Nazi criminals. The executioners and butchers of the Third Reich, who were avenged years later. Reinhard Heydrich - the mastermind of the Holocaust and the "Final Solution", nicknamed by Hitler "the man with the iron heart"
The Holocaust, the killing of millions of innocent people and the thorough ethnic cleansing of Eastern Europe are just some of the policies of Nazi Germany on the eve and during the Second World War.
The leader of the Nazi party, Adolf Hitler considered his main goal to be to maximize the territory of the German Empire, as well as to remove all Jews and representatives of others " unwanted»Nationalities from the territory of Europe. The names of most of the Nazi criminals, such as Hitler, Joseph Mengele, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goering, became known to the whole world, but a significant part of the equally, and sometimes more bloodthirsty, followers of the national-fascist ideology remained in the shadows.
So, your attention is invited to 10 bloodthirsty Nazis that you have not heard of.
10. Friedrich Eckeln - the developer of the "Ekkeln system" for the elimination of "objectionable"
Obergruppenführer SS (second rank in the SS after Heinrich Himmler), Friedrich headed one of the largest " Einsatzgrupp"-" tactical group "or" deployment group ", the main task of which was the massacre on the territory of the occupied Soviet Union. On the personal order of Ekkeln, more than 100 thousand Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and representatives of others were brutally killed " unwanted»Nationalities in the territories captured during the Second World War.
Joining the Nazi Party in October 1929, a year later, Eckeln became a member of the SS, and three later he was elected to the Reichstag, the German parliament. Remembered for his ruthlessness and cruelty, Eckeln took a personal part in the liquidation of members of the left and other opposition parties.
Applying a self-invented method of mass murder known as “ Ekkeln system", In which still living people were forced to undress and lie down in freshly dug mass graves, Ekkeln carried out three of the most terrible Nazi executions of the Second World War: in Rumbala (November-December 1941, 25 thousand people were executed), in Babi Yar (September 1941, more than 180 thousand people were executed) and in Kamenets-Podolsk (June 1941, about 24 thousand Jews were executed).
For the mass execution in Rumbula, Eckeln was awarded the Iron Cross. In April 1945 he was captured by Russian troops and at the beginning of 1946 he was brought before the Riga military court. At the trial, the killer was calm and admitted his guilt: " I must be held accountable for everything the SS, SD and Gestapo have done in the eastern lands. My fate is in the hands of the court, and I am only asking you to take into account extenuating circumstances. I consider my sentence just and accept it in complete remorse.".
Convicted of war crimes, Ekkeln was hanged on February 3, 1946 at Victory Square in Riga.
9. Elsa Koch - "Buchenwald bitch"
Elsa Koch - wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald and Majdanek concentration camps Karl-Otto Koch, recognized as one of the most cruel women of the entire Nazi regime. For her bloody deeds, she received the nicknames "Buchenwald bitch", "red witch of Buchenwald", "Buchenwald animal", "Queen of Buchenwald", as well as "butcher's widow", but even they cannot convey her inhuman cruelty.
A member of the Nazi Party since the early 1930s, Koch met her husband through mutual friends and began her career as a security guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. She ended up in Buchenwald after her husband was appointed commandant of the camp in 1937.
Koch treated the prisoners of both camps monstrously and, they say, gladly killed the "unwanted" ones, without feeling the slightest remorse. She did not hesitate to even rip off the skin with tattoos from prisoners, using them as lampshades for lamps, book covers and pillow cases. On Elsa's orders, the camp guards raped, tortured and killed prisoners right in front of her eyes, which gave her undisguised pleasure and joy.
In August 1943, Elsa and Karl Kochi were arrested by the Nazis themselves on charges of embezzlement and misappropriation of property, but only a year later Elsa was released. A year later, in June 1945, she was arrested by the US Army.
One of the first Nazis to be tried by the American military, Koch was tried in Dachau in 1947 and, despite her pregnancy, was sentenced to life in prison "for violating the laws and customs of war." In 1948, General Latsis Clay commuted the sentence to 4 years, citing insufficient evidence, but Elsa was again arrested and tried again. This time she was found guilty of numerous murders and sentenced to life imprisonment with deprivation of all civil rights.
Elsa Koch hanged herself in the women's prison in the city of Eichach in September 1967 and was buried in the city cemetery in an unmarked grave.
8. Hertha Bothe - "Stutthof sadist"
Another equally brutal Nazi was Gertha Bothe, a concentration camp guard, nicknamed " sadist Stutthof"Because of their disgusting deeds.
A member of the League of German Girls (the women's wing of the Nazi Party) since 1939, Bothe was called up to serve as a guard at the Ravensbrück concentration camp in September 1942 and was soon transferred to the Stutthof camp near Danzig. It didn't take long for Hertha to become famous for the brutal beatings of prisoners and the undisguised pleasure of watching the suffering of prisoners who were tortured and raped.
But her crimes were not limited to Stutthof. While escorting a group of female prisoners from central Poland to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Hertha beat a Jewish girl, Eva, to death with a wooden block and shot the other two prisoners, although she never admitted it.
Arrested in April 1945 by allied forces during the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, Borte was brought before a military court, where she was recognized as a "ruthless follower of the Nazi regime." Sentenced to ten years in prison, on December 22, 1951, she was pardoned by the British government, after serving only 6 years. Herta Bote died on March 16, 2000 (79 years old) ..
7. Eugene Fischer - creator of Nazi eugenics, German concentration camps and "Biology of the Aryan Race"
Some Nazi doctors, such as Josef Mengele, became more famous than Eugene Fischer, however, this man's work was the basis for many of Hitler's revolutionary ideas and policies.
While holding the position of director of the Institute of Anthropology, Heredity and Eugenics. Kaiser Wilhelm from 1927 to 1942, Fischer created the theory of "racial biology", substantiating the superiority of the Aryan race over other races of "subhumans".
And although he joined the Nazi Party only in 1940, before that Fischer had illegally examined and sterilized 600 children - descendants of Franco-African soldiers, and also wrote 2 scientific works of early National Socialism: Fundamentals of Heredity and Racial Hygiene" and " The theory of human heredity and racial hygiene". Fischer's work became the scientific basis for the adoption of the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws, as well as the scale for determining racial purity.
His numerous experiments with Roma, Jews and Germans of African descent, aimed at finding evidence of racist theories, made Fischer so famous in the Nazi environment that even Hitler himself mentioned his work in Mein Kampf. Concentration camps were another invention of this pseudo-doctor's fevered brain, the first of which was built in 1904 in southern Africa to isolate the "inferior" races.
Incredibly, after his retirement in 1942, E. Fischer was not prosecuted for war crimes and lived in peace until his death in 1967.
6. Joseph Kramer and Irma Grese - "The Beast of Belsen" and "Hyena of Auschwitz"
The commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Joseph Kramer, did not feel any pity for his prisoners at all, as did his "comrade-in-arms" Irma Grese.
Nicknamed the "Belsen Beast", Kramer worked in the camps of Natzweiler-Struthof, Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz, killing tens of thousands of prisoners in brutal and uncompromising ways. Kramer began his "labor" activity in the Natzweiler-Struthof camp, the only one on the territory of modern France, where he personally gassed 80 Jewish men and women, and then preserved their skeletons for the Institute of Anatomy at the Imperial University of Strasbourg.
