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| Anton Schmid | |
|---|---|
| Name | Anton Schmid |
| Birth date | 11 November 1900 |
| Birth place | Vienna, Austria-Hungary |
| Death date | 13 April 1942 |
| Death place | Vilnius, Reichskommissariat Ostland |
| Nationality | Austrian |
| Occupation | Soldier, Wehrmacht enlisted man, rescuer |
Anton Schmid was an Austrian-born enlisted man in the Wehrmacht who, during World War II, rescued Jews in Vilnius (then part of the Reichskommissariat Ostland). Acting against orders from Nazi Germany and the Schutzstaffel, he issued work permits and sheltered refugees, enabling many to escape deportation to the Ponary massacre and Nazi ghettos. Arrested by the Gestapo and tried by a military court, he was executed in 1942; later decades brought recognition from Yad Vashem, Israel, and various European institutions.
Born in Vienna in 1900 during the final years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Schmid grew up amid the aftermath of the Austrian Civil War and the political upheavals of the First Austrian Republic. He trained in trades before conscription into the Austro-Hungarian Army and later served in the Austrian Bundesheer. After the Anschluss of 1938 he became part of the German Wehrmacht and was posted to the Eastern Front during Operation Barbarossa, serving in postings that included Vilnius in the Lithuania theater. His duties brought him into contact with units of the Ordnungspolizei, Einsatzgruppen, and administrative branches of the Reichskommissariat Ostland.
While stationed at the Vilna Ghetto area, Schmid encountered Jews targeted by actions coordinated by Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Hitler, and commanders of the Einsatzgruppe B. He used his position issuing Arbeitskarten and work permits to help Jews evade deportation by the Deutsche Arbeitsfront authorities and the Gestapo. Schmid arranged false documentation and collaborated with local figures, including members of the Jewish resistance movement, leaders of the Council of Elders (Vilna Ghetto), and contacts among Lithuanian and Polish civilians, to hide families from rounds carried out by units such as the SS and Waffen-SS. His interventions helped many escape mass executions at sites like Ponary and transfers to extermination centers linked to the Final Solution. Schmid sheltered refugees in military barracks, coordinated with sympathetic personnel in the Wehrmacht and the Red Army liberated areas later remembered in narratives of rescue during the Holocaust.
Schmid's activities drew attention from supervisors and denunciations from collaborators within the SS and the Gestapo. Accused of aiding Jews and undermining orders from officers aligned with Heinrich Himmler and the Nazi leadership, he was arrested by the Sicherheitspolizei and handed to a military court influenced by directives from the OKW and the Wehrmacht High Command. Tried in a court-martial in Vilnius, proceedings referenced violations of regulations issued by the Nazi Party and directives originating in Berlin. Found guilty of treasonous assistance to Jews and disobedience toward commanders connected to figures like Wilhelm Keitel and Heinrich Himmler, he received a death sentence and was executed by firing squad in April 1942. His body was buried in a locality associated with sites of wartime executions documented alongside massacres carried out by units tied to the Holocaust in Lithuania.
After World War II, Schmid's story emerged in accounts produced by survivors connected to the Vilna Ghetto, including testimonies preserved in archives of institutions like Yad Vashem, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and national archives in Lithuania and Austria. In 1968 he was recognized as one of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, an honor shared with other rescuers such as Oskar Schindler, Irena Sendler, Antonina Żabińska, and Raoul Wallenberg. His actions have been discussed in scholarship on rescue efforts alongside studies of the German occupation of Lithuania, the Holocaust, and resistance networks that involved figures from the Polish Underground State and local partisans. Commemorations include plaques, memorials in Vilnius and Vienna, mentions in exhibitions at the Jewish Museum in Prague, and entries in encyclopedias of rescuers maintained by institutions like the Simon Wiesenthal Center and university departments of Holocaust studies.
Schmid's legacy intersects with debates about conscience and obedience in armed forces, comparisons with military dissidents such as Wilm Hosenfeld and officers implicated in the 20 July plot, and remembrance in postwar legal and ethical discourse involving organizations like the International Military Tribunal and national commemorative bodies. His name appears in curricula at centers studying the Holocaust in Eastern Europe and in publications by historians of the Second World War, ensuring that his interventions are preserved in the memory of Holocaust rescue and resistance.
Category:Austrian Righteous Among the Nations Category:People executed by Nazi Germany