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Commandant Johannes Hassebroeck
Josef Liepold is the commandant of Oskar Schindler’s Brinnlitz camp. Unlike many of the middle-aged SS officers in the garrison at Brinnlitz, Liepold is not indifferent and is fiercely devoted to the concept of a “Final Solution” (a total extermination of Jewish people). Schindler is able to keep Liepold at bay for a while, but finally he is forced to use trickery to get Liepold deployed to active combat duty instead.
Commandant Josef Liepold Quotes in Schindler’s List
The Schindler’s List quotes below are all either spoken by Commandant Josef Liepold or refer to Commandant Josef Liepold . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 34 Quotes
This deft subversion may not have satisfied Liepold and Schoenbrun. For the sitting had not reached a formal conclusion; it had not ended in a judgment. But they could not complain that Oskar had avoided a hearing, or treated it with levity.
Dresner’s account, given later in his life, raises the supposition that Brinnlitz maintained its prisoners’ lives by a series of stunts so rapid that they were nearly magical. To tell the strict truth though, Brinnlitz, both as a prison and as a manufacturing enterprise, was itself, of its nature and in a literal sense, the one sustained, dazzling, integral confidence trick.
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Commandant Josef Liepold Character Timeline in Schindler’s List
The timeline below shows where the character Commandant Josef Liepold appears in Schindler’s List. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 33
Something terrible happens while Schindler is away from Brinnlitz. The new Commandant of Gröss-Rosen, Josef Liepold, comes to visit the workshop with an inspector. The inspector has been ordered to look...
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...among the men in front, again wearing a Tyrolean hat. Next to him is Commandant Liepold. Schindler has discovered that Liepold is still a firm believer in the so-called “Final Solution.”...
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...to worry about. You’re with me now.” He says all this in front of Commandant Liepold, who is furious but seems incapable of doing anything for the moment. The men figure...
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Chapter 34
...out in the mail, though he can’t keep a copy from being hand-delivered to Commandant Liepold.
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Finally, Schindler comes back and hears about the situation from Stern. Liepold wants to preside over a hearing and ultimately hang Janek Dresner (along with his family),...
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...the Germans and suggests they’d be better to forget the whole thing. The Germans, including Liepold, don’t seem satisfied, but they can see that at least Schindler appeared to take the...
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Chapter 35
...“Budzyn people” (who survived the liquidation of the Budzyn labor camp, which had been under Liepold). The Budzyn people are highly political, with many of them being Marxists.
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Chapter 36
Liepold doesn’t want to take the survivors and says there’s no way anyone could pretend they’re...
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...refuses to have any of the corpses burned. In the past, he caused trouble with Liepold over this issue, at one point allowing a prisoner who died of cancer to be...
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Chapter 37
...The day is festive, despite the fact that recently a telegram went from Hassebroeck to Liepold giving instructions to eliminate large portions of the Jewish population, should the Russians come near....
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In fact, Liepold himself hasn’t seen the telegram. Pemper intercepts it and brings the news straight to Schindler,...
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In the days before his birthday, Schindler secretly lodges complaints to Hassebroeck about Liepold. He makes similar charges about Liepold to Rasch. He shows them both letters he’s written...
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Schindler collects more evidence against Liepold by inviting him to dinner at his apartment. He gets Liepold drunk, which causes Liepold...
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Within two days of Schindler’s birthday, Liepold gets orders transferring him to an SS infantry battalion near Prague. He goes without raising...
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Epilogue
In Munich, Schindler himself identifies Liepold, who is in the custody of Americans. Liepold is angry, but Schindler asks, “Do you...
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