From May to December 1944, Kramer was in charge of the functioning of the gas chambers at Auschwitz, happily killing thousands upon thousands of prisoners on an industrial scale previously unknown to mankind. After that, he was transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where he continued his brutal dictatorial rule until the liberation of the camp by the British, to whom he even gave a kind of excursion.
Irma Grese first worked in the Ravensbrück camp, then in Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz, and everywhere she was equally cruel. Known as the "Hyena of Auschwitz," she took pleasure in observing the suffering of the sick and the weak. Possessing outstanding external data, Irma had many lovers among the SS workers, among whom was Joseph Mengele.
At the trial, both sadists were found guilty of war crimes and hanged in December 1945 at Hamlin Prison. At the same time, at the time of the execution, Irma was only 22 years old, which made her the youngest criminal of the twentieth century, sentenced to death under English law.
5. Reinhard Heydrich - the inspirer of the Holocaust and the "Final Solution", nicknamed by Hitler "the man with the iron heart"
Despite his position as one of the most important Nazi leaders of the Second World War, Reinhard Heydrich often remains in the shadows with his atrocities. If Adolf Hitler himself calls someone "a man with an iron heart", then this is certainly one of the most bloodthirsty Nazis.
General of the SS and head of the General Directorate of Imperial Security (which included the Gestapo, the Criminal Police and the SD), Heydrich also oversaw the Czech regions of Bohemia and Moravia. One of the founders of the SD, Heydrich neutralized the opponents of Nazism even before they came to power, and also participated in the preparation and conduct of the "Kristallnacht" (mass pogroms of Jewish families in Germany and Austria in 1938).
During World War II, he was involved in the suppression of Czech cultural identity and the elimination of centers of resistance in Bohemia and Moravia, and also had a hand in the creation of "Einsatzgruppen" - units that systematically dealt with the elimination of the local population and Jews. In addition, Heydrich personally chaired the 1942 conference in Wanze, where the "final decision" was made to deport and exterminate all Jews in the German-occupied territories, which became his main crime and led to the Holocaust.
In May 1942, Heydrich's atrocities were ended by a group of Czech soldiers prepared by the British and sent to eliminate him as part of a special operation codenamed "anthropoid". Hitler long lamented the loss of one of his most loyal generals, who unquestioningly fulfilled all his extravagant wishes.
4. Maria Mandel - the "beast" directly involved in the murder of more than half a million women in Auschwitz
Maria Mandel is believed to be directly involved in the murder of more than 500 thousand women prisoners in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. It is not surprising that she received the nickname "the beast" for her infinite cruelty.
Born in Austria-Hungary, Mandel became an employee of the Lichtenburg camp immediately after the Austrian Anschluss in 1938, after which, in May 1939, she was transferred to the Ravensbrück camp. Impressing her superiors, Maria quickly moved up the career ladder and was soon appointed responsible for holding roll calls and punishing the guilty - beating and spanking prisoners gave her sadistic pleasure.
Mandel gained her notoriety after being transferred to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in October 1942. The female commandant could not surpass the men, but she had absolute control over the female part of the camp prisoners, thanks to which she became the manager of all the female divisions of the Auschwitz camp, including Hindenburg, Raisko and Lichteverden.
Mandel became famous for ordering to immediately kill any prisoner who passed by her, if she dared to glance at her. Confirming the lists of camp prisoners to be destroyed, she sent more than 500 thousand women and children to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
Mary also chose from among the Jews the so-called “ pets", Forcing them to walk around the camp and carry out various assignments, after which they bored her and were subject to destruction. In an effort to improve the efficiency of the extermination process, Mandel created “ women's orchestra of Auschwitz", Which played for the prisoners dancing on the way to the gas chambers.
In August 1945, M. Mandel was captured by the US Army and, despite requests for clemency, was hanged in January 1948 after the trial in Auschwitz.
3. Friedrich Wegener - a scientist who conducted experiments on prisoners, but was never convicted of his crimes
The pathologist who discovered the disease originally known as Wegener's granulomatosis, Friedrich Wegener was involved in gruesome experiments on prisoners in concentration camps and Jewish ghettos, although he was never convicted of any crimes.
An ardent supporter of Nazism, engaged in propaganda with a party card in his hands, and who joined the National Socialists even before Adolf Hitler, Wegener played an important role in shaping the views of the future leader of Germany.
A high-ranking official in German military medicine, Friedrich Wegener served in a medical facility near the Lodz Ghetto in Poland, where he conducted his experiments on Jews. Wegener is accused of testing new drugs, injecting various substances into the bodies of victims, as well as conducting autopsies on living people in order to study organs that are still functioning.
Wegener managed to preserve his Nazi past until his death in 1990 and even received the American Pulmonary Institute Prize for the discovery of a new disease. However, less than a year after Wegener's death, information about Nazi connections and sadistic experiments was made public. The scientific community stripped him of all awards and titles, renamed the open disease and consigned Wegener to complete oblivion.
2. Odilo Globocnik - a man called by one historian "the vilest type in the vilest organization ever known."
Described by historian Michael Allen as “the vilest fellow in the vilest organization ever known,” the SS warlord and Austrian Nazi Globocnik committed a host of war crimes during World War II.
One of the main organizers of Operation Reinhard, Globocnik was involved in the murder of over a million Polish Jews during the Holocaust, ensuring their identification and transportation to the Majdanek, Treblinka, Sobibor and Belsek concentration camps. He also took a direct part in the extermination of 500 thousand Jews in the largest in Europe Warsaw ghetto, and later in the extermination of the inhabitants of the Bialystok ghetto who resisted the Nazi occupation.
An ardent supporter of the Nazi theory of racial superiority and ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe, he created and oversaw the Lublin Reservation, in whose labor camps some 95,000 Jews worked. According to Globocnik, the Jews in the labor camps had to provide themselves with everything they needed or, otherwise, die of hunger.
It is also believed that it was Globocnik who convinced Heinrich Himmler of the need to use scientifically based methods of exterminating people in concentration camps and received permission to test gas chambers in the Belsek camp, after which they began to be used in all "death camps".
After fleeing to Austria in May 1945, Globocnik was captured by British soldiers, but in prison he bit through a cyanide capsule and escaped trial. The priest of the local church refused to desecrate the sacred ground of the church cemetery with the body of a Nazi criminal, and Globocnik was buried far from the cemetery.
1. Oskar Dirlewanger - child molester and necrophile, the most "vicious and bloodthirsty" of the Nazis
Oskar Dirlewanger is closely associated with the most terrible and inhuman crimes of the Second World War, most of which were committed by his subordinates - soldiers of the SS penal unit "Dirlewanger".
For the rape of two 13-year-old girls in the 1930s, Dirlewanger was sentenced to prison, but was later released, believing that the brave participant in the Spanish Civil War could be useful to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party in military campaigns.
Participation in the First World War and the Spanish Civil War not only made Dirlewanger a first-class soldier, but also contributed to the formation of his sadistic inclinations, which were fully realized during the Second World War.
It was thanks to his military experience that Oscar quickly made a career in the SS and was given command of his own penal unit, known for its brutal methods.
This SS commander recruited most of his soldiers among convicted criminals, prisoners of concentration camps and even in shelters for the mentally ill, whose bestial cruelty was experienced by the occupied territories of the USSR. They killed, tortured and raped adults and children, and their commander watched with pleasure. Dirlewanger even thought of feeding the prisoners with rat poison in order to entertain his soldiers, allowing them to rape the agonizing women.
