In October 2007, Hosenfeld was posthumously honoured by Lech Kaczyński, the President of Poland, with a Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

In June 2009, Hosenfeld was posthumously recognized by Yad Vashem (Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust) as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

He was influenced by the Catholic Action and Church-inspired social work, and also by Prussian obedience, by German patriotism, and, during his marriage, by the increasing pacifism of his wife, Annemarie.

[8][9] Hosenfeld surrendered to the Soviets at Błonie, a small Polish city about 30 km west of Warsaw, with the men of a Wehrmacht company he was leading.

In a 1946 letter to his wife in West Germany, Hosenfeld named the Jews who he had saved, and begged her to contact the Soviet authorities and ask them to arrange his release.

In March 1950, Hosenfeld was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and perform hard labour, for alleged war crimes, solely on the account of being a German officer.

After much soul searching, Szpilman sought the intercession of a man who he privately considered "a bastard", Jakub Berman, the head of the Polish secret police.

In an interview with Wolf Biermann, Szpilman described Berman as "all powerful by the grace of Stalin," and lamented, "So I approached the worst rogue of the lot, and it did no good.

His health rapidly deteriorated in Stalingrad, and unfortunately he spent his last months in a hospital, suffering from a series of strokes and severe chest injury, probably caused by physical torture.

His health was rapidly deteriorating in 1952, and Hosenfeld died that year in hospital, and his cadaver was buried in a nearby cemetery, probably specifically for Axis prisoners-of-war.

In October 2007, Hosenfeld was posthumously honoured by the president of Poland Lech Kaczyński with a Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (Polish: Krzyż Komandorski Orderu Odrodzenia Polski).