What REALLY happened to the REAL Nazis?
Below is an extensive list of the REAL nodes of the network that was Nazi Germany. If you want to know who were the people that perpetrated the colossal nightmare, here they are. Obviously it does not include the thousands of lower level clerks, guards, soldiers, etc., but it is quite extensive and really does include all significant leadership and the major engines driving the machine.
The list provides a lot of information at a glance. First, it makes quite the "Who's who" of the NSDÄB apparatus. Second, it provides a brief synopsis of what each did and/or their title and their situation. Finally, it states what happened to each person. As you can see, things didn't turn out very well for the individuals that attended this particular party. If the death was violent or occurred in prison, I put it in red. I know the list is long. Consider just scanning it to see the black and red. This endeavor was quite an education. What follows is not fiction.
Gunter d'Alquen - Chief Editor of the SS official newspaper, Das Schwarze Korps ("The Black Corps"), and commander of the SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers. Fined but not imprisoned. Died of natural causes in 1998.
Ludolf von Alvensleben - commander of the SS and police in Crimea and commander of the Selbstschutz (self-defense) of the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia. Escaped to Argentina and never brought to justice.
Max Amann - Head of Nazi publishing house Eher-Verlag. Sentenced to ten years in a labor camp but released after seven. Stripped of pension and property, he died in poverty 3/30/1957.
Benno von Arent - Responsible for art, theatres, and movies in the Third Reich. Not prosecuted. Died 10/14/1956.
Heinz Auerswald - Commissioner for the Jewish residential district in Warsaw from April 1941 to November 1942. Investigated but not tried. Died 12/5/1970.
Hans Aumeier - deputy commandant at Auschwitz. Hanged 10/28/1948.
Artur Axmann - Chief of the Social Office of the Reich Youth Leadership. Responsible for organization and activities of the Hitler Youth. Served three and a half years in prison. Died in 1996.
Erich von dem Bach - Commander of the "Bandenkämpfverbände" SS units responsible for the mass murder of 35,000 civilians in Riga and more than 200,000 in Belarus and eastern Poland. He claimed he was the one who provided Goring the cyanide for his suicide. Imprisoned in 1945, then released in 1949, then sentenced in 1951 to 10 years. Sentenced an additional 10 years in 1961. Died in prison 3/8/1972.
Herbert Backe - Minister of Food (appointed 1942) and Minister of Agriculture (appointed 1943). Hanged himself awaiting trial 4/6/1947.
Richard Baer - Commander of the Auschwitz I concentration camp from May 1944 to February 1945. Fled and lived in disguise until found in 1960. Died in prison 1963 of a heart attack.
Klaus Barbie - Head of the Gestapo in Lyon. Nicknamed "the Butcher of Lyon" for his use of torture on prisoners. He hid from the Allies for two years. The US Government found him, but instead of exposing him, they recruited him as a spy. Then they helped him escape to Bolivia. He finally faced justice in 1983 and died in prison 9/25/1991.
Gottlob Berger - Chief of Staff for military SS and head of the SS's main leadership office. His original sentence of 25 years was reduced to 10. Then for valuable information he was released in 1951 and lived free until his death 1/5/1975.
Werner Best - Civilian administrator of Nazi occupied France and Denmark. His death sentence was reduced to 12 years. Released in 1951, but faced fines and in 1972 further charges that were not pursued when he was deemed medically unfit to stand trial. Died 1989.
Hans Biebow - Chief of Administration of the Łódź Ghetto. Hanged 4/24/1947.
Paul Blobel - SS commander primarily responsible for the Babi Yar massacre at Kiev. Hanged 6/8/1951.
Werner von Blomberg - General Field Marshall of German army between 1936 and 1938. Died in detention 1946.
Josef Blösche served in the SS & SD as a Rottenführer. His low rank would normally have allowed him to slip into obscurity after the usual detention and internment for the first few years after the war, but his cruelty to the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto was so severe that the memory of him remained strong. Known as "Frankenstein," Blösche would murder and rape helpless Jews at will. An accident that disfigured his face delayed discovery, but tenacious Jews persisted until he was found in January 1967. In 1969 he was convicted of involvement in deporting 300,0000 Jews and murdering of an undeterminable number of persons (possibly 2000) including infants, pregnant women, handicapped persons, and old persons. Shot through the neck 7/29/69.
Ernst Boepple - State Secretary of the General Government in Poland, serving as deputy to Deputy Governor Josef Bühler. Deeply implicated in the "Final Solution." Hanged 12/14/1949.
Ernst Wilhelm Bohle - leader of the Foreign Organization of the German Nazi Party from 1933 until 1945. Sentenced to 5 years but was pardoned. Died 11/9/1960.
Martin Bormann - Head of the Party Chancellery (Parteikanzlei) and private secretary to Adolf Hitler. Suicide May 1945.
Philipp Bouhler - Leader of the Action T4 euthanasia program. Suicide (with his wife) May 19,1945.
Viktor Brack - Organiser of the Euthanasia Programme, Operation T4 and one of the men responsible for the gassing of Jews in the extermination camps. Hanged 6/2/1948.
Otto Bradfisch - Commander of the Security Police in Łódź and Potsdam. Caught but released. Seized again in 1958 and in 1961 given a 10 sentence and another 13 year sentence in 1963. Died 6/22/1994.
Karl Brandt - Personal physician of Adolf Hitler in August 1944 and headed the administration of the Nazi euthanasia program from 1939. Hanged 6/2/1948.
Walther von Brauchitsch - Commander of the German Army during the invasion of the Soviet Union. Arrested and charged with war crimes, but died 10/18/1948 before he could be prosecuted.
Hermine Braunsteiner – A female guard at the Majdanek camp, Braunsteiner killed women by stomping on them, earning her the nickname "The Stomping Mare." Like many, she was captured and incarcerated until 1950. She worked menial jobs until 1958 when she met and married American Russell Ryan and moved to Canada. Simon Wiesenthal found her in the US in 1964. The wheels turned slowly, but on 8/7/1973 she became the first Nazi extradited from the USA. In Germany she received a life sentence, but diabetes complications led to her release in 1996 for health reasons. She died three years later on 4/19/1999.
Alois Brunner - Commander of the Drancy internment camp outside Paris from June 1943 to August 1944. Fiercely anti-Soviet, he apparently worked for the CIA until 1954 when he fled to Syria. Numerous efforts, including those of Simon Wiesenthal, have failed. He is reportedly "the world's highest-ranking Nazi fugitive believed still alive."
Walter Buch - Jurist and supreme magistrate of the Nazi party. Suicide in labor camp 11/2/1949.
Josef Bühler - State secretary for the Nazi-controlled General Government in Kraków during World War II. Hanged 8/22/49.
Josef Bürckel - Politician and leading member of the Schutzstaffel from November 1937. Suicide 9/28/1944.
Anton Burger - Commandant of Concentration camp Theresienstadt between 1943 and 1944. Escaped and managed to live under a false name until he died in 1994.
Carl Clauberg - Doctor who conducted medical experiments on human beings in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Died in Russian prison 8/9/1957.
Leonardo Conti - Head of the Reich Physicians' Chamber (Reichsärztekammer) and leader of the National Socialist German Doctors' League (Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Ärztebund or NSDÄB). Hanged himself in jail 10/6/1945.
Kurt Daluege - Responsible for the personal protection of Hitler and other party leaders. Also commanded the Ordnungspolizei throughout World War II and served as the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia following the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Hanged 10/24/46.
Richard Walther Darré - Minister of Food and Agriculture from 1933 to 1942. Released after five years of a seven year sentence. Alcoholism lead to death by liver failure 9/5/1953.
Josef "Sepp" Dietrich - General of the Waffen-SS. Served ten year sentence and died free on 4/21/1966.
Otto Dietrich - Press Chief of the Third Reich. Died in prison 11/22/1952.
Oskar Dirlewanger - Commanded the infamous SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger unit made out of amnestied Germans convicted of major crimes. Beaten to death by Poles 6/5/1945.
Anton Drexler - Politician and member of the Nazi party through the 1920s. Responsible for changing the name of the Party to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) early in 1920. Mostly forgotten by the time he died in 1942.
Irmfried Eberl - Commandant of Treblinka, July to September 1942. Suicide 2/16/1948.
Adolf Eichmann - Official in charge of the facilitation and transportation of the Jews to ghettos and extermination camps. Escaped to South America. Seized by Israeli agents 5/13/1960 and hanged 6/1/1962.
Theodor Eicke - Leading figure in the establishment of concentration camps. Killed in combat in Russia 2/23/43.
August Eigruber - Gauleiter of Oberdonau (Upper Danube) and Landeshauptmann of Upper Austria. Hanged 5/28/1947.
Franz Ritter von Epp - General of the German army. Died in prison 12/31/1946.
Albert Forster - Politician and governor of the province Danzig-West Prussia from 1939-1945. Hanged 2/28/1952.
Hans Frank - Governor-General of occupied Poland and involved in perpetration of the Holocaust. Hanged 5/22/1946.
Karl Hermann Frank - SS-Obergruppenführer and prominent Sudeten-German Nazi official in Czechoslovakia prior to and during World War II. Hanged 10/16/1946.
