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OPERATION REINHARD

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On this date, October 13, 1941, SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik headquartered in Lublin received an oral order from Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler to start immediate construction work on the first Aktion Reinhard camp at Bełżec in the General Government territory of occupied Poland. I will post information about this deadliest phase of the Holocaust from Wikipedia and other links.




Treblinka German death camp in Poland railway sign at Yad Vashem.

Also known as
German: Aktion Reinhardt
or Einsatz Reinhard
Location
Occupied Poland
Date
October 1941 - November 1943
Incident type
Mass deportations to extermination camps
Perpetrators
Odilo Globocnik, Hermann Höfle, Richard Thomalla, Erwin Lambert, Christian Wirth, Heinrich Himmler, Franz Stangl and others.
Participants
Nazi Germany
Organizations
Schutzstaffel, Orpo Battalions, Sicherheitsdienst, Trawnikis
Camp
Bełżec
Sobibór
Treblinka
Additional:

Chełmno
Majdanek
Ghetto
European, and Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland including Białystok, Częstochowa, Kraków, Lublin, Łódź, Warsaw and others
Victims
Approximately 2 million
Memorials
On camp sites and deportation points
Notes
This was the most lethal phase of the Holocaust.

Operation Reinhard or Operation Reinhardt (German: Aktion Reinhard or Aktion Reinhardt also Einsatz Reinhardor Einsatz Reinhardt) was the codename given to the Nazi plan to murder European as well as most Polish Jews in the General Government. The operation marked the deadliest phase of the Holocaustwith the introduction of extermination camps. As many as two million people, almost all of whom were Jews, were sent to Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka set up specifically for Operation Reinhard, to be put to death in gas chambers built for that purpose. In addition, mass killing facilities were developed at the Majdanek concentration camp, and at Auschwitz II-Birkenau near the existing Auschwitz I camp, at about the same time.

Background

The first concentration camps in Nazi Germany were established in 1933 as soon as the National Socialist regime developed. They were used for coercion, forced labour and imprisonment, not for mass murder. The camp system expanded dramatically with the onset of World War II. The foreign prisoners sent to these brand new camps built in Germany, Austria and elswhere in Europe, were dying from starvation, untreated disease and murder by the tens of thousands already since the beginning of war, including at Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Mauthausen-Gusen, Soldau, Gross-Rosen, Stutthof and the 44 subcamps of Auschwitz among others.

By 1942 the Nazis had decided to undertake the Final Solution. Operation Reinhard would be a major step in the systematic liquidation of the Jews in Europe; beginning with those within the General Government. Camps at Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka were created solely to efficiently kill thousands of people each day. These camps differed from the likes of Auschwitz-Birkenau or Majdanek because the latter also operated as forced-labour camps initially before they became death campsfitted with crematoria.
The organizational apparatus behind the extermination program was developed during AktionT4 in which more than 70,000 German handicapped men, women and children were murdered between 1939 and 1941. The SS officers responsible for the Aktion T4, such as Christian Wirth, Franz Stangl, and Irmfried Eberl, were all given key roles in the implementation of the "Final Solution."

Heydrich as a SS-Gruppenführer (1940)
Operational name

The origin of the name of the operation is debated by Holocaust researchers. It is hypothesized that Aktion Reinhardt was named after Reinhard Heydrich, the coordinator of the Endlösung der Judenfrage (Final Solution of the Jewish Question) which meant the extermination of the Jews living in the European countries occupied by the Third Reich during World War II. After the plans were outlined at the Wannsee conferencein January 1942, Heydrich was attacked by British-trained Czechoslovak agents on 27 May 1942 and died of his injuries eight days later.

Some argue that, since the more prevalent Nazi designation was "Aktion Reinhardt" (with "t" after "d"), it could not have been named after Reinhard Heydrich but rather, after the German State Secretary of Finance Fritz Reinhardt. Likewise, in November 1946 Rudolf Höss, the former commandant of Auschwitz, asserted in a report while in the Polish custody in Kraków, that Operation Reinhardt was actually the code name for the collection, sorting and utilization of all articles acquired from the transports of Jews sent to extermination camps.


Globocnik in 1938 at the rank of SS-Standartenführer
Death factories

On 13 October 1941, SS and Police LeaderOdilo Globocnik headquartered in Lublin received an oral order from Reichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler to start immediate construction work on the first Aktion Reinhard camp at Bełżec in the General Governmentterritory of occupied Poland. The killing centre was operational by March 1942. Globocnik was given complete control over the entire programme. All highly secretive orders he received came directly from Himmler and not from SS-GruppenführerRichard Glücks, head of the greater Nazi concentration camp system engaged in slave labour for the war effort and managed by the SS-Totenkopfverbände. Each death camp was run by between 20 and 35 SS men from Sicherheitsdienst (branch of the SS) augmented by the Aktion T4 personnel selected by Globocnik. The extermination mechanism was designed by them based on prior experience from the forced euthanasiacentres. The bulk of the actual labour at each "final solution" camp was performed by up to a hundred Trawniki guards recruited from among the Soviet prisoners of war, and up to a thousand Sonderkommando prisoners whom they used to terrorise. The SS called these volunteer guards Hiwis, an abbreviation of Hilfswillige (lit. "willing to help"). According to the testimony of SS-OberführerArpad Wigand during his 1981 war crimes trial in Hamburg, only 25 percent of recruited collaborators could speak German.

By mid-1942, two more death camps had been established: Sobibór (operational by May 1942), and Treblinka (operational by July 1942). The killing mechanism consisted of a large internal-combustion engine delivering exhaust fumes to gas chambers through pipes, while the bodies were burned in pits starting in February–March 1943. Treblinka, the last camp to become operational, utilised the knowledge the Nazis had acquired from the other camps. With two powerful V-8 gasoline engines run by SS-ScharführerErich Fuchs, and gas chabers built of bricks and mortar, this death factory had killed between 800,000 and 1,200,000 people within 15 months, disposed of their bodies, and sorted their belongings for shipment to Germany.

The camps were based on a pilot project of mobile killing conducted at the Chełmno extermination camp (Kulmhof) that began operating in late 1941 and used gas vans. Chełmno was not a part of Reinhard, which was marked by the construction of stationary facilities for mass murder; rather, it was a testing ground for the establishment of faster methods of killing and incinerating people. It is important to note that these death factories developed progressively as each site was built. Chełmno, which was under the control of SS-StandartenführerErnst Damzog, commander of the SDin occupied Posen, was built around a manor house in the Reichsgau Wartheland. It did not have crematoria, only mass graves in the woods. The three gas vans used to exterminate Jews from the Łódź Ghetto, had been previously utilized by Einsatzgruppenon the Russian Front. The Jews from General Government were sent to Chełmno between early December 1941 until mid-January 1942.

Overall, Globocnik's camps at Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka had almost identical design and transferable SS staff. All of them were situated within wooded areas well away from population centres. Secondly, they were constructed near branch lines that linked to the Polish rail system. Each camp had an unloading ramp at a fake train station, as well as the reception area that contained undressing barracks, barber shops, and money depositories. Beyond these buildings was a narrow, camouflaged path (the so-called Himmelfahrtsstraßeor the Road to Heaven) that led to the extermination zone consisting of gas chambers, burial pits up to 10 metres (33 ft) deep, and later, cremation pyres with rails laid across the pits on concrete blocks, refuelled continuously by the Totenjuden. The SS guards and Ukrainian Trawnikis lived in a separate area of the camp. Wooden watchtowers and barbed-wire fences, partially camouflaged with pine branches, surrounded each of these camps.

Unlike the large camps such as Dachau or Auschwitz, the killing centers had no electric fences, as the size of prisoner Sonderkommandosremained relatively easy to control. Only specialised squads were kept alive to assist with the arriving transports, removing and disposing of bodies, and with sorting of property and valuables from the dead victims. The Totenjudenwho were forced to work inside the death zones were kept in isolation from those who worked outside in the reception and sorting areas. Periodically these groups would be killed and replaced with new arrivals to remove any potential witnesses to the scale of the mass murder.

During Operation Reinhard, Globocnik oversaw the systematic killing of more than 2,000,000 Jews from Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, the Reich (Germany and Austria), the Netherlands and Soviet Union. An undetermined number of Roma were also killedin these death camps, a large number of whom were children.


Treblinka II extermination camp of the Operation Reinhard in occupied Poland. Aerial photograph of the camp perimeter taken in 1944; several months after the dismantling of the camp. All known structrures are gone except for the farmhouse built within it and lifestock shed (lower left). The photograp is overlayed with the known structures as described on the map of Treblinka drawn by Mr. Peter Laponder, builder of the Treblinka Model at the new Cape Town Holocaust Center, digitized by ARC and made available at the Mapping Treblinkawebpage. On the left hand side, the color outlines show dismantled SS and Hiwi guards living quarters with most barracks clearly defined by the surrounding walkways. The railway unloading platform (lower centre) consisted of two parallel ramps visible in the bottom, marked with the red arrow. Location of new expanded gass chambers marked with a cross. Undressing barracks and sorting yard (separate for men and women with hair-cropping area) marked with two rectangles surrounded by solid fence with no view of the outside. The adjacent "Sluice" through the woods separated by barb-wire fence, marked with red dashed-line.
Extermination process

In order to achieve their purposes, all death camps used subterfuge and misdirection to conceal the truth and trick their victims into cooperating. This element had been developed in Aktion T4 when disabled and handicapped people were taken away by the SS from "Gekrat" wearing white lab coats, thus giving the process an air of medical authenticity. After supposedly being assessed, the unsuspecting patients were transported by them to killing centers for "special treatment". The same euphemism "special treatment" (Sonderbehandlung) was re-used in the Holocaust.

In a similar fashion, the SS used a variety of ruses to move thousands of new arrivals in Holocaust trainsto the disguised killing sites without unleashing unimaginable panic. Even though, death on the trains was rampant, the victims were still willing to believe that the German intentions were different. Common tricks included the presence of a railway station with awaiting medical personnel and signs directing people to disinfection facilities. Treblinka had a booking office with signs stating there were connections for other camps further East.

Guards would segregate the men and young boys from the women and children. Sometimes prisoners with suitable skills were selected to join the Sonderkommando. Guards either ordered everyone to leave their luggage behind and march directly to the "cleaning centers" or voluntarily hand over their valuables. Collected items would eventually be sent to the Reichsbank via the Main SS Economic and Administrative Department. Once at the changing areas, everyone was ordered to get undressed. Clothing would later be searched for hidden jewelry and other valuables. At this point, very old or sick prisoners were moved to a building named the Lazarett (field hospital) because their slowness would hinder the killing phase. They would be killed once the rest of the transport had been moved to the gas chambers.

When it was time for the final stage, guards used whips, clubs and rifle butts to drive the naked people into the gas chambers. Panic was instrumental in filling the gas chambers because the need of the naked victims to evade blows on their bodies forced them rapidly forward. Once packed tightly inside (to minimize available air), the steel air-tight doors were closed. Although other methods of extermination, such as the cyanic poison Zyklon B, were already being used at other Nazi killing centers such as Auschwitz, the Aktion Reinhard camps used lethal exhaust gases from captured Soviet tank engines. Fumes would be discharged directly into the gas chambers for a given period then the engines would be switched off. SS guards would determine when to reopen the gas doors based on how long it took for the screaming to stop from within (usually 25 to 30 minutes). Special teams of camp inmates (Sonderkommando) would then remove the corpses on flat bed carts. Before the corpses were thrown into grave pits, gold teeth were removed from mouths and orifices would be searched for jewellery, currency and other valuables.

During the early phases of Operation Reinhard, victims were simply thrown into mass graves and covered with lime. However from 1943 onwards to hide the evidence of this war crime, all bodies were burned in open air pits. Special Leichenkommando(corpse units) had to exhume bodies from the mass graves around these death camps for incineration. Nevertheless Reinhard still left a paper trail. In January 1943, Bletchley Parkintercepted a SS telegram by SturmbannführerHermann Höfle, Globocnik's deputy in Lublin, to ObersturmbannführerAdolf Eichmann in Berlin. The decoded Enigma message contained statistics showing a total of 1,274,166 arrivals at the four Aktion Reinhard camps up until the end of 1942. In retrospect, the message shows how many people were murdered but the British codebreakers did not understand the meaning of the message at the time.


The railway schedule (or Fahrplananordnung) outlining all transports being sent to Treblinka on 25 August 1942.


Telegram from deputy commander of Aktion Reinhard, listing number of arrivals in the extermination camps. Translation:
Letter and 14 day report year-end report

Camp i.d.            to 31.12.1942                 1942 total
L ? Lublin              12761                          24733
B ? Belzec                  0                         434508
S ? Sobibor               515                         101370
T ? Treblinka           10335                         713555 (*)
 total:                 23611                        1274166
(*) note - the original reads 71355, but this is probably a typo as 713555 gives the correct total.

Transcript of a telegram by Hermann Höfle. Public Record Office, Kew, England, HW 16/23, decode GPDD 355a distributed on January 15, 1943, radio telegrams nos 12 and 13/15, transmitted on January 11, 1943 Government Code and Cypher School German Police Section Decrypts of German Police Communications during Second World War; Reprinted in: Peter Witte and Stephen Tyas: A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during ‚Einsatz Reinhard’ 1942 In: Holocaust and Genocid Studies 15(2001) V 3, , S. 468-486 Online

Operation Reinhard 5
Map of the Holocaust in Poland during the Second World War (1939-1945) at the time of German occupation of Poland.
This map shows all German Nazi extermination camps (or death camps), prominent concentration, labor and prison camps, major prewar Polish cities with ghettos set up by Nazi Germany, major deportation routes and major massacre sites.

Notes:
1. Extermination camps were dedicated death camps for gassing, but all camps and ghettos took a toll of many, many lives.
2. Concentration camps include labor camps, prison camps & transit camps.
3. Not all camps & ghettos are shown.
4. Borders are at the height of Axis domination (1942).
5. Regions have German designations (e.g. "Ostland"), with the country name denoted in uppercase letters, e.g. LITHUANIA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, or in parenthesis below the German occupational designation, e.g. (POLAND).

Temporary substitution policy

In the winter of 1941, before "Wannsee" but after "Barbarossa" the Nazi demands for forced labor greatly intensified, therefore Himmler and Heydrich approved the Jewish substitution policy in Upper Silesia and in Galicia under the "destruction through labor" doctrine. The masses of ethnic Poles were already sent to the Reich creating a labour shortage in the General Government. Around March 1942, while the first extermination camp only began gassing, the deportation trains arriving in the Lublin reservationfrom the Third Reich and Slovakia were searched for the Jewish skilled workers. After selection, they were delivered to Majdan Tatarski instead of for "special treatment" at Bełżec. For a short time these Jewish laborers were temporarily spared death while their families and all others perished. Some were relegated to work at a nearby airplane factory or as forced labor in the SS-controlled Strafkompaniesand other work camps. Hermann Höflewas one of the chief supporters and implementers of this policy. However, the problem was the food they required and the ensuing logistical challenges. Globocnik and Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger complained, and the mass transfer had stopped even before the three extermination camps were working at full throttle.

Disposition of the property of the victims


Approximately 178 million German Reichsmark worth of Jewish property (current approximate value: around 700 million USD or 550 million Euro) was taken. But this wealth did not only go to the German authorities because corruption was rife within the death camps. Many of the individual SS and police men involved in the killings took cash, property and valuables for themselves. SS-Sturmbannführer Georg Konrad Morgen, an SS judge from the SS Courts Office, prosecuted so many Nazi officers for individual violations that by April 1944, Himmler personally ordered him to restrain his cases.

Aktion Reinhard camp commanders

Extermination camp
Commandant
Period
Estimated deaths
December 1941 - July 31, 1942
600,000
1 August 1942 - December 1942
SS-HauptsturmführerRichard Thomalla
March 1942 - April 1942
250,000
SS-HauptsturmführerFranz Stangl
May 1942 - September 1942
SS-HauptsturmführerFranz Reichleitner
September 1942 - October 1943
SS-Hauptsturmführer Richard Thomalla
May 1942 - June 1942
800,000-1,400,000
SS-ObersturmführerIrmfried Eberl
July 1942 - September 1942
SS-Hauptsturmführer Franz Stangl
September 1942 - August 1943
SS-UntersturmführerKurt Franz
August 1943 - November 1943
Aftermath and cover up

Operation Reinhard ended in November 1943. Most of the staff and guards were then sent to northern Italy for further Aktion against Jews and local partisans. Globocnik went to the San Sabba concentration camp, where he supervised the detention, torture and killing of political prisoners.

At the same time, to cover up the mass murder of more than two million people in Poland during Operation Reinhard, the Nazis implemented the secret Sonderaktion 1005, also called Aktion 1005 or Enterdungsaktion ("exhumation action"). The operation, which began in 1942 and continued until the end of 1943, was designed to remove all traces that mass murder had been carried out. Leichenkommando ("corpse units") were created from camp prisoners to exhume mass graves and cremate the buried bodies, using giant grills made from wood and railway tracks. Afterwards, bone fragments were ground up in special milling machines and all remains were then re-buried in freshly dug pits. The Aktion was overseen by squads from the SD and Orpo.

After the war, some guards were tried and sentenced at the Nuremberg Trials for their role in Operation Reinhard and Sonderaktion 1005; however, many others escaped conviction such as Ernst Lerch, Globocnik's Chief of Staff.

OTHER LINKS:







RICHARD WADE COOEY II (EXECUTED IN OHIO ON OCTOBER 14, 2008)

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On this date, October 14, 2008, Richard Wade Cooey II was put to death by lethal injection in Ohio. He was convicted of the double murders of Wendy Jo Offredo and Dawn McCreery on September 1, 1986. Please go to the Unit 1012 Blog to hear from the victims’ families. 

 

Richard Wade Cooey II






Victim, Dawn McCreery


Victim, Wendy Jo Offredo


Summary: Dawn McCreery, 20, and Wendy Offredo, 21, were University of Akron sorority sisters who were leaving their jobs as waitresses when 17-year-old Clint Dickens threw a chunk of concrete off an I-77 overpass, striking the windshield of the car that Ms. Offredo was driving. Cooey, who was 19 and on leave from the U.S. Army, was hanging out with a longtime friend, Kenny Horonetz, and Dickens. The three got into a car and offered the two women help. The five drove to a shopping mall and Ms. Offredo used a pay phone to call her mother. "I'm game if you're game," Cooey said as Dickens suggested they rob the two women. Cooey pulled a knife on the women when they realized they were not being driven back to their car. Horonetz demanded to be let out of the car after Cooey told him to tie Ms. McCreery's hands. Driving to a wooded area in nearby Norton, Dickens and Cooey both raped the two girls. Dickens then suggested the women should be killed because they knew his name, records show. Dickens grabbed Ms. Offredo in a chokehold, and Cooey used a shoelace to strangle her as Dickens strangled Ms. McCreery with his other shoelace. Cooey beat both women with a club. Dickens was sentenced to life in prison for the crimes, in which both girls suffered through more than three hours of torture. 

Citations:
Cooey v. Coyle, 289 F.3d 882 (6th Cir. 2002) (Habeas)
State v. Cooey, Not Reported in N.E.2d, 1987 WL 31921 (Ohio App. 1987). (Direct Appeal) 


Final/Special Meal:
A T-bone steak with A1 sauce, french fries and onion rings, four eggs over easy, hash browns, buttered toast, bear claw pastries, a pint of Rocky Road ice cream and Mountain Dew. 


Final Words:
''You [expletive] have not paid attention to anything I've had to say for the past 22 years. Why would you pay attention to anything I have to say now?'' 


Internet Sources:

Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
Inmate#: OSP #A194-16
Inmate: Richard Wade Cooey II
DOB: 06/09/67
County of Conviction: Summit County
Date of Offense: September 1, 1986
Date of Admission: 12/10/86
Gender: Male
Race: White
Institution: Southern Ohio Correctional Facility 

Convictions: AGG MURDER WITH SPECIFICATIONS (2 COUNTS), KIDNAPPING (2 COUNTS), RAPE (4 COUNTS), AGG ROBBERY (2 COUNTS), FELONIOUS ASSAULT

PRISON KILLER IN SOUTH DAKOTA: ERIC DONALD ROBERT (EXECUTED ON OCTOBER 15, 2012)

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                On this date, October 15, 2012, a Prison Killer and Escapee by the name of Eric Donald Robert, was executed by lethal injection in South Dakota. He was convicted of murdering Prison guard, Ron Johnson on April 12, 2011 in an escaped attempt. He was put to death only after a year and a half of committing the homicide as he requested a suicide assist. Please go to this Unit 1012 Blog Post to hear from the victim’s families.



Eric Donald Robert
Summary: On July 24, 2005, while posing as police officer, Robert pulled over an 18-year-old woman and forced her into the trunk of his car. After driving to a remote location, Robert flees after he hears her talking to someone on her cell phone. In 2006, he was convicted and sentenced to 80 years imprisonment. Maintained in "high security" at the South Dakota State Penitentiary after a lock is found cut in his working area, Robert and accomplice Rodney Berget attempt an escape, beating 62 year old corrections officer Ronald “R.J.” Johnson with a pipe and covering his head in plastic wrap, killing him. They take his uniform, but are spotted and captured before they can escape. Robert pled guilty and waived all appeals. Accomplice Berget also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death. Accomplice Michael Nordman received a life sentence for providing materials used in the slaying.

