The Sentencing and Execution of Nazi War Criminals

The Sentencing and Execution of Nazi War Criminals, 1946

 

Great article! Thanks for the post. Its stories like this that make history relevant and interesting. Only when a man is at his weakest to we get to see his true self.

 

Yes, interesting indeed.

 

great article!
lots of good stuff there!!!

thanks!!

 

Nice find.... it really puts the events in context.

I've known for many years that Goering cheated the hangman by taking a cyanide capsule...... does anyone know, off the top of their head, HOW he got the capsule...ie who gave it to him, what was their motiviation and how did they get it to him, and did anything happen to THEM?

....just curious.

Great link, though.

-whatever

-Lou

 

There is a complete book about the subject - Ben E Swearingen's 'The Mystery Of Herman Goering's Suicide'.

If you don't want to know the answer, don't read on....




....but the author makes a plausible case for the poison capsule having ben 'slipped' to HG by Lt Jack Wheelis, who was one of Goering's guards and who developed a rapport with him.

Wheelis died in the early 1950s, some thirty years before this story was revealed.

 

Thanks, Martin!

Just the information I was curious about.



Is this place great, or what???

Damn, I'm impressed with this forum!

-whatever

-Lou

 

A very nice article, tyvm!

 

No problem, Lou - I forgot to mention that the rapport developed between the two men as a result of their mutual love of game-hunting. It's worth reading Swearingen's book - he was just a militaria collector who came into possession of the cartridge case in which the cyanide capsule had been kept, and then spent years of detective work trying to find answers to exactly the questions you posed above.

 

Martin, I watched something on him a while ago, they talked to his son who said his father had Goerings' watch!? Showed a pic of him wearing it! Signifying the strength of their relationship.

but that is a book i will have to read!
Thanks!

 

And then there´s this....just who helped Göring if someone did...

'I helped Goering escape hangman' - Times Online

 

Well!.... that certainly clears things up!


Doncha' jes' love history??!!

-whatever

-Lou

 

Just saw a document on Göring´s life by Jörg Müllner ( 2006 ) mostly made of footage from Göring´s collections, and in one part they interview, as I recall, Mr Stivers who says Göring left a letter saying he had another capsule in his skin cream box. And Mr Stivers says they found another capsule in the box...(?!). Well, who knows....

 

Execution of German General Anton Dostler


After WWII the first Allied war trial found German General Anton Dostler guilty of war crimes. He was sentenced to death by firing squad. This remarkable footage shows General Dostler's last minutes on December 1st, 1945


Site Promo Clip - Execution of German General Anton Dostler

 

Yikes, that was tough to watch.

Great site though, lots fo great film there!
Thanks for the link JCF!

 

Most welcome and yes it was .

[SIZE=+1]TRIALS AT NUREMBERG - Courtroom and Evidence[/SIZE]​

Anti-semitic activities, Trial, defendants speak. Jews being rounded up. Trial again intercut with doc footage of anti-semitic acts. Concentration camps, gold fillings, bodies being carried and dumped into graves, graphic holocaust victims, numbers on children's arms, tattoos on arms, gas chamber, transcripts and stacks of documents, trial again sync sound, defendant's voices and translator. Judges file in. Judges read; Documentary footage of Nazi activities, war booty, Hitler, Hitler youth, riots, documentary footage intercut with trial footage. prison where Nazis were incarcerated, Spandau interiors and exteriors.


TRIALS AT NUREMBERG - Courtroom and Evidence

 

yes, another theory from the past:

"In the Nürnberg prison, Bach-Zelewski explained, he had kept the three phials of cyanide which all SS commanders regularly carried, for use in case of capture. Because he was a witness, not a prisoner, guards had not searched him. When Göring, who occupied the opposite cell, asked Bach-Zelewski for some poison, the general obliged. One day, as they met in the corridor, Bach-Zelewski slipped the phial to Göring under cover of a handshake. It was hidden inside a bar of G.I. laundry soap.

The transaction, according to Bach-Zelewski, was quite impersonal. "I had no relations with Göring and did not like him," he said, "but he was the first to ask me for the poison." Bach-Zelewski gave another phial to a fellow SS general, who later committed suicide. The third, still imbedded in the bar of soap, he handed to U.S. intelligence officers last week."

How Goring Died - TIME

 

The sentecing should go by how bad there crimes were.
A top nazi that caused the most worst crimes that condimed the lives of millions should get hang,but a nazi that caused very little murders or crimes wern;t bad against humanity should not receive the same sentencing as a top nazi that condimed the lives of millions.

 

Another one who escaped....

Heinz Reinefarth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

After the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, Reinefarth was ordered to organise a military unit out various security units and head for Warsaw. Upon arrival, his forces (Kampfgruppe Reinefarth) were included in the Korpsgruppe von dem Bach of General Erich von dem Bach who was ordered by Heinrich Himmler to quell the rebellion. From August 5, 1944, Reinefarth's group took part in fighting in the Wola area


After World War II, the Polish authorities demanded his extradition. However, the British and American authorities of occupied Germany decided that Reinefarth could be useful as a witness at the Nuremberg Trial. After the trial, he was arrested for war crimes, but a local court in Hamburg released him shortly afterwards due to lack of evidence. Despite numerous demands, he was never extradited to Poland. Instead, the government of West Germany awarded him with a general's retirement pension. He died on May 7, 1979 in his manor on Sylt.

 

Kaltenbrunner and Seyss-Inquart were the most dreadful, immediately followed by the callous Frick and "penitent" Hans Frank. Julius Streicher, though a vulgar philistine should have been spared, Jodl received a disproportionate sentence. As much as I admire Albert Speer for his keen intellect and genuine remorse for his war time role as Minister of Armaments, I find it unjust that his subordinate Fritz Sauckel was sent to the gallows, while Speer was sentenced to 20 years. Speer's survival hinged on his careful, considered approach and cathartic assertions, whilst Sauckel (who was a boor and lacking class) vehemently denied any measures of illicit war time practices and exploitation of slaves. One was dealt the hand of mercy, the other the rope. Goering is something of an anomaly, on the one hand it has been established that he had direct knowledge and control of various munitions factories, concentration camps and economical productions, however the man's hedonistic portrait has often belied the enormity of his crimes. I still perceive him as the "jolly Reichsmarschall" in spite of the overwhelming evidence stacked up against him.