Roland Freisler - State Secretary of Adolf Hitler's Reich Ministry of Justice and President of the Volksgerichtshof. The brutal judge who condemned college student Sophie Scholl and other students to death for distributing flyers critical of the Nazi government. Killed in bombing raid 2/3/1945.
Wilhelm Frick - Minister without Portfolio until August 1943, later appointed to the ceremonial post of Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. Hanged 10/16/1946.
Hans Fritzsche - Senior official at the Ministry for Propaganda. Held until 1950. Died of cancer 9/27/1953.
Friedrich Fromm - Commander in Chief of the Reserve Army (Ersatzheer). A key character in the Operation Valkyrie story. Claus von Stauffenberg was his Chief of Staff. When the coup failed, Fromm violated Hitler's orders to have the conspirators taken alive and executed Stauffenberg and others at once, hoping to eliminate accusations he was involved. It didn't work. The Nazis executed him by firing squad 3/12/1945.
Walther Funk - Minister for Economic Affairs from 1937 to 1945. Died in prison 5/31/1960.
Karl Gebhardt - Personal physician of Heinrich Himmler and one of the main perpetrators of surgical experiments performed on inmates of the concentration camps at Ravensbrück and Auschwitz. Hanged 6/6/1948.
Achim Gercke - Expert of racial matters at the Ministry of the Interior. Devised the system of "racial prophylaxis" forbidding the intermarriage between Jews and Aryans. UNKNOWN.
Kurt Gerstein - Hygiene expert in the Waffen-SS. Author of the Gerstein Report about the Holocaust. Suicide 7/25/1945.
Odilo Globocnik - Prominent party member and SS officer. Suicide 5/31/1945.
Richard Glücks - SS officer and inspector of concentration camps. Suicide 5/10/1945.
Joseph Goebbels - Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda throughout the third Reich and World War II. Suicide (with wife and children) 5/1/1945.
Hermann Göring - Second in Command of the Third Reich and commander of the Luftwaffe. Suicide 10/15/1946.
Amon Göth - Commandant of the Nazi concentration camp at Płaszów, Poland. Made famous in the film Schinder's List with actor Ralph Fiennes playing his character. Hanged 9/13/1946. His mother later committed suicide.
Robert Ritter von Greim - Luftwaffe officer, succeeded Hermann Göring as head of the Luftwaffe in the last days of World War II. Suicide 5/24/1945.
Arthur Greiser – The brutal and hate infested Chief of Civil Administration and Gauleiter in the military district of Greater Poland. He was publicly transported to the place of his execution in a cage and hanged July 14, 1946.
Walter Gross - Head of the Racial Policy office. Implicated in the Final Solution. Suicide 4/25/1945.
Hans Friedrich Karl Günther – An academic who taught racial theories and eugenics. The university professor was placed in internment camps for three years, but not considered accountable for Nazi criminal acts and released. He remained a rabid racist and denied the Holocaust until his death on 9/25/1968.
Eugen Hadamovsky - National programming director for German radio and chief of staff in the Nazi Party's Central Propaganda Office (Reichspropagandaleitung) in Berlin from 1942-1944. Killed in combat 3/1/1945.
Karl Hanke - Governor and Gauleiter of Lower Silesia from 1940 to 1945. Killed by locals 6/8/1945 as region fell to Allies.
Fritz Hartjenstein - Concentration camp commandant at Birkenau, Natzweiler and Flossenbürg. Died while awaiting execution 10/20/1954.
Paul Hausser - Prominent leader of the Waffen-SS. This career military officer was not considered a war criminal or prosecuted. He lived free until a natural death on 12/21/1992 at the age of 92.
Aribert Heim - SS doctor in a Nazi concentration camp in Mauthausen. Known as "Dr.Death," he tortured and killed inmates by injecting poisons into their hearts and other medical atrocities. Details are sketchy on his escape to a life in Egypt and converting to Islam. Some allege he was captured and killed in 1982, and others say he died in 1992, but solid evidence has not been found for either claim, and he remains on the list of most wanted Nazis.
August Heissmeyer - Leading member of the SS. Served five years in prison. Died 1/16/1979.
Rudolf Hess - Hitler's deputy until his flight to Scotland on the eve of war with the Soviet Union. Hitler was beyond furious when he learned of the flight. Hess lived a long life – behind bars, dying in prison on 8/17/1987 at age 93.
Walther Hewel - Diplomat and personal friend of Hitler. Suicide 5/2/1945.
Werner Heyde - Psychiatrist and one of the main organizers of the T-4 Euthanasia Program. Heyde was imprisoned after the war but escaped in 1947. When exposure was imminent in 1959, he surrendered. He hanged himself 2/13/1964.
Reinhard Heydrich - Chief of the Reich Security Main Office, including the Gestapo, SD and Kripo Nazi police agencies. A Czech assassination attempt 5/27/42 inflicted damage sufficient to cause his death 6/4/1942.
Konstantin Hierl - Head of the Reichsarbeitsdienst and an associate of Adolf Hitler before he came to power. Served five years in a labor camp. He died four years after his release on 9/23/1955.
Erich Hilgenfeldt - Head of the Nazi's Office For People's Welfare. Suicide May 1945.
Heinrich Himmler - Commander of the SS and one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich. Suicide 5/23/1945.
Hans Hinkel - Journalist and commissioner at the Reich Ministry for the People's Enlightenment and Propaganda. Held by Allies from 1945 until deportation to Poland in1947. Poland held him until 1947 before returning him to Germany. He was never prosecuted and lived until 2/8/1960.
August Hirt - Chairman at the Reich University in Strasbourg during World War II. Suicide 6/2/1945.
Adolf Hitler - Leader of the Nazi Party and commander of the Third Reich. Suicide (with wife) 4/30/1945.
Hermann Höfle - Deputy to Odilo Globocnik in the Aktion Reinhard program. Played a key role in the "Harvest Festival" massacre of Jewish inmates of the various labour camps in the Lublin district in early November 1943. It took awhile, but he was finally apprehended. Suicide in his cell awaiting trial 8/20/1962.
Rudolf Höss - Commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp. Hanged 4/16/1947.
Franz Hofer - Gauleiter of the Tyrol and Vorarlberg regions. Arrested in 1945 and held in a camp until 1948 when he escaped to Germany. In 1953 he received and then served a 3-year 5-month sentence. Died 2/18/1975.
Karl Jäger - Army officer and author of the "Jäger Report" detailing reports of mass murder in Lithuania between July and December 1941. Eluded authorities after the war until he was discovered in 1959. Suicide 6/22/1959.
Friedrich Jeckeln - Leader of one of the largest collection of Einsatzgruppen and personally responsible for ordering the deaths of over 100,000 Jews, Slavs, Roma, and other "undesirables." Hanged 2/3/1946.
Alfred Jodl - Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW) during World War II, acting as deputy to Wilhelm Keitel. Hanged 10/16/1946.
Hans Jüttner - Head of the SS's Main Leadership Office and also an SS Obergruppenführer. His ten year sentence was reduced to four, which he served. Died 5/24/1965.
Rudolf Jung - An instrumental force and agitator of German-Czech National Socialism and, later on, a member of the German Nazi Party. Suicide in cell awaiting trial 12/11/1945.
Ernst Kaltenbrunner - Director of the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office) division of the SS from 1942 to the end of World War II. Hanged 10/16/1946.
Hans Kammler- SS Construction projects and V-2 program. Suicide May 1945.
Siegfried Kasche - German Minister Plenipotentiary to their ally the Independent State of Croatia. Hanged 6/7/1947.
Karl Kaufmann - Founding member of the Nazi party and Gauleiter of Hamburg. Served some prison time, but was released after injuries/accident seriously damaged his health. Not sure of details, but he lived to 1969.
Wilhelm Keitel - Field marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) and senior military leader during World War II. Hanged 10/16/1946.
Dietrich Klagges - Premier of the Duchy of Brunswick between 1933 and 1945. This complicated story requires pages. Suffice to say some prison was deserved and served, about 10-12 years.
Matthias Kleinheisterkamp – Career soldier who joined SS. Captured by Soviets. Suicide 4/29/1945.
Helmut Knochen - Senior commander of the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police) in Paris during the Nazi occupation of France. I don't get this one. Two death sentences were commuted to life in prison. Then he was given a Presidential pardon in 1958 and released by Charles De Gaulle in 1962. He returned to Germany and died free in 2003.
Erich Koch - Gauleiter of the NSDAP in East Prussia from 1928 until 1945, and Reichskomissar in Ukraine from 1941 until 1944. Russia wanted his head, but Britain gave him to the Poles, who convicted him and sentenced him to death. The sentence was never carried out. There is speculation that he traded secret information about valuable art in exchange for his life. He died of natural causes 11/12/1986.
Karl and Ilse Koch – Karl was Commandant of the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald (from 1937 to 1941), and later at Lublin (Majdanek camp). Ilse was infamous for taking tattooed skin from murdered prisoners as souvenirs. The sadistic "Bitch of Buchenwald" was hated for torturing inmates and forcing them to rape each other. This couple was a real piece of work. They were arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 for the embezzling of funds and murdering inmates. These people were cruel by Nazi standards! The Nazis executed Karl by firing squad on 4/5/1945. Her situation was more complicated. A series of trials and prison terms followed her capture by the Allies. She finally committed suicide in a jail cell on 9/1/1967.
