Heinrich or Heinz Andergassen was an SS officer who was a convicted war criminal and executed for the torture and murder of seven Allied prisoners of war. He was a SS-Sturmscharführer and later an SS-Untersturmführer in Northern Italy.
Origin
Parents were local police officer August Andergassen and his wife Maria. A grandfather was Franz Alexander Andergassen, originally from Kaltern an der Weinstrasse/Caldaro sulla Strada del Vino, Italy. Andergassen was single and presumably didn't became a father. He was resident in Innsbruck, Hall and Volders, close to Gauleiter Hofers so called Lachhof estate.
Laufbahn
Andergassen has been educated as a machinist at Swarowski in Wattens. In 1929 he voluntarily joined the Army and has been trained at Viennese Arsenal. In 1937 he was appointed Gendarm. After Anschluss he got NSDAP member, and became active with Gestapo. At German occupation of Czechoslovakian Sudetenland in October 1938 he served in a 100-strong police unit. Then he started career as a Gestapo officer in Innsbruck. After German occupation of Italy, Andergassen served as an officer at SD Merano, where is was responsible for the arrest of the still in Merano living Jewish Tyrolean. Finally in Bozen/Bolzano he served at Sicherheitspolizei.
Jan. 26, 1945 the 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 forced to Gestapo Bolzano/Bozen. In Febr. 19, 1945 Roderick Stephen Hall has been tortured and killed by Andergassen and SS-Oberscharführer Albert Storz on orders of SS-Sturmbannführer August Schiffer.
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. May 8 he was captured by the 206th Counterintelligence Corp outside Innsbruck Schiffer, Storz and him were accused as War Criminals. At their US-Military Tribunal trial in Naples Heinz Andergassen made voluntarily declaration that homicide of Roderick Hall was approved by highest NAZI authorities.. Jan. 26, 1946 Andergassen, Schiffer and Storz were sentenced to death by hanging for torturings and killings of Roderick Stephen Hall, four other American and two British soldiers. July 26, 1946 Andergassen was executed at an US-Army Camp close to Pisa.
Postwar Reception
Criminal Investigation Department Commissioner Arthur Schuster put the War Criminal in charge of 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. Nowadays research results show up that NAZIs preferentially consumed Pervertin rather than alcohol. In a new manifestation it became a public health issue again suppositionally not only in Post-Fall of the Wall parts of Eastern Germany and the Czech Republic.
