The Search for Major Plagge: The Nazi Who Saved Jews, Expanded Edition

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Adolf Hitler on the Reichsparteitag of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in Nuremberg. September 1935. (Photo Credit: Imagno / Getty Images)

Karl Plagge | The Engines of Our Ingenuity Karl Plagge | The Engines of Our Ingenuity

In 1999, HKP 562 survivor Pearl Good traveled to Vilnius with her family. Good's son, Michael, decided to investigate the story of Plagge, but he had trouble locating him because survivors knew him only as "Major Plagge" and did not know his full name or place of birth. After fourteen months, Good was able to find Plagge's Wehrmacht personnel file. He eventually published the results of his research in 2005 as The Search for Major Plagge: The Nazi Who Saved Jews. [41] Good formed an organization of researchers and friends that he called the "Plagge Group" and, along with HKP survivors, petitioned Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the Holocaust, to have Plagge recognized as " Righteous Among the Nations". [42] One morning, when we stood for roll call, the SS commander, Bruno Kitel (a particularly vicious Nazi) singled out a group of young girls and took them away. One of our Jewish leaders, N. Kolish, appealed to Major Plagge to save the girls. They were released the same day. Plagge, a veteran of World War I, was initially drawn to the promises of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party to rebuild the German economy and national pride during the difficult years that Germany experienced after the signing of the Versailles Treaty. He joined the Nazi Party in 1931 and worked to further its stated goals of national rejuvenation. However, he began to come into conflict with the local party leadership over his refusal to teach Nazi racial theories, which, as a man of science, he did not believe. His continued refusal to espouse the Nazi racial teachings led to accusations that he was a “friend of Jews and Freemasons” by the local Darmstadt Nazi leadership in 1935, and he was removed from his leadership positions in the local party apparatus. [2] Service in Lithuania [ ] Care for his workers [ ] On certain occasions, Plagge’s general policy of non-confrontation with the SS put him “in a gray zone, and in a catch-22 situation with serious moral implications,” according to historian Kim Priemel. Arad, Yitzhak (1982). Ghetto in Flames: The Struggle and Destruction of the Jews in Vilna in the Holocaust. New York: Holocaust Library. ISBN 9780896040434.He also insisted that the men be allowed to bring their wives and children, saying it would be good for morale and pro duction. In time, they too were certified as essential workers.

Karl Plagge | Military Wiki | Fandom Karl Plagge | Military Wiki | Fandom

Pfungstadt: Auch Bundeswehr ehrt Karl Plagge"[The Bundeswehr also honors Karl Plagge]. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). FAZ. 8 February 2006 . Retrieved 23 October 2018. Good, Michael (2005). The Search For Major Plagge: The Nazi Who Saved Jews. Fordham: Fordham University Press. ISBN 0-8232-2440-6.

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As an officer in the German army, Plagge was put in charge of an engineering unit known as Heereskraftfahrpark (HKP) 562 in 1941. Based in Vilnius, Lithuania, the unit was essentially a forced labour camp. Plagge was appalled by the persecution of Jews in the region, and set about issuing work permits to unskilled Jewish workers so as to deem them ‘essential’ in the eyes of the German state. According to historian Kim Priemel, the success of Plagge's rescue efforts was due to working within the system to save Jews, a position that required him to enter a "grey zone" of moral compromise. In 2000, the story of his rescues was uncovered by the son of a survivor of HKP 562. In 2005, after two unsuccessful petitions, the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem recognized him as one of the " Righteous Among the Nations". Later, towards the close of World War Two, the SS began storming labour camps and executing the inmates. While hundreds were ultimately executed at HKP 562, Plagge managed to warn some of the Jewish workers of the looming threat, encouraging dozens to hide and escape death.

