Hans Ernst Schneider, was a German professor of literature under his alias Hans Schwerte. His real identity as a former SS officer was revealed in April 1995.
In 1946 Schneider, under his new identity as Hans Schwerte, located his wife and child. His wife had him declared dead under his old identity, and in 1947 the couple married again. Schwerte studied again, now in Hamburg and Erlangen, where he received his doctorate in 1948 for a dissertation about Rainer Maria Rilke's notion of time. His referees were Helmut Prang, Hans-Joachim Schoeps and his adviser Heinz Otto Burger. In 1958 he received his habilitation in recent history of German literature, for his celebrated work on Faustian ideology in Germany. From 1964 he was extraordinary professor at Erlangen University, where he directed the theatre studies department of the seminar of German literature. In 1965 he moved to Aachen, where he became professor of contemporary German literature at Aachen University. From 1970 to 1973, Schwerte was rector of Aachen University. As such he had a social liberal reputation and unusually good relations with the left-wing German student movement. From 1976 to 1981 he was commissioner for the relations between the universities of North Rhine-Westphalia and those of the Netherlands and of Belgium. He retired in 1978, and in 1983 he received the Federal Cross of Merit for his commitment to academic relations with the two neighbouring countries. Although there is no definitive proof, it is generally believed that Schwerte's past was known to his teachers and colleagues, and in particular to his doctoral adviser Heinz Otto Burger and his colleague in Aachen Arnold Gehlen. It is documented that in 1985 a librarian in Aachen who had discovered Schwerte's previous life agreed with the university administration to keep it secret.
Public discovery
Rumours about Schwerte's Nazi past condensed in 1992. After accidental discovery of Schneider's past, his American colleague Earl Jeffrey Richards notified the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The rumours inspired students to further research in 1994, which led to the determination that no Hans Schwerte was born in Hildesheim in 1910. Meanwhile, Dutch television was preparing a report about Schwerte's secret identity. Under pressure, Schwerte went public in April 1995, one day before the Dutch television programmeBrandpunt uncovered him. In the resulting scandal, Schwerte lost the Federal Cross of Merit, his title as professor, his habilitation and his pension. Moreover, the 86-year-old was ruined when the state asked him to return his lifetime salary. The prosecution investigated Schneider's role in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, and especially his procurement of medical devices. However, as there was no proof that he knew about their intended use, the investigations were soon discontinued. Schwerte himself commented: "I do not know who Schneider is, but I will have to take responsibility for him." He died in Marquartstein on 18 December 1999, three days after his 90th birthday. The case was widely discussed in Germany and became the subject of several books. Commentators were generally intrigued by the close parallels between Schneider/Schwerte's two lives, and wondered whether Schwerte had become a genuine antifascist in the 1960s or had merely taken the dissimulation to extremes, and what exactly it was that took him to the locations of his Nazi past. In spite of its unusual features the case is often regarded as symptomatic for the way in which West German universities dealt with the past, given the incomplete nature of denazification and the general continuity in their staff.