12 Facts About Ernst Heinrichsohn

Ernst Heinrichsohn was a German lawyer and member of the SS who participated in the deportation of French Jews to Auschwitz during World War II.

Ernst Heinrichsohn entered law school, but was then assigned to the Reich Security Main Office.

In 1942, Ernst Heinrichsohn organized the deportation of tens of thousands of stateless and French Jews to Auschwitz while holding the position of a junior squad leader acting as a transport clerk.

When delays in transit developed on 30 September 1942, Ernst Heinrichsohn himself oversaw the regular trains from the Drancy internment camp, including the deportation of French Senator Pierre Masse to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Ernst Heinrichsohn gained a good reputation with the town residents because he succeeded in preventing the town's incorporation.

On 7 March 1956, Ernst Heinrichsohn was sentenced to death by a French court in absentia.

Ernst Heinrichsohn responded with a sworn statement to the council, stating that he was not the Gestapo agent known as "Heinrichson".

Ernst Heinrichsohn had declared in court that he felt no sense of guilt because he had only been apprised of the Jews' murder after the war had ended, and that he merely selected Jews for work assignments.

However, Ernst Heinrichsohn was identified by witnesses; it was demonstrated that he had had small children and the sick deported.

The historian and Holocaust survivor Georges Wellers was able to relate particulars about Ernst Heinrichsohn by quoting from a document describing the conditions in Drancy during Ernst Heinrichsohn's tenure, which he had already penned in 1946.

Ernst Heinrichsohn professed no guilt and was even charged with a further count of perjury in the aftermath, due to having testified at the trial of Modest Graf von Korff that he had been completely unaware of the murder of Jews.

Ernst Heinrichsohn eventually lived with his new wife in a town close to Burgstadt.