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Wilm Hosenfeld
German army officer (1895-1952) · Germany · On the map · Died at 57
A Wehrmacht intelligence officer who interrogated prisoners before their execution in occupied Warsaw - and secretly pulled at least three Polish Jews out of the machinery of extermination, including pianist Władysław Szpilman, whose survival became The Pianist.
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About this person
Wilhelm Hosenfeld was a German Catholic schoolteacher who became a Nazi activist and propaganda officer before the war. Posted to occupied Poland in 1940, he commanded POW camps in the General Government and served as intelligence officer in the Warsaw garrison, where during the 1944 Uprising he interrogated captured Poles and Soviet soldiers awaiting execution. Somewhere in that machinery he began pulling people out: at least three Polish Jews, among them classical composer Władysław Szpilman, whom he sheltered during the final destruction of Warsaw. The rescues stayed hidden until Szpilman's account surfaced decades later, leading to the 2002 film. Hosenfeld himself was captured by the Soviets and died in a prison camp in 1952. Poland awarded him the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta in 2007; Yad Vashem named him Righteous Among the Nations in 2009.