Heinrich Andergassen

Heinrich Andergassen was a German member of the Nazi Party, engineer, SS officer, and convicted war criminal who was sentenced to death, and subsequently executed, for the torture and murder of seven Allied prisoners of war.

Career

Andergassen was born on July 30, 1908, in Hall, Tyrol. He later was educated as a machinist at Swarowski in Wattens. In 1929, he voluntarily joined the Army and was trained at Arsenal (Vienna). In 1937, he was promoted to Gendarm. After Anschluss, he became a member of the NSDAP, as well as becoming active with the Gestapo.
During the German occupation of Czechoslovak Sudetenland in October 1938, he served in a 100-strong police unit; subsequently thereafter, he started his career as a Gestapo officer in Innsbruck. Andergassen was later relocated to Italy, where he served as an SD officer in Merano. On the night of September 15, 1943, he led a raid which resulted in the arrests of 25 Jewish citizens living in Merano. Andergassen locked those he found in a basement which was fashioned into a jail, and eventually deported them to the Reichenau concentration camp in Austria, and finally, Auschwitz concentration camp. Only one of the abducted, Valeska von Hoffmann, survived the Holocaust.
He was at the rank of SS-Sturmscharführer, and later promoted to SS-Untersturmführer during a tour of Northern Italy.

War crimes

On December 15, 1944, the SS captured Manlio Longon Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale of the Italian Resistance Alto Adige. On the order of August Schiffer, Longon was tortured and hanged by Andergassen at Army Corps Bolzano on January 1, 1945.
On January 26, 1945, OSS Captain Roderick Stephen Hall, who had been active in occupied Italy for some months, was captured by the SS in Cortina d'Ampezzo and moved to the Gestapo Bolzano/Bozen. On February 19, 1945, Hall was executed by Andergassen and SS-units.

Arrest, trial, and execution

On April 30, 1945, Andergassen, together with Schiffer and Storz as a driver, fled from the approaching American armed forces in a black Mercedes to Brennero. On the 8th of May, he was captured by the 206th Counterintelligence Corp outside Innsbruck, alongside Schiffer and Storz. Andergassen and the others were collectively charged as war criminals, including Gestapo officer Hans Butz. During their trial, held by the U.S. military in Naples, Andergassen made a voluntary declaration that the execution of Roderick Hall was approved by higher Nazi authorities. On January 16, 1946, Andergassen, Schiffer, and Storz were sentenced to death by hanging for the torture and killings of Hall, four other Americans, and two British soldiers. Butz received a life sentence due to his limited involvement and his lack of participation in any other murders. On July 26, 1946, Andergassen, Schiffer, and Storz were all put to death at a military stockade in Livorno.

Postwar reception

Province of Bolzano/Provinz Bozen Criminal Investigation Department Commissioner Arthur Schuster charged the war criminal with being "the incarnation of sadism and brutality; he was incredibly blood-thirsty, especially when under the influence of strong drink, for which he had a great fondness, and was encouraged in all his excesses by his superior", this being August Schiffer.