[4][5] He fought in the Battle of France in 1940 before being transferred to the Eastern Front on the border of the Soviet Union (USSR).

When the soldier was threatened with execution if he did not fire his gun, Drossel advised him to shoot in the air.

Frontheim had been renting the summer home of Drossel's neighbor, Frieda Kunze, and was living there with his future wife Margot and her parents, Lucie and Jack Hass[1][6][a] since 30 January 1943.

They had forged identification papers, claiming to be a family named Hesse who had left the city due to air raids.

[1] Ernst and Jack stayed at the Drossels' apartment in the Tempelhof quarter of Berlin,[5] sharing it with a family who moved in after their home was destroyed.

[1] (After the war, Margot and Ernst married and emigrated to the United States, settling in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Ernst Frontheim worked at the University of Michigan's Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences Department as a senior research scientist.

He was imprisoned for disobeying orders by the Waffen-SS (the combat branch of the Nazi Party) to lead his men in a "suicide attack" on 4 May 1945.

[4][5] Drossel wrote the book Die Zeit der Fuechse (The Time of the Foxes) of his experiences and had it published in 1988.

[9][10] He spoke to groups of people to them about the realities of the war, the nature and prevalence of antisemitism, and how to manage moral dilemmas.

[4] Drossel and his parents were awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem on 12 January 1999,[1] and participated in a ceremony at the Israeli Embassy in Berlin for them in 2000.

[2] Drossel gave an oral history interview at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2007.

[1][5] A biography of Drossel's life Bleib immer ein Mensch: Heinz Drossel, ein stiller Held 1916-2006 (Staying Human: The Story of a Quiet WWII Hero, English edition) was published by Katarina Stegelmann in 2013.