Heinz Auerswald (26 July 1908 – 5 December 1970) was a German lawyer and member of the SS in

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

, which he joined in 1933. In 1937 he became a member of the

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers ...

Early years

Heinz Auerswald was born on 26 July 1908 in Berlin He spent his youth with his mother and relatives in the countryside. He attended elementary school and upper secondary school in Berlin, before graduating in 1927. He then worked for 3 years at

Knorr-Bremse Knorr-Bremse AG is a German manufacturer of braking systems for rail and commercial vehicles that has operated since 1905. Other products in the company's portfolio include intelligent door systems, control components, air conditioning system ...

in Berlin before starting law school, graduating with a doctorate.

Career in the NSDAP

On 7 June 1933 he became a member of the SS. He was the German Commissioner of the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...

("''Kommissar für den jüdischen Wohnbezirk''"), from April 1941 to November 1942. While the Nazis depicted themselves as administrators and managers pursuing a would-be "productionalist policy of economic independence providing the Ghetto with essential materials for its inhabitants continual survival until the adoption of the final solution", in reality they were already pursuing the Nazi goal of exterminating European Jewry through starvation, exposure and diseases induced by abysmal living conditions. "Overcrowding and food shortages led to an extremely high mortality rate in the ghetto. Almost 30 percent of the population of Warsaw was packed into 2.4 percent of the city's area. The Germans set a food ration for Jews at just 181 calories a day. By August 1941, more than 5,000 people a month succumbed to starvation and disease." At least one order given by Auerswald for the execution of Jews who had escaped the Ghetto from 17 October 1941, is extant. The mass deportations of Jews from the Ghetto to the

Treblinka extermination camp Treblinka () was the second-deadliest extermination camp to be built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Mas ...

on 22 July 1942 began while Auerswald was the Ghetto Commissioner.

Later life

After the war, Auerswald was active as a lawyer in Düsseldorf. A late preliminary investigation into his participation in Nazi war crimes was initiated by the public prosecution in Dortmund, which was discontinued due to Auerswald's death in 1970.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Auerswald, Heinz Nazi Party officials 1908 births 1970 deaths SS officers Warsaw Ghetto Holocaust perpetrators in Poland Lawyers in the Nazi Party