Citations:
State v. Robert, 820 N.W.2d 136 (S.D. 2012). (Direct Appeal) 


Final/Special Meal:
Robert fasted in the 40 hours before his execution, consuming his last meal on Saturday: Moose Tracks ice cream. 


Final Words:
“In the name of justice and liberty and mercy, I authorize and forgive Warden Douglas Weber to execute me for my crimes. It is done.” 


Internet Sources:

South Dakota Department of Corrections

Office of Gov. Dennis Daugaard
500 E. Capitol Ave.
Pierre,S.D.57501
www.sd.gov
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 

“This is a sad day for South Dakota. Executions are rare in our state, and they are warranted only with extreme forethought and certainty. In this case, Eric Robert admitted to his crime and requested that his punishment not be delayed. I hope this brings closure to “RJ” Johnson’s family and all those who loved him. I also commend Warden Weber and others in the state Department of Corrections who planned this very difficult task in a professional and careful manner.” 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 12, 2012 

Execution Date, Time Set For Inmate Eric Robert 

PIERRE, S.D. - In accordance with South Dakota Codified Law 23A-27A-17, Doug Weber, Director of Prison Operations and Warden of the South Dakota State Penitentiary, has set the date and time for the execution of inmate Eric Robert as Monday, Oct. 15, 2012, at about 10 p.m. CDT. 

State law allows judges in capital punishment cases to appoint a week for the executions to occur. The exact date and time of the execution is left to the warden's discretion. The warden is required by state law to publicly announce the scheduled day and hour of the execution not less than 48 hours prior to the execution. 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, Aug. 24, 2012 

Warrant of Execution For Eric Robert Issued 

PIERRE, S.D - Attorney General Marty Jackley announced today that the warrant of execution for Eric Donald Robert has been issued by Second Circuit Court Judge Bradley Zell. Robert is scheduled to be executed between the hours of 12:01 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. during the week of Sunday, Oct. 14, 2012, through Saturday, Oct. 20, 2012, inclusive, at a specific time and date to be selected by the warden of the State Penitentiary. Pursuant to South Dakota law, the warden will announce to the public the scheduled day and hour within 48 hours of the execution. 

South Dakota law further provides that for the execution, the warden is to request the presence of the attorney general, the trial judge who oversaw the conviction or the judge’s successor, the state’s attorney and sheriff of the county where the crime was committed, representatives of the victims, at least one member of the media, and a number of reputable adult citizens to be determined by the warden. 


Ronald Johnson


"Execution: South Dakota delivers Eric Robert his death wish," by Steve Young. (2:08 AM, Oct 16, 2012) 

Eric Robert, whose botched attempt for freedom from the state penitentiary resulted in the murder of a prison guard, finally escaped Monday night from the bitter life behind bars he loathed — this time through the execution chamber. Robert, 50, died by lethal injection at 10:24 p.m. for his role in the April 12, 2011, murder of officer Ron “R.J.” Johnson on the same penitentiary grounds where the inmate was put to death Monday. 

Asked by Warden Doug Weber before the execution if he had any last statement, Robert began by saying, “In the name of justice and liberty and mercy, I authorize and forgive Warden Douglas Weber to execute me for my crimes. It is done.” Robert’s lawyer, Mark Kadi of Sioux Falls, said it was important for Robert to forgive the warden. “It may seem like a minor, odd point for everybody else,” Kadi said. “But from the perspective of a man who’s got seconds left, the last thing he wanted to do was forgive the individual who was causing the execution, causing his death.” 

Speaking afterward in the prison training academy that was renamed for her husband on the one-year anniversary of his death, Johnson’s widow, Lynette, said the family understands that Robert’s death won’t bring their loved one back. Still, “we, Ron’s children and I, want everyone please, do not forget how kind, how wonderful and caring Ron Johnson is,” Lynette Johnson said. “We know this execution tonight is not going to bring back my husband to me. It’s not going to bring our children’s father back to them. ... our six grandchildren’s ‘Papa’ to them. But we know that the employees of the Department of Corrections and the public in general will be just a little bit safer now.” 

Corrections spokesman Michael Winder said Robert was removed from his holding cell at 9:31 p.m. and placed on the table in the execution chamber at 9:32 p.m. The first intravenous line was started in his right arm five minutes later, and the second IV line, in his left arm, at 9:41 p.m. After the witnesses were escorted to the viewing rooms, Weber ordered the curtains opened at 9:59 p.m. Robert gave his last statement at 10:01, and the injections were completed at 10:04. Media witness Dave Kolpack of The Associated Press said Robert appeared to be clearing his throat as the lethal drug was being administered. “He began to make some heavy gasps, and then started snorting. That lasted about 30 seconds,” Kolpack said. 

Dressed in a white T-shirt and orange prison pants, with a sheet pulled up to about the middle of his chest, Robert appeared to stop moving at about 10:03 p.m., said John Hult of the Argus Leader, the second media witness to the execution. After the clearing of his throat, “there was no movement,” Hult said. “I didn’t see his chest move at all after that.” Coroners checked for a pulse in his neck and chest for several minutes before he was finally declared dead. Hult said the inmate’s eyes remained open the entire time, even after an assistant coroner tried to close them. By the time he was declared dead, his skin color had turned purple, witnesses said. 

One controversial drug 

Unnamed correctional officers on the execution team administered a single drug, pentobarbital — a powerful barbituate that stopped Robert’s respiration and created blood pressure changes that caused his heart to give out. Attorney General Marty Jackley said he never considered bringing in executioners from outside South Dakota’s penitentiary system, even though the murdered guard was one of their own. “From everything that I witnessed, Corrections staff were exceptionally professional,” the attorney general said. “They carried out a humane sentence. I saw no need to have another entity.” 

The protocol for Robert’s execution was different from that used five years ago, when Elijah Page was put to death for his role in the 2000 murder of Chester Allan Poage near Spearfish. Back then, South Dakota used a three-drug procedure that started with an injection of sodium thiopental to knock him unconscious and numb the pain of the other two drugs — pancuronium bromide to collapse the lungs and potassium chloride to stop the heart. But a shortage of those execution drugs in recent years led to controversy and delays nationwide, and prompted South Dakota and states such as Georgia, Ohio, Arizona, Idaho and Texas to make the switch to the single drug. After South Dakota decided on pentobarbital, federally appointed public defenders for death row inmate Donald Moeller challenged the quality of the chosen barbituate, saying its plan to mix the drug from powder posed a serious risk of contamination that could lead to pain and suffering. 

But Moeller, sentenced to die for the 1990 rape and murder of 9-year-old Rebecca O’Connell, told a judge Oct. 4 that he had no interest in pursuing that challenge and delaying his scheduled execution two weeks from now. And Robert had long nixed any appeals on his behalf, saying he could kill again if left to a life in prison. In a prepared statement, Gov. Dennis Daugaard called Monday’s execution “a sad day for South Dakota.” “Executions are rare in our state, and they are warranted only with extreme forethought and certainty,” the governor said. 

'Calm and reserved' 

On Saturday evening, Robert consumed his last meal — Moose Tracks ice cream. Kadi said Robert chose to fast during his last 40 hours before his execution. Kadi said Robert considered the fast to be religious in nature and a metaphor for the 40-day fast of Christ in the Bible. From 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday, the inmate “was actually calm and reserved,” Kadi said, adding that the actual execution itself “was so antiseptic and peaceful that it masks what was actually being done to the person.” 

Robert never denied his role in the escape attempt that resulted in the death of Johnson on April 12, 2011 — the correctional officer’s 63rd birthday. From the beginning, Robert took responsibility for the crime, asking for and receiving the death penalty and eschewing all appeals — thus the relative quickness in which he was adjudicated and executed. Johnson, a 20-year veteran at the prison, had volunteered for a shift in the Pheasantland Industries building on the penitentiary grounds the morning that Robert and fellow inmate Rodney Berget walked into the building with a load of laundry. Even though both inmates were classified as maximum security risks, their jobs afforded them the freedom of movement. 

Each man testified that they had hid and waited for Johnson, then snuck up on him, struck him in the head with a metal pipe, then wrapped his head in plastic to stop him from screaming. Robert put on Johnson’s uniform. Berget climbed into a box atop a wheeled cart. They never made it out of the penitentiary before being caught. A third inmate, Michael Nordman, 47, was given a life sentence for providing materials used in the slaying. 

Execution: Key dates in Eric Robert's life 

May 31, 1962: Born in Massachusetts, later moves to Hayward, Wis., with mother and younger sister
1980: Graduates 18th in his class at Hayward High School
1987: Graduates from University of Wisconsin-Superior
1988: Working as chemist for Murphy Oil in Superior
1992: Returns to Hayward, begins coaching youth baseball, later joins volunteer EMT service
1994-99: Works in Cable, Wisconsin for wastewater treatment plant, builds house in Drummond.
1999-2000: Works for Bayfield County, Wis., Zoning Office
2000-2004: First manages, then consults for, wastewater treatment plant in Superior
2005: Moves to Piedmont, S.D., to help a friend
July 24, 2005: Posing as police officer, pulls over and kidnaps an 18-year-old woman.
Jan. 3, 2006: Sentenced to 80 years for kidnapping
2007: Classified as “high security” at South Dakota State Penitentiary
2009: Attempted sentence reduction fails, Robert denied transfer to prison closer to Wisconsin
April 12, 2011: With Rodney Berget, kills corrections officer during an escape attempt.
Sept. 16, 2011: Pleads guilty to frst-degree murder
Oct. 19, 2011: Asks for a death sentence from Judge Bradley Zell
Oct. 20, 2011: Zell sentences Robert to death
Aug. 2012: South Dakota Supreme Court upholds death sentence.
Oct. 12, 2012: Warden Doug Weber announces that Robert will be put to death at 10 p.m. Oct. 15
Oct. 15, 2012: 9:31 p.m. Robert removed from his holding cell

9:32 p.m. Robert transferred to the execution table
9:35 p.m. Restraints are secured
9:37 p.m. First IV started in the right arm
9:41 p.m. Second IV is started
9:46 p.m. Staff begins to escort witnesses to the viewing rooms
9:59 p.m. With all witnesses present, warden orders the curtains open
10 p.m. Secretary of Corrections informs warden he is clear to proceed with execution
10:01 p.m. Last statement: “It is done”
10:04 p.m. Injections are completed
10:24 p.m. Time of death


SS CORPORAL: ERWIN LAMBERT (DECEMBER 7, 1909 TO OCTOBER 15, 1976)

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        On this date, October 15, 1976, SS Corporal Erwin Lambert passed away. He was one of the Holocaust Perpetrators. I will post information about him from Wikipediaand other links.


Erwin Lambert



Erwin Lambert in civilian clothing with a female companion
 
Birth name
Erwin Hermann Lambert
Born
7 December 1909
Schildow, Mühlenbecker Land, German Empire
Died
15 October 1976 (aged 66)
Stuttgart, West Germany
Allegiance
Nazi Germany
Service/branch
Schutzstaffel
Rank
Unterscharführer, SS (Corporal)
Commands held
Headed construction of gas chambers during Action T4, and at Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps during Operation Reinhard
Other work
Mason, Ceramic tile salesman


Erwin Hermann Lambert (7 December 1909 – 15 October 1976) was a perpetrator of the Holocaust. In profession, he was a master mason, building trades foreman, Nazi Party member and member of the Schutzstaffel with the rank of SS-Unterscharführer(corporal). He supervised construction of the gas chambers for the Action T4 euthanasia program at Hartheim, Sonnenstein, Bernburg and Hadamar, and then at Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps during Operation Reinhard. He specialized in building larger gas chambers that killed more people than previous efforts in the extermination program.

OTHER LINKS:


THE FATTY NAZI: HERMANN GORING (12 JANUARY 1893 TO 15 OCTOBER 1946)

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On this date, 15 October 1946, Hermann Göring, one of Hitler’s Henchman committed suicide before his execution. I will post one of his anti-Semitic quote, I do it for educational purposes and not because I am an anti-Semite (I am Pro-Semite). I have Jewish friends and I like their company. 



QUOTE: “The Jew must clearly understand one thing at once, he must get out!”
[Speech in Vienna after the Austrian Anschluss (1938); when asked at the Nuremberg trials whether he meant what he said in this speech he replied "Yes, approximately." As reported from testimony in the Imperial War Museum, Folio 645, Box 156, , (20 October 1945), pp. 5-6]

AUTHOR: Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946), was a German politician, military leader, and leading member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). A veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, he was a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as the "Blue Max". He was the last commander of Jagdgeschwader1, the fighter wing once led by Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron".

A member of the NSDAP from its early days, Göring was wounded in 1923 during the failed coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch. He became permanently addicted to morphine after being treated with the drug for his injuries. After helping Adolf Hitler take power in 1933, he became the second-most powerful man in Germany. He founded the Gestapo in 1933. Göring was appointed commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe (air force) in 1935, a position he held until the final days of World War II. By 1940 he was at the peak of his power and influence; as minister in charge of the Four Year Plan, he was responsible for much of the functioning of the German economy in the build-up to World War II. Adolf Hitler promoted him to the rank of Reichsmarschall, a rank senior to all other Wehrmacht commanders, and in 1941 Hitler designated him as his successor and deputy in all his offices.

Göring's standing with Hitler was greatly reduced by 1942, with the Luftwaffe unable to fulfill its commitments and the German war effort stumbling on both fronts. Göring largely withdrew from the military and political scene and focused on the acquisition of property and artwork, much of which was confiscated from Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Informed on 22 April 1945 that Hitler intended to commit suicide, Göring sent a telegram to Hitler asking to assume control of the Reich. Considering it an act of treason, Hitler removed Göring from all his positions, expelled him from the party, and ordered his arrest. After World War II, Göring was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials; he was the highest-ranking Nazi to be tried there. He was sentenced to death by hanging, but committed suicide by ingesting cyanide the night before the sentence was to be carried out.

Please go to this previous Blog Post to learn more about this Fatty Nazi.




THE NAZI SERVANT OF THE STATE: WILHELM FRICK (MARCH 12, 1877 TO OCTOBER 16, 1946)

SIX & A QUARTER: ARTHUR SEYSS-INQUART (JULY 22, 1892 TO OCTOBER 16, 1946)

THE NAZI SLAVE TRADER: FRITZ SAUCKEL (OCTOBER 27, 1894 TO OCTOBER 16, 1946)


THE BEAST OF NUREMBERG: JULIUS STREICHER (FEBRUARY 12, 1885 TO OCTOBER 16, 1946)

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On this date, October 16, 1946, Nazi War Criminal, Julius Streicher was executed by hanging. I will post information about him from Wikipedia.


Julius Streicher as a defendant before the International Military Tribunal. (November 24, 1945)

Gauleiter of Franconia
In office
1929 – 16 February 1940
Leader
Preceded by
None
Succeeded by
Hans Zimmermann
(Acting, 1940)
Karl Holz
(acting from 1942, permanent from 1944)
Personal details
Born
12 February 1885
Fleinhausen, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire
Died
16 October 1946 (aged 61)
Nuremberg, American Occupied Zone, German Realm
Political party
National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP)
Spouse(s)
Kunigunde Roth (m. 1913, died 1943)
Adele Tappe (m. 1945)
Children
2
Profession
Teacher, publisher, activist
Religion
Former Roman Catholic

Julius Streicher(12 February 1885 – 16 October 1946) was a prominent Nazi prior to World War II. He was the founder and publisher of Der Stürmer newspaper, which became a central element of the Nazi propaganda machine. His publishing firm also released three anti-Semitic books for children, including the 1938 Der Giftpilz ("The Toadstool" or "The Poison-Mushroom"), one of the most widespread pieces of propaganda, which purported to warn about insidious dangers Jews posed by using the metaphor of an attractive yet deadly mushroom. After the war, he was convicted of crimes against humanity and executed.


Julius Streicher in 1935
Early life

Streicher was born in Fleinhausen, Kingdom of Bavaria, one of nine children of the teacher Friedrich Streicher and his wife Anna (née Weiss). He worked as an elementary school teacher like his father, and in 1911 he began his political career, joining the Democratic Party. He would later claim that because his political work brought him into contact with German Jews, he "must therefore have been fated to become later on a writer and speaker on racial politics." In 1913 Streicher married Kunigunde Roth, a baker's daughter, in Nuremberg. They had two sons, Lothar (born 1915) and Elmar (born 1918).

Streicher joined the German Army in 1914. He won the Iron Cross and reached the rank of lieutenant by the time the Armistice was signed in November 1918.


Julius Streicher mug shot
Early politics

In February 1919 Streicher became active in the anti-SemiticDeutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund (German Nationalist Protection and Defense Federation), one of the various radical-nationalist organizations that sprang up in the wake of the failed German Communist revolution of 1918. Such groups fostered the view that Jews had conspired with "Bolshevik" traitors in trying to subject Germany to Communist rule. In 1920 he turned to the Deutschsozialistische Partei (German-Socialist Party), a group whose platform was close to that of the young NSDAP, or National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (National Socialist German Worker's Party). The German Socialist Party (Deutsch-Sozialistische Partei, DSP) was created in May 1919 as an initiative of Rudolf von Sebottendorf as a child of the Thule society, and its program was based on the ideas of the mechanical engineer Alfred Brunner (1881–1936) – including socialist ideas like the takeover of the financial sector by the state and the cutting-back of the "interest-based economy". Leading members of the DSP were Hans Georg Müller, Max Sesselmann and Dr. Friedrich Wiesel, the first two being editors of the Münchner Beobachter. Julius Streicher founded his local branch in 1919 in Nuremberg. Streicher's arguments were primitive, vulgar, and crude but he believed in what he said and was an uninhibited, wild agitator, to whom masses would listen; which was what mattered to the party. The DSP was officially inaugurated in April 1920 in Hanover. Streicher sought to move the German-Socialists in a more virulently anti-Semitic direction – an effort which aroused enough opposition that he left the group and brought his now-substantial following to yet another organization in 1921, the Deutsche Werkgemeinschaft (German Working Community), which hoped to unite the various anti-Semitic Völkisch movements.

National Socialism

In 1921, Streicher finally found his mentor. He visited Munich in order to hear Adolf Hitler speak, an experience that he later said left him transformed:


"Have you already heard Adolf Hitler speak?" I had been asked for quite some time. ... It was on a winter's day in 1922. And there I sat in a public meeting, an unknown among unknowns. ... It was the last hour before midnight when his speech ended ... It was an immense wealth of ideas that in a more than three hour long speech came from his mouth, clad into the beauty of a gifted oratory. ... When he was standing on the podium with a face radiant with joy and looking at the stormy enthusiasm, I felt that there had to be something special in Hitler! ... Everybody could feel it: this man speaks on behalf of a divine appointment, as a messenger sent from heaven at a time when hell had opened to devour everything.


In 1921, Streicher joined the Nazi Party and merged his personal following with Hitler's, more than doubling the party membership.

In May 1923 Streicher founded the newspaper, Der Stürmer (The Stormer, or, loosely, The Attacker). From the outset, the chief aim of the paper was to promulgate anti-Semitic propaganda. "We will be slaves of the Jew," the paper announced. "Therefore he must go."
In November of that year, Streicher participated in Hitler’s first effort to seize power, the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. Streicher marched with Hitler in the front row of the would-be revolutionaries and braved the bullets of the Munich police. His loyalty earned him Hitler's lifelong trust and protection; in the years that followed, Streicher would be one of the dictator's few true intimates.

As a reward for his dedication, when the Nazi Party was legalized again and re-organized in 1925 Streicher was appointed Gauleiter of the Bavarian region of Franconia (which included his home town of Nuremberg). In the early years of the party’s rise, Gauleiter were essentially party functionaries without real power; but in the final years of the Weimar Republic, they became paramilitary commanders. During the 12 years of the Nazi regime itself, party Gauleiter like Streicher would wield immense power, and be in large measure untouchable by legal authority.

Streicher was also elected to the Bavarian "Landtag" or legislature, a position which gave him a margin of parliamentary immunity– a safety net that would help him resist efforts to silence his racist message.


1934 Stürmer issue: "Storm above Judah" - criticizing institutional churches as "Judaized" organizations. Caption: I called the Jews a cursed people, but you have made out of them the Elect Nation.
 

German citizens, public reading of Der Stürmer, Worms, 1933
Rise of Der Stürmer

Beginning in 1924, Streicher used Der Stürmer as a mouthpiece not only for general antisemitic attacks, but for calculated smear campaigns against specific Jews, such as the Nurembergcity official Julius Fleischmann, who worked for Streicher's nemesis, mayor Hermann Luppe. Der Stürmeraccused Fleischmann of stealing socks from his quartermaster during combat in World War I. Fleischmann sued Streicher and successfully disproved the allegations in court, where Streicher was fined 900 marks); but the detailed testimony exposed other less-than-glorious details of Fleischmann's record, and his reputation was badly damaged anyway. It was proof that Streicher's unofficial motto for his tactics was correct: "Something always sticks."

The slanderousattacks continued, and lawsuits followed. Like Fleischmann, other outraged German Jews defeated Streicher in court, but his goal was not necessarily legal victory; he wanted the widest possible dissemination of his message, which press coverage often provided. The rules of the court provided Streicher with an arena to humiliate his opponents, and he characterized the inevitable courtroom loss as a badge of honor. Der Stürmer's infamous official slogan, Die Juden sind unser Unglück(the Jews are our misfortune) was deemed unactionable under German statutes, since it was not a direct incitement to violence.

