The international trial of the former leaders of Nazi Germany took place from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946 at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg (Germany). The initial list of defendants included the Nazis in the same order as I have listed in this post. On October 18, 1945, the indictment was handed over to the International Military Tribunal and, through its secretariat, transmitted to each of the accused. A month before the start of the trial, each of them was handed an indictment in German. The accused were asked to write on it their attitude towards the accusation. Roeder and Ley didn't write anything (Ley's response was actually his suicide shortly after the charges were filed), but the rest wrote what I wrote in the line: "Last word."
Even before the start of the trial, after reading the indictment, on November 25, 1945, Robert Ley committed suicide in his cell. Gustav Krupp was declared terminally ill by a medical commission, and his case was dropped before trial.
Due to the unprecedented gravity of the crimes committed by the defendants, doubts arose whether all democratic norms of legal proceedings would be observed in relation to them. The prosecution in England and the United States proposed not to give the defendants the last word, but the French and Soviet sides insisted on the opposite. These words, which have entered into eternity, I present to you now.
List of accused.
Hermann Wilhelm Goering(German: Hermann Wilhelm Göring), Reichsmarschall, Commander-in-Chief of the German Air Force. He was the most important defendant. Sentenced to death by hanging. 2 hours before the execution of the sentence, he poisoned himself with potassium cyanide, which was given to him with the assistance of E. von der Bach-Zelewski.
Hitler publicly declared Goering guilty of failing to organize the country's air defense. On April 23, 1945, based on the Law of June 29, 1941, Goering, after a meeting with G. Lammers, F. Bowler, K. Koscher and others, addressed Hitler on the radio, asking for his consent for him - Goering - to assume the functions of head of government . Goering announced that if he did not receive an answer by 22 o'clock, he would consider it an agreement. On the same day, Goering received an order from Hitler prohibiting him from taking the initiative; at the same time, by order of Martin Bormann, Goering was arrested by an SS detachment on charges of treason. Two days later, Goering was replaced as Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe by Field Marshal R. von Greim and stripped of his titles and awards. In his Political Testament, Hitler expelled Goering from the NSDAP on April 29 and officially named Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz as his successor in his place. On the same day he was transferred to a castle near Berchtesgaden. On May 5, the SS detachment handed over Goering's guard to Luftwaffe units, and Goering was immediately released. On May 8 he was arrested by American troops in Berchtesgaden.
The last word: “The winner is always the judge, and the loser is the accused!”
In his suicide note, Goering wrote: “Reichsmarshals are not hanged, they leave on their own.”
Rudolf Hess(German: Rudolf Heß), Hitler's deputy for leadership of the Nazi Party.
During the trial, lawyers declared his insanity, although Hess gave generally adequate testimony. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Soviet judge, who expressed a dissenting opinion, insisted on the death penalty. He served a life sentence in Berlin in Spandau prison. After the release of A. Speer in 1965, he remained its only prisoner. Until the end of his days he was devoted to Hitler.
In 1986, for the first time during Hess’ imprisonment, the USSR government considered the possibility of his release on humanitarian grounds. In the fall of 1987, during the chairmanship Soviet Union in the Spandau International Prison, it was supposed to decide on his release, “showing mercy and demonstrating the humanity of Gorbachev’s new course.”
On August 17, 1987, 93-year-old Hess was found dead with a wire around his neck. He left behind a testamentary note, handed to his relatives a month later and written on the back of a letter from his relatives:
"A request to the directors to send this home. Written a few minutes before my death. I thank you all, my beloved, for all the dear things you have done for me. Tell Freiburg that I am extremely sorry that since the Nuremberg trial I must was to act as if I did not know her. I had no choice, since otherwise all attempts to gain freedom would have been in vain. I was so looking forward to meeting her. I actually received photos of her and all of you. Your Eldest."
The last word: "I don't regret anything."
Joachim von Ribbentrop(German: Ullrich Friedrich Willy Joachim von Ribbentrop), Minister of Foreign Affairs Nazi Germany. Adviser to Adolf Hitler on foreign policy.
He met Hitler at the end of 1932, when he provided him with his villa for secret negotiations with von Papen. Hitler so impressed Ribbentrop with his refined manners at the table that he soon joined first the NSDAP, and later the SS. On May 30, 1933, Ribbentrop was awarded the title of SS Standartenführer, and Himmler became a frequent guest at his villa.
Hanged by the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal. It was he who signed the non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, which fascist Germany violated with incredible ease.
The last word: “The wrong people have been charged.”
Personally, I consider him the most disgusting character who appeared at the Nuremberg trials.
Robert Ley(German: Robert Ley), head of the Labor Front, by order of which all trade union leaders of the Reich were arrested. Charges were brought against him on three counts - conspiracy to wage aggressive war, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Committed suicide in prison shortly after the indictment was presented before the start of the trial itself, by hanging himself sewer pipe using a towel.
The last word: refused.
(Keitel signs the act of unconditional surrender of Germany)
Wilhelm Keitel(German: Wilhelm Keitel), Chief of Staff of the Supreme High Command of the German Armed Forces. It was he who signed the act of surrender of Germany, which ended the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War in Europe. However, Keitel advised Hitler not to attack France and opposed Plan Barbarossa. Both times he submitted his resignation, but Hitler did not accept it. In 1942 Keitel last time dared to object to the Fuhrer, speaking out in defense of Field Marshal List, defeated on the Eastern Front. The tribunal rejected Keitel's excuse that he was merely following Hitler's orders and found him guilty on all charges. The sentence was carried out on October 16, 1946.
The last word: “An order for a soldier is always an order!”
Ernst Kaltenbrunner(German: Ernst Kaltenbrunner), head of the RSHA - Main Directorate of Reich Security of the SS and State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of the Interior of Germany. For numerous crimes against civilians and prisoners of war, the court sentenced him to death by hanging. On October 16, 1946, the sentence was carried out.
The last word: “I am not responsible for war crimes, I was only fulfilling my duty as the head of the intelligence agencies, and I refuse to serve as some kind of ersatz Himmler.”
(on right) 
Alfred Rosenberg(German: Alfred Rosenberg), one of the most influential members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), one of the main ideologists of Nazism, Reich Minister of Affairs Eastern territories. Sentenced to death by hanging. Rosenberg was the only one of the 10 executed who refused to say the last word on the scaffold.
The last word in court: "I reject the charge of 'conspiracy'. Anti-Semitism was only a necessary defensive measure."
(in the center) 
Hans Frank(German: Dr. Hans Frank), head of the occupied Polish lands. On October 12, 1939, immediately after the occupation of Poland, Hitler appointed him head of the Office of Population Affairs of the Polish Occupied Territories, and then Governor-General of Occupied Poland. Organized mass destruction civilian population Poland. Sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out on October 16, 1946.
The last word: “I view this trial as God’s highest court to understand and bring to an end the terrible period of Hitler’s reign.”
Wilhelm Frick(German: Wilhelm Frick), Reich Minister of the Interior, Reichsleiter, head of the NSDAP parliamentary group in the Reichstag, lawyer, one of Hitler’s closest friends in the early years of the struggle for power.
The International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg held Frick responsible for bringing Germany under Nazi rule. He was accused of drafting, signing and implementing a number of laws banning political parties and trade unions, creating a system of concentration camps, encouraging the activities of the Gestapo, persecuting Jews and militarizing the German economy. He was found guilty on counts of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. On October 16, 1946, Frick was hanged.
The last word: "The entire charge is based on the assumption of participation in a conspiracy."
Julius Streicher(German: Julius Streicher), Gauleiter, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Sturmovik" (German: Der Stürmer - Der Stürmer).
He was charged with inciting the murder of Jews, which fell under Charge 4 of the trial - crimes against humanity. In response, Streicher called the trial "a triumph of world Jewry." According to the test results, his IQ was the lowest of all the defendants. During the examination, Streicher once again told psychiatrists about his anti-Semitic beliefs, but he was declared sane and capable of taking responsibility for his actions, although obsessed with an obsession. He believed that the prosecutors and judges were Jews and did not try to repent of what he had done. According to the psychologists who conducted the examination, his fanatical anti-Semitism was more likely the product of a sick psyche, but overall he gave the impression of an adequate person. His authority among the other accused was extremely low, many of them openly shunned such an odious and fanatical figure like him. Hanged by the Nuremberg Tribunal for anti-Semitic propaganda and calls for genocide.
The last word: “This process is the triumph of world Jewry.”
Yalmar Shakht(German: Hjalmar Schacht), Reich Minister of Economics before the war, Director of the German National Bank, President of the Reichsbank, Reich Minister of Economics, Reich Minister without Portfolio. On January 7, 1939, he sent a letter to Hitler, pointing out that the course pursued by the government would lead to the collapse of the German financial system and hyperinflation, and demanded the transfer of financial control to the hands of the Reich Ministry of Finance and the Reichsbank.
