), located in Wiesbaden
, where he was the agency's contact with Interpol
. 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".
During the Nazi invasion of Poland, the Germans also carried out attacks on Polish controlled building in the Free City of Danzig
(Wolne Miasto Gdańsk), including the post office
, which constituted extraterritorial
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 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
hospital. The rest were imprisoned, tortured, tried (with a single Wehrmacht
officer as defense lawyer) by a Wehrmacht court-martial
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
A clemency appeal was rejected by Walther von Brauchitsch
(who was to be charged after the war with crimes against humanity, but died while in custody) and carried out on September 8th and 30th.
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
"), 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 did forces 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.
of University of Łódź where he has taught classes as a lecturer, and a recipient of the Fritz Bauer Prize
from the Humanist Union
(2003), named after Fritz Bauer
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 Eichman in Argentina.
He is a founding member of the task group Amnesty International Police Working Group, Germany (Sektionsarbeitsgruppe Polizei bei Amnesty International).
of Danzig-West Prussia, Albert Forster
, 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 Gestapo
continued to carry out judicial murder
s (Justizmord).
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 Governor-General of Nazi-occupied portion of Poland called General Government
, Hans Frank
, 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 in East Galicia") (2007) and BKA - Polizeihilfe für Folterregime ("BKA - Police assistance to torture regimes") (2008).
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
author, former high police officer of the Bundeskriminalamt, and a member of Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
. He is best known for his work and activism which led the German court in Lübeck
Lübeck
The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...
to overturn a 1939 verdict from World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, regarding the defenders of the Polish Post Office in Danzig (Gdańsk), as well as his books on the widespread influence of ex-Nazis in post World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Federal Criminal Police Office
Federal Criminal Police Office (Germany)
The Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany is a national investigative police agency in Germany and falls directly under the Federal Ministry of the Interior...
(BKA).
Schenk is a former Kriminaldirektor of Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt), located in Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...
, where he was the agency's contact with Interpol
Interpol
Interpol, whose full name is the International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL, is an organization facilitating international police cooperation...
. 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
Free City of Danzig
The Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous city-state that existed between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig and surrounding areas....
(Wolne Miasto Gdańsk), including the post office
Post office
A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...
, which constituted extraterritorial
Extraterritoriality
Extraterritoriality is the state of being exempt from the jurisdiction of local law, usually as the result of diplomatic negotiations. Extraterritoriality can also be applied to physical places, such as military bases of foreign countries, or offices of the United Nations...
Polish property. The Polish defense of the building, carried out by 55 lightly armed postmen against more than 200 German SS (Schutzstaffel), SA
SA
-Organizations:* S.A. , a type of corporation in various countries* Salvation Army, a Christian denomination founded by William Booth* Sewickley Academy, a private school in the United States...
(Sturmabteilung) and police troops, lasted for 15 hours. The Poles surrendered after the German forces used automatic pumps, gasoline tanks and flamethrowers 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
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
hospital. The rest were imprisoned, tortured, tried (with a single Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
officer as defense lawyer) by a Wehrmacht court-martial
Court-martial
A court-martial is a military court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the armed forces subject to military law, and, if the defendant is found guilty, to decide upon punishment.Most militaries maintain a court-martial system to try cases in which a breach of...
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
General Eduard Wagner was a German Artillery officer who was the quartermaster-general of the German Army and a member of the resistance to Adolf Hitler....
A clemency appeal was rejected by Walther von Brauchitsch
Walther von Brauchitsch
Heinrich Alfred Hermann Walther von Brauchitsch was a German field marshal and the Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres in the early years of World War II.-Biography:...
(who was to be charged after the war with crimes against humanity, but died while in custody) and carried out on September 8th and 30th.
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
Judicial murder is the unjustified execution of death penalty.The term was first used in 1782 by August Ludwig von Schlözer in reference to the execution of Anna Göldi...
"), 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 did forces 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 professorHonorary title (academic)
Honorary titles in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties...
of University of Łódź where he has taught classes as a lecturer, and a recipient of the Fritz Bauer Prize
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...
from the Humanist Union
Humanist Union
The Humanist Union is an association of German citizenship. Their targets include the achievement of a comprehensive information and more direct democracy and the constitutional abolition of the secret service protection...
(2003), named after Fritz Bauer
Fritz Bauer
Fritz Bauer was a German judge and prosecutor.-Life:Bauer was born in Stuttgart, Kingdom of Württemberg, German Empire to Jewish parents. He attended Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium and studied business and law at the Universities of Heidelberg, Munich and Tübingen. After receiving his Doctorate of...
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 Eichman 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 GauleiterGauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
of Danzig-West Prussia, Albert Forster
Albert Forster
Albert Maria Forster was a Nazi German politician. Under his administration as the Gauleiter of Danzig-West Prussia during the Second World War, the local non-German population suffered ethnic cleansing, mass murder, and forceful Germanisation...
, Hitlers Mann in Danzig ("Hitler's man in Gdańsk"). In this book, Schenk documented that even after the end of the Intelligenzaktion in Pomerania
Intelligenzaktion in Pomerania
The "Intelligenzaktion Pommern" was a Nazi action aimed at the elimination of the Polish intelligentsia in Pomeranian Voivodeship and other adjacent areas, at the beginning of World War II...
(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 Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
continued to carry out judicial murder
Judicial murder
Judicial murder is the unjustified execution of death penalty.The term was first used in 1782 by August Ludwig von Schlözer in reference to the execution of Anna Göldi...
s (Justizmord).
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 Governor-General of Nazi-occupied portion of Poland called General Government
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
, Hans Frank
Hans Frank
Hans Michael Frank was a German lawyer who worked for the Nazi party during the 1920s and 1930s and later became a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany...
, 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 in East Galicia") (2007) and BKA - Polizeihilfe für Folterregime ("BKA - Police assistance to torture regimes") (2008).