Streicher's opponents complained to authorities that Der Stürmer violated a statute against religious offense with his constant promulgation of the "blood libel"– the medievalaccusation that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood to make matzoh. Streicher argued that his accusations were based on race, not religion, and that his communications were political speech, and therefore protected by the German constitution.

Streicher orchestrated his early campaigns against Jews to make the most extreme possible claims, short of violating a law that might get the paper shut down. He insisted in the pages of his newspaper that the Jews had caused the worldwide Depression, and were responsible for the crippling unemploymentand inflationwhich afflicted Germany during the 1920s. He claimed that Jews were white-slaversand were responsible for over 90 percent of the prostitutesin the country. Real unsolved killings in Germany, especially of children or women, were often confidently explained in the pages of Der Stürmer as cases of "Jewish ritual murder."

One of Streicher's constant themes was the sexual violation of ethnically German women by Jews, a subject which served as an excuse to publish semi-pornographictracts and images detailing degrading sexual acts. These "essays" proved an especially appealing feature of the paper for young men. With the help of his notorious cartoonist, Phillip "Fips" Rupprecht, Streicher published image after image of Jewish stereotypesand sexually-charged encounters. His portrayal of Jews as subhuman and evil is widely considered to have played a critical role in the dehumanization and marginalization of the Jewish minority in the eyes of common Germans – creating the necessary conditions for the later perpetration of the Holocaust.

Streicher also combed the pages of the Talmud and the Old Testament in search of passages that painted Judaism as harsh or cruel. In 1929, this close study of Jewish scripture helped convict Streicher in a case known as "The Great Nuremberg Ritual Murder Trial." His familiarity with Jewish text was proof to the court that his attacks were religious in nature; Streicher was found guilty and imprisoned for two months. In Germany, press reaction to the trial was highly critical of Streicher; but the gauleiterwas greeted after his conviction by hundreds of cheering supporters, and within months Nazi party membership surged to its highest levels yet.


Ruined Ohel Yaakov shul in Munich


Eisenach synagogue, Germany, destroyed by the Nazis during Pogromnacht on the 9th November 1938
Streicher in power

In April 1933, after Nazi control of the German state apparatus gave the Gauleitersenormous power, Streicher organised a one-day boycott of Jewish businesses which was used as a dress-rehearsal for other anti-Semitic commercial measures. As he consolidated his hold on power, he came to more or less rule the city of Nuremberg and his Gau Franken. Among the nicknames provided by his enemies were "King of Nuremberg" and the "Beast of Franconia." Because of his role as Gauleiter of Franconia, he also gained the nickname of Frankenführer.

To protect himself from accountability, Streicher relied on Hitler's protection. Hitler declared that Der Stürmer was his favourite newspaper, and saw to it that each weekly issue was posted for public reading in special glassed-in display cases known as "Stürmerkasten". The newspaper reached a peak circulation of 600,000 in 1935.

Streicher later claimed that he was only "indirectly responsible" for passage of the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws of 1935, and that he felt slighted because he was not directly consulted.

Streicher was ordered to take part in the establishment of the Institute for the Study and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life, that was to be organized together with the German Christians, the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, the Reich Ministry of Education and the Reich Ministry of the Churches. This anti-Semitic standpoint concerning the bible can be traced back to the earliest time of the Nazi movement, e.g., Dietrich Eckart's (Hitler's early mentor) book Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin: A Dialogue Between Adolf Hitler and Me, where it was claimed that "Jewish forgeries" had been added to the New Testament.

In 1938, Streicher ordered the Great Synagogue of Nuremberg destroyed as part of his contribution to Kristallnacht; he later claimed that his decision was based on his disapproval of its architectural design.


Julius Streicher in custody
Fall from power

Streicher's excesses brought condemnation even from other Nazis. Streicher's behaviour was viewed as so irresponsible that he alienated much of the party leadership; chief among his enemies in Hitler's hierarchy was Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, who loathed him and later claimed that he forbade his own staff to read Der Stürmer.

In spite of his special relationship with Hitler, after 1938 Streicher's position began to unravel. He was accused of keeping Jewish property seized after Kristallnacht in November 1938; he was charged with spreading untrue stories about Göring – such as alleging that Göring's daughter Edda was conceived by artificial insemination, and he was confronted with his excessive personal behaviour, including unconcealed adultery, several furious verbal attacks on other Gauleiters and striding through the streets of Nuremberg cracking a bullwhip (this last is portrayed in the 1944 Hollywood film The Hitler Gang). In February 1940 he was stripped of his party offices and withdrew from the public eye, although he was permitted to continue publishing Der Stürmer. Streicher also remained on good terms with Hitler.

Streicher's wife, Kunigunde Streicher, died in 1943 after 30 years of marriage.

When Germany surrendered to the Allied armies in May 1945, Streicher said later, he decided to commit suicide. Instead, he married his former secretary, Adele Tappe. Days later, on 23 May 1945, Streicher was captured in the town of Waidring, Austria, by a group of American officers led by Major Henry Plitt – who was Jewish. At first Streicher claimed to be a painter named "Joseph Sailer," but after a few questions, quickly admitted to his true identity.

During his trial, Streicher claimed that he had been mistreated by Allied soldiers after his capture. By his account they ordered him to take off his clothes in his cell, burned him with cigarettes and made him extinguish them with his bare feet, allowed him to drink only water from a toilet, made him kiss the feet of Negro soldiers and beat him with a bullwhip. He further claimed that some of the soldiers also spat at him and forced his mouth open to spit in it.

Julius Streicher at the Nuremberg Trials. From the National Archives.
Trial and execution

Julius Streicher was not a member of the military and did not take part in planning the Holocaust, or the invasion of other nations. Yet his pivotal role in inciting the extermination of Jews was significant enough, in the prosecutors' judgment, to include him in the indictment of Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal– which sat in Nuremberg, where Streicher had once been an unchallenged authority. Most of the evidence against Streicher came from his numerous speeches and articles over the years. In essence, prosecutors contended that Streicher's articles and speeches were so incendiary that he was an accessory to murder, and therefore as culpable as those who actually ordered the mass extermination of Jews (such as Hans Frank and Ernst Kaltenbrunner). They further argued that he kept them up when he was well aware Jews were being slaughtered.

He was acquitted of crimes against peace, but found guilty of crimes against humanity, and sentenced to death on 1 October 1946. The judgment against him read, in part:


"... For his 25 years of speaking, writing and preaching hatred of the Jews, Streicher was widely known as 'Jew-Baiter Number One.' In his speeches and articles, week after week, month after month, he infected the German mind with the virus of anti-Semitism, and incited the German people to active persecution. ... Streicher's incitement to murder and extermination at the time when Jews in the East were being killed under the most horrible conditions clearly constitutes persecution on political and racial grounds in connection with war crimes, as defined by the Charter, and constitutes a crime against humanity.”


During his trial, Streicher displayed for the last time the flair for courtroom theatrics that had made him famous in the 1920s. He answered questions from his own defence attorney with diatribes against Jews, the Allies, and the court itself, and was frequently silenced by the court officers. Streicher was largely shunned by all of the other Nuremberg defendants. He also peppered his testimony with references to passages of Jewish texts he had so often carefully selected and inserted (invariably out of context) into the pages of Der Stürmer.

Streicher was hanged in the early hours of 16 October 1946, along with the nine other condemned defendants from the first Nuremberg trial (Göring, Streicher's nemesis, committed suicide only hours earlier). Streicher's was the most melodramatic of the hangings carried out that night. At the bottom of the scaffold he cried out "Heil Hitler!". When he mounted the platform, he delivered his last sneering reference to Jewish scripture, snapping "Purim-Fest 1946!". The Jewish holiday Purim celebrates the escape by the Jews from extermination at the hands of Haman, an ancient Persiangovernment official. At the end of the Purim story, Haman is hanged, as are his ten sons. Streicher's final declaration before the hood went over his head was, "The Bolshevikswill hang you one day!" Joseph Kingsbury-Smith, who covered the executions, said in his filed report that after the hood descended over Streicher's head, he also apparently said "Adele, meine liebe Frau!" ("Adele, my dear wife!").

The consensus among eyewitnesses was that Streicher's hanging did not proceed as planned, and that he did not receive the quick death from spinalsevering typical of the other executions at Nuremberg. Kingsbury-Smith, who covered the executions for the International News Service, reported that Streicher "went down kicking" which may have dislodged the hangman's knot from its ideal position. Smith stated that Streicher could be heard groaning under the scaffold after he dropped through the trap-door, and that the executioner intervened under the gallows, which was screened by wood panels and a black curtain, to finish the job. U.S. Army Master Sergeant John C. Woods was the main executioner, and not only insisted he had performed all executions correctly, but stated he was very proud of his work.

Portrayals

Julius Streicher was played by Rolf Hoppe in the German film Comedian Harmonists.


Last words of Julius Streicher, 10/16/46, quoted in The Quest for the Nazi Personality - Page 157 by Eric A. Zillmer - History – 1995

Julius Streicher(February 12, 1885 – October 16, 1946) was a prominent Nazi prior to and during World War II. He was the publisher of the Nazi Der Stürmer newspaper, which was to become a part of the Nazi propaganda machine. His publishing firm released anti-Semitic books for children. After the war, he was convicted of crimes against humanity and executed.