Timothy Cinder, Chris Bishop, Richard Rhodes and other historians in their writings confirmed the inhuman anger and bestial cruelty of this Nazi, calling Dirlewanger the most brutal sadist of the SS and of the entire Second World War, with whom no one can compete.
Captured by French forces in June 1945, Dirlewanger died in the Altshausen prison camp due to mistreatment and constant beatings. The sadist's death certificate says that he died of natural causes, but many are sure that the SS man was simply beaten to death by Polish soldiers.
Originally posted by stomaster at USA as a refuge for Nazi criminals
The US intelligence service hid dozens of Nazi war criminals and their accomplices from international justice, according to a six-page report from the US Department of Justice, the contents of which were hidden for four years. In the end, under threat of legal action, the ministry released an edited version, from which the most sensitive fragments were excluded. However, the full version of the report came into the possession of the newspaper. The New York Times .
The most prominent war criminal with whom the CIA collaborated was Otto von Bolschwing. "Independent newspaper"... This is an employee of the department of Adolf Eichmann, who was directly involved in the development of a plan to cleanse Germany of Jews. Washington assisted von Bolschwing in obtaining asylum in 1954, and von Bolschwing began working for the CIA.
Nevertheless, the Justice Department decided in 1981 to seek the deportation of von Bolschwing from the United States. But he died that same year at the age of 72.
Among the fascists hidden by the CIA were other notable figures of the Third Reich. For example, Arthur Rudolph, who ran the Mittelwerk ammunition plant. In this position, he organized the use of forced labor of workers and prisoners of war taken to Germany. The US authorities turned a blind eye to this spot in Rudolph's biography and brought him to America. After all, Rudolph knew a lot about the production of rockets. NASA honored him with an award. He is called the father of the Saturn 5 rocket.
The CIA's cooperation with veterans of fascism was known before - they were used as sources of intelligence information, as well as as scientists. But this report sheds light on the level of cooperation of the American intelligence services with the most inveterate criminals. The report also revealed that Nazi criminals were allowed into the United States knowing their past. " America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, has become - to a small extent - a safe haven for its persecutors as well. ", - it says.
But he still questions the previously mentioned figure in 10 thousand fascist criminals v- apparently, there were still less of them in the USA. In addition, the Special Investigation Service identified more than 300 fascists who were not admitted to the United States, or deprived of citizenship and deported.
The report was compiled by senior attorney at the Department of Justice, Mark Richard, who in 1999 persuaded Attorney General Janet Reno to start work. He also edited the final version in 2006 and called on the agency's leadership to publish the report, but was refused. Having developed cancer, he told family and friends that he would like to see the report published during his lifetime. Mark Richard died in June 2009. Speaking at his funeral, Attorney General Eric Holder said he spoke to Richard a week before his death and he was still trying to get the report made public.
It was only after Richard's death that Washington lawyer David Sobel and the National Security Archive NGO filed a lawsuit demanding the publication of the report under the freedom of information law. The Ministry of Justice first tried to appeal the claim, but in the end gave Sobel a copy of part of the report, but even there more than 1000 phrases and footnotes were excluded.
The Ministry of Justice claims that the report, which took 10 years to prepare, was never officially completed and does not present official conclusions. The Office also mentioned "numerous errors of fact and omissions", but did not indicate what exactly they were.
Having obtained the full text and compared it with the cut down, The New York Times discovered that they tried to hide from the public the conflict with Switzerland over the looted by the fascists jewelry and unsuccessful attempts to get cooperation from the Latvian authorities.
The DOJ's reluctance to publish the report could cause political embarrassment for US President Barack Obama. After all, he undertook to make his administration the most open in the entire history of the country, and he instructed the Ministry of Justice to coordinate the work on declassifying government archives.
It is well known that after the defeat of Nazi Germany, its main leaders either committed suicide, or were convicted during the Nuremberg trials and executed, or sent to prison for many years. But many of those who took part in the crimes committed managed to hide in distant countries and escape punishment for a long time. Some were never caught.
Let us recall the high-profile stories of those Nazis who were nevertheless overtaken by the punishing hand of justice - even after decades and on the other side of the Earth.
Jewish retribution
The most famous Nazi criminal caught after the end of the Nuremberg Tribunal, Adolf Eichmann is considered one of the main organizers of the Holocaust.
A native of Germany, Eichmann, like Adolf Hitler, grew up in Austria and even attended the same school in Linz as the Fuehrer for a time. Two years after joining the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), he was assigned to work in the newly formed “Jewish” department. Immediately after the outbreak of World War II, the policy of the Third Reich towards the Jews changed: from “voluntary” emigration (to which the people despised by Hitler were forced by all means), it was decided to go over to forced deportation. It was Eichmann who developed its various options, including the creation of a reservation for Jews in Madagascar (!). In 1941, a new directive appeared: the "Untermenshes" were to be exterminated physically. Eichmann did this until the end of the war, organizing the process.
After the defeat of Germany, the Americans arrested him, but did not manage to identify him: at first he presented false documents, and then completely managed to escape. Then, under a new name, he rented a plot of land in a Saxon village, where he lived until 1950. In 1948, with the help of the Franciscan monk Edward Dömöter, who was part of the circle of the Catholic clergy sympathizing with the Nazis, Eichmann received documents in the name of Ricardo Clement and began to prepare the ground for moving to Argentina. Two years later, he managed to get a humanitarian Red Cross passport. With him, he reached Italian Genoa, hiding along the road in monasteries, and boarded a ship to Buenos Aires.
In Latin America, Eichmann was not chic, but this did not stop him from transporting his wife and three children there from Europe. And soon the former Nazi was helped by the now democratic homeland: he got a job at the local branch of Mercedes-Benz, where he rose to the head of the department. With the help of new funds, the family was able to build a house. And everything would be fine, but some people overseas really wanted to find Eichmann. And they waited for their chance. In this they were helped by the vigilant resident of Argentina Lothar Herman, a half-German, half-Jew who emigrated from Germany in 1938. His daughter somehow began to meet with a young man named Klaus Eichmann, and his father suspected something was wrong, which he reported to the German prosecutor. And from that information got into the Israeli special service "Mossad". Knowing that the Argentine government was in no hurry to extradite the former Nazis, the Israelis decided to take Eichmann out on their own. They successfully carried out this operation on May 11, 1960, seizing their target right on the street of Buenos Aires and injecting it with a tranquilizer, and then loading it on a plane as a member of the official Israeli delegation, who became "ill." In the Promised Land, he was interrogated for almost a year, preparing a trial, which it was decided to make as open as possible.
Both during the investigation and at the trial, Eichmann adhered to one line: he did not consider himself guilty, because he only followed the orders of “responsible leaders,” to which he did not belong. True, at one of the meetings, the Israeli prosecutor quoted the Nazi as his own words, which he said in 1945: "I will go to the grave laughing, because the feeling that I have five million lives on my conscience gives me great satisfaction." Eichmann first explained that he meant “enemies of the Reich” such as the Soviet Union, but later admitted that they were talking about Jews.
Eichmann was sentenced to death by hanging. He was executed on the night of June 1, 1962 at the age of 56. His last words were: “Long live Germany! Long live Argentina! Long live Austria! I was most connected with these three countries, and I will never forget them. I greet my wife, family and friends. I'm ready. We will meet with you soon, because this is the lot of all people. I am dying with faith in God. ”
Butcher from Lyon
The fate of this criminal amazes with its bizarre twists and turns and asks for the pages of an adventure novel. A man with a funny name Klaus Barbie was born in 1913 in Germany, in a family with French roots (the family name of the ancestors was Barbier). His father was drafted into the Kaiser's army, where he fought in the First World War against the French, the hatred of which, apparently, passed on to his son. Returning home after being wounded in the neck near Verdun and being in captivity, Klaus Barbie Sr.washed down hard and often engaged in assault. His son also learned his taste for violence well.