In September 1939 he sharply opposed the invasion of Poland. Schacht had a negative attitude towards the war with the USSR, believing that Germany would lose the war due to economic reasons. On November 30, 1941, he sent Hitler a sharp letter criticizing the regime. On January 22, 1942, he resigned as Reich Minister.
Schacht had contacts with conspirators against Hitler's regime, although he himself was not a member of the conspiracy. On July 21, 1944, after the failure of the July Plot against Hitler (July 20, 1944), Schacht was arrested and held in the concentration camps of Ravensbrück, Flossenburg and Dachau.
The last word: “I don’t understand why I’ve been charged at all.”
This is probably the most difficult case, October 1, 1946 Schacht was acquitted, then in January 1947 a German denazification court sentenced him to eight years in prison, but on September 2, 1948 he was released from custody.
Later he worked in the German banking sector, founded and headed the banking house "Schacht GmbH" in Düsseldorf. Died on June 3, 1970 in Munich. We can say that he was luckier than all the defendants. Although...
Walter Funk(German: Walther Funk), German journalist, Nazi Minister of Economics after Schacht, President of the Reichsbank. Sentenced to life imprisonment. Released in 1957.
The last word: “Never in my life have I, either consciously or out of ignorance, done anything that would give rise to such accusations. If, out of ignorance or as a result of delusions, I committed the acts listed in the indictment, then my guilt should be considered from the perspective of my personal tragedy , but not as a crime."
(right; left - Hitler)
Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach(German: Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach), head of the Friedrich Krupp concern (Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp). From January 1933 - government press secretary, from November 1937 - Reich Minister of Economics and Commissioner General for War Economic Affairs, and at the same time from January 1939 - President of the Reichsbank.
At the Nuremberg trial he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Military Tribunal. Released in 1957.
Karl Doenitz(German: Karl Dönitz), Grand Admiral of the Navy of the Third Reich, Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, after the death of Hitler and in accordance with his posthumous will, President of Germany.
The Nuremberg Tribunal for war crimes (in particular, waging so-called unrestricted submarine warfare) sentenced him to 10 years in prison. This verdict was disputed by some lawyers, since the same methods of submarine warfare were widely practiced by the victors. Some allied officers expressed their sympathy to Doenitz after the verdict. Doenitz was found guilty on counts 2 (crimes against peace) and 3 (war crimes).
After leaving prison (Spandau in West Berlin), Doenitz wrote his memoirs “10 years and 20 days” (meaning 10 years of command of the fleet and 20 days of presidency).
The last word: “None of the charges have anything to do with me. It’s an American invention!”
Erich Raeder(German: Erich Raeder), Grand Admiral, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy of the Third Reich. On January 6, 1943, Hitler ordered Raeder to disband the surface fleet, after which Raeder demanded his resignation and was replaced by Karl Doenitz on January 30, 1943. Raeder received the honorary position of chief inspector of the fleet, but in fact had no rights or responsibilities.
In May 1945, he was captured by Soviet troops and transported to Moscow. According to the verdict of the Nuremberg trials, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. From 1945 to 1955 in prison. He petitioned to have his imprisonment commuted to execution; The control commission found that it “cannot increase the penalty.” On January 17, 1955, he was released due to health reasons. Wrote a memoir "My Life".
The last word: refused.
Baldur von Schirach(German: Baldur Benedikt von Schirach), leader of the Hitler Youth, then Gauleiter of Vienna. At the Nuremberg trials he was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He served his entire sentence in the Berlin military prison Spandau. Released September 30, 1966.
The last word: “All troubles come from racial politics.”
I completely agree with this statement.
Fritz Sauckel(German Fritz Sauckel), head of forced deportations to the Reich work force from the occupied territories. Sentenced to death for war crimes and crimes against humanity (mainly for the deportation of foreign workers). Hanged.
The last word: “The gulf between the ideal of a socialist society, nurtured and defended by me, a former sailor and worker, and these terrible events - the concentration camps - deeply shocked me.”
Alfred Jodl(German Alfred Jodl), head of the operational department of the Supreme High Command of the Armed Forces, Colonel General. At dawn on October 16, 1946, Colonel General Alfred Jodl was hanged. His body was cremated, and his ashes were secretly taken out and scattered. Jodl took an active part in planning the mass extermination of civilians in the occupied territories. On May 7, 1945, on behalf of Admiral K. Doenitz, he signed the general surrender of the German armed forces to the Western allies in Reims.
As Albert Speer recalled, "Jodl's precise and restrained defense made a strong impression. He seemed to be one of the few who managed to rise above the situation." Jodl argued that a soldier could not be held responsible for the decisions of politicians. He insisted that he honestly performed his duty, obeying the Fuhrer, and considered the war a just cause. The tribunal found him guilty and sentenced him to death. Before his death, he wrote in one of his letters: “Hitler buried himself under the ruins of the Reich and his hopes. Let those who want to curse him for this, but I cannot.” Jodl was completely acquitted when the case was reviewed by a Munich court in 1953 (!).
The last word: “The mixture of fair accusations and political propaganda is regrettable.”
Martin Bormann(German: Martin Bormann), head of the party chancellery, was accused in absentia. Chief of Staff of the Deputy Fuhrer "from July 3, 1933), head of the NSDAP party office" from May 1941) and Hitler's personal secretary (from April 1943). Reichsleiter (1933), Reich Minister without Portfolio, SS Obergruppenführer, SA Obergruppenführer.
There is an interesting story connected with it.
At the end of April 1945, Bormann was with Hitler in Berlin, in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery. After the suicide of Hitler and Goebbels, Bormann disappeared. However, already in 1946, Arthur Axman, the chief of the Hitler Youth, who, together with Martin Bormann, tried to leave Berlin on May 1-2, 1945, said during interrogation that Martin Bormann died (more precisely, committed suicide) before his eyes on May 2, 1945.
He confirmed that he saw Martin Bormann and Hitler's personal physician Ludwig Stumpfegger lying on their backs near the bus station in Berlin, where the battle was taking place. He crawled close to their faces and clearly distinguished the smell of bitter almonds - it was potassium cyanide. The bridge along which Bormann was planning to escape from Berlin was blocked by Soviet tanks. Borman chose to bite through the ampoule.
However, these testimonies were not considered sufficient evidence of Bormann's death. In 1946, the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg tried Bormann in absentia and sentenced him to death. The lawyers insisted that their client was not subject to trial because he was already dead. The court did not consider the arguments convincing, examined the case and passed a verdict, stipulating that Borman, if detained, has the right to submit a request for pardon within the prescribed time frame.
In the 1970s, while building a road in Berlin, workers discovered remains that were later tentatively identified as those of Martin Bormann. His son, Martin Borman Jr., agreed to provide his blood for DNA analysis of the remains.
The analysis confirmed that the remains really belong to Martin Bormann, who actually tried to leave the bunker and get out of Berlin on May 2, 1945, but realizing that this was impossible, he committed suicide by taking poison (traces of an ampoule with potassium cyanide were found in the teeth of the skeleton). Therefore, the “Bormann case” can safely be considered closed.
In the USSR and Russia, Borman is known not only as a historical figure, but also as a character in the film “Seventeen Moments of Spring” (where he was played by Yuri Vizbor) - and, in connection with this, a character in jokes about Stirlitz.
Franz von Papen(German: Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen), Chancellor of Germany before Hitler, then Ambassador to Austria and Turkey. He was acquitted. However, in February 1947, he again appeared before the denazification commission and was sentenced to eight months in prison as a major war criminal.
Von Papen tried unsuccessfully to restart political career in the 1950s In his declining years he lived at Benzenhofen Castle in Upper Swabia and published many books and memoirs attempting to justify his policies of the 1930s, drawing parallels between this period and the beginning of " Cold War". Died on May 2, 1969 in Obersasbach (Baden).
The last word: “The accusation horrified me, firstly, by the awareness of the irresponsibility, as a result of which Germany was plunged into this war, which turned into a global catastrophe, and secondly, by the crimes that were committed by some of my compatriots. The latter are inexplicable with psychological point vision. It seems to me that the years of godlessness and totalitarianism are to blame for everything. It was they who turned Hitler into a pathological liar."
Arthur Seyss-Inquart(German: Dr. Arthur Seyß-Inquart), Chancellor of Austria, then Imperial Commissioner of occupied Poland and Holland. At Nuremberg, Seyss-Inquart was charged with crimes against peace, planning and unleashing an aggressive war, war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was found guilty on all counts, excluding criminal conspiracy. After the verdict was announced, Seyss-Inquart admitted his responsibility in his last speech.
The last word: “Death by hanging - well, I didn’t expect anything else... I hope that this execution is the last act of the tragedy of the Second World War... I believe in Germany.”
Albert Speer(German: Albert Speer), Reich Minister of Armaments and War Industry (1943-1945).