Max Koegel - Concentration camp commender at Majdanek and Flossenbürg. Suicide 6/26/1946.
Josef Kramer - Commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Hanged 12/13/1945.
Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger - High-ranking member of the SA and SS. Suicide 5/9/1945.
Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach – Wealthy industrialist. Ran the Friedrich Krupp AG heavy industry conglomerate from 1909 until 1941 and financier of the Nazi party. While indicted at Nuremberg, due to age (75) and poor health it was not pursued. He died in 1950.
Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach - member of Freundeskreis der Wirtschaft; Colonel In NSDAP Flying Corps; ran the Friedrich Krupp AG heavy industry conglomerate from 1943 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1967. They convicted the son, but money talks. New York banker John J. McCloy bought not only a pardon for Krupp but also a reversal of the confiscation of his property. No doubt the favor was returned.
Hans Lammers - Head of the Reich Chancellery. A 20 year sentence was reduced to 10, only a few of which he served before being pardoned in 1952. Died 1/4/1962.
Herbert Lange - SS officer and commandant of Chełmno extermination camp, where he was implicated in the gassing of thousands. Also led the execution of 1,558 mental patients at the Soldau concentration camp. Suicide via combat Berlin 4/20/1945.
Robert Ley - Head of the German Labour Front from 1933 to 1945. Suicide 10/25/1945.
Arthur Liebehenschel - Commandant of Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps during World War II. Hanged 1/28/1948.
Julius Lippert - Nazi activist and propaganda official. Imprisoned from 1945 to 1952. Died 6/30/1956.
Hinrich Lohse - Gauleiter for Schleswig-Holstein and Reich Commissar for the Ostland. Imprisoned from 1945 to 1951. Died 2/25/1964.
Werner Lorenz - Waffen-SS general and a leader of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, an organization charged with settling ethnic Germans in the Reich from other parts of Europe. Imprisoned until 1955. Died 3/13/1974.
Hanns Ludin - Diplomat and ambassador to Slovakia. Hanged 12/9/1947.
Martin Luther - advisor to Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, and participant in the infamous Wannsee Conference. Clashed with superior Ribbentrop and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1943. Died of a heart attack in May 1945 soon after Russians liberated the camp.
Josef Mengele - SS officer and physician in the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The most famous Nazi that got away. The evil of this individual defies language. To the consternation of many, the sadistic monster successfully fled to South America and lived without meaningful discovery until his death 2/7/1979.
Alfred Meyer - Deputy Reichsminister in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. Suicide 4/11/1945.
Wilhelm Mohnke - Founder member of the SS-Staff Guard and one of Hitler's last remaining generals. Surviving 10 years in Russian custody, after his release in 1955 he lived free to the age of 90.
Heinrich Müller - Head of the Gestapo and one of the leading planners of the Holocaust. Suicide May 1945.
Arthur Nebe - Berlin Police Commissioner in the 1920s and an early member of both the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the Schutzstaffel (SS), as well as President of Interpol. Nebe was one of those involved with operation Valkyre, and was executed per Hitler's instructions to “hang by meat hook.” I thought they were hung slowly with piano wire. This is the first I've heard about a meat hook. Hanged 3/2/1945 by hook or crook, er, wire.
Konstantin von Neurath - Foreign Minister of Germany (1932-1938) and Reichsprotektor (Governor) of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (1939-1941). Sentenced to eight years at Nuremberg, he was released early due to poor health and died on 8/14/1956.
Herta Oberheuser - Doctor at the Ravensbrück concentration camp from 1940 until 1943. Was the only female defendant in the Nuremberg Medical Trial. Released in 1952 for good behavior. Her ability to practice medicine evaporated a few years later when she was recognized. Died 1/24/1978.
Otto Ohlendorf - SS-Gruppenführer and head of the interior division of the SD. Hanged 6/7/1951.
Oswald Pohl - Organized and administrator of the concentration camps. Hanged 6/7/1951.
Erich Priebke - Participant in the Ardeatine massacre in Rome on March 24, 1944. What a mess. Priebke evaded capture in a clever combination of moves that got him to Argentina where he lived for 50 years. This story is too elaborate for a treatment here. The guy is still alive today at the age of 96.
Hans-Adolf Prützmann - Superior SS and Police Leader, and an SS Obergruppenführer. Suicide 5/21/1945.
Friedrich Rainer - Reich Governor of Salzburg. Executed by Yugoslavian authorities 7/19/1947.
Sigmund Rascher – Dachau concentration camp physician who got crossways with Himmler. Hanged with his wife 4/26/1945.
Walter Rauff – SS officer who designed gas vans to murder Jews and persons with disabilities. He escaped to Chile in 1958 and successfully eluded capture thanks to the Pinochet regime. Died 5/12/1984.
Walter Reder – Waffen-SS officer who commanded the Panzer division responsible for the Marzabotto massacre in October 1944, considered Italy’s worst wartime atrocity. Held at internment camps until extradited to Italy in 1948 and sentenced to life in 1951. Petitions and a false apology got him released in January 1985. Died 4/26/1991.
Wilhelm Rediess – SS and Police Leader in Norway. Suicide 5/8/1945.
Fritz Reinhardt – State Secretary involved with taxes and financial administration. Served in a labor prison until 1950. Kept a low profile working as a tax advisor after his release. Died 6/17/1969.
Adrian von Renteln – Appointed Generalkommissar of Lithuania where he inflicted brutality against Lithuanian Jews. Hanged 1946.
Joachim von Ribbentrop - Foreign Minister of Germany, 1938-1945. Hanged 10/16/1946.
Ernst Röhm - founder and later chief of the Sturmabteilung Murdered 7/2/1934 during the Night of the Long Knives.
Alfred Rosenberg - Nazi "philosopher" Hanged 10/16/1946.
Erwin Rösener - SS Obergruppenführer, Higher SS and Police Leader, Commander SS Upper Division Alpenland (1941 - 1945). Hanged 9/4/1946.
Bernhard Rust - Minister of Science, Education and National Culture, Nazi Germany. Suicide 5/8/1945.
Fritz Sauckel - Gauleiter of Thuringia, General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment (1942-45). Hanged 10/16/1946.
Gustav Adolf Scheel was a German physican and "multifunctionary," SA and SS member, Leader of the National Socialist Students' Federation, Organizer of the SD in the southwest, Superior SS and Police Leader in Salzburg, Gaileiter in Salzburg from November 1941). As commander of the Security Police and the SD, he organized in October 1940 the deportation of Karlsruche's Jews to the death camps in the east. Efforts to hold him to account never got the traction to incarcerate him. Died 3/25/1979.
Walther Schellenberg was a German SS-Brigadefuhrer who rose through the SS to become, following the abolition of the Abwehr in 1944, head of foreign intelligence. Arrested after the war, he was released in 1951 due to poor health. Died 3/31/1952 at the age of 42.
Baldur von Schirach - leader of Hitler Youth (1931-40), Gauleiter of Vienna (1940-45). Served 20 years in prison. Died 8/8/1974.
Franz Schlegelberger was State Secretary in the German Reich Ministry of Justice (RMJ) and served awhile as Justice Minister during the Third Reich. He retired in 1942. He was the highest-ranking defendant at Nuremberg and sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. In 1950, at 74 he was released owing to incapacity. Amazingly, he was allowed to continue to draw his pension (over 5 times average 1950 German income) until he died in 1970.
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink – a fervent Nazi supporter who became head of the Nazi Woman’s League. She married SS officer August Heissmeyer. The two went into hiding after the war but were caught in 1948. They served a few years. She published A Woman in the Third Reich in 1978 and died in 1999.
Franz Xaver Schwarz – the National Treasurer of the Nazi Party. Died in an Allied internment camp 12/2/1947.
Heinrich Schwarz – Camp commandant of Auschwitz III. Hanged 3/20/1947.
Siegfried Seidl – Commandant of Theresienstadt concentration camp. Hanged 2/4/1947.
Franz Seldte – Cofounder of the German paramilitary organization Stahlhelm. Became an SA officer and finally a Prussian labor minister. Died in a US military hospital 4/1/1947.
Arthur Seyss-Inquart - deputy to Hans Frank in the General Government of occupied Poland (1939-40), Reichskommissar of the Netherlands (1940-44). Hanged 10/16/1946.
Gustav Simon – Nazi Gauleiter in the Moselland Gau 1940-1944. Hanged himself in his cell 12/18/1945.
Albert Speer - architect for Nazis' offices and residences, Party rallies and State buildings (1932-42), Minister of Armaments and War Production (1942-45). Generally one of the most respected of those on this list, Speer served his full 20 year sentence, most of it at Spandau Prison in West Berlin. He was released in 1966 and wrote the best selling autobiographical books Inside the Third Reich and Spandau: The Secret Diaries, both of which proved most helpful to historians. Speer also appeared frequently in the classic 1974 BBC WWII documentary World at War. He died of natural causes 9/1/1981.
Franz Stangl – Superintendent of the T-4 Euthanasia program, then commandant of the Sobibor extermination camp, and then Treblinka. He escaped to Italy and used the “ratline” to reach Syria. After three years he made it to Brazil. Simon Weisenthal finally got him extradited to West Germany in 1967, and he was convicted 10/22/1970. He died in prison of heart failure 6/28/1971.
