Fritz Schellhorn joined the NSDAP as early as 1933. He became German consul in Romania in 1934. In 1941 Schellhorn stepped in on behalf of several Jewish men arrested during the pogrom in Iași. He also helped to end the mass murders of Jews in Czernowitz by a mobile killing unit in 1941.
After the first Czernowitz Jews had been deported on October 14, 1941, Schellhorn traveled to Czernowitz. He purported to the governor Calotescu that further deportations would bring about economic collapse for Czernowitz and thus severely damage the economic and military interests of the German Reich. Calotescu then contacted the head of state, Antonescu, who ordered the formation of a commission to make a list of “economically necessary” Jews to be spared deportation for the time being. Around 20,000 Jews were thus able to remain in Czernowitz for a time.
After the end of the war, Schellhorn was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment for espionage by a Soviet court. He was released in 1955.