In 1927, Speer received an architect's license from the Technical High School of Munich. Due to the depression in the country, there was no work for the young architect. Speer updated the interior of the villa free of charge to the head of the headquarters of the western district - Kreisleiter NSAC Hanke, who, in turn, recommended the architect to Gauleiter Goebbels for rebuilding the meeting room and furnishing the rooms. After this, Speer receives an order - the design of the May Day rally in Berlin. And then the party congress in Nuremberg (1933). He used red banners and the figure of an eagle, which he proposed to make with a wingspan of 30 meters. Leni Riefenstahl captured in her documentary film “Victory of Faith” the grandeur of the procession at the opening of the party congress. This was followed by the reconstruction of the NSDAP headquarters in Munich in the same 1933. Thus began Speer's architectural career. Hitler was looking everywhere for new energetic people on whom he could rely in the near future. Considering himself an expert in painting and architecture, and possessing some abilities in this area, Hitler chose Speer into his inner circle, which, combined with the latter’s strong career aspirations, determined his entire future fate.
The last word: "The process is necessary. Even an authoritarian state does not absolve each individual of responsibility for the terrible crimes committed."
(left)
Constantin von Neurath(German: Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath), in the first years of Hitler's reign, Minister of Foreign Affairs, then governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
Neurath was accused in the Nuremberg court of having “assisted in the preparation of war,... participated in the political planning and preparation by the Nazi conspirators for wars of aggression and wars in violation of international treaties,... sanctioned, directed and took part in war crimes... and in crimes against humanity, ...including in particular crimes against persons and property in the occupied territories." Neurath was found guilty on all four counts and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. In 1953, Neurath was released due to poor health, aggravated by a myocardial infarction suffered in prison.
The last word: “I have always been against accusations without a possible defense.”
Hans Fritsche(German: Hans Fritzsche), head of the press and broadcasting department at the Ministry of Propaganda.
During the fall of the Nazi regime, Fritsche was in Berlin and capitulated along with the last defenders of the city on May 2, 1945, surrendering to the Red Army. Appeared before the Nuremberg trials, where, together with Julius Streicher (due to the death of Goebbels), he represented Nazi propaganda. Unlike Streicher, who was sentenced to death, Fritsche was acquitted of all three charges: the court found it proven that he did not call for crimes against humanity, did not participate in war crimes or conspiracies to seize power. Like both others acquitted at Nuremberg (Hjalmar Schacht and Franz von Papen), Fritsche, however, was soon convicted of other crimes by the denazification commission. After receiving a 9-year sentence, Fritzsche was released for health reasons in 1950 and died of cancer three years later.
The last word: “This is the terrible accusation of all times. Only one thing can be more terrible: the coming accusation that the German people will bring against us for abusing their idealism.”
Heinrich Himmler(German: Heinrich Luitpold Himmler), one of the main political and military figures of the Third Reich. Reichsführer SS (1929-1945), Reich Minister of the Interior of Germany (1943-1945), Reichsleiter (1934), Head of the RSHA (1942-1943). Found guilty of numerous war crimes, including genocide. Since 1931, Himmler was creating his own secret service - the SD, at the head of which he put Heydrich.
Since 1943, Himmler became Reich Minister of the Interior, and after the failure of the July Plot (1944) - commander of the Reserve Army. Beginning in the summer of 1943, Himmler, through his proxies, began to make contacts with representatives of Western intelligence services with the aim of concluding a separate peace. Hitler, who learned about this, on the eve of the collapse of the Third Reich, expelled Himmler from the NSDAP as a traitor and deprived him of all ranks and positions.
After leaving the Reich Chancellery at the beginning of May 1945, Himmler headed to the Danish border with someone else's passport in the name of Heinrich Hitzinger, who had been shot shortly before and looked a little like Himmler, but on May 21, 1945 he was arrested by the British military authorities and on May 23 committed suicide by taking potassium cyanide .
Himmler's body was cremated and the ashes were scattered in the forest near Lüneburg.
Paul Joseph Goebbels(German: Paul Joseph Goebbels) - Reich Minister of Public Education and Propaganda of Germany (1933-1945), imperial head of propaganda of the NSDAP (since 1929), Reichsleiter (1933), penultimate Chancellor of the Third Reich (April-May 1945).
In his political testament, Hitler appointed Goebbels as his successor as chancellor, but the very next day after the Fuhrer’s suicide, Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide, having first poisoned their six young children. “There will be no act of surrender signed by me!” - said the new chancellor when he learned about the Soviet demand unconditional surrender. On May 1 at 21:00 Goebbels took potassium cyanide. His wife Magda, before committing suicide following her husband, told her young children: “Don’t be alarmed, now the doctor will give you the vaccination that all children and soldiers receive.” When the children, under the influence of morphine, fell into a half-asleep state, she herself put a crushed ampoule of potassium cyanide into the mouth of each child (there were six of them).
It is impossible to imagine what feelings she experienced at that moment.
And of course, the Fuhrer of the Third Reich:
Winners in Paris.
Hitler behind Hermann Goering, Nuremberg, 1928.
Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Venice, June 1934.
Hitler, Mannerheim and Ruti in Finland, 1942.
Hitler and Mussolini, Nuremberg, 1940.
Adolf Gitler(German: Adolf Hitler) - the founder and central figure of Nazism, founder of the totalitarian dictatorship of the Third Reich, Fuhrer of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from July 29, 1921, Reich Chancellor of National Socialist Germany from January 31, 1933, Fuhrer and Reich Chancellor of Germany from August 2 1934, Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces in World War II.
The generally accepted version of Hitler's suicide
On April 30, 1945, in Berlin surrounded by Soviet troops and realizing complete defeat, Hitler, along with his wife Eva Braun, committed suicide, having previously killed his beloved dog Blondie.
In Soviet historiography, the point of view has been established that Hitler took poison (potassium cyanide, like most Nazis who committed suicide), however, according to eyewitnesses, he shot himself. There is also a version according to which Hitler and Braun first took both poisons, after which the Fuhrer shot himself in the temple (thus using both instruments of death).
Even the day before, Hitler gave the order to deliver cans of gasoline from the garage (to destroy the bodies). On April 30, after lunch, Hitler said goodbye to people from his inner circle and, shaking their hands, together with Eva Braun, retired to his apartment, from where the sound of a shot was soon heard. Shortly after 15:15, Hitler's servant Heinz Linge, accompanied by his adjutant Otto Günsche, Goebbels, Bormann and Axmann, entered the Fuhrer's apartment. Dead Hitler sat on the sofa; a blood stain was spreading on his temple. Eva Braun lay nearby, with no visible external injuries. Günsche and Linge wrapped Hitler's body in a soldier's blanket and carried it out into the garden of the Reich Chancellery; after him they carried out Eve’s body. The corpses were placed near the entrance to the bunker, doused with gasoline and burned. On May 5, the bodies were found by a piece of blanket sticking out of the ground and fell into the hands of the Soviet SMERSH. The body was identified, in part, with the help of Hitler's dentist, who confirmed the authenticity of the corpse's dentures. In February 1946, Hitler's body, along with the bodies of Eva Braun and the Goebbels family - Joseph, Magda, 6 children, was buried at one of the NKVD bases in Magdeburg. In 1970, when the territory of this base was to be transferred to the GDR, at the proposal of Yu. V. Andropov, approved by the Politburo, the remains of Hitler and others buried with him were dug up, cremated to ashes and then thrown into the Elbe. Only dentures and part of the skull with a bullet entry hole (found separately from the corpse) were preserved. They are kept in Russian archives, as are the side arms of the sofa on which Hitler shot himself, with traces of blood. However, Hitler's biographer Werner Maser expresses doubts that the discovered corpse and part of the skull really belonged to Hitler.
On October 18, 1945, the indictment was handed over to the International Military Tribunal and, through its secretariat, transmitted to each of the accused. A month before the start of the trial, each of them was handed an indictment in German.
Results: international military tribunal sentenced:
To death by hanging: Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Seyss-Inquart, Bormann (in absentia), Jodl (who was posthumously completely acquitted when the case was reviewed by a Munich court in 1953).
To life imprisonment: Hess, Funk, Raeder.
To 20 years in prison: Schirach, Speer.
To 15 years in prison: Neyrata.
To 10 years in prison: Denitsa.
Acquitted: Fritsche, Papen, Schacht.
Tribunal recognized the criminal organizations of the SS, SD, SA, Gestapo and the leadership of the Nazi Party. The decision to recognize the Supreme Command and the General Staff as criminal was not made, which caused disagreement from a member of the tribunal from the USSR.
A number of convicts filed petitions: Goering, Hess, Ribbentrop, Sauckel, Jodl, Keitel, Seyss-Inquart, Funk, Doenitz and Neurath - for pardon; Raeder - on replacing life imprisonment with the death penalty; Goering, Jodl and Keitel - about replacing hanging with shooting if the request for clemency is not granted. All of these requests were rejected.
The death penalty was carried out on the night of October 16, 1946 in the Nuremberg prison building.