Johannes Stark – an ambitious, deeply anti-Semitic, pro Nazi physicist. In 1934 he asserted that Jewish scientists lacked “the aptitude for true creative activity in the natural sciences.”
Uh, what?! Check THIS out.
In 1907, as the editor of Jahrbuch der Radioaktivität und Elektronik Stark asked a Jewish physicist, Albert Einstein, to write a review article on the principle of relativity. Work on this article set Einstein on a trajectory towards his general theory of relativity.
Go figure. Stark got four years.
Otto Steinbrinck – Pro Nazi industrialist who joined the SS but mostly functioned as general plenipotentiary for mining and other production. Sentenced to 6 years and died in prison 8/16/1949.
Felix Steiner – German Reichswehr and Waffen-SS officer. Very sharp military officer associated with much of Germany’s military successes. He refused Hitler’s command to attack the Russians in the battle of Berlin. Learning of this, Hitler fell to pieces and declared the war was lost. Steiner faced charges at Nuremberg, but all were dropped. He was released in 1948 and lived until 5/12/1966.
Gregor Strasser – Early Nazi member murdered 6/30/1934 during the Night of the Long Knives.
Julius Streicher - founder and editor of anti-semitic Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer (1923-1945), Gauleiter of Franconia (1929-40). Hanged 10/16/1946.
Jürgen Stroop – the brutal SS and police general who oversaw the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. Hanged 3/6/1952.
Wilhelm Stuckart – State secretary in the German Interior Ministry who participated in the Wannsee conference. Sentenced to time served and released in April 1949. In November 1953, he was killed in a car accident in West Germany. Speculation exists that this accident was arranged.
Otto von Stülpnagel – the German military commander of France during the war. He opposed the Holocaust and refused Hitler’s order to destroy Paris. Suicide 2/6/1948.
Josef Terboven – Reichskommissar of Norway. Suicide 5/8/1945.
Otto Georg Thierack – Reich Minister of Justice. Suicide 11/22/1946.
Fritz Todt – founder of Organisation Todt (OT), which joined government firms, private companies, and the Reich Labor Service to construct the Siegfried Line and other projects. Intelligent, he saw the writing on the wall before others, especially about the invasion of Russia. Hitler dismissed his concerns. After a meeting with Hitler, his plane exploded on 2/8/1942. Speculation exists, but proof was never found.
Xavier Vallat – a French official who joined the Vichy collaborationist government as the Commissioner-General for Jewish Questions. The vehement anti-Semite got ten years, lighter due to his service in WWI, and only served four. Upon release, he continued his anti-Semitic tirades with other right wing nuts. He relieved the world of his existence in January 1972.
Robert Heinrich Wagner – Gauleiter of Baden and Alsace. Hanged 8/14/1946.
Wilhelm Weiss – SA Obergruppenfuhrer and editor-in-chief of the Nazi Party’s official newspaper, the Volkischer Beobachter. Sentenced to three years in a labor camp and fined. Died shortly after his conviction on 2/24/1950.
Karl Maria Wiligut – an Ariosophist and Nazi occultist. The guy was an anti-Judaistic, anti-Mason, anti-Christian, pro-occult megalomaniac with schizophrenia and so nuts that he was declared legally incompetent. Once institutionalized, this guy became the head of the SS Department for Pre- and Early History. He ended up on Himmler’s personal staff.
On behalf of the Ahnenerbe, the Nazi German Think Tank, on an expedition in 1936, Wiligut identified part of the Black Forest as an ancient Krist settlement, Schloss Eberstein as a center of Irminism, Einum as “spirit pont”, Bodenburg as “will point” Gandersheim as “central awareness point” Engelade as “force hand point,” Calefeld as “heart point” of the crucified Balder, Brunstein as “generative point”, Naensen as “material hand point” and Ebergotzen as “skould point.”
From Wikipedia verbatim:
Germanic culture and history, according to Wiligut, reached back to 228,000 BC. At this time, there were three suns, and Earth was inhabited by giants, dwarfs and other mythical creatures. Wiligut claimed that his ancestors, the Adler-Wiligoten, ended a long period of war. By 12,500 BC, the Irminic religion of Krist was revealed and from that time became the religion of all Germanic peoples, until the schismatic adherents of Wotanism gained the upper hand. In 1200 BC, the Wotanists succeeded in destroying the Irminic religious center at Goslar, following which the Irminists erected a new temple at the Externsteine, which was in turn appropriated by the Wotanists in AD 460. Wiligut's own ancestors were supposedly protagonists in this setting: the Wiligotis were Ueiskunings ("Ice kings") descending from a union of Aesir and Vanir. They founded the city of Vilna as the center of their Germanic empire and always remained true to their Irminic faith.
In a letter to Rudolf Mund, Ahnenerbe president Herman Wirth described Wiligut as a senile alcoholic.
Wiligut died soon after a stroke 1/3/1946.
Max Winkler – Mayor of Graudenz, Poland, Reich Trustee and Reich Commissioner for German Cinema. Imprisoned after the war and released 8/11/1949. Died 10/12/1961.
Christian Wirth – Senior German police and SS officer active in the extermination of the Jews in Poland. Killed by Yugoslavians 5/26/1944.
Hermann Wirth – early president of the Ahnenerbe, the Nazi think tank devoted to “discovering” the intellectual heritage of the Germanic people. An intelligent scholar of ancient religions and symbols, Wirth left the group entirely when it started departing from reality. He was forced into exile with other German mystics. He lived until 2/16/1981.
Eduard Wirths – Chief SS doctor at Auschwitz. Hanged himself 9/20/1945.
Karl Wolff – High ranking SS officer who became Chief of Personal Staff to the Reichsfuhrer-SS (Himmler). Wolff was allowed to escape prosecution at Nuremberg by providing evidence against his fellow Nazis. In 1947 he was transferred to a British prison for awhile and then released. Then in 1948 West Germany sentenced him to five years of which he served seven months. It is alleged he may have worked with the CIA. The 1962 trial of Adolf Eichmann uncovered more information about Wolff, so he was tried again in 1964 and convicted of sending 300,000 Jews to Treblinka, sending Italian Jews to Auschwitz, and the massacre of partisans in Italy. He got 15 years but was released in 1969 due to poor health. Died 7/17/1984.
Franz Ziereis – Commandant of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. Shot trying to escape and died 5/24/1945.
The list provides a lot of information at a glance. First, it makes quite the "Who's who" of the NSDÄB apparatus. Second, it provides a brief synopsis of what each did and/or their title and their situation. Finally, it states what happened to each person. As you can see, things didn't turn out very well for the individuals that attended this particular party. If the death was violent or occurred in prison, I put it in red. I know the list is long. Consider just scanning it to see the black and red. This endeavor was quite an education. What follows is not fiction.
Gunter d'Alquen - Chief Editor of the SS official newspaper, Das Schwarze Korps ("The Black Corps"), and commander of the SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers. Fined but not imprisoned. Died of natural causes in 1998.
Ludolf von Alvensleben - commander of the SS and police in Crimea and commander of the Selbstschutz (self-defense) of the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia. Escaped to Argentina and never brought to justice.
Max Amann - Head of Nazi publishing house Eher-Verlag. Sentenced to ten years in a labor camp but released after seven. Stripped of pension and property, he died in poverty 3/30/1957.
Benno von Arent - Responsible for art, theatres, and movies in the Third Reich. Not prosecuted. Died 10/14/1956.
Heinz Auerswald - Commissioner for the Jewish residential district in Warsaw from April 1941 to November 1942. Investigated but not tried. Died 12/5/1970.
Hans Aumeier - deputy commandant at Auschwitz. Hanged 10/28/1948.
Artur Axmann - Chief of the Social Office of the Reich Youth Leadership. Responsible for organization and activities of the Hitler Youth. Served three and a half years in prison. Died in 1996.
Erich von dem Bach - Commander of the "Bandenkämpfverbände" SS units responsible for the mass murder of 35,000 civilians in Riga and more than 200,000 in Belarus and eastern Poland. He claimed he was the one who provided Goring the cyanide for his suicide. Imprisoned in 1945, then released in 1949, then sentenced in 1951 to 10 years. Sentenced an additional 10 years in 1961. Died in prison 3/8/1972.
Herbert Backe - Minister of Food (appointed 1942) and Minister of Agriculture (appointed 1943). Hanged himself awaiting trial 4/6/1947.
Richard Baer - Commander of the Auschwitz I concentration camp from May 1944 to February 1945. Fled and lived in disguise until found in 1960. Died in prison 1963 of a heart attack.
Klaus Barbie - Head of the Gestapo in Lyon. Nicknamed "the Butcher of Lyon" for his use of torture on prisoners. He hid from the Allies for two years. The US Government found him, but instead of exposing him, they recruited him as a spy. Then they helped him escape to Bolivia. He finally faced justice in 1983 and died in prison 9/25/1991.
Gottlob Berger - Chief of Staff for military SS and head of the SS's main leadership office. His original sentence of 25 years was reduced to 10. Then for valuable information he was released in 1951 and lived free until his death 1/5/1975.
Werner Best - Civilian administrator of Nazi occupied France and Denmark. His death sentence was reduced to 12 years. Released in 1951, but faced fines and in 1972 further charges that were not pursued when he was deemed medically unfit to stand trial. Died 1989.
