Karl Plagge knew that he was courting death at every turn by protecting Jews from the SS, but he couldn’t care less. An engineer by profession, Plagge joined the Nazi Party but later left after he became disgusted with the group’s racist ideology. After the war broke out, he was assigned to head an army vehicle repair unit in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. In a period marked by extermination campaigns conducted by the SS, Plagge moved quickly to save as many Jews as possible.

Major Karl Plagge (July 10, 1897, in Darmstadt — June 19, 1957 in Darmstadt) was a Wehrmacht officer, engineer and Nazi Party member who during World War II used his position as a staff officer in the Heer (Army) to employ and protect some 1,240 Jews — 500 men, the others women and children, in order to give them a better chance to survive the nearly…