Heinz Schweizer

Who was Heinz Schweizer?

Hauptmann Heinz Schweizer was a Luftwaffe Feuerwerker or armourer, specifically a bomb disposal operator, during World War II.

He is noted for his role in saving a group of political prisoners at the end of the war.

Most German bomb disposal during World War II was carried out by the Luftwaffe. Feuerwerker or armourers were given specific and extensive training in bomb disposal, although by the late-war period this was replaced by experience and examination alone, as for the British system. A bomb disposal section or Sprengkommando was led by an officer or Oberfeuerwerker with three or four Feuerwerker. Simple labouring, such as excavation for buried bombs, was carried out by prisoners: either criminals or political prisoners, but not prisoners of war. Citizens of occupied countries were also used, within those countries. These prisoner labourers were in turn guarded by Luftwaffe guards. Relations between Luftwaffe members and prisoners appear to have been cordial, for the political prisoners at least, if not the criminals.

In May 1943 Schweizer recovered an unexploded bouncing bomb from a plane that crashed on its way to the target during Operation Chastise, the Dambuster raid. On 28 June 1943 he was awarded his Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes as Hauptmann and leader of Sprengkommando 1/IV Ratingen-Düsseldorf.