Sourced

  • Heil Hitler! (when asked to state his name) You know my name well. Julius Streicher! The Bolsheviks will hang you one day! (to the hangman) Purim festival, 1946! I am now by God my father! Adele, my dear wife.
    • Last words, 10/16/46, quoted in "The Quest for the Nazi Personality" - Page 157 by Eric A. Zillmer - History - 1995
  • I have to repeat again and again: He who knows the Talmud, knows the Jew! The laws of the Talmud are contrary to the German system of laws. You should acknowledge the importance of discussing this matter in connection with the judiciary budget. Once you know what the Talmud orders the Jew to do, you will understand today's state of affairs.
    • Ich muss es immer wieder sagen: Wer den Talmud kennt, kennt den Juden! Die Gesetze des Talmuds sind unserer deutschen Rechtsordnung entgegengesetzt. Erkennen Sie daraus, wie wichtig es ist, dass diese Frage im Zusammenhang mit dem Justizetat besprochen wird. Wenn Sie wissen, was der Talmud dem Juden befiehlt, dann werden Sie auch unseren Zustand von heute begreifen.
    • 05/01/1925, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament; debate about the budget of ministry of justice ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • We handed the most important belongings of our people -- the railroads and the banks -- to aliens who 2000 years ago had turned the temple into a house of usury. Back then there was a man who had the bravery to drive out these scoundrels with a whip! If today a national socialist is seen with such a temple-whip, he's thrown into jail.
    • Wir haben unsere wichtigsten Volksgüter, die Eisenbahnen und die Banken, den Fremdlingen überlassen, die schon vor 2000 Jahren den Tempel zu einem Wucherhaus gemacht haben. Damals hatte schon einer den Mut besessen, mit einer Peitsche dieses Gesindel auszutreiben! Wenn heute ein Nationalsozialist mit einer solchen Tempelpeitsche angetroffen wird, wird er ins Gefängnis geworfen.
    • 05/01/1925, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament; debate about the budget of the ministry of justice ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • When one listens to your speeches it sounds as if you had always fought against capitalism. The truth is that it was you who gave all the power to capitalism. In this republic capitalism has grown as it had never before. You can think about the old state as you will, one thing is certain: it was not as rotten as the one you brought about! ...
    What shall one say when Reich president Ebert in his letters addresses the Jewish scoundrel Barmat as "My dear Barmat" and closes with the greeting "Yours Ebert"? Despite all the veneration that I feel for this man, whom by the way I respect more as a master saddle-maker than as a Reich president, I simply have to be astonished. Gentlemen, where is the "beauty and dignity"?
    • Wenn man Euch reden hört, dann habt Ihr immer den Kapitalismus bekämpft. In Wirklichkeit habt Ihr den Kapitalismus erst in den Sattel gehoben. In dieser Republik hat sich der Kapitalismus ausgewachsen wie niemals zuvor. Mag man über den alten Staat denken wir man will, eines steht fest: so verlumpt war er nicht wie der, den Ihr uns gebracht habt! ...
      Was soll man dazu sagen, wenn ein Reichspräsident Ebert den jüdischen Schurken Barmat in Briefen mit "Mein lieber Barmat" anredet und ihn am Schlusse mit "Dein Ebert" grüßt? Bei aller Ehrfurcht, die ich vor dem Mann habe, den ich übrigens als Sattlermeister weit mehr schätze denn als Reichspräsident, muss ich mich doch sehr wundern. Meine Herren, wo ist da "Schönheit und Würde"?
    • 01/23/1925, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • Moreover I want to tell Dr. Süßheim -- who wants to portray every anti-Semite as a psychopath -- about his racial fellow Dr. Otto Weininger, who as an honest Jew wrote down his thoughts in the book "Sex and Character":
    "Jewry seems to be somewhat anthropologically related to the Negroes and the Mongolians. To the Negro points the readily curling hair, to an admixture of Mongolian blood points the very Chinese or Malayan formed skull, that one finds so often among Jews, which matches the usually yellowish complexion ... The fact that excellent men have almost always been anti-Semites (Tacitus, Pascal, Voltaire, Goethe, Kant, Jean Paul, Schopenhauer, Grillparzer, Richard Wagner) can be explained in the following way: they, who have so much more in their own nature than other men, can also better understand Jewry."
    • Ferner möchte ich Herrn Dr. Süßheim, der jeden Antisemiten als Psychopathen hinstellen möchte, seinen Rassegenossen Dr. Otto Weininger nennen, der als ehrlicher Jude seine Gedanken in einem Buch "Geschlecht und Charakter" niedergeschrieben hat:
      "Das Judentum scheint anthropologisch mit den Negern wie mit den Mongolen eine gewisse Verwandtschaft zu besitzen. Auf den Neger weisen die so gern sich ringelnden Haare, auf Beimischung von Mongolenblut die ganz chinesisch oder malaiisch geformten Gesichtsschädel, die man oft unter Juden antrifft, und denen regelmäßig gelbe Hautfärbung entspricht, hin ... Daß hervorragende Menschen fast stets Antisemiten waren (Tacitus, Pascal, Voltaire, Goethe, Kant, Jean Paul, Schopenhauer, Grillparzer, Richard Wagner) geht eben darauf zurück, daß sie, die soviel mehr in sich haben als andere Menschen, auch das Judentum besser verstehen als diese."
    • 12/9/1925, Streicher's pleading when sued because of ani-Semitic slurs; courthouse in Nuremberg ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • The Roman historian Tacitus once said, that the health and the disease of a state can be measured in the number of its laws. If we Germans nowadays look at the huge number of laws, we have to say, that it's not health, but death that we're approaching. ... It is strange that it is Social Democracy of all movements, which in the old state complained about exceptions, that now issues exception laws itself. These exception-laws are means of force and are created in the parliaments with the help of supranational financial powers. ...
    In the old state an interest rate of more than 6 percent was deemed usury. Today this usury is legalized. It was YOU, the men of the left -- who always pretend to fight against capitalism and exploitation -- who accomplished this. It will be your downfall!
    • Der römische Geschichtsschreiber Tacitus hat einmal gesagt, dass man die Gesundheit und die Krankheit eines Staates nach der Zahl seiner Gesetze ermessen könne. Wenn wir Deutsche heute die große Zahl unserer Gesetze betrachten, dann müssen wir sagen, dass wir nicht der Gesundheit, sondern dem Tode entgegengehen. ... Es ist sonderbar, dass ausgerechnet die Sozialdemokratie, die sich im alten Staat immer über Ausnahmen aufgeregt hat, jetzt selbst Ausnahmegesetze erläßt! Diese Ausnahmegesetze sind Zwangsmittel und werden in den Parlamenten mit Hilfe überstaatlicher Finanzmächte geschaffen. ...
      Im alten Staate galt ein Zinsfuß von mehr als 6 Prozent als Wucher. Heute ist dieser Wucher gesetzlich genehmigt. Das haben SIE, meine Herren von der Linken, die Sie immer vorgeben, Kapitalismus und Ausbeutung zu bekämpfen, fertiggebracht! Daran werden Sie zugrunde gehen!
    • 04/20/1926, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • If you know these things, the question has enormous importance: who will be the judge in the future? It is not trivial, who is the judge. It's not sufficient to dress somebody in a robe, put a beret on his head and open the lawbook! It's a big difference whether a German or a negro takes place on the judgement seat. Sure, you can teach a negro the German language, the schematic application of laws and paragraphs -- and yet the negro will always judge like his blood commands!
    • Wenn man diese Dinge weiß, dann ist die Frage von ungeheurer Bedeutung: Wer soll künftig Richter sein? Es ist nicht gleichgültig, wer Richter ist. Damit, dass einer die schwarze Robe anlegt, das Barett aufsetzt und das Gesetzbuch aufschlägt, ist es nicht getan! Es ist ein großer Unterschied, ob ein Deutscher oder ein Neger auf dem Richterstuhl sitzt. Gewiß, Sie können einen Neger die deutsche Sprache, die schematische Anwendung der Gesetze und Paragraphen lehren -- trotzdem wird der Neger immer so richten, wie es ihm sein Blut gebietet!
    • 04/20/1926, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • And further, I tell you that the Jew is right, when he acts as he does – because we are too timid to be as German as the Jew is Jewish! ... It happened at the time of the [Bavarian] Soviet Republic: When the unleashed subhumans rambled murdering through the streets, the deputies hid behind a chimney in the Bavarian parliament.
    • Und weiter sage ich Ihnen noch, dass der Jude recht hat, wenn er so handelt, wie er handelt - weil wir Deutsche zu feige sind, so deutsch zu sein, wie der Jude jüdisch ist! ... Es war zur Zeit der Räteherrschaft. Als das losgelassene Untermenschentum mordend durch die Straßen zog, da versteckten sich Abgeordnete hinter einem Kamin im bayerischen Landtag.
    • 05/25/1927, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • Who are the moneylenders? They are those who were driven out of the Temple by Christ Himself 2000 years ago. They are those who never work but live on fraud.
    • Wer sind aber die Geldverleiher? Es sind die, welche schon vor 2000 Jahren von Christus aus dem Tempel gejagt wurden. Es sind die, welche niemals arbeiten, sondern nur vom Betruge leben.
    • 06/01/1927, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • Social Democracy preached against capitalism for half a century. After the November revolution the Reds had the opportunity to direct capitalism into the proper paths: but nothing happened!
    • Die Sozialdemokratie hat ein halbes Jahrhundert den Kampf gegen den Kapitalismus gepredigt. Nach der Novemberrevolution hatten die Roten Gelegenheit, den Kapitalismus in richtige Bahnen zu leiten: aber es geschah nichts!
    • 06/01/1927, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • In Soviet-Russia the Jew is forging the tool with which he wants to enslave Europe.
    • In Sowjet-Rußland schmiedet sich der Jude das Werkzeug, mit dem er Europa versklaven will.
    • 04/25/1928, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • A moment ago a deputy of the communist party pleaded for the abortion of developing life. ... In Russia there has been a soviet rule for ten years already. ... Where is the promised paradise after these ten years? Where is the foretold happiness? Is that supposed to be the happiness that in Russia the abortion has been legalized?
    • Vorhin ist eine Abgeordnete der Kommunistischen Partei in ihrer Rede für die Abtreibung des keimenden Lebens eingetreten. ... In Rußland besteht seit zehn Jahren die Sowjetherrschaft. ... Wo ist nach diesen zehn Jahren das vielgepriesene Paradies geblieben? Wo ist das verheißene Glück? Besteht vielleicht das Glück darin, daß in Rußland die Möglichkeit der Abtreibung zum Gesetz erhoben wurde?
    • 02/22/1929, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • You may baptize as long as you want, but the Jew remains a Jew, the Chinese a Chinese and the Negro a Negro.
    • Sie mögen taufen, solange sie wollen: der Jude bleibt Jude, der Chinese Chinese und der Neger Neger.
    • 02/22/1929, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • Can't you feel that the German people has carried for seven years from one station of pain to another a huge cross? Can't you feel that it is persecuted, hounded and whipped bloody like the Nazarene? If you cannot feel that it is gasping under the weight of the cross which was burdened on it and that it walks on its way to Golgatha -- then you're not worth that God the Lord will again let the sun of his mercy shine upon you. ...
    Help us so that in this decisive hour the German people will be freed from the weight of the cross of the yoke of Jewry! Help us, so that a mighty man who's been gifted by God can give us back our freedom and that it will again be a proud people in a German country! Take care that Germany is freed from the chains she has been bound with for seven years. Put an end to this slavery! Our people shall again be great, proud and beautiful!
    • Fühlt Ihr denn nicht, dass das deutsche Volk sieben Jahre lang von einer Leidensstation zur anderen ein Riesenkreuz geschleppt hat? Fühlt Ihr nicht, dass es gejagt, gehetzt und blutig gepeitscht worden ist wie jener Nazarener? Wenn Ihr nicht fühlt, dass unser Volk sich keuchend unter der Last des Kreuzes, das man ihm auflud, auf dem Weg nach Golgatha schleppt, dann seid Ihr nicht wert, dass unser Herrgott Euch noch einmal mit seiner Gnadensonne bescheint. ...
      Helft in dieser entscheidungsvollen Stunde mit, dass das deutsche Volk von der Kreuzeslast des jüdischen Joches befreit wird! Helft mit, dass ein starker, von Gott begnadeter Mann ihm die Freiheit schenkt und dass es wieder ein stolzes Volk in deutschen Landen wird! Sorgt, dass Deutschland von der Kette, die es sieben Jahre lange tragen musste, frei wird. Deshalb heraus aus der Sklaverei! Unser Volk muss wieder groß, stolz und schön werden!
    • 03/07/1932, speech in the convention center (Kongresshalle) in Nuremberg ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • In spite of the fact that the Jews do not even refrain from attacking Christendom, they are protected by those who wear the cassock. The Christendom of the early time was different to the one of today.
    The first Christians were fighters, who wanted to free their people from the Jewish ignominy. Then the Jew crept into that community and had the originally pure Christendom ridiculed by mankind. The first Christians were willing to die to defend the Christian doctrine.
    • Obwohl die Juden auch nicht vor Angriffen auf das Christentum zurückschrecken, werden sie noch von denen geschützt, die das Priesterkleid tragen. Das Christentum der ersten Zeit war ein anderes als das heutige.
      Die ersten Christen waren Kämpfer, die ihr Volk von der jüdischen Schmach befreien wollten. Dann stahl sich der Jude in diese Gemeinschaft ein und machte aus dem ursprünglich reinen Christentum ein Gespött der Menschheit. Die ersten Christen waren bereit, für die Erhaltung der christlichen Lehre zu sterben.
    • 04/21/1932, speech in the Hercules Hall in Nuremberg ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • You are blinded and you serve the God of the Jews, who is not the God of love but the God of hatred. Why don't you listen to Christ Himself, who said to the Jews: "Ye are of your father the devil!"
    • Ihr seid verblendet und dient dem Gott der Juden, der nicht der Gott der Liebe, sondern der Gott des Hasses ist. Warum hört Ihr nicht auf Christus, der zu den Juden sagte : "Ihr seid Kinder des Teufels!"
    • 04/21/1932, speech in Nuremberg, Herkulessaal ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • That's why the peoples have to die -- so that the Jew can live. He drives the peoples to war to make a profit from the fratricide of the white race.
    In the World War 11 million gentiles had to die. The Jew was the winner.
    • Deswegen müssen die Völker sterben, damit der Jude leben kann. Er hetzt die Völker zum Krieg, um aus dem Brudermord der weißen Rasse Gewinn zu ziehen.
      Im Weltkrieg mussten 11 Millionen Nichtjuden sterben. Der Jude aber war der Sieger.
    • 05/20/1932, speech in the Hercules Hall in Nuremberg ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
  • They are hated because they satisfy their greed according to Talmudic principles. In the Jewish lawbook "Talmud" the Jews are told that the possessions of gentiles were "ownerless property", which the Jew was allowed to obtain through deceit and cheating. Whatever the "profession" may be called where the Jew earns his money, everywhere he remains a Jew. Such criminal behavior must inevitably provoke the hatred of Jews (anti-Semitism) and fighting repulsion. The fight that the Nazarene led 2000 years ago against the Jewish usurers resulted in a gruesome way of suffering and his slaughter at Calvary. The judgement passed by Jesus on the Jews marks the Jewish people for all time:
    "Ye are of your father the devil! He was a murderer from the beginning." (John 8:44-45)
    • Sie werden gehasst, weil sie ihre Gier nach Geld nach talmudischen Grundsätzen befriedigen. Im jüdischen Gesetzbuch "Talmud" wird den Juden gesagt, dass der Besitz der Nichtjuden "herrenloses Gut" sei, den der Jude durch Wucher, durch Betrug und Übervorteilung an sich bringen dürfe. Und wie der "Beruf" auch heißen mag, in dem der Jude sein Geld verdient, überall ist und bleibt er Jude. Solch verbrecherisches Verhalten muss zwangsläufig den Hass gegen die Juden (Antisemitismus) erzeugen und Abwehrkämpfe heraufbeschwören. Der Kampf, den der Nazarener vor 2000 Jahren gegen die jüdischen Zinseintreiber führte, endete mit einem grauenvollen Leidensweg und seiner Hinschlachtung auf Golgatha. Das Urteil, das Jesus Christus über die Juden fällte, kennzeichnet das Volk der Juden für alle Zeiten:
      "Ich habt zum Vater nicht Gott, sondern den Teufel. Er war ein Verbrecher und Menschenmörder von Anfang an". (Joh. VIII | 44,45.)
    • Foreword to the book "Juden stellen sich vor", Stürmer publishing house, 1934
  • The way that Adolf Hitler chose to follow to rescue the German people was an inner and outer one. Inwards he overcame the Jewish power by destroying Marxism and the secret lodges. Thereby he removed the hindrances which prevented building a German people's community. Outwards he broke the slave chains of Versailles by rebuilding the People's Army, bringing home those of the German people that had been ripped out, defeating Jewry's vassals and laying the foundation for a Europe that is liberated from Jewish financial power.
    • Der Weg, den Adolf Hitler zur Rettung des deutschen Volkes zu gehen sich entschlossen hatte, führte nach innen und nach außen. Nach innen überwand er die Machtpositionen des Juden durch Ausrottung des Marxismus und durch die Vernichtung der Geheimbünde. Damit wurden die Hemmnisse weggeräumt, die der Schaffung einer deutschen Volksgemeinschaft entgegenstanden. Nach außen zerbrach er die Sklavenketten von Versailles durch Wiederherstellung des Volksheeres, Heimholung der aus dem Reichsverband gerissenen Volksteile, Niederzwingung der Großvasallen des Weltjuden und Grundsteinlegung eines von der jüdischen Geldmacht befreiten Europas.
    • Stürmer, August 22, 1940
  • When the Jew says "mankind" he is talking about himself. It is written in the Talmud, that only Jews were human beings, gentiles on the other hand were animals created to serve the chosen people.
    If looking back and comparing the corresponding articles in the "democratic" and "neutral" countries, one is astonished at the systematic nature of the propaganda whose final goal was the creation of a state of affairs in which a war was inevitable.
    • Mit der "Menschheit" meint nämlich der Jude sich selbst, die Gesamtheit der Juden. Steht doch im Talmud geschrieben, dass nur die Juden Menschen seien, die Nichtjuden dagegen Tiere, die dazu erschaffen wurden, damit sie dem auserwählten Volk der Juden besser dienen könnten.
      Vergleicht man zurückschauend die darauf bezüglichen Artikel in den "demokratischen" und "neutralen" Ländern, dann staunt man über die Planmäßigkeit jener Propaganda, deren Endziel die Schaffung eines Zustandes war, der zwangsläufig zum Krieg führen musste.
    • Stürmer, September 5, 1940
  • In all peoples where Jews have lived as tolerated people or do so today, they prove to be disturbers of the inner peace and thus the destroyers of naturally grown people's communities. The Old Testament, which as the Jews claim tells their history, is at the same time the history of the peoples that the Jews destroyed physically and spiritually. The Jew does not only prove to be the disturber of the natural development within the peoples. He is also the destroyer of peace between the peoples.
    • In allen Völkern, in denen Juden als Geduldete lebten oder heute noch leben, erwiesen sie sich als Störer des inneren Friedens und damit als Vernichter natürlich gewordener Volksgemeinschaften. Das Alte Testament der Bibel, von dem die Juden behaupten, dass es ihre Geschichte enthalte, ist zugleich die Geschichte von Völkern, die von den Juden materiell und geistig zugrunde gerichtet wurden. Der Jude hat sich aber nicht allein als Störer der natürlichen Entwicklung in den Völkern erwiesen. Er ist auch der Vernichter des Friedens unter den Völkern.
    • Stürmer, October 17, 1940
  • The Jew always lives from the blood of other peoples, he needs such murders and such sacrifices. The victory will be only entirely and finally achieved when the whole world is free of Jews.
    • 1937 speech, quoted in "The Trial of the Germans" - Page 57 - by Eugene Davidson - History - 1997
  • There must be a punitive expedition against the Jews in Russia, a punitive expedition which will expect: death sentence and execution. Then the world will see the end of the Jews is also the end of Bolshevism.
    • Der Stürmer, May 1939, quoted in "The Trial of the Germans" - Page 50 - by Eugene Davidson - History - 1997
  • This is our mission at home, to approach these future decisions without hesitation, to do our duty and to remain strong. We know the enemy, we have called him by name for the last twenty years: he is the World Jew. And we know that the Jew must die.
    • October 31, 1939 speech, quoted in "The Trial of the Germans" - Page 50 - by Eugene Davidson - History - 1997
  • Developments since the rise of National Socialism make it probable that the continent will be freed from its Jewish destroyers of people and exploiters forever, and the German example after the German victory in World War II will also serve to bring about the destruction of the Jewish world tormentors on other continents.
    • Der Stürmer, January 6, 1944, quoted in "The Trial of the Germans" - Page 57 - by Eugene Davidson - History - 1997
  • My publication was for a fine purpose. Certain snobs may now look down on it and call it common or even pornographic, but until the end of the war, I had Hitler's greatest respect, and Der Stürmer had the party's complete support. At our height, we had a circulation of 1.5 million. Everybody read Der Stürmer, and they must have liked it or they wouldn't have bought it. The aim of Der Stürmer was to unite Germans and to awaken them against Jewish influence which might ruin our noble culture.
    • To Leon Goldensohn, April 6, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
  • Hitler promised me protection after I had participated in the Munich putsch in 1923. I am very proud that I marched alongside Hitler in that affair. Hitler was never forgetful of that fact, and his faith and confidence in me was unshaken until the end. I, in turn, never broke my oath of loyalty to him.
    • To Leon Goldensohn, April 6, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
  • Christ was a Jew, and God, he is supposed to have made the universe. That's a little far-fetched because if God made the world, who made God?
    • To Leon Goldensohn, April 6, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
  • I was all for setting up a separate Jewish state in Madagascar or Palestine or someplace, but not to exterminate them. Besides, by exterminating 4 million Jews - they say 5 or 6 million at this trial, but that is all propaganda, I am sure it wasn't more than 4.5 million - they have made martyrs out of those Jews. For example, because of the extermination of these Jews, anti-Semitism has been set back many years in certain foreign countries where it had been making good progress.
    • To Leon Goldensohn, April 6, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
  • The main thing I tried to stress was how badly I was treated in the American camp at Freising, but the American prosecutor and the judges ruled that my comments on my poor treatment there had to be expunged from the record because it was irrelevant. I don't think it is irrelevant when we National Socialists are accused of war crimes and of murdering 5 million Jews and millions of other innocent people such as partisans, hostages, war prisoners. Therefore, I should have been allowed to insert into the record of this trial how badly I was treated personally as a prisoner of war, after the war was over, mind you, in Freising.
    • To Leon Goldensohn, June 15, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
  • It is a trial within a nation but a trial of victors against the vanquished. Even before the trials started, the victors who are our judges were quite convinced that we were guilty and that we should all pay the price.
    • To Leon Goldensohn, June 15, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
  • I remember reports that the American and English newspapers were very happy about the fact that so many were killed in Dresden. There are many instances of barbarity and cruelty on the part of the Allies which I could tell you.
    • To Leon Goldensohn, June 15, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
  • It's perfectly understandable and proper for one to be anti-Semite, but to exterminate women and children is so extraordinary, it's hard to believe. No defendant here wanted that.
    • To Leon Goldensohn, June 15, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
  • Yes, I believe I had a part in it insofar as for years I have written that any further mixture of German blood with Jewish blood must be avoided. I have written such articles again and again; and in my articles I have repeatedly emphasized the fact that the Jews should serve as an example to every race, for they created the racial law for themselves - the law of Moses, which says, "If you come into a foreign land you shall not take unto yourself foreign women." And that, Gentlemen, is of tremendous importance in judging the Nuremberg Laws. These laws of the Jews were taken as a model for these laws. When after centuries, the Jewish lawgiver Ezra demonstrated that notwithstanding many Jews had married non-Jewish women, these marriages were dissolved. That was the beginning of Jewry which, because it introduced these racial laws, has survived throughout the centuries, while all other races and civilizations have perished.
    • After Streicher was asked about his participation in the Nuremberg Race laws of 1935. Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945 - 1 October 1946, Volume 12, Secretariat of the Tribunal, Nuremberg, Germany, page 315
  • Germans must fight Jews, that organized body of world criminals against whom Christ, the greatest anti-Semite of all time, had fought.
    • Quoted in "Hitler's Elite, Shocking Profiles of the Reich's Most Notorious Henchmen," Berkley Books, 1990
  • Only the Jews had remained victorious after the dreadful days of World War I. These were the people of whom Christ said, "Its father is the devil."
    • Quoted in "Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel" - Page 14 - by Reimund Bieringer, Didier Pollefeyt, Frederique Vandecasteele-Vanneuville - Religion - 2001
  • Anti-Semitic publications have existed in Germany for centuries. A book I had, written by Dr. Martin Luther, was, for instance, confiscated. Dr. Martin Luther would very probably sit in my place in the defendants' dock today, if this book had been taken into consideration by the Prosecution. In this book The Jews and Their Lies, Dr. Martin Luther writes that the Jews are a serpent's brood and one should burn down their synagogues and destroy them...
    • Quoted in "The Destruction of the European Jews: Third Edition" - by Raul Hilberg - History - 2003
  • Two niggers undressed me and tore my shirt in two. I kept only my pants. Being handcuffed, I could not pull them up when they fell down. So now I was naked. Four days! On the fourth day, I was so cold that my body was numb. I couldn't hear anything. Every two - four hours (even in the night!) Niggers came along under command of a white man and hammered at me. Cigarette burns on the nipples. Fingers gouged into eye-sockets. Eyebrows and chest hair pulled out. Genitals beaten with an oxwhip. Testicles very swollen. Spat at. "Mouth open" and was spat into. When I refused to open, my jaws were pried apart with a stick and my mouth spat into. Beaten with a whip - swollen, dark-blue whelps all over the body... Photographed naked! Jeered at wearing an old army greatcoat which they hung round me.
    • Note handed to his lawyer, Dr. Hans Marx, about the torture he endured in his cell. Quoted in "Julius Streicher" - Page 42 - by Randall L. Bytwerk - 2001
  • He who knows the truth and does not speak it is a miserable coward.
    • Alternate version: He who knows the truth and does not speak it truly is a miserable creature.
    • Quoted in "Julius Streicher" - Page 211 - By Randall L. Bytwerk
  • A people that does not protect its racial purity will perish!

About Julius Streicher

  • Bravo, Streicher!
    • Rudolf Hess yells this out from his cell when Streicher refused to get dressed for his execution, 10/16/46
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THE LIST MANSION MURDER [OCTOBER 17, 1984]

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            Thirty years ago on this date, October 17, 1984, a murder occurred in a Mansion in Toddville, Texas.


 

Photo By Paul Hobby/© Houston Chronicle 
1981 - William Gerald List, shot to death in his Seabrook mansion on Todville Road

The List Mansion Murder - Bill List

Back in 1984, Bill List was 57-year-old successful businessman. He was known as a braggart with a quick temper and a very hard man to get along with. He was a disagreeable complainer. In his native Ohio Bill List also had a record as a sex offender. In 1959 he was sent to prison for molesting teen-age boys. Some of the boys said it happened after he promised them jobs and expected sex in return. A ninth-grade dropout, he told a prison psychologist he knew he was a homosexual when he was 8. Bill's idea of sexual gratification involved more than intercourse. It was a blend of sadomasochism and filth; of pain and degradation. A witness to one of the sex sessions said he threw up afterward. After he was paroled in 1962 he moved to Texas.

Bill owned a trailer manufacturing business and prospered during the oil boom in the 1970s making trailers to haul drilling pipe. To celebrate that success, List built a 34,000-square-foot mansion at 3300 Todville Road in Seabrook, southeast of Houston. Backed to the edge of Galveston Bay, the brick and iron building rose three stories out of an otherwise middle-class neighborhood of unremarkable stilted bay front homes.

When List poured the slab for the building the neighbors worried that an apartment complex was going to be built. He dug a reflecting pond the length of the driveway and used the dirt to build up the bay front lot. The house was divided into two wings with an atrium in the center and a catwalk between the wings at the second level. He covered the enormous verandas with iron bars. The ballroom in the front had terrazzo tile from Mexico on the floors. In the foyer, a fountain spouted water under the apex of two staircases that united at the ceiling. A 20-foot, U-shaped bar was at one side of the huge room, and a fireplace with a semicircular white brick bench around it was at the other end. On the first level beneath the entrance, a 40-by-70-foot game room had a pool table and 20-foot octagonal bar. There was a 40-foot swimming pool in the three-story atrium and hundreds of plants growing from brick planter boxes. A Jacuzzi at one end of the atrium, on a second-level balcony, overflowed water into a fountain below it. There was a 30-foot table in the dining room. The master bedroom suite upstairs, Bill's apartment, had its own kitchen.

Yet, despite all the money spent to build it, the mansion was hideous. One visitor described the furnishings as “contemporary Holiday Inn.” The prices of some of the wall paintings were written in Magic Marker on the back. The carpets were not the expensive type you'd expect in such a place. The three-foot electric circuit box was located in the living room. The central air-conditioning units were on the verandas. A steam table, complete with sneeze guard," was in the dining room The iron bars on the facade made it look like a prison, which it was.

To satisfy his sexual desires, Bill cruised Houston’s lower Westheimer strip in the Montrose district almost every weekend and picked up street hustlers. He preferred them in their teens. List would pick up a few boys, keep them drugged and locked in the mansion, providing everything for them but freedom while they provided him with sex. Some would stay and others would eventually be let go. Rumors still circulate that Bill List killed several of these boys in house. By September of 1984, List had several young men living in the grotesque mansion with him. One of them was 19-year-old Elbert Ervin Homan whose street name was “Smiley.” Cocky and confident, Smiley was a doper and a veteran street hustler who had once knifed another kid to steal his jeep. Jeff Statton, a 16-year-old homosexual who’d spent time in prison for auto theft and in a mental hospital was also living in the List mansion as was a kid named Joey, a hustler Bill picked up on one of his weekend trips to Montrose. Also there was Tim, a 19-year-old hustler from Belleville, Ill, whose street name was “Peppermint.”

Sick of Bill and his freaky sex scenes, the foursome made up their minds to break out of the stark brick house. After shooting up heroin one morning while Bill was at work, they began hurling plates through the windows and tossing potted plants into the pool. Joey began writing obscenities about List in red ink on a wall. Smiley took the pen and wrote what amounted to his confession: “Bill List's a very sick man. He is going to die. Smiley 1984.” The next three or four hours were constant activity. Food was pulled from the refrigerators and thrown on the walls. Cushions were ripped open. The chandeliers and light fixtures were broken, and a house plant the size of a tree was rammed through a wall in the dining room. Furniture was smashed. Hundreds of planters were broken. The lawn furniture was tossed into the pool. Lamps were broken. A glass top from a table was dropped out of third floor bedroom window to shatter on the atrium floor. The pool was brown with dirt from broken planters. Laundry detergent was dumped in the Jacuzzi and the suds began dripping into the fountain below.

They were literally looking for new things to break when Bill List's Pontiac pulled into the drive. They got Bill's shotgun from his bedroom closet and a box of shells. The only thing left was to decide who was going to use it. Smiley took it and went downstairs, and aimed the gun at the level he thought Bill's head would be when he walked in. When the door to the garage opened and Bill walked in, someone, either Tim or Joey, shouted, Hi, Bill!" Bill's foot was on the second step of the staircase. It was in that split second between drawing breath and responding that Smiley pulled the trigger. List grabbed at his head and dropped. Jeff went to the catwalk and looked down at Smiley standing over List's body. The blood from Bill's head was oozing toward the garage door and Smiley was urinating on the body.

It took them less than five minutes to pack what they were taking and start driving. Nobody was talking in the car and Jeff stuck a Tina Turner tape in the cassette player. There was fear among them but no real regret, at least for Jeff and Smiley. Tim wanted out. They bought him a plane ticket with a credit card from Bill's wallet and sent him back to Illinois. They went to the home of two of Jeff's friends and told them about the killing. That night, Jeff said, they went to Bill's business (Jeff had a key) and took Bill's company checkbook. They ate at a Denny's restaurant and all stayed together in the same Holiday Inn motel room. They went shopping until one of the stolen cards was confiscated by a clerk. Smiley got a new suit. Joey got some leather pants. With what was in Bill's wallet and what they got from forging checks on his account, they had a few hundred. They lost $200 in a heroin deal ripoff. When they tried to cash that one last check at an icehouse they were caught by an off-duty deputy who worked there part-time. The deputy called List's business to verify the check Smiley was trying to cash and was told List had been murdered and the check was no good.

For years after the death of Bill List, the mansion was up for sale and yet no one would buy it. Caretakers were brought in to maintain the property and eventually a bunch of people who had a rock and roll band rented it for a while. Nobody stayed long. Ultimately, a land developer bought the List Mansion and tore it down. In its place he built stucco condos with clay tile roofs. There is nothing left of the list mansion except the sorted stories of what went on there by old time residents. The people who live in the condos – few of whom know the property’s past -- have reported sighting a strange creature roaming the grounds, as well as noises, feelings of being watched, and shadowy figures moving around the area.

