Oskar Schindler: The Man Who Outwitted Adolf Hitler
Quick answer: Who was Oskar Schindler?
Oskar Schindler was an ethnic German businessman from Moravia who joined the Nazi Party and profited from the occupation of Poland, yet used his enamelware factory in Krakow and later an armaments plant in Brunnlitz to protect more than 1,000 Jewish workers from deportation and death during World War II.
An opportunist with a taste for the finer things, Oskar Schindler seemed an unlikely rescuer, and he was a long way from perfect. Yet during World War II he saved more than 1,000 Jews from deportation and death. His imperfections, and the nuances in the historical record, make the story more remarkable. Schindler was born on April 28, 1908, in Zwittau (Svitavy), Moravia, then part of Austria-Hungary, and grew up an ethnic German Catholic. He was expelled from a technical school for forging a report card, raced motorcycles, and in 1928 married Emilie Pelzl. He drank heavily and was arrested more than once for public drunkenness. He joined the separatist Sudeten German Party in 1935, became an agent of the Abwehr, German military intelligence, in 1936, and collected information on Czech and Polish railways and troop movements. He joined the Nazi Party in 1939. After Germany invaded Poland, he moved to Krakow in October 1939 and took over a Jewish-owned enamelware factory he called Emalia, with the help of the Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern. At first he seemed like any other German industrialist profiting from the occupation. By 1944 his factory employed about 1,750 workers, about 1,000 of them Jews from the Krakow ghetto and the Plaszow camp, and he sheltered another 450 Jews from nearby factories. When the SS moved his Jewish workers back to Plaszow in October 1944, Schindler got permission to relocate his plant to Brunnlitz in Moravia as an armaments factory. Lists of up to 1,200 prisoners needed to work there came to be called Schindler's List. He spent his fortune on bribes and black-market goods to keep them alive. Asked later why he did it, he said he knew the people who worked for him, and when you know people, you have to behave toward them like human beings.
Why it matters for leaders: Courage sometimes shows up in deeply flawed people, and what matters is what they choose to do when the moment comes.
Q: How many people did Schindler save?
A: More than 1,000 Jews, most of them workers listed for his factory at Brunnlitz in 1944 and 1945.
Q: Was Schindler a member of the Nazi Party?
A: Yes. He joined in 1939 and had worked for German military intelligence before the war.
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By John Fenzel, founder and CEO of Heroes' Path Foundation