Hans Biebow - Chief of Administration of the Łódź Ghetto. Hanged 4/24/1947.
Paul Blobel - SS commander primarily responsible for the Babi Yar massacre at Kiev. Hanged 6/8/1951.
Werner von Blomberg - General Field Marshall of German army between 1936 and 1938. Died in detention 1946.
Josef Blösche served in the SS & SD as a Rottenführer. His low rank would normally have allowed him to slip into obscurity after the usual detention and internment for the first few years after the war, but his cruelty to the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto was so severe that the memory of him remained strong. Known as "Frankenstein," Blösche would murder and rape helpless Jews at will. An accident that disfigured his face delayed discovery, but tenacious Jews persisted until he was found in January 1967. In 1969 he was convicted of involvement in deporting 300,0000 Jews and murdering of an undeterminable number of persons (possibly 2000) including infants, pregnant women, handicapped persons, and old persons. Shot through the neck 7/29/69.
Ernst Boepple - State Secretary of the General Government in Poland, serving as deputy to Deputy Governor Josef Bühler. Deeply implicated in the "Final Solution." Hanged 12/14/1949.
Ernst Wilhelm Bohle - leader of the Foreign Organization of the German Nazi Party from 1933 until 1945. Sentenced to 5 years but was pardoned. Died 11/9/1960.
Martin Bormann - Head of the Party Chancellery (Parteikanzlei) and private secretary to Adolf Hitler. Suicide May 1945.
Philipp Bouhler - Leader of the Action T4 euthanasia program. Suicide (with his wife) May 19,1945.
Viktor Brack - Organiser of the Euthanasia Programme, Operation T4 and one of the men responsible for the gassing of Jews in the extermination camps. Hanged 6/2/1948.
Otto Bradfisch - Commander of the Security Police in Łódź and Potsdam. Caught but released. Seized again in 1958 and in 1961 given a 10 sentence and another 13 year sentence in 1963. Died 6/22/1994.
Karl Brandt - Personal physician of Adolf Hitler in August 1944 and headed the administration of the Nazi euthanasia program from 1939. Hanged 6/2/1948.
Walther von Brauchitsch - Commander of the German Army during the invasion of the Soviet Union. Arrested and charged with war crimes, but died 10/18/1948 before he could be prosecuted.
Hermine Braunsteiner – A female guard at the Majdanek camp, Braunsteiner killed women by stomping on them, earning her the nickname "The Stomping Mare." Like many, she was captured and incarcerated until 1950. She worked menial jobs until 1958 when she met and married American Russell Ryan and moved to Canada. Simon Wiesenthal found her in the US in 1964. The wheels turned slowly, but on 8/7/1973 she became the first Nazi extradited from the USA. In Germany she received a life sentence, but diabetes complications led to her release in 1996 for health reasons. She died three years later on 4/19/1999.
Alois Brunner - Commander of the Drancy internment camp outside Paris from June 1943 to August 1944. Fiercely anti-Soviet, he apparently worked for the CIA until 1954 when he fled to Syria. Numerous efforts, including those of Simon Wiesenthal, have failed. He is reportedly "the world's highest-ranking Nazi fugitive believed still alive."
Walter Buch - Jurist and supreme magistrate of the Nazi party. Suicide in labor camp 11/2/1949.
Josef Bühler - State secretary for the Nazi-controlled General Government in Kraków during World War II. Hanged 8/22/49.
Josef Bürckel - Politician and leading member of the Schutzstaffel from November 1937. Suicide 9/28/1944.
Anton Burger - Commandant of Concentration camp Theresienstadt between 1943 and 1944. Escaped and managed to live under a false name until he died in 1994.
Carl Clauberg - Doctor who conducted medical experiments on human beings in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Died in Russian prison 8/9/1957.
Leonardo Conti - Head of the Reich Physicians' Chamber (Reichsärztekammer) and leader of the National Socialist German Doctors' League (Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Ärztebund or NSDÄB). Hanged himself in jail 10/6/1945.
Kurt Daluege - Responsible for the personal protection of Hitler and other party leaders. Also commanded the Ordnungspolizei throughout World War II and served as the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia following the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Hanged 10/24/46.
Richard Walther Darré - Minister of Food and Agriculture from 1933 to 1942. Released after five years of a seven year sentence. Alcoholism lead to death by liver failure 9/5/1953.
Josef "Sepp" Dietrich - General of the Waffen-SS. Served ten year sentence and died free on 4/21/1966.
Otto Dietrich - Press Chief of the Third Reich. Died in prison 11/22/1952.
Oskar Dirlewanger - Commanded the infamous SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger unit made out of amnestied Germans convicted of major crimes. Beaten to death by Poles 6/5/1945.
Anton Drexler - Politician and member of the Nazi party through the 1920s. Responsible for changing the name of the Party to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) early in 1920. Mostly forgotten by the time he died in 1942.
Irmfried Eberl - Commandant of Treblinka, July to September 1942. Suicide 2/16/1948.
Adolf Eichmann - Official in charge of the facilitation and transportation of the Jews to ghettos and extermination camps. Escaped to South America. Seized by Israeli agents 5/13/1960 and hanged 6/1/1962.
Theodor Eicke - Leading figure in the establishment of concentration camps. Killed in combat in Russia 2/23/43.
August Eigruber - Gauleiter of Oberdonau (Upper Danube) and Landeshauptmann of Upper Austria. Hanged 5/28/1947.
Franz Ritter von Epp - General of the German army. Died in prison 12/31/1946.
Albert Forster - Politician and governor of the province Danzig-West Prussia from 1939-1945. Hanged 2/28/1952.
Hans Frank - Governor-General of occupied Poland and involved in perpetration of the Holocaust. Hanged 5/22/1946.
Karl Hermann Frank - SS-Obergruppenführer and prominent Sudeten-German Nazi official in Czechoslovakia prior to and during World War II. Hanged 10/16/1946.
Roland Freisler - State Secretary of Adolf Hitler's Reich Ministry of Justice and President of the Volksgerichtshof. The brutal judge who condemned college student Sophie Scholl and other students to death for distributing flyers critical of the Nazi government. Killed in bombing raid 2/3/1945.
Wilhelm Frick - Minister without Portfolio until August 1943, later appointed to the ceremonial post of Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. Hanged 10/16/1946.
Hans Fritzsche - Senior official at the Ministry for Propaganda. Held until 1950. Died of cancer 9/27/1953.
Friedrich Fromm - Commander in Chief of the Reserve Army (Ersatzheer). A key character in the Operation Valkyrie story. Claus von Stauffenberg was his Chief of Staff. When the coup failed, Fromm violated Hitler's orders to have the conspirators taken alive and executed Stauffenberg and others at once, hoping to eliminate accusations he was involved. It didn't work. The Nazis executed him by firing squad 3/12/1945.
Walther Funk - Minister for Economic Affairs from 1937 to 1945. Died in prison 5/31/1960.
Karl Gebhardt - Personal physician of Heinrich Himmler and one of the main perpetrators of surgical experiments performed on inmates of the concentration camps at Ravensbrück and Auschwitz. Hanged 6/6/1948.
Achim Gercke - Expert of racial matters at the Ministry of the Interior. Devised the system of "racial prophylaxis" forbidding the intermarriage between Jews and Aryans. UNKNOWN.
Kurt Gerstein - Hygiene expert in the Waffen-SS. Author of the Gerstein Report about the Holocaust. Suicide 7/25/1945.
Odilo Globocnik - Prominent party member and SS officer. Suicide 5/31/1945.
Richard Glücks - SS officer and inspector of concentration camps. Suicide 5/10/1945.
Joseph Goebbels - Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda throughout the third Reich and World War II. Suicide (with wife and children) 5/1/1945.
Hermann Göring - Second in Command of the Third Reich and commander of the Luftwaffe. Suicide 10/15/1946.
Amon Göth - Commandant of the Nazi concentration camp at Płaszów, Poland. Made famous in the film Schinder's List with actor Ralph Fiennes playing his character. Hanged 9/13/1946. His mother later committed suicide.
Robert Ritter von Greim - Luftwaffe officer, succeeded Hermann Göring as head of the Luftwaffe in the last days of World War II. Suicide 5/24/1945.
Arthur Greiser – The brutal and hate infested Chief of Civil Administration and Gauleiter in the military district of Greater Poland. He was publicly transported to the place of his execution in a cage and hanged July 14, 1946.
Walter Gross - Head of the Racial Policy office. Implicated in the Final Solution. Suicide 4/25/1945.
Hans Friedrich Karl Günther – An academic who taught racial theories and eugenics. The university professor was placed in internment camps for three years, but not considered accountable for Nazi criminal acts and released. He remained a rabid racist and denied the Holocaust until his death on 9/25/1968.
Eugen Hadamovsky - National programming director for German radio and chief of staff in the Nazi Party's Central Propaganda Office (Reichspropagandaleitung) in Berlin from 1942-1944. Killed in combat 3/1/1945.
Karl Hanke - Governor and Gauleiter of Lower Silesia from 1940 to 1945. Killed by locals 6/8/1945 as region fell to Allies.
Fritz Hartjenstein - Concentration camp commandant at Birkenau, Natzweiler and Flossenbürg. Died while awaiting execution 10/20/1954.
