Walter Heinrich

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Walter Heinrich (Myslowitz, German Empire, 2 January 1910 – unknown, missing since February 1945) was a German SS-Obersturmführer. As such, from August 1941 to 1 March 1943, he was in charge of Kamp Amersfoort concentration camp as Lagerkommandant. Heinrich, son of a train driver, was born on 2 January 1910 in Myslowitz, a town in Silesia, Germany, that after the referendum of 1921 came to be in Poland. Heinrich's family then left for German territory. From 1928 he worked as a municipal official in Oppeln. After the assumption of power from Hitler, in 1933, Heinrich became a member of the NSDAP and the SS. In January 1939 he got a job with the Gestapo. He took part in the Invasion of Poland and was transferred to the Reichssicherheitshauptamt in Berlin. In 1941 Heinrich arrived in the Netherlands, where as a 31-year-old Untersturmführer he became the first commander of Kamp Amersfoort concentration camp. Heinrich appointed twenty SS men as Wachkommando of the camp, and released two SS men from the Dachau concentration camp to demonstrate how the guards should deal with the prisoners. Heinrich forbade assaults when he saw them, but was often outside the camp, where Schutzhaftlagerführer I Johann Friedrich Stöver took over the leadership. From the Memoirs of Prisoners and Post-War Official Reports it is revealed that he was a dog lover, party goer, former figure skater and scumbag. He seemed correct in his handling and his blinking eye, a nervous tic, earned him the nickname "Heinrich Knipperoog" ("Heinrich Blinking Eye"). He organized dinners for befriended officers, for which he used pressed food that was actually intended for the prisoners. Heinrich was not only responsible for the many abuses in Amersfoort concentration camp, but also took an active part in the execution of 77 Soviet prisoners of war on...