Last edited by Taggerez; 02-17-2009 at 03:24 PM.

ONE MILLION PRO-LIFERS MARCH IN MADRID, SPAIN (OCTOBER 17, 2009)

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Anti-abortion demonstration "Each life matters" in Madrid – Spain


One million protest against Spanish abortion liberalisation

Saturday, October 17, 2009


Anti-abortion demonstration "Each life matters" in Madrid – Spain
According to organisers, more than one million people have marched across Madrid, Spain to oppose plans to liberalise abortion law. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero wants to introduce abortion on demand, allowing women as young as 16 to have abortions without their parents' consent. Currently women may only terminate pregnancies in the predominantly Catholic country under specific circumstances.

This new law is a barbarity. In this country, they protect animals more than human beings
Description: Cquote2.svg
—Jose Carlos Felicidad, 67, retired naval technician
The 1.5-kilometer (one-mile) march contained members from 42 religious and civil society groups, with 600 buses and several planes used to bring anti-abortion supporters, according to organisers. The protest was also supported by the conservative opposition People's Party and the Roman Catholic Church.

The march started under a banner emblazoned with "Every Life Matters", and tens of thousands of supporters carried banners and flags with "For Life, Women and Motherhood" and "Women Against Abortion" and "Madrid 2009, Capital of Life", along the route to the Plaza de Independencia, where many more waited.

A spokesman for one of the rally organiser, HazteOir (Make Yourself Heard), reported that approximately 1.5 million people had participated in the rally and march. The Madrid regional government put the figures at around 1.2 million.

The supporters want the government to withdraw the draft law currently up for debate in the parliament in November, which would introduce abortion on demand within the first 14 weeks of a pregnancy, based on laws currently in place in most other European Union countries. It would replace Spain's law introduced in 1985, which allows abortion in cases of rape, when there are signs of foetal abnormality, or when a woman's physicalor psychological health is at risk. This latter category has been used to justify 112,000 abortions in 2007, a majority of which occurred in Spain.

"This new law is a barbarity. In this country, they protect animals more than human beings," said Jose Carlos Felicidad, aged 67, a retired naval technician, who had come to the rally in Madrid from the town of Algeciras.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero spoke in defence of the draft law, saying the state should not "intervene in the free and private decision of a woman, who is the one who has to take on the responsibility of a pregnancy during her entire life." According to the government, the law is about respect and women's rights, and that alternatives will be explained first to anyone wishing to terminate a pregnancy. It also said that the new law will make abortion less dangerous, by making sure that the procedure is not done after 22 weeks.

The prime minister has passed a series of social reforms since he came to power in 2004. Among them were measures to legalise gay marriage, give more rights to transsexuals, and permit fast-track divorces.


Anti-abortion demonstration "Each life matters" in Madrid – Spain

Thousands protest abortion in Spain
  • Story Highlights
  • The anti-abortion protest, themed "each life is important," began at 5 p.m.
  • Many leading conservative politicians attended
  • Local media estimated the crowd in the tens of thousands
By Al Goodman
CNN Madrid Bureau Chief

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Thousands flocked to Spain's capital Saturday to protest the Socialist government's move to make it easier to get an abortion.


Protesters in Madrid on Saturday demonstrate against legislation to loosen restrictions on abortion in Spain.
The anti-abortion protest, themed "each life is important," began at 5 p.m. in central Madrid and many leading conservative politicians attended, including former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. Local media estimated the crowd in the tens of thousands.

The protest was prompted by a proposed law that would ease restrictions on obtaining an abortion.

Since 1985, abortionhas been decriminalized, but only in matters of rape, or when the health of the child or mother is at risk. Victims of rape can legally get an abortion until the 12th week of pregnancy, and women can opt for abortions until the 22nd week of pregnancy if doctors detect a malformation of the fetus.

Most abortions in Spain are performed when the woman's psychological or physical health is at risk, and mainly in private clinics, abortion clinic staffers at Dator Clinic in Madrid told CNN.

The number of abortions has doubled in the past decade in the traditionally Roman Catholic country, from nearly 54,000 in 1998 to 112,000 in 2007, the most recent year for available data, according to Spain's Ministry of Health.

The Socialist government has introduced a bill that would make it easier to get an abortion and give it legal backing, riling up abortion opponents, who already rallied thousands of demonstrators to the streets last March.

The bill, soon to be debated in Parliament, would permit abortions through 14 weeks of pregnancy and set the legal age to obtain an abortion without parental consent at 16 years old.

Supporters say the bill includes the "voluntary interruption of pregnancy" as part of a broader national strategy on sexual and reproductive health, with education and access to contraceptives, aimed at preventing unwanted pregnancies. Unwanted pregnancies have been on the rise in Spain, said Equality Minister Bibiana Aido in May, shortly before the introduction of the bill.

But opponents say the proposed law throws open the door to more abortions.

Benigno Blanco, director of Spanish Family Forum who organized the protest, told conservative newspaper ABC that "this debate won't end until there's not a single abortion." Blanco was a senior official in Aznar's government.

Protesters traveled to the rally from various cities across Spain, and the event had the support of 234 anti-abortion groups from 45 countries, organizers said.

The ruling Socialist party called the conservative-run protest "hypocritical" in a statement Saturday. The marchers said they opposed abortion in general, but the party said conservatives did nothing to completely outlaw abortion during their eight years in power.

Socialist lawmaker Carmen Monton said the protesters are trying to "take the debate back to 20 years ago, when in fact abortion has been going on in Spain."

She said the Socialists, despite the protest on Saturday, are confident of passing the bill with the support of several smaller, mainly leftist parties in parliament. But due to parliamentary schedules, it may not face a vote to become law until early next spring.


COMMANDO ORDER (ADOLF HITLER’S DIRECTIVE ON OCTOBER 18, 1942)

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            On this date, October 18, 1942, The Commando Order was issued by Adolf Hitler on 18 October 1942 stating that all Allied commandos encountered by German forces in Europe and Africa should be killed immediately without trial, even in proper uniforms or if they attempted to surrender. Any commando or small group of commandos or a similar unit, agents, and saboteurs not in proper uniforms, who fell into the hands of the German military forces by some means other than direct combat (through the police in occupied territories, for instance) were to be handed over immediately to the Sicherheitsdienst(SD, Security Service). The order, which was issued in secret, made it clear that failure to carry out these orders by any commander or officer would be considered to be an act of negligence punishable under German military law.

            I will post information about this war crime from Wikipedia.

The Commando Order, or Kommandobefehl, was issued by Adolf Hitler on 18 October 1942 stating that all Allied commandos encountered by German forces in Europe and Africa should be killed immediately without trial, even in proper uniforms or if they attempted to surrender. Any commando or small group of commandos or a similar unit, agents, and saboteurs not in proper uniforms, who fell into the hands of the German military forces by some means other than direct combat (through the police in occupied territories, for instance) were to be handed over immediately to the Sicherheitsdienst(SD, Security Service). The order, which was issued in secret, made it clear that failure to carry out these orders by any commander or officer would be considered to be an act of negligence punishable under German military law. This was in fact the second "Commando Order",[2] the first being issued by Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedton 21 July 1942, stipulating that parachutists should be handed over to the Gestapo. Shortly after World War II, at the Nuremberg Trials, the Commando Order was found to be a direct breach of the laws of war, and German officers who carried out illegal executions under the Commando Order were found guilty of war crimes.

Background

The Commando Order mentioned violations of the Geneva Conventions by Allied commando troops and cites these violations as justification for the order. It is widely believed that occurrences at Dieppe and on a small raid on the Channel Island of Sark by the Small Scale Raiding Force (with some men of No. 12 Commando) brought Hitler's rage to a head.

RAID ON VAAGSO, 27 DECEMBER 1941. British commandos in action during the raid. (Operation Archery)


Dieppe Raid

Main article: Dieppe Raid

On 19 August 1942, during this raid, a Canadian brigadier took a copy of the operational order ashore against explicit orders. The order was subsequently discovered on the beach by the Germans and found its way to Hitler. Among the dozens of pages of orders was an instruction to 'bind prisoners'. The orders were for the Canadian forces participating in the raid, and not the commandos. Bodies of shot German prisoners with their hands tied were allegedly found by German forces after the battle.

Sark Raid

Main article: Operation Basalt

On the night of 3–4 October 1942, ten men of the British Small Scale Raiding Force and No. 12 Commando (attached) made an offensive raid on the isle of Sark, called Operation Basalt, to reconnoitre, and take some prisoners.

During the raid, five prisoners were taken. To minimize the task of the guard left with the captives, the commandos tied the prisoners' hands. According to the British personnel, one prisoner allegedly started shouting to alert those in a hotel, and was shot dead. The remaining four prisoners were silenced by stuffing their mouths, according to Anders Lassen, with grass. En route to the beach, three prisoners made a break. Whether or not some had freed their hands during the firefight has never been established, nor is it known whether all three broke at the same time. Two are believed to have been shot and one stabbed. The fourth was conveyed safely back to England. Officially-sanctioned German military accounts of the time assert unequivocally that the dead German soldiers were found with their hands bound, and later German military publications make many references to captured Commando instructions ordering the tying of captives' hands behind them, and the use of a particularly painful method of knotting around the thumbs to enable efficient, coercive, single-handed control of the captive.

Canadian prisoners of war being led through Dieppe by German soldiers.
German response and escalation

A few days after the Sark raid, the Germans issued a propaganda communiqué implying that at least one prisoner had escaped and two were shot while resisting having their hands tied. They also claimed this 'hand-tying' practice was used at Dieppe. Subsequently, on October 9, Berlin announced that 1376 Allied prisoners (mainly Canadians from Dieppe) would henceforth be shackled. The Canadians responded with a like shackling of German prisoners in Canada.

This tit-for-tat shackling continued until the Swiss achieved agreement with the Canadians to desist on December 12, and with the Germans some time later after they received further assurances from the British. However, before the Canadians ended the policy, an uprising of German POW's occurred at Bowmanville POW camp. At any rate, by this time many German camps had abandoned the pointless practice or reduced it to merely leaving a pile of shackles in a prison billet as a token.

On October 7, Hitler personally penned a note in the Wehrmacht daily communiqué:


In future, all terror and sabotage troops of the British and their accomplices, who do not act like soldiers but rather like bandits, will be treated as such by the German troops and will be ruthlessly eliminated in battle, wherever they appear.

 
Alfred Jodl (between Major Wilhelm Oxenius to the left and Generaladmiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg to the right) signing the German Instrument of Surrender at Reims, France 7 May 1945.
In effect

On October 18 after much deliberation by High Command lawyers, officers and staff, Hitler issued his Commando Order or Kommandobefehl in secret, with only 12 copies. The following day Army Chief of Staff Alfred Jodldistributed copies with an appendix stating that the order was "intended for commanders only and must not under any circumstances fall into enemy hands." The order itself stated that:


1.    For a long time now our opponents have been employing in their conduct of the war, methods which contravene the International Convention of Geneva. The members of the so-called Commandos behave in a particularly brutal and underhanded manner; and it has been established that those units recruit criminals not only from their own country but even former convicts set free in enemy territories. From captured orders it emerges that they are instructed not only to tie up prisoners, but also to kill out-of-hand unarmed captives who they think might prove an encumbrance to them, or hinder them in successfully carrying out their aims. Orders have indeed been found in which the killing of prisoners has positively been demanded of them.

2.    In this connection it has already been notified in an Appendix to Army Orders of 7.10.1942. that in future, Germany will adopt the same methods against these Sabotage units of the British and their Allies; i.e. that, whenever they appear, they shall be ruthlessly destroyed by the German troops.

3.    I order, therefore:— From now on all men operating against German troops in so-called Commando raids in Europe or in Africa, are to be annihilated to the last man. This is to be carried out whether they be soldiers in uniform, or saboteurs, with or without arms; and whether fighting or seeking to escape; and it is equally immaterial whether they come into action from Ships and Aircraft, or whether they land by parachute. Even if these individuals on discovery make obvious their intention of giving themselves up as prisoners, no pardon is on any account to be given. On this matter a report is to be made on each case to Headquarters for the information of Higher Command.

4.    Should individual members of these Commandos, such as agents, saboteurs etc., fall into the hands of the Armed Forces through any means – as, for example, through the Police in one of the Occupied Territories – they are to be instantly handed over to the SD

5.    To hold them in military custody – for example in P.O.W. Camps, etc., – even if only as a temporary measure, is strictly forbidden.

6.    This order does not apply to the treatment of those enemy soldiers who are taken prisoner or give themselves up in open battle, in the course of normal operations, large scale attacks; or in major assault landings or airborne operations. Neither does it apply to those who fall into our hands after a sea fight, nor to those enemy soldiers who, after air battle, seek to save their lives by parachute.

7.    I will hold all Commanders and Officers responsible under Military Law for any omission to carry out this order, whether by failure in their duty to instruct their units accordingly, or if they themselves act contrary to it.

 
memorial plaque for men who were killed in Sachenhausen concentration camp
Allied casualties

The Commando Order was invoked to order the death of an unknown number of Allied special operations forces and behind-the-lines operators of the OSS, SOE, and other special forces elements. "Commandos" of these types captured were turned over to German security and police forces and transported to concentration camps for execution. The Gazette citation reporting the awarding of the G.C. to Yeo-Thomas describes this process in detail.

  • In December 1942, Royal Marine commandos captured during Operation Frankton were executed under this order. After the captured Royal Marines were executed by a naval firing squad in Bordeaux, the Commander of the Navy Admiral Erich Raeder wrote in the Seekriegsleitung war diary that the executions of the Royal Marines were something "new in international law since the soldiers were wearing uniforms". The American historian Charles Thomas wrote that Raeder's remarks about the executions in the Seekriegsleitung war diary seemed to be some sort of ironic comment, which might had reflected a bad conscience on the part of Raeder.
  • On 30 July 1943, the captured seven-man crew of the Royal Norwegian Navy motor torpedo boat MTB 345 were executed by the Germans in Bergen, Norway on the basis of the Commando Order.
  • After the Normandy landings, 34 SAS soldiers and a USAAF pilot were captured during Operation Bulbasket and executed. Most were shot, but three were killed by lethal injection while recovering from wounds in hospital.
  • In March 1944, fifteen soldiers of the U.S. Army, including two officers, landed on the Italian coast as part of an OSS operation codenamed Ginny II. They were captured and executed.
  • In 1945, Jack Taylor and the Dupont mission were captured by the men of Gestapo agent Johann Sanitzer. Sanitzer asked the RSHA for instructions on a possible deal that Taylor proposed, but Kaltenbrunner's staff reminded him "of Hitler's edict that all captured officers attached to foreign missions were to be executed". Taylor was convicted of espionage, though he claimed to be an ordinary soldier. He was sent to Mauthausen. He survived, barely, but gathered evidence, and was eventually a witness at the war crimes trials.


 
Erich Raeder with Göring (March 10, 1940)
War crime

The laws of war as accepted by all civilized countries in 1942 were unequivocal on this point: "... it is especially forbidden ... to declare that no quarterwill be given". This was established under Article 23 (d) of the 1907 Hague ConventionIV - The Laws and Customs of War on Land. The Geneva Convention of 1929, which Germany had ratified, defined who should be considered a prisoner of war on capture — that included enemy soldiers in proper uniforms — and how they should be treated. While at the time under both the Hague and Geneva Conventions, it was legal to execute "spies and saboteurs" disguised in civilian clothes or uniforms of the enemy, insofar as the Commando Order applied to soldiers in proper uniforms, it was in direct and deliberate violation of both the customary laws of war and Germany's treaty obligations. The execution of Allied commandos without trial was also a violation of Article 30 of the 1907 Hague Convention IV - The Laws and Customs of War on Land, provided that: "A spy taken in the act shall not be punished without previous trial." This provision only includes soldiers caught behind enemy lines in disguises, and not those wearing proper uniforms. Soldiers in proper uniforms cannot be punished for being lawful combatants and must be treated as prisoners of war upon capture, except those disguised in civilian clothes or uniforms of the enemy for military operations behind enemy lines.

The fact that Hitler's staff took special measures to keep the Order secret, including the limitation of its printing to only twelve copies, strongly suggests that they knew it to be illegal. He also knew the order would be unpopular with the professional military, in particular the part of the order that stated that the order would stand even if captured commandos were in proper uniforms (in contrast to the usual provision of international law that only commandos disguised in civilian clothes or uniforms of the enemy could be treated as insurgents or spies, as stated in the Ex parte Quirin, the Hostages Trial, and the Trial of Otto Skorzeny and others). The order included measures designed to force military staff to obey despite their lack of enthusiasm.

Some commanders like Rommelhad refused to relay this order to their troops, considering it to be contrary to honourable conduct. The dishonourable nature of this command was well established and had been so for over a century before the Hague Convention of 1907. For example, on 28 May 1794,


Inflamed by a most inhuman spirit of revenge, the French legislature now ordered that all the military subjects of the king of Great Britain, when captured, should be put to the sword. The Duke of York, in announcing to his troops this atrocious and horrible decree, exhorted them "not to suffer their resentment to lead them to any precipitate act of cruelty on their part, which might sully the reputation they had acquired in the world." He would not believe that the French soldiers, however enslaved, would so disgrace themselves as to obey the nefarious order; and though it appears, from the acknowledgment of a French historian of the campaign, that a general of brigade shot some Hanoverian captives, the execrable law was scarcely in any other instance carried into effect.

—Charles Coote.

Anton Dostler tied to a stake before his execution


Dostler's body immediately after the execution


The body of Alfred Jodl after being hanged, Oct. 16, 1946.

Aftermath

After the war, German officers who carried out executions under the Commando Order were found guilty at war crimes trials, including the Nuremberg Trials.
  • General Anton Dostler, who had ordered the execution of 15 American soldiers of the Ginny II operation in Italy, was sentenced to death and executed in December 1945. His defence, that he had only relayed superior orders, was rejected at trial.
  • The Commando Order was one of the specifications in the charge against Generaloberst Jodl, who was convicted and hanged.
  • Another officer charged with enforcing the Commando Order at Nuremberg was the Commander of the Navy Erich Raeder. Under cross-examination, Raeder admitted to passing on the Commando Order to the Kriegsmarine and to enforcing the Commando Order by ordering the summary execution of two captured British Royal Marines after the Operation Frankton raid at Bordeaux in December 1942. Raeder testified in his defense that he believed that the Commando Order was a "justified" order, and that the execution of the two Royal Marines was no war crime in his own opinion.
  • Another war crimes trial was held in Brunswick (Braunschweig), Germany, against Colonel-General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, Supreme Commander of German forces in Norway 1940–44. The latter was held responsible, among other things, for invoking the Commando Order against survivors of the unsuccessful British commando raid against the Vemorkheavy water plant at Rjukan, Norway in 1942 (Operation Freshman). He was sentenced to death in 1946; the sentence was later commuted to 20 years' imprisonment, and he was released in 1953 for reasons of health. He died in 1960.
OTHER LINKS:





BABY KILLING PEDOPHILE: CHRISTOPHER THOMAS JOHNSON (EXECUTED IN ALABAMA ON OCTOBER 20, 2011)

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On this date, October 20, 2011, a Baby Killing Pedophile, Christopher Thomas Johnson was executed by lethal injection in Alabama. He was convicted of murdering his 6-month-old son, Elias Ocean Johnson on February 18, 2005. He could not live with his guilt anymore that was why he waived all his appeals and wanted to be put to death. I surprisingly did not see any abolitionist protesting his execution, most probably, is because nobody pities cowards who kill babies.


Christopher Thomas Johnson

 Please go to this previous blog post to learn more about this pedophile.

EINSATZGRUPPEN: THE NAZI DEATH SQUAD

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On this date, October 20, 1939 a mass execution of 15 local residents was carried out in Kórnik, part of Operation Tannenberg. I will post information about the SS paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany known as the Einsatzgruppen from Wikipedia and other links.


The Einsatzgruppenoperated under the administration of the Schutzstaffel (SS)


Killing of Jews at Ivanhorod, Ukraine, 1942. A woman is attempting to protect a child with her own body just before they are fired on with rifles at close range.
   
Agency overview
Formed
c. 1939
Preceding Agency
Einsatzkommando
Jurisdiction
Nazi Germany
Occupied Europe
Headquarters
RSHA, Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, Berlin
52°30′26″N13°22′57″E
Employees
~ 3,000 c. 1941
Minister responsible
Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS
Agency executives
SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, Director, RSHA (1939–1942)
SS-Obergruppenführer Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Director, RSHA (1943–1945)
Parent agency
Allgemeine SS and RSHA

Einsatzgruppen (German for "task forces", "deployment groups"; singular Einsatzgruppe; official full name Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD) were Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass killings, primarily by shooting, during World War II. The Einsatzgruppenhad a leading role in the implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish question (Die Endlösung der Judenfrage) in territories conquered by Nazi Germany. Almost all of the people they killed were civilians, beginning with the Polish intelligentsia and swiftly progressing to Soviet political commissars, Jews, and Gypsies throughout Eastern Europe.

Under the direction of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and the supervision of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, the Einsatzgruppenoperated in territories occupied by the German armed forces following the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of the Soviet Union) in June 1941. The Einsatzgruppen carried out operations ranging from the murder of a few people to operations which lasted over two or more days, such as the massacre at Babi Yar (33,771 killed in two days) and the Rumbula massacre (25,000 killed in two days). As ordered by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, the Wehrmacht cooperated with the Einsatzgruppenand provided logistical support for their operations. Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen and related auxiliary troops killed more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews. The total number of Jews murdered during the Holocaust is estimated at 5.5 to 6 million people.