Paul Hausser - Prominent leader of the Waffen-SS. This career military officer was not considered a war criminal or prosecuted. He lived free until a natural death on 12/21/1992 at the age of 92.
Aribert Heim - SS doctor in a Nazi concentration camp in Mauthausen. Known as "Dr.Death," he tortured and killed inmates by injecting poisons into their hearts and other medical atrocities. Details are sketchy on his escape to a life in Egypt and converting to Islam. Some allege he was captured and killed in 1982, and others say he died in 1992, but solid evidence has not been found for either claim, and he remains on the list of most wanted Nazis.
August Heissmeyer - Leading member of the SS. Served five years in prison. Died 1/16/1979.
Rudolf Hess - Hitler's deputy until his flight to Scotland on the eve of war with the Soviet Union. Hitler was beyond furious when he learned of the flight. Hess lived a long life – behind bars, dying in prison on 8/17/1987 at age 93.
Walther Hewel - Diplomat and personal friend of Hitler. Suicide 5/2/1945.
Werner Heyde - Psychiatrist and one of the main organizers of the T-4 Euthanasia Program. Heyde was imprisoned after the war but escaped in 1947. When exposure was imminent in 1959, he surrendered. He hanged himself 2/13/1964.
Reinhard Heydrich - Chief of the Reich Security Main Office, including the Gestapo, SD and Kripo Nazi police agencies. A Czech assassination attempt 5/27/42 inflicted damage sufficient to cause his death 6/4/1942.
Konstantin Hierl - Head of the Reichsarbeitsdienst and an associate of Adolf Hitler before he came to power. Served five years in a labor camp. He died four years after his release on 9/23/1955.
Erich Hilgenfeldt - Head of the Nazi's Office For People's Welfare. Suicide May 1945.
Heinrich Himmler - Commander of the SS and one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich. Suicide 5/23/1945.
Hans Hinkel - Journalist and commissioner at the Reich Ministry for the People's Enlightenment and Propaganda. Held by Allies from 1945 until deportation to Poland in1947. Poland held him until 1947 before returning him to Germany. He was never prosecuted and lived until 2/8/1960.
August Hirt - Chairman at the Reich University in Strasbourg during World War II. Suicide 6/2/1945.
Adolf Hitler - Leader of the Nazi Party and commander of the Third Reich. Suicide (with wife) 4/30/1945.
Hermann Höfle - Deputy to Odilo Globocnik in the Aktion Reinhard program. Played a key role in the "Harvest Festival" massacre of Jewish inmates of the various labour camps in the Lublin district in early November 1943. It took awhile, but he was finally apprehended. Suicide in his cell awaiting trial 8/20/1962.
Rudolf Höss - Commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp. Hanged 4/16/1947.
Franz Hofer - Gauleiter of the Tyrol and Vorarlberg regions. Arrested in 1945 and held in a camp until 1948 when he escaped to Germany. In 1953 he received and then served a 3-year 5-month sentence. Died 2/18/1975.
Karl Jäger - Army officer and author of the "Jäger Report" detailing reports of mass murder in Lithuania between July and December 1941. Eluded authorities after the war until he was discovered in 1959. Suicide 6/22/1959.
Friedrich Jeckeln - Leader of one of the largest collection of Einsatzgruppen and personally responsible for ordering the deaths of over 100,000 Jews, Slavs, Roma, and other "undesirables." Hanged 2/3/1946.
Alfred Jodl - Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW) during World War II, acting as deputy to Wilhelm Keitel. Hanged 10/16/1946.
Hans Jüttner - Head of the SS's Main Leadership Office and also an SS Obergruppenführer. His ten year sentence was reduced to four, which he served. Died 5/24/1965.
Rudolf Jung - An instrumental force and agitator of German-Czech National Socialism and, later on, a member of the German Nazi Party. Suicide in cell awaiting trial 12/11/1945.
Ernst Kaltenbrunner - Director of the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office) division of the SS from 1942 to the end of World War II. Hanged 10/16/1946.
Hans Kammler- SS Construction projects and V-2 program. Suicide May 1945.
Siegfried Kasche - German Minister Plenipotentiary to their ally the Independent State of Croatia. Hanged 6/7/1947.
Karl Kaufmann - Founding member of the Nazi party and Gauleiter of Hamburg. Served some prison time, but was released after injuries/accident seriously damaged his health. Not sure of details, but he lived to 1969.
Wilhelm Keitel - Field marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) and senior military leader during World War II. Hanged 10/16/1946.
Dietrich Klagges - Premier of the Duchy of Brunswick between 1933 and 1945. This complicated story requires pages. Suffice to say some prison was deserved and served, about 10-12 years.
Matthias Kleinheisterkamp – Career soldier who joined SS. Captured by Soviets. Suicide 4/29/1945.
Helmut Knochen - Senior commander of the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police) in Paris during the Nazi occupation of France. I don't get this one. Two death sentences were commuted to life in prison. Then he was given a Presidential pardon in 1958 and released by Charles De Gaulle in 1962. He returned to Germany and died free in 2003.
Erich Koch - Gauleiter of the NSDAP in East Prussia from 1928 until 1945, and Reichskomissar in Ukraine from 1941 until 1944. Russia wanted his head, but Britain gave him to the Poles, who convicted him and sentenced him to death. The sentence was never carried out. There is speculation that he traded secret information about valuable art in exchange for his life. He died of natural causes 11/12/1986.
Karl and Ilse Koch – Karl was Commandant of the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald (from 1937 to 1941), and later at Lublin (Majdanek camp). Ilse was infamous for taking tattooed skin from murdered prisoners as souvenirs. The sadistic "Bitch of Buchenwald" was hated for torturing inmates and forcing them to rape each other. This couple was a real piece of work. They were arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 for the embezzling of funds and murdering inmates. These people were cruel by Nazi standards! The Nazis executed Karl by firing squad on 4/5/1945. Her situation was more complicated. A series of trials and prison terms followed her capture by the Allies. She finally committed suicide in a jail cell on 9/1/1967.
Max Koegel - Concentration camp commender at Majdanek and Flossenbürg. Suicide 6/26/1946.
Josef Kramer - Commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Hanged 12/13/1945.
Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger - High-ranking member of the SA and SS. Suicide 5/9/1945.
Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach – Wealthy industrialist. Ran the Friedrich Krupp AG heavy industry conglomerate from 1909 until 1941 and financier of the Nazi party. While indicted at Nuremberg, due to age (75) and poor health it was not pursued. He died in 1950.
Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach - member of Freundeskreis der Wirtschaft; Colonel In NSDAP Flying Corps; ran the Friedrich Krupp AG heavy industry conglomerate from 1943 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1967. They convicted the son, but money talks. New York banker John J. McCloy bought not only a pardon for Krupp but also a reversal of the confiscation of his property. No doubt the favor was returned.
Hans Lammers - Head of the Reich Chancellery. A 20 year sentence was reduced to 10, only a few of which he served before being pardoned in 1952. Died 1/4/1962.
Herbert Lange - SS officer and commandant of Chełmno extermination camp, where he was implicated in the gassing of thousands. Also led the execution of 1,558 mental patients at the Soldau concentration camp. Suicide via combat Berlin 4/20/1945.
Robert Ley - Head of the German Labour Front from 1933 to 1945. Suicide 10/25/1945.
Arthur Liebehenschel - Commandant of Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps during World War II. Hanged 1/28/1948.
Julius Lippert - Nazi activist and propaganda official. Imprisoned from 1945 to 1952. Died 6/30/1956.
Hinrich Lohse - Gauleiter for Schleswig-Holstein and Reich Commissar for the Ostland. Imprisoned from 1945 to 1951. Died 2/25/1964.
Werner Lorenz - Waffen-SS general and a leader of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, an organization charged with settling ethnic Germans in the Reich from other parts of Europe. Imprisoned until 1955. Died 3/13/1974.
Hanns Ludin - Diplomat and ambassador to Slovakia. Hanged 12/9/1947.
Martin Luther - advisor to Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, and participant in the infamous Wannsee Conference. Clashed with superior Ribbentrop and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1943. Died of a heart attack in May 1945 soon after Russians liberated the camp.
Josef Mengele - SS officer and physician in the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The most famous Nazi that got away. The evil of this individual defies language. To the consternation of many, the sadistic monster successfully fled to South America and lived without meaningful discovery until his death 2/7/1979.
Alfred Meyer - Deputy Reichsminister in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. Suicide 4/11/1945.
Wilhelm Mohnke - Founder member of the SS-Staff Guard and one of Hitler's last remaining generals. Surviving 10 years in Russian custody, after his release in 1955 he lived free to the age of 90.
Heinrich Müller - Head of the Gestapo and one of the leading planners of the Holocaust. Suicide May 1945.
Arthur Nebe - Berlin Police Commissioner in the 1920s and an early member of both the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the Schutzstaffel (SS), as well as President of Interpol. Nebe was one of those involved with operation Valkyre, and was executed per Hitler's instructions to “hang by meat hook.” I thought they were hung slowly with piano wire. This is the first I've heard about a meat hook. Hanged 3/2/1945 by hook or crook, er, wire.
Konstantin von Neurath - Foreign Minister of Germany (1932-1938) and Reichsprotektor (Governor) of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (1939-1941). Sentenced to eight years at Nuremberg, he was released early due to poor health and died on 8/14/1956.
Herta Oberheuser - Doctor at the Ravensbrück concentration camp from 1940 until 1943. Was the only female defendant in the Nuremberg Medical Trial. Released in 1952 for good behavior. Her ability to practice medicine evaporated a few years later when she was recognized. Died 1/24/1978.
Otto Ohlendorf - SS-Gruppenführer and head of the interior division of the SD. Hanged 6/7/1951.
Oswald Pohl - Organized and administrator of the concentration camps. Hanged 6/7/1951.
Erich Priebke - Participant in the Ardeatine massacre in Rome on March 24, 1944. What a mess. Priebke evaded capture in a clever combination of moves that got him to Argentina where he lived for 50 years. This story is too elaborate for a treatment here. The guy is still alive today at the age of 96.
Hans-Adolf Prützmann - Superior SS and Police Leader, and an SS Obergruppenführer. Suicide 5/21/1945.
Friedrich Rainer - Reich Governor of Salzburg. Executed by Yugoslavian authorities 7/19/1947.
Sigmund Rascher – Dachau concentration camp physician who got crossways with Himmler. Hanged with his wife 4/26/1945.
Walter Rauff – SS officer who designed gas vans to murder Jews and persons with disabilities. He escaped to Chile in 1958 and successfully eluded capture thanks to the Pinochet regime. Died 5/12/1984.
Walter Reder – Waffen-SS officer who commanded the Panzer division responsible for the Marzabotto massacre in October 1944, considered Italy’s worst wartime atrocity. Held at internment camps until extradited to Italy in 1948 and sentenced to life in 1951. Petitions and a false apology got him released in January 1985. Died 4/26/1991.
Wilhelm Rediess – SS and Police Leader in Norway. Suicide 5/8/1945.
Fritz Reinhardt – State Secretary involved with taxes and financial administration. Served in a labor prison until 1950. Kept a low profile working as a tax advisor after his release. Died 6/17/1969.
Adrian von Renteln – Appointed Generalkommissar of Lithuania where he inflicted brutality against Lithuanian Jews. Hanged 1946.
Joachim von Ribbentrop - Foreign Minister of Germany, 1938-1945. Hanged 10/16/1946.
Ernst Röhm - founder and later chief of the Sturmabteilung Murdered 7/2/1934 during the Night of the Long Knives.
Alfred Rosenberg - Nazi "philosopher" Hanged 10/16/1946.
Erwin Rösener - SS Obergruppenführer, Higher SS and Police Leader, Commander SS Upper Division Alpenland (1941 - 1945). Hanged 9/4/1946.
Bernhard Rust - Minister of Science, Education and National Culture, Nazi Germany. Suicide 5/8/1945.
Fritz Sauckel - Gauleiter of Thuringia, General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment (1942-45). Hanged 10/16/1946.
Gustav Adolf Scheel was a German physican and "multifunctionary," SA and SS member, Leader of the National Socialist Students' Federation, Organizer of the SD in the southwest, Superior SS and Police Leader in Salzburg, Gaileiter in Salzburg from November 1941). As commander of the Security Police and the SD, he organized in October 1940 the deportation of Karlsruche's Jews to the death camps in the east. Efforts to hold him to account never got the traction to incarcerate him. Died 3/25/1979.
Walther Schellenberg was a German SS-Brigadefuhrer who rose through the SS to become, following the abolition of the Abwehr in 1944, head of foreign intelligence. Arrested after the war, he was released in 1951 due to poor health. Died 3/31/1952 at the age of 42.
Baldur von Schirach - leader of Hitler Youth (1931-40), Gauleiter of Vienna (1940-45). Served 20 years in prison. Died 8/8/1974.
Franz Schlegelberger was State Secretary in the German Reich Ministry of Justice (RMJ) and served awhile as Justice Minister during the Third Reich. He retired in 1942. He was the highest-ranking defendant at Nuremberg and sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. In 1950, at 74 he was released owing to incapacity. Amazingly, he was allowed to continue to draw his pension (over 5 times average 1950 German income) until he died in 1970.
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink – a fervent Nazi supporter who became head of the Nazi Woman’s League. She married SS officer August Heissmeyer. The two went into hiding after the war but were caught in 1948. They served a few years. She published A Woman in the Third Reich in 1978 and died in 1999.
Franz Xaver Schwarz – the National Treasurer of the Nazi Party. Died in an Allied internment camp 12/2/1947.
Heinrich Schwarz – Camp commandant of Auschwitz III. Hanged 3/20/1947.
Siegfried Seidl – Commandant of Theresienstadt concentration camp. Hanged 2/4/1947.
Franz Seldte – Cofounder of the German paramilitary organization Stahlhelm. Became an SA officer and finally a Prussian labor minister. Died in a US military hospital 4/1/1947.
Arthur Seyss-Inquart - deputy to Hans Frank in the General Government of occupied Poland (1939-40), Reichskommissar of the Netherlands (1940-44). Hanged 10/16/1946.
Gustav Simon – Nazi Gauleiter in the Moselland Gau 1940-1944. Hanged himself in his cell 12/18/1945.
Albert Speer - architect for Nazis' offices and residences, Party rallies and State buildings (1932-42), Minister of Armaments and War Production (1942-45). Generally one of the most respected of those on this list, Speer served his full 20 year sentence, most of it at Spandau Prison in West Berlin. He was released in 1966 and wrote the best selling autobiographical books Inside the Third Reich and Spandau: The Secret Diaries, both of which proved most helpful to historians. Speer also appeared frequently in the classic 1974 BBC WWII documentary World at War. He died of natural causes 9/1/1981.
Franz Stangl – Superintendent of the T-4 Euthanasia program, then commandant of the Sobibor extermination camp, and then Treblinka. He escaped to Italy and used the “ratline” to reach Syria. After three years he made it to Brazil. Simon Weisenthal finally got him extradited to West Germany in 1967, and he was convicted 10/22/1970. He died in prison of heart failure 6/28/1971.
Johannes Stark – an ambitious, deeply anti-Semitic, pro Nazi physicist. In 1934 he asserted that Jewish scientists lacked “the aptitude for true creative activity in the natural sciences.”
Uh, what?! Check THIS out.
In 1907, as the editor of Jahrbuch der Radioaktivität und Elektronik Stark asked a Jewish physicist, Albert Einstein, to write a review article on the principle of relativity. Work on this article set Einstein on a trajectory towards his general theory of relativity.
Go figure. Stark got four years.
Otto Steinbrinck – Pro Nazi industrialist who joined the SS but mostly functioned as general plenipotentiary for mining and other production. Sentenced to 6 years and died in prison 8/16/1949.
Felix Steiner – German Reichswehr and Waffen-SS officer. Very sharp military officer associated with much of Germany’s military successes. He refused Hitler’s command to attack the Russians in the battle of Berlin. Learning of this, Hitler fell to pieces and declared the war was lost. Steiner faced charges at Nuremberg, but all were dropped. He was released in 1948 and lived until 5/12/1966.
Gregor Strasser – Early Nazi member murdered 6/30/1934 during the Night of the Long Knives.
Julius Streicher - founder and editor of anti-semitic Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer (1923-1945), Gauleiter of Franconia (1929-40). Hanged 10/16/1946.
Jürgen Stroop – the brutal SS and police general who oversaw the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. Hanged 3/6/1952.
Wilhelm Stuckart – State secretary in the German Interior Ministry who participated in the Wannsee conference. Sentenced to time served and released in April 1949. In November 1953, he was killed in a car accident in West Germany. Speculation exists that this accident was arranged.
Otto von Stülpnagel – the German military commander of France during the war. He opposed the Holocaust and refused Hitler’s order to destroy Paris. Suicide 2/6/1948.
Josef Terboven – Reichskommissar of Norway. Suicide 5/8/1945.
Otto Georg Thierack – Reich Minister of Justice. Suicide 11/22/1946.
Fritz Todt – founder of Organisation Todt (OT), which joined government firms, private companies, and the Reich Labor Service to construct the Siegfried Line and other projects. Intelligent, he saw the writing on the wall before others, especially about the invasion of Russia. Hitler dismissed his concerns. After a meeting with Hitler, his plane exploded on 2/8/1942. Speculation exists, but proof was never found.
Xavier Vallat – a French official who joined the Vichy collaborationist government as the Commissioner-General for Jewish Questions. The vehement anti-Semite got ten years, lighter due to his service in WWI, and only served four. Upon release, he continued his anti-Semitic tirades with other right wing nuts. He relieved the world of his existence in January 1972.
Robert Heinrich Wagner – Gauleiter of Baden and Alsace. Hanged 8/14/1946.
Wilhelm Weiss – SA Obergruppenfuhrer and editor-in-chief of the Nazi Party’s official newspaper, the Volkischer Beobachter. Sentenced to three years in a labor camp and fined. Died shortly after his conviction on 2/24/1950.
Karl Maria Wiligut – an Ariosophist and Nazi occultist. The guy was an anti-Judaistic, anti-Mason, anti-Christian, pro-occult megalomaniac with schizophrenia and so nuts that he was declared legally incompetent. Once institutionalized, this guy became the head of the SS Department for Pre- and Early History. He ended up on Himmler’s personal staff.