Having convicted the main Nazi criminals, the International Military Tribunal recognized aggression as the gravest crime of an international character. The Nuremberg Trials are sometimes called the "Trial of History" because they had a significant impact on the final defeat of Nazism. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Funk and Raeder were pardoned in 1957. After Speer and Schirach were released in 1966, only Hess remained in prison. The right-wing forces of Germany repeatedly demanded to pardon him, but the victorious powers refused to commute the sentence. On August 17, 1987, Hess was found hanged in his cell.
Humanity is gradually beginning to forget about the horrors of World War II. He is already much quieter and more “tolerant” about events and does not talk about them as crimes. The names of heroes and criminals are forgotten. But this must be remembered! We need to know and respect those who stopped the madness of destruction. And do not forget that it would be an alternative, what, for example, such “cute” girls carried.
1) Irma Grese - (October 7, 1923 - December 13, 1945) - warden of the Nazi death camps Ravensbrück, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.
Irma's nicknames included "Blonde Devil", "Angel of Death", and "Beautiful Monster". She used emotional and physical methods to torture prisoners, beat women to death, and enjoyed arbitrarily shooting prisoners. She starved her dogs so she could set them on victims, and personally selected hundreds of people to be sent to the gas chambers. Grese wore heavy boots and, in addition to a pistol, she always carried a wicker whip.
The Western post-war press constantly discussed the possible sexual deviations of Irma Grese, her numerous connections with the SS guards, with the commandant of Bergen-Belsen, Joseph Kramer (“The Beast of Belsen”).
On April 17, 1945, she was captured by the British. The Belsen trial, initiated by a British military tribunal, lasted from September 17 to November 17, 1945. Together with Irma Grese, the cases of other camp workers were considered at this trial - commandant Joseph Kramer, warden Juanna Bormann, and nurse Elisabeth Volkenrath. Irma Grese was found guilty and sentenced to hang.
On the last night before her execution, Grese laughed and sang songs with her colleague Elisabeth Volkenrath. Even when a noose was thrown around Irma Grese’s neck, her face remained calm. Her last word was “Faster,” addressed to the English executioner.
2) Ilse Koch - (September 22, 1906 - September 1, 1967) - German NSDAP activist, wife of Karl Koch, commandant of the Buchenwald and Majdanek concentration camps.
Best known by her pseudonym "Frau Lampshade" Received the nickname "Witch of Buchenwald" for brutal torture camp prisoners. Koch was also accused of making souvenirs from human skin(however, at the post-war trial of Ilse Koch, no reliable evidence of this was presented).
On June 30, 1945, Koch was arrested by American troops and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1947. However, a few years later, American General Lucius Clay, the military commandant of the American occupation zone in Germany, released her, considering the charges of ordering executions and making souvenirs from human skin insufficiently proven.
This decision caused public protest, so in 1951 Ilse Koch was arrested in West Germany. A German court again sentenced her to life imprisonment.
On September 1, 1967, Koch committed suicide by hanging herself in her cell in the Bavarian prison of Eibach.
3) Louise Danz - b. December 11, 1917 - matron of women's concentration camps. She was sentenced to life imprisonment but later released.
She began working in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, then was transferred to Majdanek. Danz later served in Auschwitz and Malchow.
Prisoners later said they were abused by Danz. She beat them and confiscated the clothes they had been given for the winter. In Malchow, where Danz had the position of senior warden, she starved the prisoners, not giving food for 3 days. On April 2, 1945, she killed a minor girl.
Danz was arrested on June 1, 1945 in Lützow. At the trial of the Supreme National Tribunal, which lasted from November 24, 1947 to December 22, 1947, she was sentenced to life imprisonment. Released in 1956 due to health reasons. In 1996, she was charged with the aforementioned murder of a child, but it was dropped after doctors said Dantz would be too hard to bear if she was imprisoned again. She lives in Germany. She is now 94 years old.
4) Jenny-Wanda Barkmann - (May 30, 1922 - July 4, 1946) From 1940 to December 1943 she worked as a fashion model.
In January 1944, she became a guard at the small Stutthof concentration camp, where she became famous for brutally beating female prisoners, some of them to death. She also participated in the selection of women and children for the gas chambers. She was so cruel but also very beautiful that the female prisoners nicknamed her “Beautiful Ghost.”
Jenny fled the camp in 1945 when Soviet troops began to approach the camp. But she was caught and arrested in May 1945 while trying to leave the station in Gdansk. She is said to have flirted with the police officers guarding her and was not particularly worried about her fate. Jenny-Wanda Barkmann was found guilty, after which she was given the last word. She stated, "Life is indeed great pleasure, and pleasure is usually short-lived."
Jenny-Wanda Barkmann was publicly hanged at Biskupka Gorka near Gdańsk on July 4, 1946. She was only 24 years old. Her body was burned and her ashes were publicly washed away in the latrine of the house where she was born.
5) Hertha Gertrude Bothe - (January 8, 1921 - March 16, 2000) - warden of women's concentration camps. She was arrested on charges of war crimes, but later released.
In 1942, she received an invitation to work as a guard at the Ravensbrück concentration camp. After four weeks of preliminary training, Bothe was sent to Stutthof, a concentration camp located near the city of Gdansk. In it, Bothe received the nickname "Sadist of Stutthof" due to her cruel treatment of female prisoners.
In July 1944, she was sent by Gerda Steinhoff to the Bromberg-Ost concentration camp. From January 21, 1945, Bothe was a guard during the death march of prisoners from central Poland to the Bergen-Belsen camp. The march ended on February 20-26, 1945. In Bergen-Belsen, Bothe led a detachment of 60 women engaged in wood production.
After the liberation of the camp she was arrested. At the Belsen court she was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Released earlier than stated on December 22, 1951. She died on March 16, 2000 in Huntsville, USA.
6) Maria Mandel (1912-1948) - Nazi war criminal.
Occupying the post of head of the women's camps of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in the period 1942-1944, she was directly responsible for the death of about 500 thousand female prisoners.
Mandel was described by fellow employees as an "extremely intelligent and dedicated" person. Auschwitz prisoners called her a monster among themselves. Mandel personally selected the prisoners, and sent thousands of them to the gas chambers. There are known cases when Mandel personally took several prisoners under her protection for a while, and when she got bored with them, she put them on the list for destruction. Also, it was Mandel who came up with the idea and creation of a women’s camp orchestra, which greeted newly arrived prisoners at the gate with cheerful music. According to the recollections of survivors, Mandel was a music lover and treated the musicians from the orchestra well, personally coming to their barracks with a request to play something.
In 1944, Mandel was transferred to the post of warden of the Muhldorf concentration camp, one of the parts of the Dachau concentration camp, where she served until the end of the war with Germany. In May 1945, she fled to the mountains near her hometown of Münzkirchen. On August 10, 1945, Mandel was arrested by American troops. In November 1946, she was handed over to the Polish authorities at their request as a war criminal. Mandel was one of the main defendants in the trial of Auschwitz workers, which took place in November-December 1947. The court sentenced her to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out on January 24, 1948 in a Krakow prison.
7) Hildegard Neumann (May 4, 1919, Czechoslovakia - ?) - senior guard at the Ravensbrück and Theresienstadt concentration camps.
Hildegard Neumann began her service at the Ravensbrück concentration camp in October 1944, immediately becoming chief warden. Due to her good work, she was transferred to the Theresienstadt concentration camp as the head of all the camp guards. Beauty Hildegard, according to the prisoners, was cruel and merciless towards them.
She supervised between 10 and 30 female police officers and over 20,000 female Jewish prisoners. Neumann also facilitated the deportation of more than 40,000 women and children from Theresienstadt to the death camps of Auschwitz (Auschwitz) and Bergen-Belsen, where most of them were killed. Researchers estimate that more than 100,000 Jews were deported from the Theresienstadt camp and were killed or died at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, with another 55,000 dying in Theresienstadt itself.
Neumann left the camp in May 1945 and faced no criminal liability for war crimes. The subsequent fate of Hildegard Neumann is unknown.
On July 30, 1938, the famous American industrialist and father of the modern automobile industry, Henry Ford, was awarded the Order of Merit of the German Eagle, the highest possible award for foreigners awarded in the Third Reich. This award recognized not only Ford's contributions to global industry, but also his support for and sympathy for the activities of the German Nazis.
Many world celebrities of those years had sympathy for Hitler, Nazi Germany and National Socialism. It is worth noting that although at that time it was not yet known about the many crimes committed by this regime, nevertheless, even in those days Hitler was considered an odious and very controversial figure. Life remembered the most famous fans of the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler among foreign celebrities.
Henry Ford
The father of world motorization in his spare time loved to expose the worldwide Jewish conspiracy. He was greatly impressed by the October Revolution in Russia, which brought the Bolsheviks to power. He considered it the machinations of the world Jewish backstage and acquired a little-known newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, in which he began publishing excerpts from the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” as well as articles exposing “the true essence of the Jews.” The newspaper's circulation was increased to more than half a million copies, making it one of the most widely read American newspapers of the time.
