Wilm Hosenfeld

Wilhelm Hosenfeld
Hosenfeld in 1939
Birth name	Wilhelm Adalbert Hosenfeld
Born	(1895-05-02)2 May 1895 Hünfeld, Hesse-Nassau, Prussia, German Empire
Died	13 August 1952(1952-08-13) (aged 57) Stalingrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Allegiance	German Empire  Nazi Germany
Branch	Imperial German Army  German Army
Years of service	1914–1917 1939–1945
Rank	Hauptmann
Unit	Guard Battalion 660
Battles/wars	World War I Eastern Front  (WIA) World War II Eastern Front  (POW)
Awards	Order of Polonia Restituta (posthumous) Righteous Among the Nations Iron Cross

Wilhelm Adalbert Hosenfeld (German pronunciation: [ˈvɪl(hɛl)m ˈhoːzənfɛlt]; 2 May 1895 – 13 August 1952), originally a school teacher, was a German Army officer who by the end of the Second World War had risen to the rank of Hauptmann (captain). He helped to hide or rescue several Polish people, including Jews, in Nazi-German occupied Poland, and helped Jewish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman to survive, hidden, in the ruins of Warsaw during the last months of 1944, an act which was portrayed in the 2002 film The Pianist. He was taken prisoner by the Red Army and died in Soviet captivity in 1952.

In October 2007, Hosenfeld was posthumously honoured by Lech Kaczyński, the President of Poland, with a Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. In June 2009, Hosenfeld was posthumously recognized by Yad Vashem (Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust) as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.