Paul Grüninger

Paul Grüninger was born in St. Gallen, Switzerland. A teacher and accomplished footballer who won the Swiss national championship with SC Brühl in 1915, Grüninger joined the police force of the Canton of St. Gallen in 1919, rising to become police commander in 1925. In March 1938, Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss, sparking panic among Austrian Jews. In August 1938, under federal pressure to halt the influx, the Swiss Federal Council shut the border to Jewish refugees and collaborated with Nazi Germany to stamp passports of German Jews with the red letter 'J'.

Stationed at the border town of Diepoldsau along the Rhine River, Grüninger witnessed desperate Austrian and German families, including weeping women and small children, being turned back into the arms of Gestapo border guards. Refusing to comply with inhumane orders, Grüninger instructed his border guards to allow refugees across. To protect them from Swiss federal deportation, Grüninger systematically backdated their entry visas to dates prior to the border closure and forged identity documents.

Between 1938 and 1939, Grüninger saved an estimated 3,600 Jews. In March 1939, an informant betrayed him to federal authorities. Dismissed without notice in April 1939, Grüninger was convicted of official misconduct and document forgery in 1940, stripped of his police pension, and banned from state employment. Spending the remaining three decades of his life in near-destitution taking odd jobs, Grüninger died in 1972. In 1995, the District Court of St. Gallen posthumously cleared him of all charges, hailing his actions as an act of supreme moral courage.