SS Obersturmführer Heinz Hermann Schubert Einsatzgruppe D.

12-03-2019

gestapo

Heinz Hermann Schubert was born 27 August 1914, in Berlin, shortly after the outbreak of the World War I. He went to school in Eisenberg, Thüringen and then again in Berlin Lichterfelde, where he  attended also a commercial college. From April 1931 to August 1933 Schubert worked for a lawyer.

From August 1933 Schubert worked as a civilian employee for the Reichsstatthalter of Bremen and Oldenburg, headquartered in Bremen, SS Obergruppenführer and Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann  .. On May 1, 1934 Schubert joined at the age of 19 years the Nazi Party , on October 10, 1934 Schubert joined the SS. With the same date he started to work for the Sicherheitsdienst, SD.  Prior to his use in the Einsatzgruppe D Schubert worked in the department I A 4 (personal details of the SD) of the Reichs Main Security Office (RSHA) of Reinard Heydrich .

In October 1941 Schubert came as an adjutant of SS Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf   to the staff of the Einsatzgruppe D. Otto Ohlendorf was convicted of crimes again humanity and war crimes committed during World War II. He was sentenced to death and hanged at the Landsberg Prison in Bavaria on 8 June 1951 In December 1941, age 44

Schubert became the order to organize and oversee the killing of about 700 to 800 people in Simferopol.  Schubert set the location of the shooting, secluded enough to avoid witnesses. The victims were loaded in the gypsy quarter of Simferopol on delivery trucks. In July 1942 Ohlendorf left Einsatzgruppe D, which was now led by SS Brigadeführer Walther Bierkamp .Bierkamp committed suicide in Scharbeutz on 15 May 1945, age 43.

Schubert returned to the RSHA in Berlin to manage Amt III (SD Germany and German spheres of life). Schubert remained in the RSHA to the end of 1944 as the adjutant of Ohlendorf. He then worked until the war ended for SS Standartenführer Hans Ehlich in the Office Group III B. Ehlich after the war worked and continued to live in Braunschweig, where he died on 30 March 1991, age 89.

Schubert was the youngest of 24 defendants in the Einsatzgruppen Trial in Nuremberg; his lawyer was Josef Kössel. The judge was American jurist Michael Musmanno. On April 9, 1948, Schubert was found guilty in all three charges – (1) crimes against humanity (2) war crimes and (3) participation in a criminal organization – and sentenced to death on 10 April 1948. Despite his young age and rather low service level Schubert belonged together with SS Standartenführer Willi Seibert  and Hans Gabel (company commander of 4./Reserve-Police-Battalion 9) to the small management team of Einsatzgruppe D under the leadership of Ohlendorf, that murdered approximately 90,000 people. Until the confirmation of his death sentence he was brought to Landsberg prison for war criminals.

After the outbreak of the Korean War the Wiederbewaffnung was discussed from summer 1950. This was why the US high commissioner lawyer John Jay McCloy  on 31 January 1951, due to the recommendations of the “Advisory Board on Clemency for War Criminals” to change 15 death sentences against Landsberg prisoners. This meant, four prisoners to life imprisonment, six prisoners to prison sentences of between ten and twenty-five years.  Five death sentences should be carried out. The death sentence against Schubert was converted into a prison sentence of ten years. In 1952 Schubert was released from prison and died age 73, on 17 August 1987, in Ahrensburg.