Not satisfied with this, Ford published a collection of articles from the newspaper in a special book, “International Jewry,” which was also published in a fairly large circulation. Three more books were published about the secret and malicious activities of Jews in the United States. The publication of articles and books caused a wide response from the public, Ford was condemned by various public organizations, Christian churches, prominent politicians sent him open letters condemning his views. Public Jewish organizations called on all Jews to boycott Ford products.
Finally, when public pressure became so great that it threatened his thriving business, Ford publicly apologized and repented for his press campaign, promising not to do it again. But his books have already been published in large numbers in Europe, especially in Germany, where they became the favorite reading of future NSDAP activists (the Nazi party led by Hitler).
It is known that Hitler himself had great respect for Ford, who was one of the few Americans praised in the Third Reich. Also in a number of sources you can find statements that Ford’s financial support contributed to the formation and strengthening of the Nazi Party in the 20s. During one of his interviews with American journalists, Adolf Hitler, who had not yet come to power, installed a portrait of Ford in his office to show how much respect he had for him.
Ford was awarded the Reich's highest honor for foreigners, and when France was occupied by the Germans, the Ford plant was not nationalized by them as a sign of respect and continued to operate. Several Ford factories opened in Germany under the Nazis, and they continued to operate throughout the war.
After the war: During the war, Ford retired due to a serious illness, and soon after the war he died. His heirs had to repeatedly apologize for Ford's views. To this day, they finance various Jewish public organizations as a sign of repentance for the deeds of their ancestor. For example, the famous film "Schindler's List" was partially financed by them.
Charles Lindbergh
A legendary aviator who had the status of a world star. His flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927 brought him universal fame and popularity. Flying from New York to Paris, he became the first person in history to make a transatlantic flight alone.
Thanks to this achievement, he became one of the most popular people not only in America, but also in Europe. After the flight, he made a tour of major cities, where he was greeted by hundreds of thousands of people; his popularity can only be compared with the popularity of the first astronauts, because he clearly demonstrated that it was possible to connect distant continents by air.
In the 1930s, Lindbergh gradually began to sympathize with American far-right movements. After the scandalous case of the kidnapping and murder of his one-and-a-half-year-old son, which attracted unprecedented attention from the press (it is now believed that an innocent person was executed), he moved to Europe, where he began to openly sympathize with the Nazis who had recently come to power in Germany. At the request of the American government, Lindbergh toured Germany to assess its aircraft industry.
In the Reich, the aviator was greeted as a national hero. He was invited to the opening Olympic Games in Berlin, where he stood next to Hitler, and Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering personally presented him with the Order of the German Eagle. The report on the German aviation industry was full of enthusiasm, which, together with Lindbergh's obvious sympathies for the Nazi regime, caused harsh criticism of him in the United States and a decline in popularity.
On the eve of World War II, he agitated the American public to speak out against the war, assuring that Americans wanted to be drawn into a war with the Germans by Jews who had infiltrated the government and the media. However, because of his views, the aviator lost the remnants of his former popularity; the press, which had previously turned him into a hero, now declared him a traitor worse than Judas.
Due to obvious sympathies for the Germans, Lindbergh was denied enlistment in the Air Force at the beginning of World War II, although he asked to serve. Henry Ford, already mentioned above, took him in, offering him to be a consultant at his aircraft factories.
After the war: Lindbergh was allowed to become a consultant to the Air Force and was even promoted to the rank of general. He made no apologies for his previous views, insisting that journalists had simply misinterpreted his statements. He focused on animal welfare and moved to Hawaii, where he died in 1976 at the age of 72.
Knut Hamsun
The most famous Norwegian writer and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. For Norwegian literature, Knut Hamsun is the same as for Russian literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky combined. Hamsun is not only the pride of Norwegian literature and one of the most popular writers of his time, but along with Ibsen, he is actually the founder of modern national literature of this country.
Hamsun was a staunch Germanophile from the very beginning and welcomed the Nazis' rise to power. The writer and his family made a trip to Germany, where he was received very well, which he liked. The 75-year-old living classic was honored in Berlin, from that moment Hamsun corresponded with many figures of the Reich and became a preacher of German ideas. He often had occasion to justify in the press some things that were condemned in other countries. For example, he defended the Nazis who arrested the pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who was supported by almost all European writers. After this, most of his colleagues turned their backs on the Norwegian.
During the years of Norway's occupation by German forces, Hamsun campaigned in favor of the Norwegian collaborationist government and urged Norwegians not to resist the occupation. During the war, Hamsun traveled to Germany and met with Hitler. He gave Goebbels his Nobel laureate medal, saying: “I have nothing more valuable than this medal, so I give it to you.” Hamsun’s son voluntarily joined the SS regiment of war correspondents “Kurt Eggers”.
IN last days war, when the fate of Germany was already obvious and Hitler committed suicide, Hamsun responded to his death with a very complimentary obituary, calling him a great fighter for the rights of peoples, although he was well aware that this would only worsen his position in post-war Europe.
After the war: Most active figures in the collaborationist regime of Norway were severely punished by the victors, but Hamsun escaped punishment. According to some reports, the writer's fate was decided in Moscow, when Soviet leaders, some of whom grew up reading Hamsun's books, which were popular in their youth, insisted that the great writer not be punished too harshly. Hamsun did not renounce his convictions, refused to apologize and did not repent of anything. Nevertheless, at the trial, although he was found guilty of collaboration, he was only sentenced to pay a fine. He died in 1952, having written another book. Currently considered a classic and one of the most outstanding masters of Norwegian literature. In 2009, the celebration of the writer's 150th birthday in Norway sparked Israeli protests.
Ingvar Kamprad
Unlike most of the heroes of the material, Kamprad sympathized with the Reich at the time when he was an unknown young man. The future founder of the transnational mega-corporation IKEA and one of the richest people in the world in his youth was an activist of the Swedish Socialist Assembly - a Nazi party that imitated its German brethren in everything, even its program almost exactly copied the program of the German National Socialists. Kamprad was not a noticeable figure in the party due to his early age, and was only involved in recruiting his peers into the party. It was at this time that Kamprad founded the company that would later become IKEA, with money received from his father.
After the war: Kamprad wisely remained silent about the Nazi past. This became known only in the 90s, when journalists dug up materials in the archives that the richest Swede was an activist of the Nazi Party in his youth. Kamprad publicly apologized for this and called membership in the Nazi party a mistake of youth, adding that he greatly regretted it and promising to allocate $100 million to charity. Nevertheless, he still respects one of the leaders of the Swedish far-right of those years, Per Engdahl.
Edward VIII
The king of Britain, who paid with the throne for sympathizing with Nazi Germany. Edward led Britain in the pre-war period, it was 1936, but after 327 days he unexpectedly announced his abdication and left the country. The official pretext for his abdication was his intention to marry divorced American Wallis Simpson, which allegedly contradicted the unspoken traditions of the royal family. However, in reality, Edward could marry her; there were many opportunities for the marriage to take place and not violate any regulations. Moreover, he did not plan to make her queen, intending to enter into a morganatic marriage. However, even before the official coronation, Edward suddenly announced his abdication and fled the country.
In fact, the reason for the overthrow (let's call a spade a spade) of the monarch was his excessive sympathy for the Germans. Germany was an important strategic enemy of Britain and it was in the interests of the empire to fight the Germans, while Edward was clearly pro-German. He refused to oppose the German occupation of the Rhineland, which was a direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles, and also supported Mussolini's aggression against Ethiopia. During a visit to Germany, he greeted people on the streets with the Nazi salute. The king's sympathies came into obvious conflict with state interests, as the government saw them.
Without waiting for his coronation, which would have made him a full-fledged king, the government, with the support of Edward's brothers, actually carried out a coup, removing him from office in favor of one of his relatives. He was forced to sign the renunciation written by Churchill, all his attempts to address the nation with an appeal on the radio were blocked, and the very next day after the renunciation he was expelled from the country with a ban on returning. In order not to damage the image of state power, the coup was framed as a voluntary abdication of the monarch for the sake of his beloved woman.
However, the expelled ex-king continued to be friends with the Nazis in Europe, now openly. Moreover, during the outbreak of the war, he sympathized with the Germans, giving several interviews about this. There were serious fears that if Britain were captured by the Nazis, Hitler would return Edward, who was friendly to him, to the throne, so in 1940 the ex-monarch and his wife were captured and forcibly taken to the Bahamas on a British ship. There, Edward formally served as governor, but it was more like exile under the strict supervision of the governor-general assigned to him.
