Heinz Wilhelm Friedrich Barz

* "24 May 1915" – Torgau (Sachsen)
† "11 May 2000" – Wentorf, near Hamburg (Schleswig-Holstein)

Starting in 1944, Heinz Barz was a member of the ‘Hermann Göring’ Parachute-Panzer Division in Italy. He was in command of the troops responsible for the atrocities in Val di Chiana and Valdarno.

After secondary school, Barz became an officer candidate in the Schutzpolizei, first in Magdeburg, then in Berlin. In 1937, he served as a lieutenant and platoon leader in Hamburg, joining both the Nazi Party and the SS that same year. In Sept. 1939, Barz was assigned as platoon leader to the 2^nd Company of Reserve Police Battalion 101 and took part in the invasion and occupation of Poland.

After the war Barz continued his career as a police official in Hamburg; he was never brought to justice for his crimes.

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Nationality

German

Formation

Police, SS

Joined the NSDAP

Membership no. 5.994.111 (1 Jan. 1937)

Armed force

Wehrmacht

Unit

‘Hermann Göring’ Parachute-Panzer Division

Years of service

1934-1945

Rank

Captain

Offensive

Annexation of Austria
Occupation of the ‘Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia’ 1939
Occupation of Poland 1939-41
Occupation of the Soviet Union 1941-43
Italian campaign 1944
Eastern Front 1944-45

Confirmed Massacres

Cavriglia
Civitella, Cornia and San Pancrazio

Post war period

Hamburg police official

Training and wartime experience

The first years: paramilitary organization and voluntary service

Heinz Barz was born in 1915 in Torgau (Saxony) as the son of a baker for the local garrison. The family moved from Torgau to Nordhausen (Thuringia) and finally to Weißenfels on the Saale River, where Barz passed his Abitur matriculation exam at the Reformrealgymnasium in March 1934. In his final secondary school year, he was a member of the Deutscher Luftsportverband (‘German Association for Aerial Sports’), a paramilitary underground organization that trained pilots for the future Luftwaffe. In Oct.1934 he joined the Reichswehr as a volunteer, doing a year’s service before being employed for some months at the Reichsnährstand: a Nazi German governmental body that regulated food production.

In 1936, Barz was accepted into the Schutzpolizei as an officer candidate, receiving his training first in Magdeburg then in Berlin-Köpenick. In 1937 he joined both the Nazi Party and the SS, serving at the end of the year as a lieutenant and platoon leader in the Hamburg Schutzpolizei. In March 1938, he participated with his unit in marching into Austria and then, in 1939, in the occupation of Prague.
In the war with Reserve Police Battalion 101

In early Sept. 1939, Barz was assigned as platoon leader to the 2^nd Company of Reserve Police Battalion 101, which had been deployed a short time earlier in Hamburg. With this company, he participated in the invasion and occupation of Poland. Initially he served in Kielce, then in 1940 in Poznań und Łódź (at the time Litzmannstadt). His service in Poland lasted until 1941.

Hamburg’s Reserve Police Battalion 101 is the notorious battalion of “ordinary men” - a term coined by Christopher Browning in his study of the unit. Its history has been researched by many other historians including Daniel Goldhagen. Already during Barz’s time in the battalion, it was involved in expulsion and deportation. In Poznań, it oversaw the expulsion of the Polish and Jewish populace and settlement of ethnic Germans from Russia and the Baltic region. The battalion did guard duty over the Łódź ghetto. In this first phase of its deployment in the east, bloody actions were still rare; but already then, Battalion 101 helped carry out dozens of death sentences by special courts.

In Aug. 1941, Barz married Baroness Isabella von Medem, who came from an old Baltic noble family. In 1919 during Russia’s civil war, her father had been killed by Bolshevist troops. Some days after the wedding, Barz was transferred to another unit. From this point onward, there is little reliable information related to his biography. From 22 Aug. 1941 until 14 April 1942, he was deployed in the east, very likely with Police Battalion 305. This north German police battalion was stationed in Kielce, Poland, where it helped guard the Jewish ghetto, accompanied transports to Auschwitz, and participated in mass shootings. In Jan. 1942, Barz was promoted to Captain.

In the occupied Soviet Union, the German military police participated in reprisals against partisans and were responsible for numerous war crimes. Heinz Barz was assigned to Military Police Section 581, whose deployment area was the rear of the mid-section of the Eastern Front, for which the 2nd Panzer Army was responsible.

