Jakob Schmid

Schmid worked from 1926 as a janitor at the university. On November 1, 1933, he joined the SA and, on May 1, 1937, the NSDAP.[1]

On February 18, 1943, at around 11:15 am, he noticed the Scholl siblings giving out pamphlets in the atrium of the university. He confronted them as they were leaving the building and turned them over to the secretary, Albert Scheithammer. Since the principal Walther Wüst was absent, Schmid and Scheithammer took the Scholls to the consul of the university, Ernst Haeffner, who turned them over to the Gestapo.

The Scholls and other members of the White Rose were sentenced to death in a show trial on February 22, 1943. Three of them—Christoph Probst, Sophie Scholl and Hans Scholl—were executed the same day by guillotine in Stadelheim Prison.

Schmid received a reward of 3,000 Reichsmarks and was promoted from blue-collar worker to professional employee.[2] Hundreds of students cheered Schmid at a thank-you ceremony organized by the University of Munich to deter student resistance. Schmid responded with a Nazi salute.[3]

Three days after the end of the Second World War, on 11 May 1945, Schmid was arrested by American occupation forces.[1] A trial under the chairmanship of Karl Mayer classified him as a "Major Offender" according to the categorisation established by the American denazification process and sentenced him to five years in a labor camp. He also lost his claim of 'public earnings' and his right to hold public office. He appealed the sentence twice without success, once with the justification he had "done his duty". He was released in 1951 and his pension was renewed.[2]