Barbie's party career was rapid, and at the age of 29 he became the head of the Gestapo branch in occupied French Lyon. There, in the homeland of his ancestors, the young SS man showed himself to the fullest. At his headquarters, he personally brutally tortured all Resistance suspects, regardless of gender or age. So, the daughter of one of the leaders of the local partisans claims that Barbie ordered to rip his skin off alive, and then dip his head into a bucket of ammonia, which is why he died.
Historians say that in France, Barbie was involved in the deaths of 14 thousand people, for which he received the nickname “The Butcher of Lyon”. At the same time, the command greatly appreciated an effective employee, and in 1943 Hitler personally awarded him the First Class Iron Cross.
The end of the war suddenly opened up new career opportunities for Barbie. In 1947, after being imprisoned, he was recruited by the American Counterintelligence Corps to help the United States fight communism (and along the way with all other enemies). Over the years, intelligence work in Europe became more and more difficult for him, because the French, who had sentenced him to death in absentia, began to demand that the Americans extradite the Butcher. Those, however, refused, and in 1951 even helped him to emigrate to Bolivia, using Catholic priests (already mentioned in the section about Eichmann) to cover.
Barbie with friends in Bolivia
In South America, Barbie continued to work for the Americans, and in 1965 he was also recruited by West German intelligence. Many of his overseas affairs are poorly known, but it is believed that he helped the CIA to capture the legendary Ernesto Che Guevara, and also contributed to the growth of the criminal empire of the equally legendary drug lord Pablo Escobar.
Pablo Escobar
In Bolivia, Barbie, known as Klaus Altmann, became his own man, rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the local army and was friends with two dictators, Hugo Banser and Luis Garcia Mesa. In fact, he helped the second to come to power. At the same time, in Europe, the whereabouts of the Lyon executioner were revealed in the early 1970s, but Bolivia ignored all French extradition requests. And only in 1983, the new democratic government arrested Barbie and sent her to court overseas.
In 1987, the 73-year-old French hater was sentenced to life in prison. In court, he declared: "When I appear before the throne of the Lord, I will be acquitted."
Four years later, Barbie died in the prison of the very Lyon, where he committed his main atrocities. He was simultaneously diagnosed with leukemia, spinal cord cancer and prostate cancer.
Executioners from Sobibor
Persecution for the extermination of people in Nazi concentration camps was subjected not only to top leaders, but also to direct performers on the ground. One of the most difficult stories of this kind was the fate of the administration of the Sobibor camp, which operated in Poland from May 1942 to October 1943. During this time, at least 250 thousand representatives of this people perished within its walls as part of the so-called "Operation Reinhard" to exterminate Polish Jews.
Franz Stangl
The first commandant of Sobibor was Franz Stangl, a native of Austria, who began his career in the police. At 32, he changed the police bureau to work on a new Reich project, the T-4 Assassination Program. This initiative was aimed at cleansing the society of physically and mentally disabled people through their "forced euthanasia".
A poster promoting the release of sick members of society. Above it is shown that in 1925 there are four parasites for every 50 workers. It is predicted that in 1955 there will be seven of them, and in 2000 - 12.
Another similar poster. The caption reads: “60,000 marks. So much society spends on the lifelong maintenance of this person with a hereditary defect. This is your money too, citizen. "
It was with this program that a mechanism began to work, which was soon used as an instrument of the Holocaust.
Having received an appointment to Sobibor, during the three months of his leadership, Stangl passed through the conveyor the deaths of about one hundred thousand Jews. Then he received a new appointment - to lead a similar death camp in Treblinka, opened a little later and suffered from "bad organization". There, the new commandant also set up the process in an exemplary way. For the color of his uniform, he received the nickname “White Death” from the prisoners, although he himself distanced himself from the brutality of the staff and performed his work dispassionately. Later, Stanglt stated that he did not feel any hatred of Jews and was indifferent to ideology, but simply realized his professional ambitions. He perceived the victims not as people, but as a “cargo” to be liquidated.
Gustav Wagner
His assistant in Sobibor was another Austrian Gustav Wagner, nicknamed “The Beast” and “The Wolf” for his cruelty, as well as the German Karl Frenzel, who replaced Wagner in his absence. According to another former employee of the camp, Erich Bauer, the three were worried about the "performance" of the institution entrusted to them, sadly stating that Sobibor was behind Belzec and Treblinka in terms of the number of Jews killed.
Wagner (center)
The post-war fate of the three comrades was similar. Stangl and Wagner, like many other Nazis, were also able to escape to South America - though not to Argentina or Bolivia, but to Brazil. But in the “land of wild monkeys” their paths diverged.
Stangl, who got a job at the Volkswagen plant, did not even bother to change his name and was eventually arrested and extradited to Germany. This happened when the "White Death" was 59 years old. The court sentenced him to life in prison, and in June 1971 he died in prison of a heart attack.
Stangl gives an interview in prison
But Wagner, who changed his name to "Gunther Mendel", happily escaped extradition: the Brazilian authorities consistently refused to extradite him to Israel, Austria, Poland and Germany. Already in 1979, he freely gave an interview to the BBC, in which he said: “I had no feelings ... It was just another job. We never talked about her in the evenings, we just drank and played cards. ”
Karl Frenzel (left) and Erich Bauer
True, a year later, Mendel-Wagner's life was cut short. He was found in Sao Paulo with a knife in his chest at the age of 69. According to his lawyer, he committed suicide.
Magazine with interviews and photos of Wagner
As for Karl Frenzel, he never escaped from Germany, but worked as a lighting technician in Frankfurt until 1962, when during his lunch break he was accidentally identified on the street. At the trial, he said that he regretted what happened in the concentration camps, but during the war he believed that it was legal and even necessary.
Karl Frenzel
The court sentenced Frenzel to life imprisonment, but after 16 years for health reasons he was released. He died in 1996 at the age of 85. In an interview, he said: “When my children and friends ask me if all this really happened, I tell them that yes, indeed. Then they say that it is impossible, to which I once again answer them that all this is true. "
The international trial of the former leaders of Nazi Germany took place from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946 at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg (Germany). The initial list of the accused included the Nazis in the same order that I have listed in this post. On October 18, 1945, the indictment was served on the International Military Tribunal and, through its secretariat, transferred to each of the accused. A month before the start of the trial, each of them was served with an indictment in German. The defendants were asked to write on it their attitude to the prosecution. Raeder and Lei did not write anything (Lei's response was in fact his suicide shortly after the charges were filed), and the others wrote what I have on my line: "The last word."
Even before the start of the trial, after reading the indictment, on November 25, 1945, Robert Ley committed suicide in his cell. Gustav Krupp was declared terminally ill by the medical commission, and the case was dismissed pending trial.
Due to the unprecedented gravity of the crimes committed by the defendants, doubts arose whether to comply with all democratic norms of legal proceedings. The British and US accusations suggested not to give the defendants the last word, but the French and Soviet sides insisted on the opposite. These words, which have entered into eternity, I will present to you now.
List of the accused.
