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Erna Wazinski

German armorer worker (1925–1944)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ1356128 ↗
Source-derived summary

Erna Gertrude Wazinski (born September 7, 1925, in Ihlow (Oberbarnim); died November 23, 1944, in Wolfenbüttel) was a German armorer worker. She was denounced by a neighbor at the age of 19 for alleged looting after the bombing of Braunschweig and sentenced to death as a "public enemy" by the Special Court of Braunschweig on the basis of the Ordinance Against Public Enemies, (VVO), issued on September 5, 1939.

Wazinski, who had confessed only after being mistreated by criminal investigators and for whom two pardons for clemency had previously been filed, died under the guillotine in Wolfenbüttel Prison. The case came back before German courts several times over a period of 40 years after the war. In 1952, a court mitigated the old sentence; in 1991, an acquittal was issued on the basis of new testimony. After the law called Gesetz zur Aufhebung nationalsozialistischer Unrechtsurteile in der Strafrechtspflege came into force on September 1, 1998, all sentences under the Ordinance Against Public Enemies were sweepingly repealed.

The almost completely preserved trial files are now in the Wolfenbüttel Department.

Life

Wazinski was the only child of Wilhelmine Wazinski, née Chmielewski and Schmielewski, respectively, and her later husband, the invalid Rudolph Wazinski. Her parents were both born in East Prussia and worked as farm laborers on Brandenburg properties around 1925. Her father, 24 years older than her mother, did not marry her until after the family moved to Essen in the Ruhr region in 1930.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Erna Wazinski” as german armorer worker (1925–1944). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1925, 1944, 1939, 1952—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1925-09-07. The account is most persuasive where Erna, Wazinski and German can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as german armorer worker (1925–1944). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1356128. VIAF identifies the subject as 5757990. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1925, 1944, 1939 and 1952.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Erna Wazinski primary sources, Erna Wazinski archive and Erna research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Erna Wazinski” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.