After the close of the World War II, 24 senior leaders of the Einsatzgruppenwere prosecuted in the Einsatzgruppen Trial in 1947–48, charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes. Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were handed out. Four additional Einsatzgruppe leaders were later tried and executed by other nations.

Formation and Action T4

The Einsatzgruppen were formed under the direction of SS-ObergruppenführerReinhard Heydrichand operated by the Schutzstaffel(SS) before and during World War II. The Einsatzgruppen had its origins in the ad hocEinsatzkommandoformed by Heydrich to secure government buildings and documents following the Anschlussin Austria in March 1938. Originally part of the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police; SiPo), two units of Einsatzgruppen were stationed in the Sudetenland in October 1938. When military action turned out not to be necessary because of the Munich Agreement, the Einsatzgruppen were assigned to confiscate government papers and police documents. They also secured government buildings, questioned senior civil servants, and arrested as many as 10,000 Czech communists and German citizens. From September 1939, the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt(Reich Main Security Office; RSHA) had overall command of the Einsatzgruppen.

As part of the drive to remove undesirable elements from the German population, from September to December 1939 the Einsatzgruppen and others took part in Action T4, a programme of systematic murder of the physically and mentally handicapped and psychiatric hospital patients undertaken by the Nazi regime. Action T4 mainly took place from 1939 to 1941, but continued until the end of the war. Initially the victims were shot by the Einsatzgruppenand others, but gas chambers were put into use by spring 1940.


Execution of Polish hostages by an SS-task force on 10.20.1939 in occupied Kórnik (during the German Nazi occupation of 1939-45).
Invasion of Poland


In response to Führer und ReichskanzlerAdolf Hitler's plan to invade Poland, Heydrich re-formed the Einsatzgruppen to travel in the wake of the German armies. Membership at this point was drawn from the SS, the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service; SD), and the police. Heydrich placed SS-ObergruppenführerWerner Best in command, who chose leaders for the task forces and their subgroups, called Einsatzkommandos, from among educated people with military experience. Some had previously been members of paramilitary groups such as the Freikorps.

Numbering some 2,700 men at this point, the Einsatzgruppen's mission was the forceful de-politicisation of the Polish people and the elimination of groups most clearly identified with Polish national identity: the intelligentsia, members of the clergy, teachers, and members of the nobility. As stated by Hitler: "... there must be no Polish leaders; where Polish leaders exist they must be killed, however harsh that sounds". The Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen— lists of people to be killed — had been drawn up by the SS as early as May 1939. The Einsatzgruppen performed these murders with the support of the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz, a paramilitary group consisting of ethnic Germans living in Poland. Members of the SS, the Wehrmacht, and the Ordnungspolizei(Order Police; Orpo) also shot civilians during the Polish campaign. Approximately 65,000 civilians were killed by the end of 1939. In addition to leaders of Polish society, they killed Jews, prostitutes, Romani people, and the mentally ill. Psychiatric patients in Poland were initially killed by shooting, but by spring 1941 gas vans were widely used.

Seven Einsatzgruppen of battalion strength operated in Poland. Each was subdivided into four Einsatzkommandos of company strength.
Though they were formally under the command of the army, the Einsatzgruppenreceived their orders directly from Heydrich and for the most part acted independently of the army. Many senior army officers were only too glad to leave these genocidal actions to the task forces, as the killings violated the rules of warfare as set down in the Geneva Conventions. However, Hitler had decreed that the army would have to tolerate and even offer logistical support to the Einsatzgruppen when it was tactically possible to do so. Some army commanders complained about unauthorised shootings, looting, and rapes committed by members of the Einsatzgruppen and the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz, to little effect. For example, when GeneraloberstJohannes Blaskowitzsent a memorandum of complaint to Hitler about the atrocities, Hitler dismissed his concerns as "childish", and Blaskowitz was relieved of his post in May 1940. He continued to serve in the army but never received promotion to field marshal.

The final task of the Einsatzgruppen in Poland was to round up the remaining Jews and concentrate them in ghettoswithin major cities with good railway connections. The intention was to eventually remove all the Jews from Poland, but at this point their final destination had not yet been determined. Together, the Wehrmacht and the Einsatzgruppenalso drove tens of thousands of Jews eastward into Soviet-controlled territory.

Preparations for Operation Barbarossa


On 13 March 1941, in the lead-up to Operation Barbarossa, the planned invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler dictated his "Guidelines in Special Spheres re: Directive No. 21 (Operation Barbarossa)". Sub-paragraph B specified that Reichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler would be given "special tasks" on direct orders from the Führer, which he would carry out independently. This directive was intended to prevent friction between the Wehrmacht and the SS in the upcoming offensive. Hitler also specified that criminal acts against civilians perpetrated by members of the Wehrmacht during the upcoming campaign would not be prosecuted in the military courts, and thus would go unpunished.

In a speech to his leading generals on 30 March 1941, Hitler described his envisioned war against the Soviet Union. General Franz Halder, the Army's Chief of Staff, described the speech:

Struggle between two ideologies. Scathing evaluation of Bolshevism, equals antisocial criminality. Communism immense future danger ... This a fight to the finish. If we do not accept this, we shall beat the enemy, but in thirty years we shall again confront the Communist foe. We don't make war to preserve the enemy ... Struggle against Russia: Extermination of Bolshevik Commissars and of the Communist intelligentsia ... Commissars and GPU personnel are criminals and must be treated as such. The struggle will differ from that in the west. In the east harshness now means mildness for the future.

Though General Halder did not record any mention of Jews, German historian Andreas Hillgruber argued that because of Hitler's frequent contemporary statements about the coming war of annihilation against "Judeo-Bolshevism", his generals would have understood Hitler's call for the destruction of the Soviet Union as also comprising a call for the destruction of its Jewish population. The genocide was often described using euphemisms such as "special tasks" and "executive measures"; Einsatzgruppe victims were often described as having been shot while trying to escape. In May 1941 Heydrich verbally passed on the order to kill the Soviet Jews to the SiPo NCO School in Pretzsch, where the commanders of the reorganised Einsatzgruppen were being trained for Operation Barbarossa. In spring 1941, Heydrich and the First Quartermaster of the German Army, General Eduard Wagner, successfully completed negotiations for co-operation between the Einsatzgruppenand the German Army to allow the implementation of the "special tasks". Following the Heydrich-Wagner agreement on 28 April 1941, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch ordered that when Operation Barbarossa began, all German Army commanders were to immediately identify and register all Jews in occupied areas in the Soviet Union, and fully co-operate with the Einsatzgruppen.

In further meetings held in June 1941 Himmler outlined to top SS leaders the regime's intention to reduce the population of the Soviet Union by 30 million people, not only through direct killing of those considered racially inferior, but by depriving the remainder of food and other necessities of life.

Organisation starting in 1941

Further information: List of Einsatzgruppen

For Operation Barbarossa, initially four Einsatzgruppen were created, each numbering 500–990 men to comprise a total force of 3,000. EinsatzgruppenA, B, and C were to be attached to Army Groups North, Centre, and South; EinsatzgruppeD was assigned to the 11th Army. The Einsatzgruppe for Special Purposes operated in eastern Poland starting in July 1941. The Einsatzgruppenwere under the control of the RSHA, headed by Heydrich and later by his successor, SS-ObergruppenführerErnst Kaltenbrunner. Heydrich gave them a mandate to secure the offices and papers of the Soviet state and Communist Party; to liquidate all the higher cadres of the Soviet state; and to instigate and encourage pogroms against Jewish populations. The men of the Einsatzgruppenwere recruited from the SD, Gestapo, Kriminalpolizei(Kripo), Orpo, and Waffen-SS. Each Einsatzgruppe was under the operational control of the Higher SS Police Chiefs in its area of operations. In May 1941 General Wagner and SS-BrigadeführerWalter Schellenberg agreed that the Einsatzgruppenin front-line areas were to operate under army command, while the army provided the Einsatzgruppen with all necessary logistical support.

Each Einsatzgruppe was led by SD, Gestapo, and Kripo officers, and its members included recruits from the Orpo, Waffen-SS, and local volunteers such as militia groups. Each death squad followed its assigned army as they advanced into the Soviet Union. Each Einsatzgruppe was assigned a reserve battalion of Orpos and Waffen-SS as well as support personnel such as drivers and radio operators. During the course of their operations, the Einsatzgruppencommanders received assistance from the Wehrmacht. Heydrich acted under orders from Reichsführer-SS Himmler, who supplied security forces on an "as needed" basis to the local SS and Police Leaders.

Many Einsatzgruppe leaders were highly educated; for example, nine of seventeen leaders of Einsatzgruppe A held doctoratedegrees. Three Einsatzgruppen were commanded by holders of doctorates, one of whom (SS-GruppenführerOtto Rasch) held a double doctorate. 

Additional Einsatzgruppen were created as additional territory was conquered. EinsatzgruppeE operated in Independent State of Croatia under three commanders, SS-ObersturmbannführerLudwig Teichmann, SS-Standartenführer Günther Herrmann, and lastly SS-StandartenführerWilhelm Fuchs. The unit was subdivided into five Einsatzkommandos located in Vinkovci, Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Knin, and Zagreb. EinsatzgruppeF worked with Army Group South. Einsatzgruppe G operated in Romania, Hungary, and Ukraine, commanded by SS-Standartenführer Dr. Josef Kreuzer. EinsatzgruppeH was assigned to Slovakia. Einsatzgruppen K and L, under SS-OberführerDr. Emanuel Schäfer and SS-Standartenführer Dr. Ludwig Hahn, worked alongside 5th and 6th Panzer Armies during the Ardennes offensive. Hahn had previously been in command of Einsatzgruppe Griechenland in Greece.

Other Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos included Einsatzgruppe Iltis (operated in Carinthia, on the border between Slovenia and Austria) under SS-StandartenführerPaul Blobel, Einsatzgruppe Jugoslawien(Yugoslavia) Einsatzkommando Luxemburg (Luxembourg), Einsatzgruppe Norwegen (Norway) commanded by SS-Oberführer Dr. Franz Walter Stahlecker, Einsatzgruppe Serbien (Yugoslavia) under SS-StandartenführerWilhelm Fuchs and SS-Gruppenführer August Meysner, Einsatzkommando Tilsit(Lithuania, Poland), and Einsatzgruppe Tunis (Tunis), commanded by SS-ObersturmbannführerWalter Rauff.

Killings in the Soviet Union

After the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the Einsatzgruppen's main assignment was to kill civilians, as in Poland, but this time its targets specifically included Soviet Communist Party commissars and Jews. In a letter dated 2 July 1941 Heydrich communicated to his SS and Police Leaders that the Einsatzgruppenwere to execute all senior and middle ranking Comintern officials; all senior and middle ranking members of the central, provincial, and district committees of the Communist Party; extremist and radical Communist Party members; people's commissars; and Jews in party and government posts. Open-ended instructions were given to execute "other radical elements (saboteurs, propagandists, snipers, assassins, agitators, etc.)." He instructed that any pogroms spontaneously initiated by the occupants of the conquered territories were to be quietly encouraged. On 8 July, he announced that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans, and gave the order for all male Jews between the ages of 15 and 45 to be shot. On 17 July Heydrich ordered that the Einsatzgruppenwere to kill all Jewish Red Army prisoners of war, plus all Red Army prisoners of war from Georgia and Central Asia, as they too might be Jews. Unlike in Germany, where the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 defined as Jewish anyone with at least three Jewish grandparents, the Einsatzgruppen defined as Jewish anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent; in either case, whether or not the person practised the religion was irrelevant.

As the invasion began, pogroms did break out, particularly in Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Some of these were provoked by the Germans. Within the first few weeks of Operation Barbarossa, 40 pogroms led to the deaths of 10,000 Jews, and by the end of 1941 some 60 pogroms had taken place, claiming as many as 24,000 victims. Canadian historian Erich Haberer has written that incidents such as the Jedwabne pogrom were not incidental, but rather "integral" to the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, as without local help, the Nazis could not have murdered so many so quickly. However, SS-BrigadeführerFranz Walter Stahlecker, commander of EinstazgruppeA, reported to his superiors in mid-October that the residents of Lithuania were not spontaneously starting pogroms, and secret assistance by the Germans was undertaken. A similar reticence was noted by Einsatzgruppe B in Russia and Belarus and Einsatzgruppe C in Ukraine; the further east the Einsatzgruppentravelled, the less likely the residents were to be prompted into killing their Jewish neighbours.

All four main Einsatzgruppen took part in mass shootings from the early days of the war. Initially the targets were adult Jewish men, but by August the net had been widened to include women, children, and the elderly—the entire Jewish population. Initially there was a semblance of legality given to the shootings, with trumped-up charges being read out (arson, sabotage, black marketeering, or refusal to work, for example) and victims being killed by a firing squad. As this method proved too slow, the Einsatzkommandos began to take their victims out in larger groups and shot them next to, or even inside, mass graves that had been prepared. Some Einsatzkommandos started to use automatic weapons, with survivors being killed with a pistol shot.

As word of the massacres got out, many Jews fled; in Ukraine, 70 to 90 per cent of the Jews ran away. This was seen by the leader of Einsatzkommando VI as beneficial, as it would save the regime the costs of deporting the victims further east over the Urals. In other areas the invasion was so successful that the Einsatzgruppen had insufficient forces to immediately kill all the Jews in the conquered territories. A situation report from EinsatzgruppeC in September 1941 noted that not all Jews were members of the Bolshevist apparatus, and suggested that the total elimination of Jewry would have a negative impact on the economy and the food supply. The Nazis began to round their victims up into concentration camps and ghettos and rural districts were for the most part rendered Judenfrei (free of Jews). Jewish councils were set up in major cities and forced labour gangs were established to make use of the Jews as slave labour until they were totally eliminated, a goal that was postponed until 1942.

Babi Yar

Main article: Babi Yar

The largest mass shooting perpetrated by the Einsatzgruppen took place on 29 and 30 September 1941 at Babi Yar, a ravine northwest of Kiev, a city in Ukraine that had fallen to the Germans on 19 September. The perpetrators included a company of Waffen-SS attached to Einsatzgruppe C under Rasch, members of Sonderkommando 4a under SS-ObergruppenführerFriedrich Jeckeln, and some Ukrainian auxiliary police. The Jews of Kiev were told to report to a certain street corner on 29 September; anyone who disobeyed would be shot. Since word of massacres in other areas had not yet reached Kiev and the assembly point was near the train station, they assumed they were being deported. People showed up at the rendezvous point in large numbers, laden with possessions and food for the journey.

After being marched two miles north-west of the city centre, the victims encountered a barbed wire barrier and numerous Ukrainian police and German troops. Thirty or forty people at a time were told to leave their possessions and were escorted through a narrow passageway lined with soldiers brandishing clubs. Anyone who tried to escape was beaten. Soon the victims reached an open area, where they were forced to strip, and then were herded down into the ravine. People were forced to lie down in rows on top of the bodies of other victims, and they were shot in the back of the head or the neck by members of the execution squads.

The murders continued for two days, claiming a total of 33,771 victims. Sand was shovelled and bulldozed over the bodies and the sides of the ravine were dynamited to bring down more material. Anton Heidborn, a member of Sonderkommando4a, later testified that three days later that there were still people alive among the corpses. Heidborn spent the next few days helping smooth out the "millions" of banknotes taken from the victims' possessions. The clothing was taken away, destined to be re-used by German citizens. Jeckeln's troops shot more than 100,000 Jews by the end of October.

Killings in the Baltic states


EinsatzgruppeA operated in the formerly Soviet-occupied Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. According to its own reports to Himmler, Einsatzgruppe A killed almost 140,000 people in the five months following the invasion: 136,421 Jews, 1,064 Communists, 653 people with mental illnesses, 56 partisans, 44 Poles, five Gypsies, and one Armenian were reported killed between 22 June and 25 November 1941.

Upon entering Kaunas, Lithuania, on 25 June 1941, the Einsatzgruppe released the criminals from the local jail and encouraged them to join the pogrom which was underway. Between 23–27 June 1941, 4,000 Jews were killed on the streets of Kaunas and in nearby open pits and ditches. Particularly active in the Kaunas pogrom was the so-called "Death Dealer of Kaunas", a young man who murdered Jews with a crowbar at the Lietukis Garage before a large crowd that cheered each killing with much applause; he occasionally paused to play the Lithuanian national anthem "Tautiška giesmė" on his accordion before resuming the killings.

As Einsatzgruppe A advanced into Lithuania, it actively recruited local nationalists and antisemitic groups. In July 1941, members of the Baltaraisciaimovement joined the massacres. A pogrom in Riga in early July killed 400 Jews. Latvian nationalist Viktors Arājsand his supporters undertook a campaign of arson against synagogues. On 2 July, Einsatzgruppe A commander Stahlecker appointed Arājs to head the Arajs Kommando, a Sonderkommandoof about 300 men, mostly university students. Together, Einsatzgruppe A and the Arājs Kommando killed 2,300 Jews in Riga on 6–7 July. Within six months, Arājs and his men would kill about half of Latvia's Jewish population.

Local officials, the Selbstschutz, and the Hilfspolizei (Auxiliary Police) played a key role in rounding up and massacring Jewish Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians. These groups helped the Einsatzgruppen and other killing units to quickly identify Jews. The Hilfspolizei, consisting of auxiliary police organised by the Germans and recruited from former Latvian Army and police officers, ex-Aizsargi, members of the Pērkonkrusts, and university students, assisted in the murder of Latvia's Jewish citizens. Similar units were created elsewhere, and provided much of the manpower for the Holocaust in Eastern Europe.

With the creation of units such as the Arājs Kommando, the Rollkommando Hamannin Lithuania, and the Omakaitse militia in Estonia, the attacks changed from the spontaneous mob violence of the pogroms to more systematic massacres. With extensive local help, EinsatzgruppeA was the first Einsatzgruppe to attempt to systematically exterminate all the Jews in its area. Latvian historian Modris Eksteins wrote:

Of the roughly 83,000 Jews who fell into German hands in Latvia, not more than 900 survived; and of the more than 20,000 Western Jews sent into Latvia, only some 800 lived through the deportation until liberation. This was the highest percentage of eradication in all of Europe.

In late 1941, the Einsatzkommandos settled into headquarters in Kovno, Riga, and Tallinn. Einsatzgruppe A grew less mobile and faced problems because of its small size. The Germans relied increasingly on the Arājs Kommando and similar groups to perform massacres of Jews.

Such extensive and enthusiastic collaboration with the Einsatzgruppen has been attributed to several factors. Since the Russian Revolution of 1905, the Kresy Wschodnieand other borderlands had experienced a political culture of violence. The period of Soviet rule had been profoundly traumatic for residents of the Baltic states and areas that had been part of Poland until 1939; the population was brutalised and terrorised by the imposed Soviet rule, and the existing familiar structures of society were destroyed.

Historian Erich Haberer notes that many survived and made sense of the "totalitarian atomization" of society by seeking conformity with communism. As a result, by the time of the German invasion in 1941, many had come to see conformity with a totalitarian regime as socially acceptable behaviour; thus, people simply transferred their allegiance to the German regime when it arrived. Some who had collaborated with the Soviet regime sought to divert attention from themselves by naming Jews as collaborators and killing them.

Rumbula

Main article: Rumbula massacre

In November 1941 Himmler was dissatisfied with the pace of the exterminations in Latvia, as he intended to move Jews from Germany into the area. He assigned SS-ObergruppenführerJeckeln, one of the perpetrators of the Babi Yar massacre, to liquidate the Riga ghetto. Jeckeln selected a site about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) southeast of Riga near the Rumbula railway station, and had 300 Russian prisoners of war prepare the site by digging pits in which to bury the victims. Jeckeln organised around 1,700 men, including 300 members of the Arajs Kommando, 50 German SD men, and 50 Latvian guards, most of whom had already participated in mass killings of civilians. These troops were supplemented by Latvians, including members of the Riga city police, battalion police, and ghetto guards. Around 1,500 able-bodied Jews would be spared execution so their slave labour could be exploited; a thousand men were relocated to a fenced-off area within the ghetto and 500 women were temporarily housed in a prison and later moved to a separate nearby ghetto, where they were put to work mending uniforms.

Although Rumbula was on the rail line, Jeckeln decided that the victims should travel on foot from Riga to the execution ground. Trucks and buses were arranged to carry children and the elderly. The victims were told that they were being relocated, and were advised to bring up to 20 kilograms (44 lb) of possessions. The first day of executions, 30 November 1941, began with the perpetrators rousing and assembling the victims at 4:00 am. The victims were moved in columns of a thousand people toward the execution ground. As they walked, some SS men went up and down the line, shooting people who could not keep up the pace or who tried to run away or rest.

When the columns neared the prepared execution site, the victims were driven some 270 metres (300 yd) from the road into the forest, where any possessions that had not yet been abandoned were seized. Here the victims were split into groups of fifty and taken deeper into the forest, near the pits, where they were ordered to strip. The victims were driven into the prepared trenches, made to lie down, and shot in the head or the back of the neck by members of Jeckeln's bodyguard. Around 13,000 Jews from Riga were killed at the pits that day, along with a thousand Jews from Berlin who had just arrived by train. On the second day of the operation, 8 December 1941, the remaining 10,000 Jews of Riga were killed in the same way. About a thousand were killed on the streets of the city or on the way to the site, bringing the total deaths for the two-day extermination to 25,000 people. For his part in organising the massacre, Jeckeln was promoted to Leader of the SS Upper Section, Ostland.

