Businessman who saved hundreds of Jews during war given bravery award

A German businessman who saved the lives of hundreds of Polish Jews during the second World War has been awarded the Lew Kopelew Prize, named after the Ukrainian-born author and dissident, for bravery.

Berthold Beitz (98) ran an oil plant in Nazi-occupied Poland when, in the final months of the second World War, the advancing Red Army began deporting his Jewish workers.

He managed to rescue some 220 workers from deportation trains, at risk to his own life.

Throughout the war, he protected many Jewish workers by insisting they were essential for oil production and, thus, the war effort.

Together with his wife Else, Mr Beitz also hid dozens of Jewish children in the cellar of their family home.

One of his workers later became the secretary of Oskar Schindler, who also saved the lives of hundreds of Jews he employed.

After the war, Mr Beitz worked as chairman of the Krupp steel concern and was an influential figure in West Germany’s 1970s Ostpolitik.