After the war: Edward was allowed to return to Europe, but not to Britain, which he was only allowed to visit for his brother's funeral almost 20 years after his exile. Edward's Nazi sympathies were never advertised; in order to disguise them, as well as the coup d'etat, British propaganda actively used romantic melodramas, which invariably presented only one version of his renunciation and departure - love for a woman. Dozens of films have been made on this topic and hundreds of books have been written, and now millions of women admire the handsome prince, who abandoned the royal throne for the sake of love for a simple woman.
Sir Oswald Mosley
British aristocrat and one of the youngest MPs in British history. Mosley was born into an old aristocratic family, received an excellent education, took part in the First World War, where he seriously injured his leg. After the war he joined the Conservatives, becoming a deputy at the age of 22. However, due to his youth, he was not taken seriously by many of his comrades, which is why he left the party and joined the Laborites.
He married the daughter of one of the main British politicians, Foreign Secretary Curzon. Mosley's wedding was attended by the entire flower of the European aristocracy, from the Belgian king to the British. Youth, veteran status, origin and an advantageous wedding painted brilliant prospects for him, and, having joined the Laborites, after some time he was even able to achieve, albeit a tertiary, but still a post in the government. However, he soon became completely disillusioned with all political trends. The onset of the Great Depression clearly demonstrated all the shortcomings of capitalism, which was opposed on the left by communism, unacceptable to Mosley, and by fascism on the right. This fresh and original movement interested Mosley, and in the 30s he was the creator, ideologist and inspirer of the British Union of Fascists.
After the death of his first wife, Mosley remarried the British aristocrat Diana Mitford, who became his faithful companion for many years. Mitford admired Germany and went to live there. She was friends with Magda Goebbeels and was familiar with all the leaders of the Reich, introducing Mosley into this circle. Their wedding took place right in Goebbels's house, and Hitler was personally present, who gave the newlyweds a rather modest gift - his own photograph in a silver frame.
Meanwhile, the British fascists tried to copy the tactics of their European comrades. They created combat detachments of stormtroopers and participated in street clashes with political opponents. They strongly supported the actions of Germany and Italy in Europe and North Africa, which clearly ran counter to British public policy. Soon after the start of the war with Germany, the party was banned and the entire leadership was arrested. Mosley and Mitford spent several years in custody. Mosley was released in 1943 due to an exacerbation of the disease, which was a consequence of being wounded on the fronts of the First World War.
After the war: organized the far-right Unionist movement, which, however, did not enjoy serious popularity. He campaigned for the unification of Western European countries in the face of the communist threat. In the early 60s he retired from politics. Died in 1980.
Sven Hedin
One of the most famous travelers and geographers of his time. Between the two world wars, Stein's books sold millions of copies around the world. He is the last Swede in history to receive a noble title.
Gedin repeatedly led large expeditions to Asia, publishing essays about them, which were very popular among readers. Although Hedin lived in neutral Sweden, which remained aloof from both world wars, this did not stop him from being a passionate Germanophile and strongly supporting the Germans in both the first and second wars. He wrote articles praising Germany, admired Hitler, and during the war years he personally met with the entire leadership of Nazi Germany, of which he left memories. Like many other foreign sympathizers of the Reich, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the German Eagle. Wrote a heartfelt obituary about the death of Hitler.
After the war: did not deny that he always sympathized with the Germans, although he claimed that he was only a traditionalist conservative, far from National Socialism. He also claimed that good relations with the Germans allowed him to save several people from concentration camps. Died in 1952.
Ingmar Bergman
One of the most famous film directors of the 20th century was a passionate admirer of Hitler in his youth. As a young man, he visited pre-war Germany as part of a youth cultural exchange program. There he attended a speech by Hitler, which stunned him and made a tremendous impression. For several years, Bergman became an admirer of the German Fuhrer. In addition, Bergman's father also sympathized with Hitler. However, there is no evidence that he was ever active in the Nazi movement.
After the war: Bergman became a great director, one of the main people in the culture of the twentieth century. Since he never campaigned for National Socialism and loved Hitler silently, he was not persecuted in the post-war years. He lived a long life and died in 2007.
The Holocaust, the murder of millions of innocent people and the thorough ethnic cleansing of Eastern Europe were just some of the policies of Nazi Germany before and during World War II.
The leader of the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler, considered his main goal to maximize the territory of the German Empire, as well as to remove all Jews and representatives of other “undesirable” nationalities from the territory of Europe. The names of most Nazi criminals, such as Hitler, Josef Mengele, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goering became known throughout the world, but a significant part of the equally, and sometimes more bloodthirsty followers of national fascist ideology remained in the shadows.
10. FRIEDRICH JECKELN – DEVELOPER OF THE “JECKELN SYSTEM” FOR THE LIQUIDATION OF “UNDESPENDABLES”
An SS-Obergruppenführer (second in rank in the SS after Heinrich Himmler), Friedrich led one of the largest Einsatzgruppen - a "tactical group" or "deployment group" whose main task was mass murder in the occupied Soviet Union. By personal order of Jeckeln, more than 100 thousand Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and representatives of other “undesirable” nationalities were brutally killed in the territories captured during the Second World War.
Having joined the Nazi Party in October 1929, within a year Jeckeln became a member of the SS, and three years later he was elected to the Reichstag, the German parliament. Remembered for his ruthlessness and cruelty, Jeckeln took a personal part in the liquidation of members of the left and other opposition parties.
Using his own method of mass murder, known as the “Jeckeln System,” in which people still alive were forced to undress and lie down in freshly dug mass graves, Jeckeln carried out three of the most terrible Nazi executions of the Second World War: in Rumbala (November-December 1941, 25 thousand were executed . people), at Babi Yar (September 1941, more than 180 thousand people were executed) and in Kamenets-Podolsky (June 1941, about 24 thousand Jews were executed).
For the mass execution in Rumbula, Jeckeln was awarded the Iron Cross. In April 1945 he was captured by Russian troops and in early 1946 he appeared before a Riga military court. At the trial, the killer was calm and admitted his guilt: “I must bear responsibility for everything that the SS, SD and Gestapo did in eastern lands. My fate is in the hands of the court and I only ask that mitigating circumstances be taken into account. “I consider my sentence fair and accept it in full repentance.”
Found guilty of war crimes, Jeckeln was hanged on Victory Square in Riga on February 3, 1946.
9. ELSA KOCH – “BUCHENWALD BITCH” 
Elsa Koch, wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald and Majdanek concentration camps, Karl-Otto Koch, is recognized as one of the most cruel women of the entire Nazi regime. Her bloody deeds earned her the nicknames "Bitch of Buchenwald", "Red Witch of Buchenwald", "Beast of Buchenwald", "Queen of Buchenwald", and "Butcher's Widow", but even these cannot convey her inhuman cruelty.
A member of the Nazi Party since the early 1930s, Koch met her husband through mutual friends and began her career as a guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. She came to Buchenwald after her husband was appointed camp commandant in 1937.
Koch treated prisoners in both camps horribly and is said to have enjoyed killing “undesirables” without the slightest remorse. She did not even hesitate to rip off areas of tattooed skin from prisoners, using them as lamp shades, book covers and pillowcases. On Elsa's orders, the camp guards raped, tortured and killed prisoners right in front of her eyes, which gave her undisguised pleasure and joy.
In August 1943, Elsa and Karl Koch were arrested by the Nazis themselves on charges of embezzlement and embezzlement, but just a year later Elsa was released. A year later, in June 1945, she was arrested by the US Army.
One of the first Nazis tried by the US military, Koch was tried in 1947 in Dachau and, despite being pregnant, was sentenced to life imprisonment "for violating the laws and customs of war." In 1948, General Latsis Clay commuted the sentence to 4 years, citing insufficient evidence, but Elsa was again arrested and retried. This time she was found guilty of multiple murders and sentenced to life imprisonment with deprivation of all civil rights.
Elsa Koch hanged herself in the women's prison in Aichach in September 1967 and was buried in the city cemetery in an unmarked grave.
8. HERTHA BOTHE – “SADIST OF STUTTHOFF” 
Another equally brutal Nazi was Herta Bothe, a concentration camp guard who was nicknamed the “Sadist of Stutthof” because of her disgusting actions.
A member of the League of German Girls (the women's wing of the Nazi Party) since 1939, Bothe was called up to serve as a guard at the Ravensbrück concentration camp in September 1942 and was soon transferred to the Stutthof camp near Danzig. It wasn't long before Hertha became famous for her brutal beatings of prisoners and her undisguised pleasure in watching the suffering of prisoners who were tortured and raped.
But her crimes were not limited to Stutthof. While escorting a group of female prisoners from central Poland to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Hertha beat a Jewish girl, Eva, to death with a wooden block and shot two other prisoners, although she never admitted to it.
Arrested in April 1945 by Allied forces during the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, Borte was brought before a military court, where she was found to be a "ruthless follower of the Nazi regime." Sentenced to ten years in prison, on December 22, 1951, she was pardoned by the British government, having served only 6 years. Hertha Bothe is still alive.
