Executed for falling in love in Freren. In search of Bolesław Wernicki (1914–1942)

In the village of Andervenne, with a population of around 1,000, people are reluctant to talk about what happened here in 1942. They’d rather keep their memories to themselves. Even in January 2022, when I had the idea of writing a short book on the subject (see below), the mayor told me that it would be better not to revisit the past, since there were still some people alive who were related to the individuals involved.

I had known the story about the hanging in Andervenne since around 1975. It was mentioned at shop counters and in the local pub, at coffee mornings and at skittles evenings: “During the war, someone was hanged in Andervenne on Galgenberg hill.” The people who were familiar with the area simply corrected the name of the hill, saying that it wasn’t called the “Galgenberg” (“gallows hill”), but “Gallenberg”.[1] Then came surreptitious whispers about “a Pole who had a relationship with a German woman...”. But that was all that people would say. Nobody knew any more than that, and the subject would quickly be changed.

When I retired and began my research into local history, I turned to the online archive of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen (today: the Arolsen Archives – International Center on Nazi Persecution). There, I very soon came across the name of the person who was hanged, Bolesław Wernicki, as well as many other names of eastern European forced labourers in the Freren area and the southern Emsland region. Now that I knew the name, I was also able to access more information via the Arcinsys archive information system in the Lower Saxony Federal State Archive (Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv). 

“What does the name Bolesław Wernicki mean to you?” I would ask anyone I knew who had a connection with Andervenne. Nobody I asked was able to remember the name.

 

Execution as an administrative police act without a legal judgement
 

Bolesław Wernicki was born in Lendo (now in the Lublin Voivodeship in Poland) on 14 May 1914. He was executed “by the rope” on 10 July 1942 on Gallenberg hill in Freren/Andervenne. 

What crime had Bolesław Wernicki committed? The Gestapo created a file on him on 14 January 1942. The first entry states that:

“W. had sexual relations with the farm assistant Surmann in March 1941 and impregnated her. A report has been written for the inspectorate of the Si-Po [security police – translator’s note] and S.D. [security services – translator’s note]. A medical examination of W. attested that he meets the requirements for Germanisation.”[2]

It is true that the woman did become pregnant. However, this was not the result of possible sexual intercourse in March 1941: she did not give birth until 4 March 1942, about a year after the reported crime. This at least is the official statement recorded in the registers of births and deaths.

On 11 May 1942, a further report was added to the Gestapo file: 

“An application for Schutzhaft [a National Socialist term for “protective custody” – translator’s note] against W. was submitted, and said order was issued on 1/5/42.”[3]

There is a further entry dated 28 August 1942:

“At the order of the Reichsführer SS, W. was hanged in a section of forest near Andervenne on 10/7/42.”[4]

A quarter of a century later, in 1967/68, state prosecutor Wächter, whose first name is not included in the records, pursued the matter before the Osnabrück district court in accordance with the principles of the federal German constitutional state. Initially, he came to the following conclusion with regard to the case: 

“[...] A claim was brought against Wernicki by the now deceased father of the impregnated Surmann, which he submitted to the police in Freren, with the evidently false allegation that his daughter had been raped by the Pole.”[5]

His investigations related not only to Wernicki. There were other cases of what was referred to as “special treatment”; in other words, executions without a court judgement. They fell exclusively within the administration authority of the police. Wächter began an investigation into the activities of ten members of the “Stapostelle Osnabrück”, the local branch of the Gestapo. Which of them were involved? In his final decision, dated 3 December 1968, the state prosecutor wrote a summary of the legal regulations that applied in the National Socialist state, which covered nine A4 pages. This summary included a detailed list of instructions, which also contained an order issued to forced labourers before they began working at their place of employment:

“Anyone who has sexual relations with a German woman or a German man, or who approaches them in an indecent manner, is subject to punishment by death.”[6]

Here, particular attention was paid to Poles and people from other eastern European countries:

“The Reichsführer-SS has agreed with Reich justice minister Thierack that in the case of Poles and members of the Ostvölker [people of eastern European origin – translator’s note], no regular judicial proceedings shall apply. These fremdvölkische [National Socialist term for “of foreign origin” – translator’s note] individuals shall in future be handed over to the police. [...]
Poles and members of the Ostvölker are foreign and racially inferior individuals who live in the territory of the German Reich. They constitute a significant risk to the German Volksordnung [people’s order – translator’s note], which of necessity results in the application of different criminal laws in relation to these foreign individuals than for Germans. [...] the crime of a foreign individual should be considered not from the perspective of atonement according to the law, but from the perspective of a prevention of risk by the police. 
As a result, the administration of criminal justice against foreign individuals must be transferred from the judiciary to the police.”[7]

This meant that the death penalty was no longer issued after the weighing up of evidence by a judge, but was a matter solely to be decided by the police, rendering it a purely administrative act.

 

Where is Bolesław Wernicki’s body?
 

Around four years after the hanging, on 5 May 1946, the registrar in Andervenne issued a death certificate. In it, he recorded the following:

“The Polish civilian labourer Boleslaw Wernicki, last residing at Andervenne Oberdorf, died on 10 January 1942 at 10:50 in the morning in Andervenne Oberdorf.”[8]

No earlier version of the death certificate can be found in the regional archive of the Emsland district. However, the rules that applied during the National Socialist period are also upheld in this later death certificate. Instead of “Execution at the order of the Reichsführer-SS”, he wrote “deceased”, in compliance with the Nazi regulations.

