Wander, Gerard Walter “Jonas”.

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Wander Gerard Walter, born 16-07-1903 in Escherningken, East Prussia, Germany. After graduating from high school in Königsberg, Gerard studied law and joined the gymnastics club Cimbria zu Königsberg in the summer semester of 1922. He passed the second state examination at the Albertus University in 1929. named after Herzog Albrecht (Gemälde von Lucas Cranach dem Älteren) There he established himself as a lawyer and received his doctorate in law in 1929 with a dissertation on the effect and justification of the acquisition of ownership in good faith from a non-owner of movable property.

Wander joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in 1931. With the outbreak of war, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and, presumably due to his age, did not see front-line service. When the Netherlands were invaded on May, 10th 1940, Wander was a captain in the supply train of the 19/1 Air District Signals Regiment. With the establishment of the Reich Commissioner for the Occupied Dutch Territories, Reichskommissar Arthur Seyß-Inquart, he was seconded from the Wehrmacht to this office. In the same year, he published a commentary on the Reich Commissioner’s decree for the Occupied Dutch Territories concerning the registration of businesses, entitled “Registration Obligation of Jewish or Jewish-Influenced Businesses in the Netherlands.” He worked in the General Commissariat for Finance and Economics.

In 1942, he was requested by the German lawyer who worked as a civil servant in the Netherlands during World War II  Hans Georg Calmeyer to work for the decision-making office (Department of Internal Administration) in The Hague. Wander’s duties included “all cases in which extramarital conception is claimed instead of a legal father, and all cases in which evidence from hereditary biology contradicts genealogical records, including the decision as to whether a hereditary biological examination should be permitted.” In this capacity, Wander provided Jewish people with suitable documents for Aryanization. For this purpose, he also forged birth certificates and other evidence. Wander commissioned the Kiel anthropologist Hans Weinert to provide expert opinions, which, for exorbitant fees, produced favorable reports for the Aryanization of Jewish people. Wander also processed the application of Camilla Spira. a German actress. Wander informed the actress that she had to provide evidence of a different paternity, along with instructions on how such evidence could be sufficiently substantiated. Ultimately, Spira was able to escape deportation. Wander remained in the decision-making office from October 1942 to April 1943. Before Wander’s departure, there were disagreements with Calmeyer. Wander is alleged to have pressured Calmeyer to do more to rescue more Jews, while Calmeyer claimed that Wander had been bribed. Ultimately, in early 1943, Calmeyer accused Wander of deviating from official instructions by unilaterally issuing deferment certificates, which were promptly investigated by the SS . He was dismissed from his position at the Reich Commissariat.

Death and burial ground of Wander, Gerard Walter “Jonas”.

 From captain in the reserves, Wander was demoted to corporal and sent to the Eastern Front near Stalingrad as a member of the Luftwaffe. During a leave in 1944, he deserted, traveled through Germany, and, after reaching Amsterdam, joined a Dutch resistance group. Operating under the codename Jonas, he was wanted by the Security Service (SD) under its chief, Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich, , and tracked down in Weesperzijde in early 1945. In January 1945, after attempting to contact the Allies, Wander, age 41, was shot and killed by German police while trying to arrest him.

Despite his legal commentary from 1940, Gerhard Wander Gerhard Wander who was married to Hildegard, born Korzen, and had one daughter (born 1937). is considered a staunch anti-Nazi. He had contacts with the Dutch resistance and, as Calmeyer suspected, also with the Red Orchestra. According to another Dutch resistance fighter, Wander was slated to become Minister of Justice had the assassination attempt on Hitler been successful.

The Red Orchestra was the name given by the Abwehr Section III.F to anti-Nazi resistance workers in Germany in August 1941. It primarily referred to a loose network of resistance groups, connected through personal contacts, uniting hundreds of opponents of the Nazi regime. These included groups of friends who held discussions that were centred on Heinz Harro Max Wilhelm Georg Schulze-Boysen , Adam Kuckhoff and Arvid Harnack in Berlin, alongside many others.

Gerhard was buried 27-01-1945 at Nieuwe Oosterbegraafplaats Amsterdam without gravemarker. (Plot 84-79). Reburied 17-03-1948 at the German War Cemetery Ysselsteyn, the Netherlands. (Plot CV-1-20). Reburied 15-05-1962 at the Dutch Honor Cemetery in Loenen, the Netherlands. (Plot C-167). Groenendaalseweg 64, 7371 EZ Loenen.

He is thus one of the few Germans to be buried there. Based on documents in the Yad Vashem archives, Gerhard Wander is credited with saving at least thirty Jewish people. For this reason, he was honored as Righteous Among the Nations in 1975.

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