With the military police in Russia

Heinz Barz is placed in the summer of 1944 in command of the troops operating the rakes in Val di Chiana and Valdarno. © BArch, R 9361-III/6991

In April 1942, similar to many younger commissioned officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) in Nazi Germany's regular police force, Barz was transferred to the military police. The primary responsibility of the Feldgendarmerie was to uphold discipline and maintain public order in the rear areas of the front. In reality, in the occupied Soviet Union, the military police were involved in reprisals against partisans and were accountable for numerous war crimes. Barz was assigned to Feldgendarmerie Battalion 581, whose deployment area was the rear of the mid-section of the Eastern Front, over which the 2^nd Panzer Army had authority.

In the summer of 1942, the army fought near Voronež and along the Don River, slowly withdrawing in the Kursk sector. Feldgendarmerie Battalion 581 was one of the most important units for maintaining security for the occupiers. It also contained some companies of Russian collaborators and a Cossack formation. Barz served in the unit from the spring of 1942 to late Aug. 1943, when he was seriously wounded by a hand grenade explosion. In this period Barz’s unit was so active that within a few months he was awarded the Iron Cross, class II, the Iron Cross, class I, and the Medal of Courage for members of the ‘Eastern peoples’. The latter award shows that Russians and Ukrainians were also under his direct command.

After his recovery, in mid-Jan. 1944 Barz resumed his command, and was transferred to the Feldgendarmerie unit of the ‘Hermann Göring’ Panzer-Division in Italy.

Participation in massacres of civilians

A ‘Hermann Göring’ Division leader in Italy

In early 1944, Barz became commander of the Feldgendarmerie unit of the ‘Hermann Göring’ Parachute-Panzer Division. Presumably, he was the division’s only officer with applicable experience in the Nazi ‘battle for race and volk’ in Eastern Europe. He was also experienced in fighting partisans. It thus made sense for the division to have him lead the operations in Civitella and Cavriglia in June and July 1944.

In his 1948-1950 trial, the commander of the ‘Hermann Göring’ Panzer Division, Wilhelm Schmalz, alleged that Barz was responsible for all the division’s crimes; he succeeded in convincing the military court of his innocence in this way. But the misspelling of Barz’s name prevented his identification and location.

The postwar period

Return to the Hamburg police

After the war ended, Barz succeeded in absconding unnoticed. British investigators were familiar with his name. In his 1948-1950 trial, the commander of the ‘Hermann Göring’ Panzer Division, Wilhelm Schmalz, alleged that Barz was responsible for all the division’s crimes; he succeeded in convincing the military court of his innocence in this way. But misspellings of Barz’s name (Barth, Bart, Bartz, Bartk instead of Barz; Hein and Keinz instead of Heinz) prevented his identification and location. He had returned to Hamburg, where his family lived, resuming his police service there in Sept. 1948, at the same time that the trial of Schmalz began. Barz’s career as a police official would be long and successful. In the late 1960s, he was the head of the Wandsbek police district. At one point, he was interviewed by the Hamburg legal authorities on account of his activities on the Eastern Front; but his activities in Italy as head of the ‘Hermann Göring’ Division’s military police remained undiscovered. After retiring Barz moved to Wentorf, near Hamburg, where he died in 2000.

Sources

Heinz Barz's career can be precisely traced through his personnel records to the early years of the war. Starting from 1941 and his transfer to the Police Division of the Waffen-SS, the data is incomplete. The deployment within the "Hermann Göring" Division can only be reconstructed indirectly through casualty reports of his unit and the investigations and legal proceedings of the post-war period. The following files are stored in the Federal Archives in Berlin-Lichterfelde: R 9361-III/6991; R 9361-III/515635; R 601/2411; VBS 1069 (R 19)/ZB 0902 A. 09. Biographical documents regarding the post-war period can be found in the State Archives of Hamburg.

Literature

Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary men. Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, New York, Harper Perennial, 1993.

Carlo Gentile, Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Partisanenkrieg. Italien 1943–1945. Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, pp. 328, 333.

Authorship and translation

Autor: Carlo Gentile

Translated from German by: Joel Golb

2023

Text: CC BY NC SA 4.0

Heinz Wilhelm Friedrich Barz

Training and wartime experience

The first years: paramilitary organization and voluntary service

In the war with Reserve Police Battalion 101

With the military police in Russia

Participation in massacres of civilians

A ‘Hermann Göring’ Division leader in Italy

The postwar period

Return to the Hamburg police

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