There are two excerpts from the list of graves in the Andervenne municipal cemetery, neither of which are dated, however. Accordingly, it is not clear when the grave was dug. Only the following entry can be found:

“Boleslaw Wernicki, deceased on 10/7/1942, was buried in Andervenne in the municipal cemetery. The grave was marked with a wooden cross and his name.”[9]

The death certificate in the Arolsen digital archive and the excerpt from the list of graves were probably produced in response to a request by the ITS in around 1946. It is possible that Bolesław was reinterred as a result of this request, or that embellishments were added to his original grave. By that time, circumstances had changed, and Himmler’s orders, according to which the body of a person who had been executed was to be sent to a crematorium or buried in a Jewish cemetery, no longer applied. As an exception, it would also have been permitted to bury the body in the “suicide corner of a large cemetery”. At the end of the day, it remains unclear what happened to Bolesławs body after he was executed .

 

Criminal investigations
 

It was not until 1967/68 that a criminal investigation into the events was conducted. The person who laid the noose around Bolesław’s neck and who knocked away the scaffold on which he was standing was criminal secretary and SS Sturmscharführer Hermann Hagedorn. This was attested to by his colleague and higher-ranking criminal secretary Eduard Prüssing before special committee Z (Sonderkommission Z) of the Lower Saxony federal state criminal investigation department on 10 October 1967. This was not the only execution in which Hagedorn played a leading role. He was known as “the big wheel” when it came to executions, according to the witness statement of civilian prisoner Karl Wachsmann, an internee in the prison camp at Sandbostel near Bremervörde, during the denazification hearings relating to him and the other camp prisoners. He kept a container next to his desk at all times, where he stored a number of different nooses. The prisoner witnesses Rudolf Lüders and Karl-Adolf Haas also gave similar statements.

On 3 December 1968, after investigating ten members of the Gestapo in total, First State Prosecutor Wächter came to a surprising conclusion in his final decision before the Osnabrück district court: in all cases, the main culprit was Heinrich Himmler and the other leaders of the Reich Main Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt). The following applied to the accused:

“None of them did any more than follow their orders; nor did their actions go beyond what they were required to do. None of them killed at their own instigation or had the desire to obtain the decision-making authority with regard to such actions.”[10]

The decision of First State Prosecutor Wächter ends with the following comment: 

“The proceedings must therefore be brought to a close. 
For the sake of completeness, it should be noted that, as recorded in a summary dated 20/9/1967 filed at the Central Office of the State Justice Administrations in Ludwigsburg, among numerous state prosecution departments, almost all similar proceedings relating to ‘special treatments’ have also been halted, or have been brought to a close due to cessation of proceedings or acquittal of the defendants.”[11]

There were, therefore, no further investigations and no criminal proceedings relating to these crimes in general, and also no criminal proceedings regarding the crime against humanity on Gallenberg hill. “The other state prosecutors are all doing it, too...” is perhaps another way of expressing the second sentence in Wächter’s decision to cease all further investigation.

 

Hagedorn the hangman, a resistance fighter and opponent of National Socialism
 

The “Main Denazification Committee for the Osnabrück Police Force” (Entnazifizierungs-Hauptausschuß für die Polizei Osnabrück) had an unusually thick file for prisoner Hermann Hagedorn. It comprised no fewer than 80 pages. Among these are 17 exoneration certificates. 

According to these documents, Hermann Hagedorn had prevented large numbers of people from being arrested for political reasons, had liberated others from prison and had provided yet more with various forms of assistance. A Jewish woman, who lost three sisters and several other relatives in the Holocaust, provided a witness statement in his favour:

“[...] The fact that I am one of the few survivors is largely thanks to Mr Hagedorn, who provided extremely valuable support to my family by giving us early warnings of forthcoming Gestapo activities.”[1]

The director of the city’s welfare and refugee bureau, who was also the head of the affiliated support centre for former victims of political persecution, also submitted a favourable report. He explained that he had been arrested in 1938, and that during the journey from the Gestapo headquarters to the police cells, Hagedorn said to him: 

“I am a Social Democrat just like you, I think like you, I hate the Nazis, and I want to help you.”[2]

The “Main Denazification Committee for the Osnabrück Police Force” also recorded the following on 17 February 1949:

“It is determined that the person under investigation [is] exonerated (Category V) [...]
According to the exonerating material contained in the files, the person in question has been proven to have acted as an opponent of National Socialism, and is therefore to be classified as Category V in accordance with §7 (1b) of the regulation pertaining to the legal bases for denazification in the federal state of Lower Saxony.”[3]

It therefore appears that there were two sides to Hermann Hagedorn: the one who wielded power in the National Socialist system, and the one who remained ambivalent about his loyalties... 

Bolesław Wernicki, a forgotten name and a story that has been kept hidden. The research into his story has brought other remarkable facts to light.

 

Anton Wiechmann, March 2025

 

Further reading:

Anton Wiechmann, Auf Befehl des Reichsführers SS erhängt: Bolesław Wernicki, Hamburg 2022