Draft:Arnold Hölscher

Arnold Hölscher (born September 20, 1905, in Hamburg, died May 22, 1945, in Arendal) was a German Gestapo officer and torturer during World War II. He was born and raised in Hamburg, where he had worked in the criminal police before the war. Hölscher had been employed in the criminal police in Hamburg and was well-acquainted with criminal cases. He arrived in Stavanger in 1941 as an SS-Hauptscharführer in the Gestapo and later became the head of the Gestapo headquarters in Stavanger, following Friedrich Wilkens' death in the Battle of Lutsi.

He distinguished himself by uncovering the resistance movement in the Rogaland district and selected effective collaborators within the Norwegian State Police, STAPO. Among them were the torturers Leonard Wickstrøm and Holger Tau, with whom he collaborated and who were no less brutal and joyful in torturing prisoners than Hölscher.

In 1945, there were 24 German and seven Norwegian members in the Gestapo division, led by Arnold Hölscher.

Arnold Höllscher, SS-Hauptscharführer, personally conducted harsh interrogations and torture on Magne Bakka, taken to the Gestapo house in Stavanger. Enraged by the shooting of SS-Obersturmbannführer Friedrich Wilkens during the Battle of Lutsi, Höllscher attempted twice to kill Bakka, including ordering poison in his soup, thwarted by prison guard Karl Hofer. With the German surrender looming, Höllscher drank himself into a stupor and planned to shoot Bakka and other prisoners on their way to the Gestapo house but was distracted.

He was known to be brutal. Hölscher shot himself on May 22, 1945, during his arrest in Arendal, where he had attempted to hide in a collection camp for Wehrmacht soldiers.

Hölscher practiced a brutal approach towards the detainees by subjecting them to humiliations, intimidations, threats, and torment already on their way to the Gestapo headquarters, which was located at Solvang Nursing Home in Eiganesveien 17 in Stavanger. The torture chambers had windows facing the road, and the sounds of screams of terror could be heard from there.

It is documented several stories from both prisoners and witnesses about the cruel treatment inflicted by Hölscher on the prisoners. An arrested member of the Civil Organization in 1945 shares the following experience:

''Interrogated by Hölscher. I was punched in the face and all over my body with just their hands. Additionally, I was beaten on the soles of my feet with a rubber baton and other implements. While I was in cell 2 in the basement of Egenesveien 17, I was handcuffed, then they bent my hands under my knees, after which they inserted a rod under my knees and over my arms so that I was immobilized. I had to stand in that position for a long time.''