Hermann Wilhelm Goering(German Hermann Wilhelm Göring), Reichsmarschall, Commander-in-Chief of the German Air Force. He was the most important defendant. Sentenced to death by hanging. 2 hours before the execution of the sentence, he was poisoned with cyanide potassium, which was transferred to him with the assistance of E. von der Bach-Zelewski.
Hitler publicly declared Goering guilty for failing to organize the country's air defense. On April 23, 1945, proceeding from the Law on June 29, 1941, Goering, after a meeting with G. Lammers, F. Bowler, K. Kosher and others, turned to Hitler on the radio, asking for his consent to accept by him - Goering - the functions of the head of the government ... Goering announced that if he did not receive an answer by 22 o'clock, he would consider it as consent. On the same day, Goering received an order from Hitler, forbidding him to take the initiative, at the same time, on the orders of Martin Bormann, Goering was arrested by an SS detachment on charges of high treason. Two days later, Goering was replaced as commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe by Field Marshal R. von Greim, and stripped of his titles and awards. In his Political Testament, Hitler expelled Goering from the NSDAP on April 29 and officially named Grossadmiral Karl Doenitz as his successor in his place. On the same day he was transferred to a castle near Berchtesgaden. On May 5, the SS detachment transferred Goering's guards to Luftwaffe units, and Goering was immediately released. May 8, arrested by American troops in Berchtesgaden.
The last word: "The winner is always the judge, and the defeated is the accused!"
In a suicide note, Goering wrote "The Reichsmarshals are not hanged, they leave on their own."
Rudolf Hess(German Rudolf Heß), Hitler's deputy for the leadership of the Nazi party.
During the trial, his lawyers argued that he was insane, although Hess gave generally adequate testimony. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Soviet judge, who expressed a dissenting opinion, insisted on the death penalty. He served a life sentence in Berlin in the Spandau prison. After the release of A. Speer in 1965, she remained its only prisoner. Until the end of his days he was devoted to Hitler.
In 1986, the USSR government, for the first time in the entire time of Hess's imprisonment, considered the possibility of his release on humanitarian grounds. In the fall of 1987, during the presidency of the Soviet Union in the Spandau International Prison, it was planned to make a decision on his release, "showing mercy and demonstrating the humanity of Gorbachev's new course."
On August 17, 1987, 93-year-old Hess was found dead with a wire around his neck. After him, there was a testamentary note, handed to his relatives a month later and written on the back of a letter from relatives:
"A request to the directors to send this home. Written a few minutes before my death. I thank you all, my beloved, for all the dear things you have done for me. Tell Freiburg that I am extremely sorry that, starting with the Nuremberg trial, I must was to act as if I did not know her. I had no choice, because otherwise all attempts to find freedom would be in vain. I was so looking forward to meeting her. I did get a photo of her and you all. Your Eldest. "
The last word: "I don't regret anything."
Joachim von Ribbentrop(German: Ullrich Friedrich Willy Joachim von Ribbentrop), Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler's foreign policy advisor.
He met Hitler at the end of 1932, when he gave him his villa for secret negotiations with von Papen. With his exquisite manners at the table, Hitler impressed Ribbentrop so much that he soon joined the NSDAP, and later the SS. On May 30, 1933, Ribbentrop was awarded the title of SS Standartenfuehrer, and Himmler became a frequent visitor to his villa.
Hanged by the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal. It was he who signed the non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, which Nazi Germany violated with incredible ease.
The last word: "The charges were brought against the wrong people."
Personally, I think he is the most disgusting type that appeared at the Nuremberg trials.
Robert Lay(German Robert Ley), head of the Labor Front, by order of which all the trade union leaders of the Reich were arrested. Charges were brought against him on three counts - conspiracy to wage aggressive war, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Committed suicide in prison shortly after being indicted before the trial began by hanging himself from a sewer pipe with a towel.
The last word: refused.
(Keitel signs the act of Germany's unconditional surrender)
Wilhelm Keitel(German Wilhelm Keitel), Chief of Staff of the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces. It was he who signed the act of surrender of Germany, which ended the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War in Europe. However, Keitel advised Hitler not to attack France and opposed the Barbarossa plan. Both times he resigned, but Hitler did not accept it. In 1942, Keitel dared to object to the Fuehrer for the last time, speaking in defense of Field Marshal Liszt, who had been defeated on the Eastern Front. The tribunal rejected Keitel's excuses that he was only following Hitler's orders and found him guilty on all counts. The verdict was carried out on October 16, 1946.
The last word: "An order for a soldier - there is always an order!"
Ernst Kaltenbrunner(German Ernst Kaltenbrunner), head of the RSHA - Main Directorate of Reich Security of the SS and State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of the Interior of Germany. For numerous crimes against civilians and prisoners of war, the court sentenced him to death by hanging. On October 16, 1946, the sentence was carried out.
The last word: "I am not responsible for war crimes, I was only fulfilling my duty as the head of the intelligence agencies, and I refuse to serve as a kind of ersatz Himmler."
(on right) 
Alfred Rosenberg(German Alfred Rosenberg), one of the most influential members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), one of the main ideologues of Nazism, Reich Minister for Eastern Territories. Sentenced to death by hanging. Rosenberg was the only one of the 10 executed who refused to utter the last word on the scaffold.
The last word in court: "I reject the charge of 'conspiracy.' Anti-Semitism was only a necessary defensive measure."
(in the center) 
Hans Frank(German Dr. Hans Frank), head of the occupied Polish lands. On October 12, 1939, immediately after the occupation of Poland, he was appointed by Hitler as the head of the department for population affairs of the Polish occupied territories, and then as governor-general of occupied Poland. Organized the mass destruction of the civilian population of Poland. Sentenced to death by hanging. The verdict was carried out on October 16, 1946.
The last word: "I see this process as a high court pleasing to God, designed to sort out the terrible period of Hitler's rule and complete it."
Wilhelm Frick(German Wilhelm Frick), Minister of the Interior of the Reich, Reichsleiter, head of the NSDAP deputy group in the Reichstag, lawyer, one of Hitler's closest friends in the early years of the struggle for power.
The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg held Frick responsible for placing Germany under Nazi rule. He was accused of drafting, signing and enforcing a number of laws banning political parties and trade unions, creating a system of concentration camps, encouraging the activities of the Gestapo, persecuting Jews and militarizing the German economy. He was found guilty on counts: crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Frick was hanged on October 16, 1946.
The last word: "The whole accusation is based on the assumption of participation in a conspiracy."
Julius Streicher(German Julius Streicher), Gauleiter, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Sturmovik" (German Der Stürmer - Der Sturmer).
He was charged with incitement to murder Jews, which fell under the Charge 4 trials - crimes against humanity. In response, Streicher called the process "a triumph of world Jewry." According to the test results, his IQ was the lowest of all the defendants. During the examination, Streicher once again told psychiatrists about his anti-Semitic beliefs, but he was found sane and capable of taking responsibility for his actions, albeit obsessed with an obsession. He believed that the accusers and judges were Jews and did not try to repent of their deeds. According to the psychologists who conducted the survey, his fanatical anti-Semitism is more likely a product of a sick psyche, but on the whole he gave the impression of an adequate person. His authority among the other accused was extremely low, many of them openly shunned such an odious and fanatical figure like him. Hanged on the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal for anti-Semitic propaganda and calls for genocide.
The last word: "This process is a triumph of world Jewry".