7. EUGENE FISCHER - CREATOR OF NAZI EUGENICS, GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS AND “BIOLOGY OF THE ARYAN RACE” 
Some Nazi doctors, such as Joseph Mengele, were more famous than Eugen Fischer, but his work was the basis for many of Hitler's revolutionary ideas and policies.
Occupying the position of director of the Institute of Anthropology, Heredity and Eugenics named after. Kaiser Wilhelm from 1927 to 1942, Fischer created the theory of “racial biology”, justifying the superiority of the Aryan race over other races of “subhumans”.
And although he joined the Nazi Party only in 1940, before that Fischer carried out the illegal examination and sterilization of 600 children - descendants of French-African soldiers, and also wrote 2 scientific works of early National Socialism: “Fundamentals of Heredity and Racial Hygiene” and “Fundamentals of Heredity and Racial Hygiene” and “ The theory of human heredity and racial hygiene." Fischer's work became the scientific basis for the adoption of the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws, as well as the scale for determining racial purity.
His numerous experiments with gypsies, Jews and Germans of African descent, aimed at finding evidence of racist theories, made Fischer so famous among the Nazis that even Hitler himself mentioned his works in Mein Kampf. Another invention of this pseudo-doctor's feverish brain was the concentration camps, the first of which was built in 1904 in South Africa to isolate the "inferior" races.
Incredibly, after retiring in 1942, E. Fisher was not put on trial for war crimes and lived in peace until his death in 1967.
6. JOSEPH KRAMER AND IRMA GRESE – “THE BEAST OF BELZEN” AND “THE HYENA OF AUSCHWITZ” 
The commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Joseph Kramer, did not feel any pity for his prisoners at all, nor did his “comrade-in-arms” Irma Grese.
Nicknamed the "Beast of Belsen", Kramer worked at the Natzweiler-Struthof, Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz camps, killing tens of thousands of prisoners with brutal and uncompromising methods. Kramer began his “working” career in the Natzweiler-Struthof camp, the only one in modern France, where he personally gassed 80 Jewish men and women, and then preserved their skeletons for the Institute of Anatomy at the Imperial University of Strasbourg.
From May to December 1944, Kramer was in charge of the operation of the gas chambers at Auschwitz, happily killing thousands upon thousands of prisoners on an industrial scale previously unknown to mankind. After this, he was transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where he continued his brutal dictatorial rule until the liberation of the camp by the British, for whom he even gave something of a tour.
Irma Grese first worked in the Ravensbrück camp, then in Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz, and everywhere she was equally cruel. Known as the "Hyena of Auschwitz", she took pleasure in observing the suffering of the sick and weak. Possessing extraordinary external characteristics, Irma had many lovers among SS workers, including Josef Mengele.
At trial, both sadists were found guilty of war crimes and hanged in December 1945 at Hamlin Prison. Moreover, at the time of her execution, Irma was only 22 years old, which made her the youngest criminal of the 20th century sentenced to death under English law.
5. REINHARD HEIDRICH - THE INSPIRER OF THE HOLOCAUST AND THE “FINAL SOLUTION”, CALLED “THE MAN WITH THE IRON HEART” BY HITLER 
Despite his position as one of the most important Nazi leaders during World War II, Reinhard Heydrich's atrocities often remain in the shadows. If Adolf Hitler himself calls someone “a man with an iron heart,” then this is probably one of the most bloodthirsty Nazis.
An SS general and head of the Reich Security Main Directorate (which included the Gestapo, criminal police and SD), Heydrich also oversaw the Czech regions of Bohemia and Moravia. One of the founders of the SD, Heydrich neutralized opponents of Nazism even before they came to power, and also participated in the preparation and conduct of Kristallnacht (mass pogroms of Jewish families in Germany and Austria in 1938).
During World War II, he was involved in the suppression of Czech cultural identity and the elimination of pockets of resistance in Bohemia and Moravia, and also had a hand in the creation of the Einsatzgruppen - units that systematically eliminated the local population and Jews. In addition, Heydrich personally presided over the 1942 conference in Wanza, where the “final decision” was made to deport and exterminate all Jews in German-occupied territories, which became his main crime and led to the Holocaust.
In May 1942, Heydrich’s atrocities were put an end to by a British-trained group of Czech soldiers sent to eliminate him as part of a special operation code-named “anthropoid.” Hitler long lamented the loss of one of his most devoted generals, who unquestioningly carried out all his extravagant wishes.
4. MARIA MANDEL – “THE BEAST” DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN THE MURDER OF MORE THAN HALF A MILLION WOMEN IN AUSCHEWZIT 
Maria Mandel is considered directly involved in the murder of more than 500 thousand women prisoners in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. It is not surprising that for her boundless cruelty she received the nickname “beast”.
Born in Austria-Hungary, Mandel became an employee of the Lichtenburg camp immediately after the Anschluss of Austria in 1938, after which, in May 1939, she was transferred to the Ravensbrück camp. Impressing her superiors, Maria quickly moved up the ranks and was soon put in charge of conducting roll calls and punishing offenders - beating and flogging prisoners gave her sadistic pleasure.
Mandel gained her notoriety after her transfer to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in October 1942. The female commandant could not surpass the men, but she had absolute control over the female part of the camp prisoners, thanks to which she became the manager of all female units of the Auschwitz camp, including Hindenburg, Rajsko and Lichteverden.
Mandel became famous for ordering the immediate death of any prisoner passing by if she dared to glance at her. Approving the lists of camp prisoners to be exterminated, she sent more than 500 thousand women and children to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
Maria also chose so-called “pets” from among the Jews, forcing them to walk around the camp and carry out various tasks, after which she became tired of them and had to be destroyed. In an attempt to increase the efficiency of the extermination process, Mandel created the "Auschwitz Women's Orchestra" to play for the prisoners dancing on their way to the gas chambers.
In August 1945, M. Mandel was captured by the US Army and, despite requests for clemency, was hanged in January 1948 after her trial in Auschwitz.
3. FRIEDRICH WEGENER - A SCIENTIST WHO CONDUCTED EXPERIMENTS ON PRISONERS BUT WAS NEVER CONVICTED FOR HIS CRIMES 
The pathologist who discovered the disease originally known as Wegener's granulomatosis, Friedrich Wegener was involved in horrific experiments on prisoners in concentration camps and Jewish ghettos, although he was never convicted of any crimes.
An ardent supporter of Nazism, engaged in propaganda with a party card in hand, and joining the National Socialists even earlier than Adolf Hitler, Wegener played an important role in shaping the views of the future leader of Germany.
Occupying a high position in the German military medicine system, Friedrich Wegener served in a medical institution near the Lodz ghetto in Poland, where he conducted his experiments on Jews. Wegener is accused of testing new drugs, injecting various substances into the bodies of victims, and performing autopsies on living people to study organs that were still functioning.
Wegener managed to maintain his Nazi past until his death in 1990 and even received an award from the American Lung Institute for the discovery of a new disease. However, less than a year after Wegener's death, information about connections with the Nazis and sadistic experiments was made public. The scientific community stripped him of all awards and titles and renamed him open disease and consigned Wegener to complete oblivion.
2. ODILO GLOBOCCHNIK - A MAN CALLED BY ONE HISTORIAN "THE MOST VILE GUY IN THE MOST VILEEST ORGANIZATION EVER KNOWN" 
Described by historian Michael Allen as "the nastiest guy in the nastiest organization ever known," SS warlord and Austrian Nazi Globocnik committed a litany of war crimes during World War II.
One of the main organizers of Operation Reinhard, Globocnik took part in the murder of more than a million Polish Jews during the Holocaust, ensuring their identification and delivery to the Majdanek, Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzek concentration camps. He also took a direct part in the extermination of 500 thousand Jews in the largest Warsaw ghetto in Europe, and subsequently in the extermination of the inhabitants of the Bialystok ghetto who resisted the Nazi occupation.
An ardent supporter of the Nazi theory of racial superiority and ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe, he created and oversaw the Lublin Reservation, in which about 95 thousand Jews worked in labor camps. According to Globocnik, Jews in labor camps had to provide themselves with everything they needed or, otherwise, die of hunger.
It is also believed that it was Globocnik who convinced Heinrich Himmler of the need to use scientifically based methods of exterminating people in concentration camps and received permission to test gas chambers in the Belzek camp, after which they began to be used in all “death camps.”
After fleeing to Austria in May 1945, Globocnik was captured by British soldiers, but in prison he bit through a cyanide capsule and avoided trial. The priest of the local church refused to desecrate the sacred ground of the church cemetery with the body of a Nazi criminal, and Globocnik was buried away from the cemetery.
1. OSCAR DIRLEWANGER – CHILD MOLESTER AND NECROPHILIAN, THE MOST “EVILIOUS AND BLOODTHIRST” OF THE NAZIS 
Oskar Dirlewanger is closely associated with the most terrible and inhumane crimes of the Second World War, most of which were committed by his subordinates - soldiers of the SS penal unit "Dirlewanger".