Unraveling the Mystery of Major Karl Plagge a Nazi Officer

As the Russians approached Vilnius in July 1944, the SS prepared to kill the Jewish workers. With an SS officer at his side, he told the inmates that they "will be escorted during this evacuation by the SS, which, as you know, is an organisation devoted to the protection of refugees. Thus there is nothing to worry about." Dan talks to Lord Daniel Finkelstein about his family's experience of the Holocaust, their time in Belsen, and their friendship with Anne Frank. Listen Now Efforts in vain? Plagge once took an ailing Jewish prisoner to a hospital reserved for non-Jews, where she stayed until the end of the war. He also saved two people from execution by the SS by faking their beating. In 2005 the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial posthumously bestowed the title “ Righteous Among the Nations” on Plagge. [13] Hirsch Schwartzberg, Jewish leader of Holocaust survivors (Yiddish: בפרייטה יידין אויף ברלין) under the American occupation of BerlinThe second time was the “Kinder Aktion” – Children’s Massacre of March 27 th, 1944. No words in any language can describe this dreadful atrocity. Major Plagge at great risk to himself brought all of us so close to survival – liberation was just ten days away. He risked being executed for protecting “worthless Jews” as tragically happened to Wehrmacht Captain Anton Schmidt, who helped my aunt Reichel Cholem hide during the “ gele sheinen aktion (yellow life-certificates massacre). An old building complex in Lithuania is marked for demolition. It is a prime location and it is time to build new modern apartments, but these old buildings on the outskirts of Vilnius conceal a dark secret; the current residents may not know that they are living on top of the bones of previous inhabitants - Jews who were hiding from the Nazis. Demolition is being halted at the request of an American doctor. Probably 95% of the 57,000 Jews who lived in Vilnius before the war were murdered. Of the rest, as many as 10% were saved by Plagge. But the trial also drew on the testimonies of numerous witnesses and sworn statements from survivors in DP camps in Germany. All concurred that Plagge had used his influential position to covertly work against the Nazi regime.

Karl Plagge - Holocaust Historical Society

Towards the end of the war when the Germans knew they were beaten, they had to move the workshop. Major Plagge wanted to take his Jewish workers with him, but the SS stood firm in opposition. In his sorrowful parting speech he warned his Jews in coded language that they must hide or escape. In September 1943 it became clear to Plagge that the Vilna Ghetto was soon to be liquidated. All the remaining Jews in the ghetto were to be taken by the SS, regardless of any working papers they had. In this crucial period Plagge made extraordinary bureaucratic efforts to form a free-standing HKP562 Slave Labor Camp on Subocz Street on the outskirts of Vilnius. Evidence shows that he not only tried to protect his productive male workers, but also made vigorous efforts to protect the women and children in his camp, actively overcoming considerable resistance from local SS officers. [4] [5] On September 16, 1943, Plagge transported over 1,000 of his Jewish workers and their families from the Vilna Ghetto to the newly built HKP camp on Subocz Street, where they remained in relative safety. [6] Less than a week later, on September 23, 1943, the SS liquidated the Vilna Ghetto. The rest of Vilna's Jews were either executed immediately at the nearby execution grounds in the Paneriai (Ponary) Forest, or sent to death camps in Nazi occupied Europe. [7]

The aftermath of Plagge’s actions

I am most grateful to my colleague, Dr. N. Shamsundar for bringing this story to my attention. Also, thanks to Prof. Sarah Fishman for her helpful comments. Plagge was tried before an Allied denazification court in 1947, which accepted his plea to be classified as a " fellow traveler" of the Nazi Party, whose rescue activities were undertaken for humanitarian reasons rather than overt opposition to Nazism. Survivors he rescued testified on his behalf. Plagge died ten years after the trial. A Jewish survivor, Marek Swirski, recalled how his father and another man were helped by Plagge when an SS officer discovered they were smuggling food. The furious SS officer “drew his gun when suddenly Plagge approached. He asked the SS man to hand the Jews over to him so he could punish them accordingly.” Although unable to stop the SS from liquidating the remaining prisoners in July 1944, Plagge managed to warn the prisoners in advance, allowing about 200 to hide from the SS and survive until the Red Army's capture of Vilnius. Of a pre-war Jewish population in Vilnius, only 2,000 survived, of which the largest single group, were saved by Plagge.