English source-aligned edition
Willi Tessmann
Willi Tessmann served as commandant of the police prison. The profile reconstructs the person’s function in Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel through documented office, decisions, supervision or operational conduct. It does not assign every crime committed by an institution or region to one individual.
Confirmed findings
- Willi Tessmann was born in Hamburg on 15 January 1908 and was executed at Hamelin on 29 January 1948. (Source: cited record)
- From November 1943 until the end of the war he was commandant of the Fuhlsbüttel police prison. (Source: cited record; Source: cited record; Source: cited record)
- An institutional record states that in 1943 Tessmann and his deputy took five Russian forced labourers to the place of execution and watched it being carried out. (Source: cited record; Source: cited record)
- The exhibition record documents his participation in Gestapo interrogations, the placement of informers in political prisoners’ cells and his support for mistreatment. (Source: cited record)
- A British military court sentenced him to death in September 1947; he was executed at Hamelin on 29 January 1948. (Source: cited record; Source: cited record; Source: cited record; Source: cited record)
Place in the chain of responsibility
The profile combines the responsibility of the commandant with specifically documented personal conduct and does not attribute acts of other guards to Tessmann without an individual finding. (Source: cited record; Source: cited record; Source: cited record; Source: cited record)
Key events and mechanisms
- In November 1943 he assumed command of the Fuhlsbüttel police prison. (Source: cited record; Source: cited record)
- He was sentenced to death in September 1947 and executed on 29 January 1948. (Source: cited record; Source: cited record; Source: cited record; Source: cited record)
The circle records authority, function and agency. Several profiles may describe different parts of the same persecution chain, so profile-level totals must not be added together.
Postwar accountability
In the second Fuhlsbüttel case he was sentenced to death in September 1947 and executed at Hamelin on 29 January 1948. (Source: cited record; Source: cited record; Source: cited record; Source: cited record)
Limits of the evidence
Institutional panels give different days in September for the judgment, so the profile records only the month and year. It does not attribute acts of other defendants without an individual finding. A known photograph has unclear reuse status, so no portrait is published without a clear legal basis. (Source: cited record; Source: cited record; Source: cited record)
Sources
The source set combines institutional, archival, trial or scholarly material from at least two independent publishers.