Plagge and his unit arrived in Vilnius in July 1941. He became a witness to the genocide being carried out against the Jews of the area. Plagge felt a sense of responsibility for the horrors he witnessed and decided that it was his duty to try to do what he could to help some of Vilnius’s persecuted Jews. "He did this by giving work certificates to Jewish men, certifying them as essential and skilled workers regardless of their actual backgrounds. Plagge gave out 250 of life-saving permits to men, many of them without mechanical skills, thus protecting over 1,000 Jewish men, women and children from execution from 1941 to mid-1944" (Wikipedia).

Plagge’s efforts are corroborated by several reliable sources including survivor testimony, his own use of Camus’s story of the Plague to explain his experience and other historical accounts.

After the war, Karl Plagge returned home to Darmstadt, Germany, where, in 1947, he stood trial as part of the postwar de-Nazification process. The testimony offered in his behalf by former prisoners greatly helped the outcome of the trial. Following the trial Plagge lived out the final years of his life quietly and without fame or notice. He died of an apparent brain tumor in Darmstadt in July 1957.

In 2005 he was bestowed the “Righteous Among the Nations” title by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.

In February 2006 the former Frankensteinkaserne, a Bundeswehr (German military) base in Pfungstadt, Germany, was renamed the Karl-Plagge-Kaserne.

References:

Good, Dr. Michael: The Search For Major Plagge: The Nazi Who Saved Jews. Fordham University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8232-2440-6

March 2005 NY Times article on Karl Plagge posted by Holocaust Survivors’ Network with an additional insert from Yad Vashem - http://isurvived.org/Rightheous_Folder/Plagge_Karl_MajGerman.html

Yad Vashem press release on Karl Plagge - http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_yad/press_room/press_releases/10.04.05B.html

BBC article on Karl Plagge - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4432075.stm