The composer and viola player Hanning Schröder lived in Berlin with his wife, the musicologist Dr. Cornelia Schröder, and their daughter Nele. Their marriage was classed as a “mixed marriage.” Since Hanning Schröder refused to divorce his Jewish wife, he was permanently excluded from the Reich Chamber of Music.
At the start of 1944, Cornelia and Nele Schröder left Berlin due to the increasing threat, and Hanning Schröder took in Ilse and Walter Rewald, a couple living in hiding. The situation became dangerous when a Wehrmacht officer was billeted into the home. It was essential that he did not learn of the Rewalds’ true identity.
When Schröder was called up to the Volkssturm militia in January 1945, Werner Rewald sought out the executive board of the UFA Film Orchestra. The board gave him a letter stating that Hanning Schröder was indispensable. Ilse Rewald then took this letter to the local branch of the NSDAP. Posing as an UFA secretary, she obtained the necessary stamp on the letter and Schröder was able to leave the barracks.
Hanning Schröder hid the couple in his house until the end of the war. In 1978 Ilse and Werner Rewald arranged for Schröder to be honored as Righteous Among the Nations.