Hjalmar Schacht(German: Hjalmar Schacht), Reich Minister of Economy before the war, Director of the National Bank of Germany, President of the Reichsbank, Reich Minister of Economics, Reich Minister without portfolio. On January 7, 1939, he sent a letter to Hitler in which he indicated that the course pursued by the government would lead to the collapse of the German financial system and hyperinflation, and demanded the transfer of control over finances into the hands of the Reich Ministry of Finance and the Reichsbank.
In September 1939 he sharply opposed the invasion of Poland. Schacht reacted negatively to the war with the USSR, believing that Germany would lose the war for economic reasons. On November 30, 1941, he sent Hitler a harsh letter criticizing the regime. On January 22, 1942, he resigned from the post of Reich Minister.
Schacht had contacts with the conspirators against the Hitler regime, although he himself was not a member of the conspiracy. On July 21, 1944, after the failure of the July conspiracy against Hitler (July 20, 1944), Schacht was arrested and held in the concentration camps of Ravensbrück, Flossenburg and Dachau.
The last word: "I don't understand why I was charged."
Probably, this is the most difficult case, on October 1, 1946 Schacht was acquitted, then in January 1947 by a German denazification court he was sentenced to eight years in prison, but on September 2, 1948 he was still released from custody.
Later he worked in the banking sector in Germany, founded and headed the banking house "Schacht GmbH" in Dusseldorf. He died on June 3, 1970 in Munich. We can say that he was the luckiest of all the defendants. Though...
Walter Funk(German Walther Funk), German journalist, Nazi Minister of Economy after Schacht, President of the Reichsbank. Sentenced to life in prison. In 1957 he was released.
The last word: "Never in my life have I undertaken anything consciously or ignorantly that would give grounds for such accusations. If I, out of ignorance or due to delusion, committed the acts listed in the indictment, then my guilt should be considered in the light of my personal tragedy but not as a crime. "
(right; left - Hitler)
Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Galbach(German: Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach), head of the Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp concern. Since January 1933 he has been government press secretary, since November 1937, Reich Minister of Economy and General Plenipotentiary for War Economy, at the same time since January 1939 - President of the Reich Bank.
At the trial in Nuremberg, he was sentenced by the International Military Tribunal to life imprisonment. In 1957 he was released.
Karl Doenitz(German Karl Dönitz), Grand Admiral of the Navy of the Third Reich, Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, after the death of Hitler and in accordance with his posthumous testament - the President of Germany.
The Nuremberg Tribunal for war crimes (in particular, conducting the so-called unrestricted submarine war) sentenced him to 10 years in prison. This verdict was contested by some lawyers, since the same methods of submarine warfare were widely practiced by the victors. Some allied officers after the verdict expressed their sympathy to Doenitz. Doenitz was found guilty on counts 2 (crimes against peace) and 3 (war crimes).
After his release from prison (Spandau in West Berlin), Doenitz wrote his memoirs "10 years and 20 days" (meaning 10 years in command of the fleet and 20 days of the presidency).
The last word: "None of the charges have anything to do with me. American inventions!"
Erich Raeder(German Erich Raeder), Grand Admiral, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy of the Third Reich. On January 6, 1943, Hitler ordered Raeder to disband the surface fleet, after which Raeder demanded resignation and on January 30, 1943, he was replaced by Karl Doenitz. Raeder received the honorary position of chief inspector of the fleet, but in fact had no rights and responsibilities.
In May 1945, he was taken prisoner by Soviet troops and transferred to Moscow. By the verdict of the Nuremberg Trials, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. From 1945 to 1955 in custody. He petitioned to have his prison sentence replaced by firing squad; the control commission found that it "cannot increase the sentence." On January 17, 1955, he was released for health reasons. He wrote his memoirs "My Life".
The last word: refused.
Baldur von Schirach(German: Baldur Benedikt von Schirach), leader of the Hitler Youth, then Gauleiter of Vienna. At the Nuremberg Trials, he was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He fully served his imprisonment in the Berlin military prison Spandau. Released on September 30, 1966.
The last word: "All troubles are from racial politics."
I completely agree with this statement.
Fritz Sauckel(German Fritz Sauckel), leader of the forced deportations to the Reich of labor from the occupied territories. Sentenced to death for war crimes and crimes against humanity (mainly for the deportation of foreign workers). Hanged.
The last word: "The chasm between the ideal of a socialist society, nurtured and defended by me, in the past a sailor and a worker, and these terrible events - the concentration camps - deeply shook me."
Alfred Jodl(German: Alfred Jodl), Chief of the Operations Division of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, Colonel General. At dawn on October 16, 1946, Colonel General Alfred Jodl was hanged. His body was cremated, and his ashes were secretly taken out and scattered. Jodl took an active part in planning the mass destruction of civilians in the occupied territories. On May 7, 1945, on behalf of Admiral K. Doenitz, he signed a general surrender of the German armed forces to the Western allies in Reims.
As Albert Speer recalled, "Jodl's precise and discreet defense made a strong impression. It seems that he was one of the few who managed to rise above the situation." Jodl argued that the soldier cannot be held responsible for the decisions of politicians. He insisted that he honestly performed his duty, obeying the Fuehrer, and considered the war a just deed. The tribunal found him guilty and sentenced to death. Before his death, in one of his letters, he wrote: "Hitler buried himself under the ruins of the Reich and his hopes. Let whoever wants to curse him for this, I can't." Jodl was fully acquitted during the review of the case by the Munich court in 1953 (!).
The last word: "The mixture of just accusations and political propaganda is deplorable."
Martin Bormann(it. Martin Bormann), the head of the Party Chancellery, was accused in absentia. Chief of Staff of the Deputy Fuhrer "from July 3, 1933), head of the NSDAP Party Chancellery" from May 1941) and Hitler's personal secretary (from April 1943). Reichsleiter (1933), Reichsminister without portfolio, SS Obergruppenführer, SA Obergruppenführer.
An interesting story is connected with him.
At the end of April 1945, Bormann was with Hitler in Berlin, in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery. After the suicides of Hitler and Goebbels, Bormann disappeared. However, already in 1946, Arthur Axman, the chief of the Hitler Youth, who, together with Martin Bormann on May 1-2, 1945, tried to leave Berlin, said during interrogation that Martin Bormann died (more precisely, committed suicide) before his eyes on May 2, 1945.
He confirmed that he had seen Martin Bormann and Hitler's personal physician Ludwig Stumpfegger lying on their backs near the bus station in Berlin where the battle was taking place. He crawled close to their faces and clearly distinguished the smell of bitter almonds - it was potassium cyanide. The bridge over which Bormann intended to escape from Berlin was blocked by Soviet tanks. Bormann chose to bite through the ampoule.
However, this testimony was not considered sufficient evidence of Bormann's death. In 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg tried Bormann in absentia and sentenced him to death. The lawyers insisted that their client was not subject to trial, since he was already dead. The court did not find the arguments convincing, considered the case and delivered a verdict, stipulating that Bormann, in case of arrest, has the right to submit a request for pardon within the established time frame.
In the 1970s in Berlin, while laying a road, workers discovered the remains, which were later tentatively identified as the remains of Martin Bormann. His son - Martin Bormann Jr. - agreed to provide his blood for DNA analysis of the remains.
The analysis confirmed that the remains really belong to Martin Bormann, who actually tried to leave the bunker and get out of Berlin on May 2, 1945, but realizing that this was impossible, he committed suicide by taking poison (traces of an ampoule with potassium cyanide were found in the teeth of the skeleton). Therefore, the "Bormann case" can be safely considered closed.