Second Sweep

Einsatzgruppe B, C, and D did not immediately follow EinsatzgruppeA's example in systematically killing all Jews in their areas. The Einsatzgruppecommanders, with the exception of Einsatzgruppe A's Stahlecker, were of the opinion by the fall of 1941 that it was impossible to kill the entire Jewish population of the Soviet Union in one sweep, and thought the killings should stop. An Einsatzgruppe report dated 17 September advised that the Germans would be better off using any skilled Jews as labourers rather than shooting them. Also, in some areas poor weather and a lack of transportation led to a slowdown in deportations of Jews from points further west. Thus, an interval passed between the first round of Einsatzgruppen massacres in summer and fall, and what American historian Raul Hilberg called the second sweep, which started in December 1941 and lasted into the summer of 1942. During the interval, the surviving Jews were forced into ghettos.

EinsatzgruppeA had already murdered almost all Jews in its area, so it shifted its operations into Belarus to assist Einsatzgruppe B. In Dnepropetrovsk in February 1942, EinsatzgruppeD reduced the city's Jewish population from 30,000 to 702 over the course of four days. The German Order Police and local collaborators provided the extra manpower needed to perform all the shootings. Haberer wrote that, as in the Baltic states, the Germans could not have killed so many Jews so quickly without local help. He points out that the ratio of Order Police to auxiliaries was 1 to 10 in both Ukraine and Belarus. In rural areas the proportion was 1 to 20. This meant that most Ukrainian and Belarusian Jews were killed by fellow Ukrainians and Belarusians commanded by German officers rather than by Germans.

The second wave of exterminations in the Soviet Union met with armed resistance in some areas, though the chance of success was poor. Weapons were typically primitive or home-made. Communications were impossible between ghettos in various cities, so there was no way to create a unified strategy. Few in the ghetto leadership supported resistance for fear of reprisals on the ghetto residents. Mass break-outs were sometimes attempted, though survival in the forest was nearly impossible due to the lack of food and the fact that escapees were often tracked down and killed.


A destroyed Magirus-Deutz van found in 1945 in Koło (Kolo), Poland, not far from the Kulmhof (Chelmno) extermination camp. The same type of van was used by the Nazis for suffocation, with the exhaust fumes diverted into the sealed rear compartment where the victims were locked in. This particular van has not been modified yet, as explained by World War II Today (read) sourced to Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality publication Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression– Washington, U.S Govt. Print. Office, 1946, Vol III, p. 418; nevertheless it gives a good idea about the whole process.
Transition to gassing

See also: Final Solution

After a time, Himmler found that the killing methods used by the Einsatzgruppenwere inefficient: they were costly, demoralising for the troops, and sometimes did not kill the victims quickly enough. Many of the troops found the massacres to be difficult if not impossible to perform. Some of the perpetrators suffered physical and mental health problems, and many turned to drink. Historian Christopher Browning notes three categories of potential perpetrators: those who were eager to participate right from the start, those who participated in spite of moral qualms because they were ordered to do so, and a significant minority who refused to take part. A few men spontaneously became excessively brutal in their killing methods and their zeal for the task. Commander of EinsatzgruppeD, SS-GruppenführerOtto Ohlendorf, particularly noted this propensity towards excess, and ordered that any man who was too eager to participate or too brutal should not perform any further executions.

During a visit to Minsk in August 1941, Himmler witnessed an Einsatzgruppenmass execution first-hand and concluded that shooting Jews was too stressful for his men. By November he made arrangements for any SS men suffering ill health from having participated in executions should be provided with rest and mental health care. He also decided a transition should be made to gassing the victims, especially the women and children, and ordered the recruitment of expendable native auxiliaries who could assist with the murders. Gas vans, which had been used previously to kill mental patients, began to see service by all four main Einsatzgruppen from 1942. However, the gas vans were not popular with the Einsatzkommandos, because removing the dead bodies from the van and burying them was a horrible ordeal. Prisoners or auxiliaries were often assigned to do this task so as to spare the SS men the trauma. Some of the early mass killings at extermination campsused carbon monoxide fumes produced by diesel engines, similar to the method used in gas vans, but by as early as September 1941 experiments were begun at Auschwitzusing Zyklon B, a cyanide-based pesticide gas.

Plans for the total eradication of the Jewish population of Europe—eleven million people—were formalised at the Wannsee Conference, held on 20 January 1942. Some would be worked to death, and the rest would be killed in the implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish question(German: Die Endlösung der Judenfrage). Permanent killing centres at Auschwitz, Sobibor, Treblinka, and other Nazi extermination camps replaced mobile death squads as the primary method of mass killing. The Einsatzgruppenremained active, however, and were put to work fighting partisans, particularly in Belarus.

After the fall of Stalingradin February 1943, Himmler realised that Germany would likely lose the war, and ordered the formation of a special task force, Sonderkommando1005, under SS-StandartenführerPaul Blobel. The unit's assignment was to visit mass graves all along the Eastern Front to exhume bodies and burn them in an attempt to cover up the genocide. The task remained unfinished at the end of the war, and many mass graves remain unmarked and unexcavated.

By 1944 the Red Army had begun to push the German forces out of Eastern Europe, and the Einsatzgruppen retreated alongside the Wehrmacht. By late 1944, most Einsatzgruppen personnel had been folded into Waffen-SScombat units or transferred to permanent death camps. Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen and related agencies killed more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews. The total number of Jews murdered during the war is estimated at 5.5 to six million people.

Plans for the Middle East and Britain

According to research by German historians Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers, an Einsatzgruppe was created in 1942 to kill the half-million Jews living in the British Mandate of Palestine and the 50,000 Jews of Egypt. Einsatzgrupppe Egypt, standing by in Athens, was prepared to go to Palestine once German forces arrived there. SS-ObersturmbannführerWalter Rauff was to lead the unit. Given its small staff of only 24 men, Einsatzgrupppe Egypt would have needed help from local residents and from the Afrika Korps to complete their assignment. Its members planned to enlist collaborators from the local population to perform the killings under German leadership. Former Iraqi prime minister Rashid Ali al-Gaylani and the Grand Mufti of JerusalemHaj Amin al-Husseini played roles, engaging in antisemitic radio propaganda, preparing to recruit volunteers, and in raising an Arab-German Battalion that would also follow Einsatzgrupppe Egypt to the Middle East. Commander of the Afrika Korps Field Marshal Erwin Rommel promised the co-operation of his corps in these assignments. In an agreement signed in July 1942 between the two groups, Rommel promised logistical support for Einsatzgrupppe Egypt, which was to serve under command of the Wehrmacht. The group never left Greece, however; the plans were set aside after the Allied victory at the Battle of El Alamein.

Had Operation Sea Lion, the German plan for an invasion of the United Kingdom been launched, six Einsatzgruppenwere scheduled to follow the invasion force into Britain. They were provided with a list called die Sonderfahndungsliste, G.B. ("Special Search List, G.B"), known as The Black Bookafter the war, of 2,300 people to be immediately imprisoned by the Gestapo. The list included Churchill, members of the cabinet, prominent journalists and authors, and members of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile.


Page 6 of the Jäger Report shows the number of people killed by Einsatzkommando III alone in the five-month period covered by the report as 137,346.
Jäger Report

The Einsatzgruppen kept official records of many of their massacres and provided detailed reports to their superiors. The Jäger Report, filed by Commander SS-StandartenführerKarl Jäger on 1 December 1941 to his superior, Stahlecker (head of Einsatzgruppe A), covers the activities of Einsatzkommando III in Lithuania over the five-month period from 2 July 1941 to 25 November 1941.

Jäger's report provides an almost daily running total of the liquidations of 137,346 people, the vast majority of them Jews. The report documents the exact date and place of massacres, the number of victims, and their breakdown into categories (Jews, Communists, criminals, and so on). Women were shot from the very beginning, but initially in fewer numbers than men. Children were first included in the tally starting in mid-August, when 3,207 people were murdered in Rokiškis on 15–16 August 1941. For the most part the report does not give any military justification for the killings; people were killed solely because they were Jews. In total, the report lists over 100 executions in 71 different locations. Jäger wrote: "I can state today that the goal of solving the Jewish problem in Lithuania has been reached by Einsatzkommando 3. There are no more Jews in Lithuania, apart from working Jews and their families." In a February 1942 addendum to the report, Jäger increased the total number of victims to 138,272, giving a breakdown of 48,252 men, 55,556 women, and 34,464 children. Only 1,851 of the victims were non-Jewish.

Jäger escaped capture by the Allies when the war ended. He lived in Heidelberg under his own name until his report was discovered in March 1959. Arrested and charged, Jäger committed suicide on 22 June 1959 in a Hohenasperg prison while awaiting trial for his crimes.

Involvement of the Wehrmacht


The killings took place with the knowledge and support of the German Army in the east. On 10 October 1941 Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau drafted an order to be read to the German Sixth Army on the Eastern Front. Now known as the Severity Order, it read in part:

The most important objective of this campaign against the Jewish-Bolshevik system is the complete destruction of its sources of power and the extermination of the Asiatic influence in European civilization ... In this eastern theatre, the soldier is not only a man fighting in accordance with the rules of the art of war, but also the ruthless standard bearer of a national conception ... For this reason the soldier must learn fully to appreciate the necessity for the severe but just retribution that must be meted out to the subhuman species of Jewry.

Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt of Army Group South expressed his "complete agreement" with the order. He sent out a circular to the generals under his command urging them to release their own versions and to impress upon their troops the need to exterminate the Jews. General Erich von Manstein, in an order to his troops on 20 November, stated that "the Jewish-Bolshevist system must be exterminated once and for all." Manstein sent a letter to EinsatzgruppeD commanding officer Ohlendorf complaining that it was unfair that the SS was keeping all of the murdered Jews' wristwatches for themselves instead of sharing with the army.

Beyond this trivial complaint, the Army and the Einsatzgruppen worked closely and effectively. On 6 July 1941 Einsatzkommando 4b of EinsatzgruppeC reported that "Armed forces surprisingly welcome hostility against the Jews". On 8 September, Einsatzgruppe D reported that relations with the German Army were "excellent". In the same month, Stahlecker of EinsatzgruppeA wrote that Army Group North had been exemplary in co-operating with the exterminations and that relations with the 4th Panzer Army, commanded by General Erich Hoepner, were "very close, almost cordial". In the south, the Romanian Army worked closely with Einsatzgruppe D to massacre Ukrainian Jews, killing around 26,000 Jews in the Odessa massacre. Moreover, most people on the home front in Germany had some idea of the massacres being committed by the Einsatzgruppen. British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper noted that although Himmler had forbidden photographs of the killings, it was common for both the men of the Einsatzgruppenand for bystanders to take pictures to send to their loved ones, which he felt suggested widespread approval of the massacres.

The Wehrmacht tried to justify their considerable involvement in the Einsatzgruppenmassacres as being anti-partisan operations rather than racist attacks, but Hillgruber wrote that this was just an excuse. He states that those German generals who claimed that the Einsatzgruppen were a necessary anti-partisan response were lying, and maintained that the slaughter of about 2.2 million defenceless civilians for reasons of racist ideology cannot be justified.


Otto Ohlendorf testifying on his own behalf in the Einsatzgruppen Trial in Nuremberg, Germany, 1947/48.
Einsatzgruppen Trial

After the close of the World War II, 24 senior leaders of the Einsatzgruppenwere prosecuted in the Einsatzgruppen Trialin 1947–48, part of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials held under United States military authority. The men were charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, and membership in the SS (which had been declared a criminal organization). Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were among the judgments; only four executions were carried out, on 7 June 1951; the rest were reduced to lesser sentences. Four additional Einsatzgruppeleaders were later tried and executed by other nations.

Several Einsatzgruppen leaders, including Ohlendorf, claimed at the trial to have received an order before Operation Barbarossa requiring them to murder all Soviet Jews. To date no evidence has been found that such an order was ever issued. German prosecutor Alfred Streim noted that if such an order had been given, post-war courts would only have been able to convict the Einsatzgruppenleaders as accomplices to mass murder. However, if it could be established that the Einsatzgruppen had committed mass murder without orders, then they could have been convicted as perpetrators of mass murder, and hence could have received stiffer sentences, including capital punishment.

Streim postulated that the existence of an early comprehensive order was a fabrication created for use in Ohlendorf's defence. This theory is now widely accepted by historians. German historian Peter Longerich notes that most orders received by the Einsatzgruppen leaders—especially when they were being ordered to carry out criminal activities—were vague, and couched in terminology that had a specific meaning for members of the regime. Leaders were given briefings about the need to be "severe" and "firm"; all Jews were to be viewed as potential enemies that had to be dealt with ruthlessly. British historian Sir Ian Kershaw argues that Hitler's apocalyptic remarks before Barbarossa about the necessity for a war without mercy to "annihilate" the forces of "Judeo-Bolshevism" were interpreted by Einsatzgruppen commanders as permission and encouragement to engage in extreme antisemitic violence, with each Einsatzgruppencommander to use his own discretion about how far he was prepared to go.

Most of the perpetrators of Nazi war crimes were never charged, and returned unremarked to civilian life. The West German Central Prosecution Office of Nazi War Criminals only charged about a hundred former Einsatzgruppe members with war crimes. And as time went on, it became more difficult to obtain prosecutions; witnesses grew older and were less likely to be able to offer valuable testimony. Funding for trials was inadequate, and the governments of Austria and Germany became less interested in obtaining convictions for wartime events, preferring to forget the Nazi past.

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REICH DRUNKARD: ROBERT LEY (FEBRUARY 15, 1890 TO OCTOBER 25, 1945)

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            On this date, October 25, 1945, a Nazi Politician, Robert Ley committed suicide by hanging himself in his prison cell. I will post information about him from Wikipedia and other links.

Robert Ley

In office
1933–1945
Leader
Preceded by
Reich Commissioner for Social House-Building
In office
1941–1945
Personal details
Born
15 February 1890
Niederbreidenbach, Rhine Province, German Empire
Died
25 October 1945 (aged 55)
Nuremberg, Germany
Nationality
German
Political party
Spouse(s)
Elisabeth Schmidt (? - 1938)
Inge Spilcker (1938–1942)
Madeleine Wanderer (mistress)
Children
Renate Wald (29 July 1922 - 2004)
Lore (25 October 1938)
Wolf (14 May 1940)
Gloria (27 June 1941)
Rolf Robert (28 July 1944)
Parents
Friedrich and Emilie (née Wald) Ley
Alma mater

Robert Ley(German: [ˈlaɪ]; 15 February 1890 – 25 October 1945) was a Nazi politician and head of the German Labour Front from 1933 to 1945. He committed suicide while awaiting trial at Nuremberg for war crimes.

Early life

Ley was born in Niederbreidenbach (now a part of Nümbrecht) in the Rhine Province, the seventh of 11 children of a heavily indebted farmer, Friedrich Ley, and his wife Emilie (née Wald). He studied chemistry at the Universities of Jena, Bonn, and Münster. He volunteered for the army on the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and spent two years in the artillery before training as an aerial artillery spotter with Field Artillery Detachment 202. In July 1917 his aircraft was shot down over France and he was taken prisoner. It has been suggested that he suffered a brain injury in the crash; for the rest of his life he spoke with a stammer and suffered bouts of erratic behaviour, aggravated by heavy drinking.

After the war Ley returned to university, gaining a doctorate in 1920. He was employed as a food chemist by a branch of the giant IG Farben company, based in Leverkusen in the Ruhr. Enraged by the French occupation of the Ruhr in 1924, Ley became an ultra-nationalist and joined the Nazi Party soon after reading Adolf Hitler's speech at his trial following the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. By 1925 he was Gauleiter of the Southern Rhineland district and editor of a virulently anti-Semitic Nazi newspaper, the Westdeutsche Beobachter. Ley proved unswervingly loyal to Hitler, which led the party leader to ignore complaints about his arrogance, incompetence and drunkenness.

Labour Front head

In 1931, Ley was brought to the Nazi Party's Munich headquarters to take over as head of the party organisation (Reichsorganisationsleiter) following Hitler's dismissal of Gregor Strasser in an internal dispute. Ley's impoverished upbringing and his experience as head of the largely working-class Ruhr party region meant that he was sympathetic to those elements in the party who were open to socialism, which Hitler opposed, but he always sided with Hitler in inner party disputes. This helped him survive the hostility of other party officials such as the party treasurer, Franz Xaver Schwarz, who regarded him as a drunken incompetent. When Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, Ley accompanied him to Berlin. In April, when the trade union movement was taken over by the state, Hitler appointed him head of the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF).

The DAF took over the existing Nazi trade union formation, the National Socialist Factory Cell Organisation (Nationalsozialistische Betriebszellenorganisation, NSBO) as well as the main trade union federation. But Ley's lack of administrative ability meant that the NSBO leader, Reinhard Muchow, a member of the socialist wing of the Nazi Party, soon became the dominant figure in the DAF, overshadowing Ley. Muchow began a purge of the DAF administration, rooting out ex-Social Democrats and ex-Communists and placing his own militants in their place. The NSBO cells continued to agitate in the factories on issues of wages and conditions, annoying the employers, who soon complained to Hitler and other Nazi leaders that the DAF was as bad as the Communists had been.

Hitler had no sympathy with the syndicalisttendencies of the NSBO, and in January 1934 a new Law for the Ordering of National Labour effectively suppressed independent working-class factory organisations, even Nazi ones, and put questions of wages and conditions in the hands of the Trustees of Labour(Treuhänder der Arbeit), dominated by the employers. At the same time Muchow was purged and Ley's control over the DAF re-established. The NSBO was completely suppressed and the DAF became little more than an arm of the state for the more efficient deployment and disciplining of labour to serve the needs of the regime, particularly its massive expansion of the arms industry.

Once his power was established, Ley began to abuse it in a way that was conspicuous even by the standards of the Nazi regime. On top of his generous salaries as DAF head, Reichsorganisationsleiter, and Reichstag deputy, he pocketed the large profits of the Westdeutsche Beobachter, and freely embezzled DAF funds for his personal use. By 1938 he owned a luxurious estate near Cologne, a string of villas in other cities, a fleet of cars, a private railway carriage and a large art collection. He increasingly devoted his time to "womanising and heavy drinking, both of which often led to embarrassing scenes in public." On 29 December 1942 his second wife Inge (1916-1942) shot herself after a drunken brawl. Ley's subordinates took their lead from him, and the DAF became a notorious centre of corruption, all paid for with the compulsory dues paid by German workers. One historian says: "The DAF quickly began to gain a reputation as perhaps the most corrupt of all the major institutions of the Third Reich. For this, Ley himself had to shoulder a large part of the blame."


The KDF-Schiff Robert Ley, March 1939


The KDF-Schiff Wilhelm Gustloff, 23 Sept 1939
Strength Through Joy

Hitler and Ley were aware that the suppression of the trade unions and the prevention of wage increases by the Trustees of Labour system, when coupled with their relentless demands for increased productivity to hasten German rearmament, created a real risk of working-class discontent. In November 1933, as a means of preventing labour disaffection, the DAF established Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude, KdF), to provide a range of benefits and amenities to the German working class and their families. These included subsidised holidays both at resorts across Germany and in "safe" countries abroad (particularly Italy). Some of the world's first purpose built cruise-liners, the Wilhelm Gustloff and the Robert Ley, were built to take KdF members on Mediterranean cruises.

Other KdF programs included concerts, opera and other forms of entertainment in factories and other workplaces, free physical education and gymnastics training and coaching in sports such as football, tennis and sailing. All this was paid for by the DAF, at a cost of 29 million Reichsmarks a year by 1937, and ultimately by the workers themselves through their dues, although the employers also contributed. KdF was one of the Nazi regime's most popular programs, and played a large part in reconciling the working class to the regime, at least before 1939.

The DAF and KdF's most ambitious program was the "people's car", the Volkswagen, originally a project undertaken at Hitler's request by the car-maker Ferdinand Porsche. When the German car industry was unable to meet Hitler's demand that the Volkswagen be sold at 1,000 Reichsmarks or less, the project was taken over by the DAF. This brought Ley's old socialist tendencies back into prominence. The party, he said, had taken over where private industry had failed, because of the "short-sightedness, malevolence, profiteering and stupidity" of the business class. Now working for the DAF, Porsche built a new Volkswagen factory at Fallersleben, at a huge cost which was partly met by raiding the DAF's accumulated assets and misappropriating the dues paid by DAF members. The Volkswagen was sold to German workers on an installment plan, and the first models appeared in February 1939. The outbreak of war, however, meant that none of the 340,000 workers who paid for a car ever received one. The entire project was financially unsound, and only the corruption and lack of accountability of the Nazi regime made it possible. [a]




"No compassion will be tolerated for the Jews. We deny the Pope's statement that there is but one human race. The Jews are parasites."

- Robert Ley in Vienna, Austria.