For raping two 13-year-old girls in the 1930s, Dirlewanger was sentenced to prison, but was later released after believing that the brave fighter in the Spanish Civil War could be useful to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in their military campaigns.
Participation in the First World War and Civil War in Spain they not only made Dirlewanger a first-class soldier, but also contributed to the formation of his sadistic inclinations, which were fully realized during the Second World War.
It was thanks to his military experience that Oscar quickly made a career in the SS and received command of his own penal unit, known for its brutal methods.
This SS commander recruited most of his soldiers from convicted criminals, concentration camp prisoners, and even from asylums for the mentally ill, whose bestial cruelty was experienced in the occupied territories of the USSR. They killed, tortured and raped adults and children, while their commander watched with pleasure. Dirlewanger even thought of feeding the prisoners rat poison, to entertain his soldiers by allowing them to rape agonizing women.
Timothy Synder, Chris Bishop, Richard Rhodes and other historians in their writings confirmed the inhuman anger and bestial cruelty of this Nazi, calling Dirlewanger the most cruel sadist of the SS and the entire Second World War, with whom no one can compete.
Captured by French troops in June 1945, Dirlewanger died in the Altshausen prison camp due to mistreatment and constant beatings. The death certificate of the sadist says that he died of natural causes, but many are sure that the SS man was simply beaten to death by Polish soldiers.
The war and the events that followed it led to the intensification of nationalist movements in a number of European countries. In some cases, nationalism was used as a means of mobilizing people to achieve military victory. In others it was necessary to strengthen the foundations of newly independent states. Those who were defeated in the war or considered themselves offended and were looking for those “to blame” also turned to him. The common basis of nationalist sentiments were the ideas of exclusivity and superiority of one people over others. Often they developed into a feeling of national enmity and intolerance. During the period under review, these ideas became widespread in public and political life a number of countries. In some cases this has had far-reaching historical consequences.
The emergence of the fascist movement in Italy
Since March 1919, “Fasci di combattimento” (“Combat alliances”) began to be created in Italy. Their participants (mostly former front-line soldiers) were united by extremely nationalistic, chauvinistic views, rejection of socialist ideas, and a desire for strong power. The movement was headed by B. Mussolini, who by that time had a certain political fame.
Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) born into a family of artisans. In his youth he joined the Socialist Party. He began his public activities as an eloquent speaker and journalist. He published the newspaper “Class Struggle”, where he criticized “everyone and everything”: the monarchy, militarism, the rich, social reformists, etc. Ambitious and assertive, Mussolini soon achieved the post of editor-in-chief of the central newspaper of the socialist party “Avanti!” (“Forward!”), from which he was released in 1914 for campaigning in favor of Italy’s entry into the war (the Socialist Party at that time opposed the war). A month later, Mussolini began publishing the newspaper Popolo d'Italia (People of Italy), where he criticized the policies of the Socialist Party. Now he relied on the ideas of national greatness of Italy. Having been at the front, Mussolini assumed the guise of a hero, a defender of the interests of the offended nation (the judgment that Italy was undeservedly “bypassed” in the division of spoils by the countries that won the world war was very popular at that time). Having moved to other political positions, Mussolini did not change in the main thing - the desire to get to the top. This time the springboard was to be the nascent fascist movement.
The program of the initially small organization of fascists was designed to win the support of the broad masses. It contained the following demands: abolition of the Senate, police, privileges and titles; universal suffrage, guarantees of civil liberties; convocation Constituent Assembly; abolition of secret diplomacy and general disarmament; progressive capital tax; establishing an 8-hour working day and a minimum wages; participation of workers in the technical management of enterprises; transfer of land to peasants; prohibition of labor for children under 16 years of age; universal education and free libraries, etc.
Along with agitation, the movement used other methods to strengthen its positions. In the fall of 1919, the fascists began to create armed detachments, which included front-line officers, nationalist-minded small property owners, and students. They attacked participants in workers' demonstrations and carried out pogroms in the editorial offices of socialist newspapers (the editorial office of the Avanti! newspaper was also destroyed). During the period of rising workers' protests, the fascists put forward the task of “fighting against Bolshevism.” The nationalist and anti-worker orientation of the movement and calls for strong government attracted the attention of ruling circles. The movement began to receive financial support. This inspired the fascists even more.
In the first half of 1921, fascist troops destroyed and set fire to 119 chambers of labor, 59 people's houses, 107 premises of cooperatives, 83 buildings of peasant leagues, 141 premises of sections and circles of workers' parties, 28 trade union committees, and the editorial offices of many workers' newspapers. Mussolini subsequently justified these actions by “the highest national interests”: “We needed to pave our way through violence, through sacrifice, through blood, in order to establish the order and discipline so desired by the masses, and it was impossible to achieve this with sloppy propaganda.”
The rise of the fascists to power
In the fall of 1921, the movement took shape into the National Fascist Party, which began an open struggle for power in the country. Workers and socialist organizations staged protest strikes, and armed clashes between workers and fascists took place in a number of cities. Mussolini demanded that the fascists be given seats in the government. He stated: “We fascists are not going to go to power through the back door, now the question of power becomes a question of strength.”
On October 28, 1922, armed columns of fascists dressed in black shirts set out on a “march on Rome.” The central government lacked the resolve to fight. With the consent of King Victor Emmanuel, Mussolini took over as Prime Minister of Italy on October 30. On the same day, the Nazis triumphantly marched through the central streets and squares Eternal City. At the same time, pogroms began in working-class neighborhoods. The new government did not want to waste time.
In the following years, a system of totalitarian fascist state was created in Italy. Power was concentrated in the hands of the Duce (leader) Mussolini. Parliament turned into only its appendage. All political parties and organizations, except the fascist one, were dissolved and outlawed, and many of their leaders were brutally murdered. The Law “On the Defense of the State” introduced the death penalty for opponents of the regime. The fascist “national security police” became part of the state machine.
Gradually, strict state control was established in the economic sphere. This was achieved by creating a system of production corporations, which included representatives of entrepreneurs and trade unions that had undergone fascisation. Official propaganda claimed that corporations should "end class struggle and bring about social cooperation." In fact, they were used to regulate economic and social relations in the interests of the fascist state.
Fascist ideology and the cult of the Duce were established in all spheres of social life. In education and culture, the tasks were set to educate young people in the fascist spirit. Mussolini, forgetting about his youthful atheism, entered into an agreement with the Vatican, which provided the fascist regime with support from the powerful Catholic Church. Pope Pius XI called him a man “sent to Italy by Providence.”
The Birth of Nazism in Germany
During these same years, the National Socialist movement arose in Germany. This happened in Bavaria. During the turbulent events of 1919, not only left forces became active here, proclaiming Soviet republic. Right-wing radical organizations also appeared, including the German Workers' Party, which initially consisted of only a few people. In the fall of 1919, German army corporal A. Hitler came to it. He was sent to the party as an agent of military circles who sought to extend their influence to various political organizations, but soon decided to seriously connect his career with it.
Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 in the Austrian town of Braunau. Having failed his high school finals, he tried to become a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but was unsuccessful. Finding himself without a profession or job, he did odd jobs. During the World War he volunteered for German army. Germany's defeat left him bitter and angry at the "national traitors" and "socialist politicians" who, he believed, had led to Germany's collapse in November 1918.
The party was soon renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), and Hitler became its chairman. He wanted to make the party mass. The party program of 1920 provided for measures against “wrong capitalism”: the withdrawal of unearned income and military profits, the transfer of large enterprises to the state, the expansion of pensions, the transfer of department stores for rent to small traders, the implementation of land reform and the prohibition of land speculation, etc.
In the struggle for political influence, the Nazis also used force. Since 1921, paramilitary units of the Nazi Party began to be created - “assault troops” (SA). Dressed in brown uniforms with the sign of a swastika (a cross with curved edges), the stormtroopers carried out raids on working-class neighborhoods, editorial offices of workers' newspapers, etc. During the period of intensification of the political struggle in Germany in the fall of 1923, Hitler, with the support of General E., famous since the World War. Ludendorff attempted a coup d'état. At a rally in one of the Munich beer halls, he declared the government overthrown and himself a dictator. The Beer Hall Putsch was suppressed and its organizers were sentenced to prison. In prison, Hitler wrote what later became famous book Mein Kampf (My Struggle). Despite the fact that his first attempt to break into power failed, he hoped to wait in the wings.
Concluding the consideration of the events of 1918 - early 1920s in European countries, one cannot help but note their complexity and inconsistency. The desire for freedom and justice was intertwined with the cruelty of revolution and counter-revolution. In an intense struggle, political movements and parties separated. The communist movement emerged from social democracy. During these same years, right-wing radical, fascist and Nazi forces made themselves known. Proclaiming the ideas of a “new order,” they rushed to power where revolutions had recently raged.
References:
Aleksashkina L.N. / General history. XX- beginning of XXI century.