In the USSR and Russia, Bormann is known not only as a historical person, but as a character in the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring" (where he was played by Yuri Vizbor) - and, in this regard, a character in anecdotes about Stirlitz.
Franz von Papen(German Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen), Chancellor of Germany before Hitler, then Ambassador to Austria and Turkey. Was acquitted. However, in February 1947, he was again brought before the denazification commission and sentenced to eight months in prison as a major war criminal.
Von Papen tried unsuccessfully to relaunch his political career in the 1950s. In his declining years he lived in the castle of Benzenhofen in Upper Swabia and published many books and memoirs trying to justify his policies of the 1930s, drawing parallels between this period and the beginning of the Cold War. Died May 2, 1969 in Obersasbach (Baden).
The last word: “The accusation horrified me, firstly, by the realization of irresponsibility, as a result of which Germany was plunged into this war, which turned into a global catastrophe, and secondly, by the crimes that were committed by some of my compatriots. The latter are inexplicable from a psychological point of view. It seems to me that the years of atheism and totalitarianism are to blame for everything. It was they who turned Hitler into a pathological liar. "
Arthur Seyss-Inquart(German Dr. Arthur Seyß-Inquart), Chancellor of Austria, then Imperial Commissioner of occupied Poland and Holland. At Nuremberg, Seyss-Inquart was charged with crimes against peace, planning and unleashing an aggressive war, war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was found guilty on all counts, excluding conspiracy. After the announcement of the verdict, Seyss-Inquart admitted his responsibility in the last word.
The last word: "Death by hanging - well, I did not expect anything else ... I hope that this execution is the last act of the tragedy of World War II ... I believe in Germany."
Albert Speer(German Albert Speer), Reich Minister of Armaments and War Industry (1943-1945).
In 1927, Speer obtained an architect's license at the Munich Higher Technical School. Due to the depression taking place in the country, there was no work for the young architect. Speer renewed the interior of the villa free of charge to the head of the headquarters of the western district, cruiser NSAK Hanke, who, in turn, recommended the architect to Gauleiter Goebbels for rebuilding the meeting room and furnishing the rooms. After that, Speer receives an order - the design of the May Day rally in Berlin. And then the party congress in Nuremberg (1933). He used red panels and the figure of an eagle, which he proposed to make with a wingspan of 30 meters. Leni Riefenstahl captured in her documentary film "Victory of Faith" the grandiose procession at the opening of the party congress. This was followed by the reconstruction of the headquarters of the NSDAP in Munich in the same 1933. This is how Speer's architectural career began. Hitler was everywhere looking for new energetic people to rely on in the near future. Considering himself an expert in painting and architecture, and possessing some abilities in this area, Hitler chose Speer in his inner circle, which, combined with the strong careerist aspirations of the latter, determined his entire future fate.
The last word: "The process is necessary. Even an authoritarian state does not relieve everyone of responsibility for the terrible crimes they have committed."
(left)
Constantine von Neurath(German: Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath), in the early years of Hitler's reign, Minister of Foreign Affairs, then governor in the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
Neurath was accused at the Nuremberg Court of "assisting in the preparation of the war, ... participated in the political planning and preparation by the Nazi conspirators of aggressive wars and wars that violate international treaties ... authorized, directed and took part in war crimes ... and in crimes against humanity, ... including in particular crimes against persons and property in the occupied territories. " Neurath was found guilty on all four counts and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. In 1953, Neurath was released due to poor health, aggravated by a myocardial infarction in prison.
The last word: "I have always been against accusations with no possible defense."
Hans Fritsche(German Hans Fritzsche), head of the press and broadcasting department at the Ministry of Propaganda.
During the fall of the Nazi regime, Fritsche was in Berlin and surrendered along with the last defenders of the city on May 2, 1945, surrendering to the Red Army. He appeared before the Nuremberg trials, where, together with Julius Streicher (in view of the death of Goebbels), he represented Nazi propaganda. Unlike Streicher, who was sentenced to death, Fritsche was acquitted on all three charges: the court found it proven that he did not call for crimes against humanity, did not participate in war crimes and conspiracies to seize power. Like the two others acquitted at Nuremberg (Hjalmar Schacht and Franz von Papen), Fritsche, however, was soon convicted of other crimes by a denazification commission. After 9 years in prison, Fritsche was released for health reasons in 1950 and died of cancer three years later.
The last word: "This is a terrible accusation of all times. Only one thing more terrible can be: the forthcoming accusation that the German people will bring against us for the abuse of their idealism."
Heinrich Himmler(German Heinrich Luitpold Himmler), one of the main political and military leaders of the Third Reich. Reichsfuehrer SS (1929-1945), Reich Minister of the Interior of Germany (1943-1945), Reichsleiter (1934), head of the RSHA (1942-1943). Found guilty of numerous war crimes, including genocide. Since 1931, Himmler was engaged in the creation of his own secret service - SD, at the head of which he put Heydrich.
Since 1943, Himmler became the Reich Minister of the Interior, and after the failure of the July conspiracy (1944) - the commander of the Reserve Army. Beginning in the summer of 1943, Himmler, through his proxies, began to maintain contacts with representatives of the Western special services in order to conclude a separate peace. Having learned about this, Hitler, on the eve of the collapse of the Third Reich, expelled Himmler from the NSDAP as a traitor and deprived him of all ranks and posts.
After leaving the Reich Chancellery in early May 1945, Himmler headed to the Danish border with a foreign passport in the name of Heinrich Hitzinger, who had been shot shortly before and looked a bit like Himmler, but on May 21, 1945, he was arrested by the British military authorities and on May 23, he committed suicide by taking cyanide ...
Himmler's body was cremated and the ashes scattered in a forest near Luneburg.
Paul Joseph Goebbels(German Paul Joseph Goebbels) - Reich Minister of Education and Propaganda of Germany (1933-1945), imperial head of Nazi Party propaganda (since 1929), Reichsleiter (1933), penultimate chancellor of the Third Reich (April-May 1945).
In his political testament, Hitler appointed Goebbels as his successor as chancellor, but the very next day after the Fuhrer's suicide, Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide, having previously poisoned their six young children. "There will be no act of surrender under my signature!" - declared the new chancellor when he learned about the Soviet demand for unconditional surrender. On May 1 at 21 o'clock, Goebbels took potassium cyanide. His wife Magda, before committing suicide after her husband, said to her young children: "Do not be alarmed, now the doctor will vaccinate you, which is given to all children and soldiers." When the children, under the influence of morphine, fell into a half-sleep state, she herself put a crushed ampoule with potassium cyanide into each child's mouth (there were six of them).
It is impossible to imagine how she felt at this moment.
And of course, the Fuhrer of the Third Reich:
Winners in Paris.
Hitler behind Hermann Goering, Nuremberg, 1928.
Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Venice, June 1934.
Hitler, Mannerheim and Ruthie in Finland, 1942.
Hitler and Mussolini, Nuremberg, 1940.
Adolf Gitler(German Adolf Hitler) - the founder and central figure of Nazism, the founder of the totalitarian dictatorship of the Third Reich, Fuhrer of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from July 29, 1921, Reich Chancellor of National Socialist Germany from January 31, 1933, Fuhrer and Reich Chancellor of Germany from August 2 1934, Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces in World War II.