Wartime role

Ley said in a speech in 1939: "We National Socialists have monopolized all resources and all our energies during the past seven years so as to be able to be equipped for the supreme effort of battle."With the actual outbreak of World War II in 1939, however, Ley's importance declined. The militarisation of the workforce and the diversion of resources to the war greatly reduced the role of the DAF, and the KdF was largely wound up. Ley's drunkenness and erratic behaviour were less tolerated in wartime, and he was supplanted by Armaments Minister Fritz Todtand his successor Albert Speer as the czar of the German workforce (the head of the Organisation Todt (OT)). As German workers were increasingly conscripted, foreign workers, first "guest workers" from France and later slave labourers from Poland, Ukraine and other eastern countries, were brought in to replace them. Ley played some role in this program, but was overshadowed by Fritz Sauckel, General Plenipotentiary for the Distribution of Labour (Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz), in 1942.

Nevertheless Ley was deeply implicated in the mistreatment of foreign slave workers. In October 1942 he attended a meeting in Essen with Paul Plieger (head of the giant Hermann Göring Works industrial combine) and leaders of the German coal industry. A verbatim account of the meeting was kept by one of the managers. A recent historian writes:


The key item on the agenda was the question of 'how to treat the Russians.' ... Robert Ley, as usual, was drunk. And when Ley got drunk he was prone to speak his mind. .. With so much at stake, there was no room for compassion or civility. No degree of coercion was too much, and Ley expected the mine managers to back up their foremen in meting out the necessary discipline. As Ley put it: 'When a Russian pig has to be beaten, it would be the ordinary German worker who would have to do it.'

Despite his failings, Ley retained Hitler's favour; until the last months of the war he was part of Hitler's inner circle along with Martin Bormann and Joseph Goebbels. In November 1941 he was given a new role, as Reich Commissioner for Social House-Building (Reichskommissar für den sozialen Wohnungsbau), later shortened to Reich Housing Commissioner (Reichswohnungskommissar). Here his job was to prepare for the effects on German housing of the expected Allied air attacks on German cities, which began to increase in intensity from 1941 onwards. In this role he became a key ally of Armaments Minister Albert Speer, who recognised that German workers must be adequately housed if productivity was to be maintained. As the air war against Germany increased from 1943, "dehousing" German workers became an objective of the Allied area bombing campaign, and Ley's organisation was increasingly unable to cope with the resulting housing crisis.

He was aware in general terms of the Nazi regime's programme of extermination of the Jews of Europe. Ley encouraged it through the virulent anti-Semitism of his publications and speeches. In February 1941 he was present at a meeting along with Speer, Bormann and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel at which Hitler had set out his views on the "Jewish question" at some length, making it clear that he intended the "disappearance" of the Jews one way or another.


Picture showing Dr. Robert Ley's arrest in 1945. He was still in his pyjamas at the time of the arrest by US troops. Cropped, converted to greyscale and lightened using GIMP.


The cell where Robert Ley hanged himself
Postwar

As the Third Reich collapsed in early 1945, Ley was among the government figures who remained fanatically loyal to Hitler. He last saw Hitler on 20 April 1945, Hitler's birthday, in the Führerbunker in central Berlin. The next day he left for southern Bavaria, in the expectation that Hitler would make his last stand in the "National Redoubt" in the alpine areas. When Hitler refused to leave Berlin, this idea was abandoned, and Ley was then effectively unemployed. On 16 May he was captured by American paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division in a shoemaker's house in the village of Schleching. He told them he was "Dr. Ernst Distelmeyer," but he was identified by Franz Xaver Schwarz, the treasurer of the Nazi Party and a long-time enemy.

At the Nuremberg Trials, Ley was indicted under Count One ("The Common Plan or Conspiracy to wage an aggressive war in violation of international law or treaties"), Count Three (War Crimes, including among other things "mistreatment of prisoners of war or civilian populations") and Count Four ("Crimes Against Humanity– murder, extermination, enslavement of civilian populations; persecution on the basis of racial, religions or political grounds"). Ley was apparently indignant at being regarded as a war criminal, telling the American prison, he was seen and tested by the psychiatrist Douglas Kelleyand the psychologist Gustave Gilbert: "Stand us against a wall and shoot us, well and good, you are victors. But why should I be brought before a Tribunal like a c-c-c- ... I can't even get the word out!"

On 24 October, three days after receiving the indictment, Ley strangled himself in his prison cell using a noose made by tearing a towel into strips, fastened to the toilet pipe in his cell.

See also
Notes
1.    Tooze notes: "Even if the war had not intervened, developments up to 1939 made clear that the entire conception of the 'people's car' was a disastrous flop."Tooze 2006, p. 156.


Robert Ley(February 15 1890 – October 25 1945) was a Nazi German politician and head of the German Labor Front from 1933 to 1945. While awaiting trial for war crimes, on October 25, four days after receiving the indictment, Ley committed suicide by strangling himself in his cell, using a noose made by tearing a towel into strips, fastened to the toilet pipe in his cell.

Quotes
  • Stand us against a wall and shoot us, well and good, you are victors. But why should I be brought before a Tribunal like a c-c-c-... I can't even get the word [criminal] out!
    • To G.M. Gilbert. Quoted in Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth - Page 573 - by Gitta Sereny - History - 1996
  • When a Russian pig has to be beaten, it would be the ordinary German worker who would have to do it.
    • Quoted in The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze - Page 529
  • The Weimar system appeared to me like a father who locks his little boys in a room and stirs them up against one another and says: 'Beat each other up as much as you want.'
    • Leipzig, 1939. Quoted in Robert Ley: Hitler's Labor Front Leader - Page 24 - by Ronald Smelser - 1988
  • We National Socialists have monopolized all resources and all our energies during the past seven years so as to be able to be equipped for the supreme effort of battle.
    • Quoted in "Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal" - Page 408 - Nuremberg, Germany - 1948
  • The trade unions that were swayed by Marxist teaching did not want social peace. They calculated that their chances of acquiring political power would improve with the growing dissatisfaction of the workers. One of the first necessities with which the Hitler Government found itself faced was that of dissolving the organizations that kept alive the antagonism between employers and employees. They were replaced by the Labour Front.
    • Quoted in Social Policy in the New Germany by Bruno Rauecker - 1936
  • You know we have this new poison gas - I've heard about it. The Fuehrer must do it. He must use it. Now he has to do it!
    • To Albert Speer, autumn of 1944. Quoted in "Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs" - Page 417 - by Albert Speer - History - 1970
  • Catastrophe was only narrowly averted. It was all due to the faith of one man! Yes, you who called us godless, we found our faith in Adolf Hitler, and through him found God once again. That is the greatness of our day, that is our good fortune!
    • Speech given on November 3, 1936. Quoted in Wir alle helfen dem Führer"Schicksal — ich glaube!" (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1937), pages 103-114
  • Understanding sometimes is not enough to explain something. Only faith is sufficient. The Führer in Nuremberg said: 'Woe to him who does not believe!' He who does not believe has no soul. He is empty. He has no ideals. He has nothing to live for. He has no sunshine, no light, no joy in life. He is a poor, poor man. What is wealth? What are possessions? What does it all mean? Problems come despite them, only faith is left. Woe to him who does not believe!
    • Speech given on November 3, 1936. Quoted in Wir alle helfen dem Führer"Schicksal — ich glaube!" (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1937), pages 103-114
  • Our god is the wonderful law of creation, whose amazing unity of all things shows itself if wonderful flowers, in growing trees, in new born children, in the secrets of a mother, in the growth of our people, in work and accomplishment and creation, in life itself. It is the joy we have in everything. How beautiful everything is. Do you feel the same way? I am so happy to be alive.
    • Speech given on March 31, 1939. Quoted in Die Hoheitsträger and titled "Wir oder die Juden" - By Robert Ley - (May 1939), pages 4-6.
  • We believe on this earth in Adolf Hitler alone! We believe in National Socialism as the creed which is the sole source of grace! We believe that Almighty God has sent us Adolf Hitler so that he may rid Germany of the hypocrites and Pharisees.
    • Quoted in "Thus Spake Germany" - Page 30 - by W. W. Coole, Władysław Wszebór Kulski, M. F. Potter - 1941
  • We swear we are not going to abandon the struggle until the Last Jew in Europe has been exterminated and is actually dead. It is not enough to isolate the Jewish enemy of mankind - the Jew has got to be exterminated!
    • May 1943. Quoted in The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation - Page 224 - by David Cesarani - History - 1994
  • The second German secret weapon is anti-Semitism, because if it is consistently pursued by Germany, it will become a universal problem which all nations will be forced to consider.
    • Quoted in "Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal" - Page 118 - Nuremberg, Germany - 1947
  • Workers of all lands, unite — to smash the rule of English capitalism! You young upward-striving nations of the earth, combine to annihilate the old English dragon who blocks the treasures of the earth and withholds from you the riches of the world.
    • Quoted in Metapolitics: From Wagner and the German Romantics to Hitler - Page 140 by Peter Robert Edwin Viereck, Peter Viereck - Political Science - 2004
  • The fight against the Jews has not ended... it will not have ended until the Jews throughout the world have been exterminated.
    • 1939. Quoted in The Incomparable Crime - by Roger Manvell, Heinrich Fraenkel - 1967
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JEFFREY LANDRIGAN THE ESCAPEE & RECIDIVIST MURDERER (EXECUTED ON OCTOBER 26, 2010 IN ARIZONA)

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On this date, October 26, 2010, a Prison escapee and repeat offender, Jeffrey Landrigan was executed by lethal injection in Arizona. This is another perfect example of letting a dangerous killer be kept alive. Please go to this Blog Post to learn more. 

Jeffrey Landrigan

THE NIGHT CALLER: ERIC EDGAR COOKE (25 FEBRUARY 1931 TO 26 OCTOBER 1964)

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50 years ago on this date, 26 October 1964, Eric Edgar Cooke, an Australian Serial Killer, became the last man to be executed by hanging in Western Australia. I will post information about him from Wikipedia and other links.

Eric Edgar Cooke
 
Born
25 February 1931
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Died
26 October 1964 (aged 33)
Cause of death
Hanging
Other names
The Night Caller
Criminal penalty
Death

Killings
Victims
8 murders and 14 attempted murders
Span of killings
1959–1963
Country
Australia
State(s)
Western Australia
Date apprehended
1 September 1963

Eric Edgar Cooke(25 February 1931 – 26 October 1964), nicknamed the "Night Caller", was an Australian serial killer. From 1959 to 1963, he terrorised the city of Perth, Western Australia, by committing 22 violent crimes, eight of which resulted in deaths.

Early life

Childhood

Eric Cooke was born on 25 February 1931 in Victoria Park, a suburb of Perth, and was the eldest of three children.

Cooke was born into an unhappy, violent family; his parents married solely because his mother, Christine, was pregnant with him, and his alcoholic father, Vivian, beat him frequently, especially when the boy tried to protect his mother from the elder Cooke's drunken rages. Christine Cooke would sleep in the staff room at her job in the Como Hotel to avoid beatings. Much like his mother, Cooke would hide underneath the house or roam neighbouring streets just to escape a night of his father's violence. Cooke was also placed in orphanages or foster homes on occasion.

Cooke was frequently hospitalised for head injuries and had suspected brain damage because of his accident-proneness. Later it was questioned whether this was due to repressed suicidal tendencies. He also suffered from recurrent headaches and was once admitted to an asylum. His reported blackouts later stopped after an operation in 1949.

Cooke was born with a hare lip and a cleft palate, for which he had one operation when he was three months old and another when he was 3½. Surgical operations to repair the deformities were not totally successful, and left him with a slight facial deformity, and he spoke in a mumble; these handicaps made him the target of bullying at school. In Estelle Blackburn's telling of the murders, he is described as "a short, slight man with dark, wavy hair and a twisted mouth..." Cooke's disfigurements made the murderer ashamed, shy, and emotionally unstable at a young age due to the beatings and bullying that came with it.

Though very good at subjects that required retentive memory and manual dexterity, Cooke was expelled from Subiaco State School for stealing money from a teacher's purse at the age of six. Once he was transferred to Newcastle Street Infants' School, Cooke was again the butt of many jokes with his mumble and scar. He continued to be made fun of at every school he attended, including Highgate Primary School, Forrest Street Primary School, and Newcastle Street Junior Technical School. He left school at 14 to work as a delivery boy for Central Provision Stores to work in order to support the family. He would give his weekly wages to his mother who could not fully support the family with the money she earned from cooking and cleaning. Many of Cooke's jobs put him in the hospital due to his accident-proneness. At a job in the factory of Harris, Scarfe and Sandover, Cooke landed in the hospital due to effects of being struck on the nose by a winch. At the age of 16, he worked as a hammer boy in the blacksmith section of the workshop at Midland Junction, where he always signed his lunch bag "Al Capone," and ended up burning his face with steam and suffering second-degree burns. At the same job he jarred his right hand and also injured the thumb of his other hand.

As a teenager, starting at 17, Cooke spent his nights involved in petty crimes and vandalism; he would later serve 18 months in jail for burning down a church after he was rejected in a choir audition. During his later teenage years, Cooke would sneak into houses and steal whatever he found valuable. These crimes escalated to damaging clothing and furniture in acts of vengeance. He would cut out newspaper accounts of his crimes and show them to his acquaintances in an attempt to gain friendships.

Adulthood

At Cooke's grandmother's house on March 12, 1949, police finally caught up with the young vandal, finding evidence at his house. His fingerprints were then matched to those found in other open cases. At the age of 18, on May 24, 1949, Cooke was sentenced to three years in prison after being arrested for arson and vandalism by a Detective Burrows who considered the boy one of "life's unfortunates." He was convicted on two charges of stealing, seven of breaking and entering and four of arson. He left many fingerprints and easy clues for detectives which would teach him to be more careful in his future crimes.

At the age of 21, Cooke joined the regular Australian Army, but was discharged three months later after it was discovered that before enlistment he had had a juvenile record for theft, breaking and entering, and arson. During his training, he was quickly promoted to lance corporal and was taught to handle firearms.

On 14 October 1953, Cooke, then aged 22, married Sarah (Sally) Lavin, a 19-year-old waitress, at the Methodist Church in Cannington. They had seven children, four boys and three girls.

Cooke was arrested several times as a "peeping tom" and for other minor offences. In 1955 he was arrested for stealing a car and sentenced to two years hard labour. After his release, he took to wearing women's gloves while committing crimes to avoid leaving fingerprints.

Murder spree

Cooke's victims included Jillian Macpherson Brewer, 22; Brian Weir, 29; John Sturkey, 19; George Walmsley, 54; Shirley Martha McLeod, 18; Constance Lucy Madrill, 24; Patricia Vinico Berkman, 33; and Rosemary Anderson, 17. As his crimes were opportunistic and used varying methods, and his victims shared no obvious common traits, predicting where he would strike and catching him was difficult.

Cooke's killing spree involved a series of seemingly unrelated hit-and-runs, stabbings, stranglings, and shootings. Victims were shot with several different rifles, stabbed with knives and scissors, and hit with an axe. Several were killed after waking up as Cooke was robbing their homes, two were shot while sleeping without their homes being disturbed, and one was shot dead after answering a knock on the door. After stabbing one victim, Cooke got lemonade from the refrigerator and sat on the veranda drinking it. One victim was strangled to death with the cord from a bedside lamp, after which Cooke raped the corpse, dragged it to a neighbor's lawn, then sexually penetrated it with an empty whiskey bottle, which he left cradled in the bodies arms.

Two of Cooke's murders resulted in false convictions. One of them, for which a man named John Button was wrongly convicted, involved Rosemary Anderson. Another was the murder of Jillian Macpherson Brewer, a Melbourne heiress who was stabbed with a hatchet and scissors, which led to the false conviction of Darryl Beamish.

During the 1960s, people in Australia frequently left cars unlocked and/or with the keys in the ignition, which enabled Cooke to steal a car almost every night. He sometimes returned stolen vehicles without the owners becoming aware of the theft, including several cars that were involved in hit-and-runs. Cooke's first hit-and-run was on Nel Schneider, 29, a mother of four who came to Australia from Amsterdam in September 1955. After being thrown from her bike, Schneider was left with a fractured skull and permanent brain damage.

The police investigation included fingerprinting more than 30,000 males over the age of 12, as well as locating and test-firing more than 60,000 .22 rifles. After a rifle was found hidden in a Geraldton Wax bush on Rookwood Avenue, Mount Pleasant, in August 1963, ballistic testsproved the gun to have been used in the murder of Shirley McLeod. Police returned to the location and tied a similar rifle, rendered inoperable, to the bush with fishing line and constructed a hide in which they waited in case someone returned for it. Cooke was apprehended when he returned to collect the weapon seventeen days later.

Cooke confessed to several crimes, including eight murders and fourteen attempted murders. He was convicted on a charge of murdering John Lindsay Sturkey, one of Cooke's five Australia Day shooting victims. In his confessions, Cooke demonstrated an exceptionally good memory for the details of his crimes irrespective of how long ago he had committed the offences. For example, he confessed to more than 250 burglaries and was able to detail exactly what he took, including the number and denominations of the coins he had stolen from each location.

Conviction and execution

Cooke pleaded not guilty on the grounds of insanity. At trial, Cooke's lawyers claimed that he suffered from schizophrenia, but this claim was dismissed after the director of the state mental health services testified that he was sane. The state would not allow independent psychiatric specialists to examine Cooke. Cooke was convicted of willful murder on 28 November 1963 after a three-day trial by jury in the Supreme Court of Western Australia before Justice Virtue.

He was sentenced to death by hanging and, despite having grounds to appeal, he ordered his lawyers not to apply, claiming that he deserved to pay for what he had done. From Death Row, the serial killer, at the age of 33, was led out at 6 a.m. after 13 months in New Division. Cooke, listed as Prisoner No. 29050, was hanged in Perth, Western Australia at 8 o'clock near the Swan River settlement, where solitary confinement was the punishment for its convicts. Ten minutes before the sentence was carried out, on 26 October 1964, Cooke swore on the Bible that he had killed Jillian Brewer and Rosemary Anderson, claims which had been previously rejected as others had already been convicted of those murders.

Cooke was the last person to be hanged in the state of Western Australia.

Cooke is buried in Fremantle Cemetery, above the remains of child killer Martha Rendell, who was hanged in Fremantle Prison in 1909.

People wrongly convicted of Cooke's crimes

Cooke's confessions appeared to exculpate two men who had already been tried separately, convicted and imprisoned for the killing of Jillian Macpherson Brewer (1959) and Rosemary Anderson (1963) respectively:
  • Darryl Beamish, a deaf mute, was convicted in December of 1961 of murdering Brewer.
  • John Button was convicted of manslaughter, following the death of Rosemary Anderson, his girlfriend. Anderson was one of Cooke's first hit and run victims though, after intense questioning, Button confessed to the murder.
Despite Cooke's 1963 confession, Beamish served 15 years, while Button was sentenced to ten years and served five as prisoner No. 29050.

The appeal court dismissed Button's initial appeal, even though Cooke had provided details that only the culprit could have known; in particular, the judges did not believe Cooke's claim that Anderson's body was thrown "over the roof" of an EJ Holden without damaging its sun visor, as Cooke had claimed. Over subsequent decades, Button and his supporters – including journalist Estelle Blackburn – continued to press for a retrial, a campaign that included a well-publicized 1998 simulated reenactment of Anderson's death, conducted by crash test experts, with both a Holden matching one believed to have been used by Cooke on the night in question, and a 1963 Simca Aronde like the car owned by Button, which were both driven at a crash test dummy. The dummy was thrown over the roof of the Holden, as Cooke had claimed, and the damage sustained matched the records of a panelbeating business that had, in 1963, repaired the vehicle driven by Cooke. The experts found that the sun visor flexed when hit by a body and returned to its original shape, without even cracking the paint.

Beamish's initial appeal was also dismissed because the court did not believe Cooke's evidence. The prosecution claimed that his confessions were an attempt to prolong his own trial and the then-Chief Justice of Western Australia, Sir Albert Wolff, called Cooke a "villainous unscrupulous liar".

In 2002, the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed Button's conviction. Button's success opened the way for an appeal by Darryl Beamish, who was acquitted in 2005. In both cases, the appeal judges found that the murders had probably been committed by Cooke.

On 2 June 2011, Beamish was granted a A$425,000 ex gratia payment by the Western Australian government.

Media

A 2000 memoir by Robert Drewe, The Shark Net– later made into a three-part TV series – provides one author's impressions the effect the murders had on the Perth of that era. According to the book, more people bought dogs for security and locked back doors and garages that had never been secured before.

Eric Edgar Cooke, as "The Nedlands Monster", features in Tim Winton's 1991 novel Cloudstreet and the subsequent 2011 television adaptation.

Cooke is referenced in Craig Silvey's 2009 novel Jasper Jones.

Walkley Award-winning journalist Estelle Blackburn spent six years writing the biographical story Broken Lives, about Cooke's life and criminal career, focusing particularly on the devastation left on his victims and their families.

In March 2009, the second season of Crime Investigation Australia featured an episode about Eric Edgar Cooke.

OTHER LINKS:




COP KILLER EXECUTED: FRANK GARCIA (EXECUTED ON OCTOBER 27, 2011 IN TEXAS)

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On this date, October 27, 2011, Frank Garcia was executed by lethal injection in Texas for the March 29, 2001 murder of his own wife, Jessica Garcia and also of Officer Hector Garza. To learn more about the case, please go to this blog post



Cop Killer, Frank Garcia

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