On behalf of the Ahnenerbe, the Nazi German Think Tank, on an expedition in 1936, Wiligut identified part of the Black Forest as an ancient Krist settlement, Schloss Eberstein as a center of Irminism, Einum as “spirit pont”, Bodenburg as “will point” Gandersheim as “central awareness point” Engelade as “force hand point,” Calefeld as “heart point” of the crucified Balder, Brunstein as “generative point”, Naensen as “material hand point” and Ebergotzen as “skould point.”
From Wikipedia verbatim:
Germanic culture and history, according to Wiligut, reached back to 228,000 BC. At this time, there were three suns, and Earth was inhabited by giants, dwarfs and other mythical creatures. Wiligut claimed that his ancestors, the Adler-Wiligoten, ended a long period of war. By 12,500 BC, the Irminic religion of Krist was revealed and from that time became the religion of all Germanic peoples, until the schismatic adherents of Wotanism gained the upper hand. In 1200 BC, the Wotanists succeeded in destroying the Irminic religious center at Goslar, following which the Irminists erected a new temple at the Externsteine, which was in turn appropriated by the Wotanists in AD 460. Wiligut's own ancestors were supposedly protagonists in this setting: the Wiligotis were Ueiskunings ("Ice kings") descending from a union of Aesir and Vanir. They founded the city of Vilna as the center of their Germanic empire and always remained true to their Irminic faith.
In a letter to Rudolf Mund, Ahnenerbe president Herman Wirth described Wiligut as a senile alcoholic.
Wiligut died soon after a stroke 1/3/1946.
Max Winkler – Mayor of Graudenz, Poland, Reich Trustee and Reich Commissioner for German Cinema. Imprisoned after the war and released 8/11/1949. Died 10/12/1961.
Christian Wirth – Senior German police and SS officer active in the extermination of the Jews in Poland. Killed by Yugoslavians 5/26/1944.
Hermann Wirth – early president of the Ahnenerbe, the Nazi think tank devoted to “discovering” the intellectual heritage of the Germanic people. An intelligent scholar of ancient religions and symbols, Wirth left the group entirely when it started departing from reality. He was forced into exile with other German mystics. He lived until 2/16/1981.
Eduard Wirths – Chief SS doctor at Auschwitz. Hanged himself 9/20/1945.
Karl Wolff – High ranking SS officer who became Chief of Personal Staff to the Reichsfuhrer-SS (Himmler). Wolff was allowed to escape prosecution at Nuremberg by providing evidence against his fellow Nazis. In 1947 he was transferred to a British prison for awhile and then released. Then in 1948 West Germany sentenced him to five years of which he served seven months. It is alleged he may have worked with the CIA. The 1962 trial of Adolf Eichmann uncovered more information about Wolff, so he was tried again in 1964 and convicted of sending 300,000 Jews to Treblinka, sending Italian Jews to Auschwitz, and the massacre of partisans in Italy. He got 15 years but was released in 1969 due to poor health. Died 7/17/1984.
Franz Ziereis – Commandant of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. Shot trying to escape and died 5/24/1945.
posted by x4mr at 8:23 PM
17 Comments:
Any particular reason you are compiling this list (now)?
The suicides you list are the tip of the iceberg. Nazis made the Jim Jones kool-aid scene look like a picnic when they realized what was about to go down.
I'm curious to know the reasoning as well.
I'm interested in the program to resettle Europeans in the US following WWII. In the early 70's it was discovered that the requirements disallowed almost anyone other than Nazi sympathizers. I read a court document from the 90's, with the defense stating there were over 10,000 still living in the US (probably an under estimate considering the situation).
Several in the Bush administration were holocaust survivors but there's no mention as to what or were they were - which doesn't mean anything - just a curiosity.
At the 40,000 foot level, the end result of Nazi Germany (other than a lot of death) was the critical mass necessary to create the state of Israel around Jerusalem, the establishment of the United Nations, and two superpowers that went ballistic producing military industrial infrastructures to defeat what was perceived as a genuine threat to their survival.
Even before Hitler was dead, the US and USSR were clear that they were on a collision course. We had a new enemy almost at once. For obvious reasons, animosity between Nazis and the US was far less than that towards the USSR. US intelligence quickly understood that Nazi scientists, spies, and key operatives would be valuable assets in the impending conflict with Russia. As the list clearly shows, top people that ran concentration camps or had key roles in the Holocaust proper were toast, but American sentiment towards various academics, scientists, etc., could be quite forgiving towards those savvy enough to make themselves useful against the Soviet Union.
Wow. Thanks for doing that. To see it all compressed is almost overwhelming when you realize that it is totally true. What stands out to me is the arrogance to think that they were SO SUPERIOR that they could just do whatever they wanted with immunity.
That Wiligut guy - unbelievable. They just fabricated their own fantasy world (reminds me of today's conservatives).
I had heard about someone collecting tattooed skin of exterminated prisoners, but didn't know about the "bitch of Buchenwald." I'm glad that I can't even begin to imagine what it was like to be her. It's good that she reached the point to where she killed herself in jail.
I learned a lot reading that list.
You missed Hermine Braunsteiner, notable not only for being just another sadistic guard, but more significantly she was the first former Nazi extradited from the United States to face a war crimes trial overseas.
Now that I have a real job and more time in the evenings, I've been catching up on films and television including documentaries. I recently watched the Sophie Scholl film and am also watching the World at War documentary. I wondered what happened to the judge that sentenced a 22 year old kid to beheading the same afternoon of the trial. When I learned what happened to him, I got curious about what happened to other key Nazis. Then I was screwed and knew I wouldn't stop until I had just about all of those belonging in the "Who's who."
I've always found the subject fascinating though deeply unsettling. I will never forget seeing Shoah the first time. Producing the list for this post really caused a lot of bulbs to flash.
Eli,
Always good to hear from you. I will add her to the list.
Intense. Intelligent.
I like how you leveled the hierarchy and listed them purely by alphabet without regard for rank. The terse rendering of Hitler himself "Suicide (with wife) 4/30/1945" is exquisite.
It is appropriate that they end up spread over a blog post with the details of their demise published for all to see.
I agree with your choice to refrain from photos.
Great post, but you missed Dr. Death.
Albert Brackmann. Helped to found the Ostforschung which he used to produce propaganda and research into ethnic cleansing methods.
Hans Ehlich. Drafter of "General Plan East". The short & long term plans for wiping out or deporting non-Germans from eastern Europe.
What, perhaps, many of you are NOT aware of, is that the Eugenics policies of the Third Reich did not originate in Germany. They originated here in America! Beginning in 1909, as many as 29 states passed laws making it legal to involuntarily sterilize women. They were those whose IQ did not meet a minimum standard. This reprehensible policy was upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1927 case of Buck v. Bell, out of Virginia, I believe. Progressives of the late Nineteenth/early Twentieth Century were all about Eugenics. In fact, the Biology book that was the focus of the Scopes Trial explicitly taught Eugenics and the need to control the population of "coloreds" and other 'inferior races'. Margaret Sanger was an avowed racist who wanted to limit the population growth of Blacks.
Germany copied the laws of the various states. These laws quickly (and quietly) disappeared from the books after WWII. I remember the IQ test being administered in the 60's and I even knew a couple of women who had been sterilized under this despicable policy. So much for 'Progressivism'!
@RAP
Or perhaps they adopted the American conservative stance on race when they used forced slave labor & racial segregation. Perhaps they were influenced by the long-standing conservative mentality that justifies murdering someone because of their race, religion, or sexuality.
Eugenics programs are almost entirely gone, but we still have our racist conservatives.
So much for "Conservatism"
Karl Gebhardt was hanged the same date as Karl Brandt, June 2 1948
Nazi Concentration Camps (1945) Full Movie Online
Many on this list committed no crimes at all – some were tortured to get confessions postwar.
Many of these people were not even member of the Nazi party. They were just German soldiers doing their jobs. It's so tiresome how the words "nazi" and 'German" become easily interchangeable.
And what about the Soviet criminals who killed far more than the Germans ever did? Our "allies"?
See, it's the victors of wars who write the histories, which makes theirs unreliable testimonies to say the least.
A few on the list were military officers or other officials not technically NSDAP, but I would hardly say “many,” and if any of the material can be refuted, please do so and cite your source.
As to equating all Germans with Nazis, I have not encountered this at all, and I am not young. Granted, my experience is USA with some but not extensive travel elsewhere. Not clear where you are seeing this.
I would assert the Cold War and NATO pretty much eliminated such notions for most. The US and Western Europe made peace with (Western) Germany most enthusiastically. You do recall the Berlin airlift and JFK’s “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
Speaking of the Cold War and the Soviets, not sure why you think that the Red Army’s behavior as it plowed westward isn’t adequately “acknowledged” or discussed. How one could expect different given the actions of the Einsatzgruppen as Germany plowed eastward?
You forgot the organization Die Endgültig Nahrung, D.E.N that was responsible of the program which distributed among combat troops and some civillians whose ratios had been cut, the much needed fattened soup which was produced of selected Jewish inmates of Schwartzheim KZ (death camp). It was a secret attempt to replace the fast declining nutrition resources of nazi germany with alternative, gruesome substitute. It is unknown to this date how many Germans ended up eating soup made of Jewish inmates but estimates by modern historians vary between 200.000 and one million.
Post a Comment
<< Home