The conventional version of Hitler's suicide
On April 30, 1945, in Berlin surrounded by Soviet troops and realizing a complete defeat, Hitler, along with his wife Eva Braun, committed suicide, having previously killed their beloved Blondie dog.
In Soviet historiography, the point of view was confirmed that Hitler took poison (cyanide potassium, like most of the Nazis who committed suicide), however, according to eyewitnesses, he shot himself. There is also a version according to which Hitler and Brown first took both poison, after which the Fuhrer shot himself in the temple (thus using both instruments of death).
The day before, Hitler gave the order to deliver cans of gasoline from the garage (to destroy the bodies). On April 30, after lunch, Hitler said goodbye to those from his inner circle and, shaking hands with them, together with Eva Braun retired to his apartment, from where the sound of a shot was soon heard. Shortly after 15 hours 15 minutes, Hitler's servant Heinz Linge, accompanied by his adjutant Otto Günsche, Goebbels, Bormann and Axmann, entered the Fuehrer's apartment. Dead Hitler was sitting on the sofa; a bloody stain was spreading across his temple. Eva Braun was lying next to her, no visible external damage. Gunsche and Linge wrapped Hitler's body in a soldier's blanket and carried it into the garden of the Reich Chancellery; after him they carried out the body of Eve. The bodies were laid near the entrance to the bunker, doused with gasoline and burned. On May 5, the bodies were found on a piece of blanket sticking out of the ground and fell into the hands of the Soviet SMERSH. The body was identified, in part, with the help of Hitler's dentist, who confirmed the authenticity of the corpse's dentures. In February 1946, Hitler's body, along with the bodies of Eva Braun and the Goebbels family - Joseph, Magda, 6 children, was buried at one of the NKVD bases in Magdeburg. In 1970, when the territory of this base was to be transferred to the GDR, at the suggestion of Yu.V. Andropov, approved by the Politburo, the remains of Hitler and others buried with him were dug, cremated to ash and then thrown into the Elbe. Only dentures and a part of the skull with a bullet entrance hole (discovered separately from the corpse) have survived. They are kept in Russian archives, as are the side arms of the sofa on which Hitler shot himself, with traces of blood. However, Hitler's biographer Werner Mather expresses doubts that the discovered corpse and part of the skull really belonged to Hitler.
On October 18, 1945, the indictment was served on the International Military Tribunal and, through its secretariat, transferred to each of the accused. A month before the start of the trial, each of them was served with an indictment in German.
Outcome: international military tribunal sentenced:
To death by hanging: Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Seyss-Inquart, Bormann (in absentia), Jodl (who was fully acquitted posthumously when the case was reviewed by the Munich court in 1953).
To life imprisonment: Hessa, Funka, Redera.
By 20 years in prison: Shirakh, Speer.
By 15 years in prison: Neurath.
By 10 years in prison: Denitsa.
Justified: Fritsche, Papen, Schacht.
The tribunal recognized as criminal organizations SS, SD, SA, Gestapo and the leadership of the Nazi party... The decision on recognizing the Supreme Command and the General Staff as criminal was not made, which caused the disagreement of a member of the tribunal from the USSR.
A number of convicts filed petitions: Goering, Hess, Ribbentrop, Sauckel, Jodl, Keitel, Seyss-Inquart, Funk, Doenitz and Neurath - for clemency; Raeder - on the replacement of life imprisonment with the death penalty; Goering, Jodl and Keitel - about replacing the hanging with execution if the request for clemency is not granted. All of these motions were rejected.
The death penalty was carried out on the night of October 16, 1946 in the building of the Nuremberg prison.
Having passed a guilty verdict on the main Nazi criminals, the International Military Tribunal recognized the aggression as the gravest crime of an international character. The Nuremberg Trials are sometimes referred to as the "Judgment of History" because it had a significant impact on the final defeat of Nazism. Funk and Raeder, sentenced to life imprisonment, were pardoned in 1957. After Speer and Schirach were released in 1966, only Hess remained in prison. The right-wing forces of Germany repeatedly demanded that he be pardoned, but the victorious powers refused to commute the sentence. On August 17, 1987, Hess was found hanged in his cell.
1. Ladislaus Chizhik-Chatari(Ladislaus Csizsik-Csatary), Hungary
During World War II, Chizhik-Chatari served as the chief of police for the protection of the ghetto located in the city of Kassa (now the city of Kosice in Slovakia). Chizhik-Chatari was involved in the death of at least 15.7 thousand Jews. According to documents held by the Wiesenthal Center, the man enjoyed whipping women, forced prisoners to dig the frozen ground with their bare hands, and was involved in other atrocities.
After the war, the court of revived Czechoslovakia sentenced Chizhik-Chatari to death, but the criminal moved to Canada under an assumed name, where he began to trade in works of art. In 1997, the Canadian authorities revoked his citizenship and began to prepare documents for his extradition. However, the Hungarian went into hiding before the necessary legal procedures were completed.
8.
Mikhail Gorshkov(Mikhail Gorshkow), Estonia
in the Gestapo in Belarus, accused of complicity in the massacres of Jews in Slutsk. He hid in the USA, later fled to Estonia. Was under investigation. In October 2011, the Estonian authorities closed the investigation into Gorshkov. The case was dismissed due to the impossibility of identifying the person who committed this crime.
9 . Theodor Schekhinsky(Theodor Szehinskyj), USA
He served in the SS battalion "Death's Head" and in 1943-1945 he guarded the concentration camps of Gross-Rosen (Poland) and Sachsenhausen (Germany). After World War II, he fled to the United States, in 1958 he received American citizenship.
In 2000, he was deprived of his citizenship by the Office of Special Investigations; in 2003, the US Immigration Court ordered the deportation of Shchekhinsky from the country. To date, no country is ready to accept it and therefore it remains in the United States.
10. Helmut Oberlander(Helmut Oberlander), Canada
A native of Ukraine, he served as an interpreter in the punitive group "Einsatzkommando-10A", which operated in the south of Ukraine and in the Crimea. It is estimated that more than 23,000 people, mostly Jews, were killed by the chastisers.
After World War II, he fled to Canada. In 2000, a Canadian court ruled that Oberlander, when entering the country in 1954, concealed his involvement in a group that was engaged in punitive actions on the territory of the USSR. In August 2001, he was stripped of his Canadian citizenship. His citizenship was restored in 2004, but this decision was reversed in May 2007. In November 2009, the Federal Court of Appeal reinstated Oberlander's citizenship, and in September 2012 this decision was again overturned.
The case is pending appeal to the Federal Court of Canada.
Criminals who are allegedly dead:
1. Alois Brunner(Alois Brunner), Syria
Key employee of Adolf Eichmann - German officer, Gestapo employee, directly responsible for the mass extermination of Jews. He is responsible for the deportation of Jews from Austria (47 thousand people), Greece (44 thousand people), France (23,500 people) and Slovakia (14 thousand people) to Nazi death camps.
Convicted in absentia by France. For many decades he lived in Syria. The Syrian authorities refuse to cooperate in the pursuit of Brunner.
He was last seen in 2001. The chances that he is alive are relatively small, however, no conclusive evidence of his death has yet been obtained.
He was a doctor in the concentration camps Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Mauthausen.
In 1962 he disappeared. Wanted by Germany and Austria.
In February 2009, information emerged that he presumably died in Cairo, Egypt in 1992, but there is no proof of death. Until now, Heim has not been found, and his death has not been confirmed.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources
