The SS and police now pursued, rounded up, and executed women, children, and the elderly. I watch a woman pushing a baby carriage across the street and well outside the range of the prison gates. And, he went on, American-German relations would improve greatly if the Landsberg death sentences were commuted. [30] During September 1941, Ohlendorf's group slaughtered 22,467 Jews and communists at Mykolaiv near the Black Sea port of Odesa. [31], Due to the Wehrmacht's insistence that Ukraine's agricultural production was needed to sustain its military campaign, Ohlendorf was asked during October 1941 to refrain from killing some of the Jewish farmersa request he honoredbut one which earned him Himmler's contempt. They are moving faster than before, and the keys make a not inappropriate noise. Like many German youth, the politics of the extreme Right attracted Ohlendorf with the promise to restore Germanys greatness after the events of 1918-19defeat in World War I after victory seemed so near, socialist revolution, and the imposition of the humiliating Treaty of Versailles. Graham shows me a great heap of letters and telegrams from German sympathizers offering comfort to the criminals. The CIC agents tell us that the newspaper reporters, some of them Germans, have been interviewing the wives of the seven. His only criterion was that justice must be done. Pamphlets and leaflets attacking American injustice were circulated by unknown and unidentified organizations. In 19411943, Einsatzgruppen conducted mass shootings of hundreds of thousands of Jews, Communists, and others during Nazi Germanys campaign against the Soviet Union. In fact, Landsberg is one of the best operated prisons in Europe, and its inmates receive civilized treatment. There is a slight crackle. This was done to avoid any possibility of poison or suicides. He straps prisoners ankles and steps back. Then he saw them off as they left Pretzsch to get ready for the invasion. Gerwarth, Robert. It was purely accidental that I, an American, and a Jew, became the official witness for the U.S. High Commissioner to the execution of the condemned men. Educated at a humanistic Gymnasium in Hildesheim, he later studied law at the . Ohlendorf's comment that Mueller was ordered to remain adds weight to the probability that Mueller died in Berlin. COL. AMEN: And when was Heydrich's death? This trial, known generally as the EinsaztgruppenCase (officially classified as the United States of America vs. Otto Ohlendorf, et al. In todays world, that hardly sounds like a startling admission. Mr. McCloys mail was marked by an increasingly large number of appeals for clemency, both signed and anonymous, and soon these appeals assumed the proportions of an avalanche. Not to elicit a. We may be seated and smoke after each drop. The queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach comes back. It would be far better to keep them in prison as an example to future generations. [47][48] Himmler committed suicide shortly after being captured. Klein, Peter, ed. Each one was charged with committing all three counts between June 1941 and July 1943. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1981. Wistrich, Robert. ; Crimes against humanity: extermination, enslavement, rape, persecution on political, racial, or religious grounds whether or not such persecution violated the laws of the country in which it was perpetrated; membership in organizations declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal (that a man had acted pursuant to the order of his government or of a superior does not free him from responsibility for a crime, but may be considered in mitigation). New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011. Explore resources that meet the Massachusetts History and Social Science Framework. In this same prison Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, and was released for political reasons. Theres no backing out now. Students are introduced to the enormity of the crimes committed during the Holocaust and look closely at stories of a few individuals who were targeted by Nazi brutality. In the United States, there was sharp criticism of the decisions as having been too lenient, while in Germany, McCloy was attacked for having been too severe. 3. Graham says the last suppers were cooked at Augsberg, some miles away from Landsberg Prison. When Otto Friedrich Ohlendorf was born on 31 January 1893, in Millstadt, St. Clair, Illinois, United States, his father, Friedrich Ohlendorf, was 24 and his mother, Maria Schwab, was 21. 0005: I recoil back into my seat. Interest in the condemned men in Landsberg prisonthe so-called Lands-berg menbegan to mount in Germany around mid-December of 1950 when it became known that High Commissioner McCloy and his colleague, General Handy, had the cases under study. The opinions expressed are his own. Here I look at the case of Otto Ohlendorf (1907-1951), the leader of one of the Einsatzgruppen, the SS Special Task Forces assembled by Reinhard Heydrich for Nazi Germanys invasion of the Soviet Union. Ten of the fifteen death cases under McCloys jurisdiction were commuted, five confirmed; two of the eleven death cases under General Handys jurisdiction were confirmed, nine commuted. He makes notes on a piece of paper. It would be bad for the soul of the German people, McCloy went on, to put these things under the carpet. He is a small, slight man with soft, kindly eyes. 1920: Bickel reports to Fred Hulse, in McCloys office in Frankfort. Mueller vanished after the war, and for years it was surmised that Mueller offered himself to the U.S. or USSR for intelligence purposes. Pohl had been the head of an organization, the WVHA (Wirtschafts-und Verwaltungshauptamt), Economic and Administrative Department of the Nazi government, which, as an adjunct of the SS, had administered the concentration camps. 2246: The sergeant has announced coffee and doughnuts. The resources Im getting from my colleagues through Facing History have been just invaluable. Little or nothing was said in print or on the air about the crimes committed by these men. All 22 defendants were found guilty of at least one charge. The sergeant aide is looking into the pit where architect Blobel is hanging. The lieutenant colonel from the Judge Advocate Generals Office in Heidelberg, has reversed himself and is now offering 6 to 5 that there will be no stay of execution. I keep my eyes away from that rope. Later this expanded to include the Caucasus. Ninety-nine out of one hundred of these communications showed as much understanding of the cases as your dog, Professor Schmid.. Otto Ohlendorf on Trial Chief among the SS officials put on trial following the conviction of the surviving Nazi government ministers were the commanders and senior staff of the four Einsatzgruppen that operated on the Eastern Front in conjunction with the Wehrmacht. He refuses to comment. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. I return to Grahams office. A handsome Negro captain, Artillery, a huge bunch of keys dangling from his belt, tells me in answer to a question that she is Mrs. Oswald Pohl. Learn how the Nuremberg defendants' argued that German leaders were following orders when committing atrocities during the Holocaust. We were all so trained to obey orders without even thinking that the thought of disobeying an order would simply never have occurred to anybody, and somebody else would have done just as well if I hadnt. Thats enough. The suppers were served by GIs. 10, Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, vol. 2235: Graham is discussing the business of last rites. 2242: Big clock is ticking. He is talking in his friendly Alabama drawl, but I scarcely know what he is saying. Many historians have written about the famous Buffalo Soldiers of the all-Black 92nd Infantry Division, who fought with distinction during World War II. Birth 4 Feb 1907 - Unavailable. Leave a message for others who see this profile. There are new instructions nowa reversal of the previous arrangement. To say this is a case of too little too late is a vast understatement. He was the longest serving of the four commanders. Doubts begin to stir in us again. I ask him if he will pronounce the men dead. In June 1941, Reinhard Heydrich appointed Ohlendorf to be commander of Einsatzgruppe D which operated in southern Ukraine and Crimea. He repeats his caution against frivolity, although for the life of me I cant imagine how or why anyone would become frivolous. After the IMT trial, the United States conducted twelve additional trials on the basis of the Charter. Ive never killed a Jew. I shake it off with difficulty. In September and October Einsatzgruppe D moved on to cities like Cherson, Berdyansk, and Taganrog. I refuse to accept the suggestion made by the delegation that humanity breeds inhumanity. The Supreme Court has rejected final appeal, Justice Robert Jackson (who served as chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials) abstaining after disqualifying himself. . Only Ohlendorf, his deputy in EinsatzgruppeD, Willy Seibert, and the telegraphist, a man named Fritsch, could remain in the radio station when these happened. He was to lead EinsatzgruppeD, the fourth and final of the Special Task Forces put together for Operation Barbarossa. Their names were Paul Blobel, Werner Braune, Erich Naumann, Otto Ohlendorf, Oswald Pohl, Georg Schallermair, and Hans Schmidt. I tell him I will be down to make a call after the first drop. Otto Ohlendorf, et al.. Case #9 is usually referred to as the Einsatzgruppen Case. As a nonprofit, we offer free help to those looking to learn the details of their family story. [42] Ohlendorf also lodged a complaint about the Romanian forces, who drove thousands of frail elderly persons and children from Bessarabia and Bokovinaall incapable of workinto German-held regions, which his men forced back into Romanian territory but not without killing a significant percentage of them as a result. 2100: Graham is excited over report from Munich newspaper to the effect that there has been another stay of execution. Articles describing the fine personal qualities of the war criminals were published by their wives, and a few mass-circulation magazines took to printing similar pieces by the families or former associates of top-rung Nazi leaders who had been executed long before. The IMT prosecuted German leaders for international crimes defined in the Nuremberg Charter. Bishops, lawyers, the man on the street, all felt the same impulseto hide things under the carpet. At the Arcadia Conference, held in Washington, DC, from December 24, 1941 to January 14, 1942, the Western Allies agreed to a Germany First policy to govern global strategy, but the question where to engage Germany, and when, remained unsettled. He says this takes considerable time. I have suffered grievously at the hands of the Nazis. What kind of tasks did Heydrich have in mind for this group? We wait. As chief of the Public Relations Division for the High Commissioners Office, I was sent to Landsberg to handle the two hundred or so newspaper men covering the story of the hanging. This was the tragic fulfillment of a program of intolerance and arrogance.Each of the defendants in the dock held a position of responsibility or command in an extermination unit. In 1939 Ohlendorf was promoted within the newly constituted Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). Otto Ohlendorf, the former commandant of Einsatzgruppe D, was sentenced to death for the murder of about 90,000 Jews, Roma, and Sinti after admitting that he had ordered his men to kill children as well as adults. [28] The number of persons killed under the leadership of Einsatzgruppen commanders such as Ohlendorf are "staggering" despite the use of varying murder techniques. These men, who were sober enough in all other respects, still believed that we had a sporting chance against the East.". One telegram to Graham pleads for the privilege of hanging in place of Pohl. Otto Ohlendorf. 2210: We wait, smoking and looking uneasily at the clock. . Bickel says he will not be a witness. The first of a series of indictments was filed on October 25, 1946, and the trial opened on December 9 of that year. We are to stand at attention during the hangings. There is a report from Bonn that the Ministry of Justice is working frantically for a last minute reprieve. WIKITREE PROTECTS MOST SENSITIVE INFORMATION BUT ONLY TO THE EXTENT STATED IN THE TERMS OF SERVICE AND PRIVACY POLICY. I have lost my parents, my relatives and friends in the concentration camps. The apple trees are in full blossom. [20][b] Ohlendorf's Einsatzgruppe in particular was responsible for the 13 December 1941 massacre at Simferopol, where at least 14,300 people, mostly Jews, were killed. Though short, he is athletic, wiry and powerful. The Bundestag adopted a unanimous resolution condemning the execution of any of the prisoners. 2140: Graham receives confirmation from Heidelberg: proceed with executions. . 2255: Borom, the lieutenant colonel from Heidelberg, is lighting his pipe. These trials are known as the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings. Case #9 of these twelve trials is known today as the Einsatzgruppen Case. and 5 received sentences that ranged from 10 to 20 years. It was, he argued, almost inhuman to keep men, regardless of the crimes they might have committed, in a state of terrible uncertainty as to whether they were going to live or die. His hand is moist, clammy. Facing History & Ourselves uses lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate. What did the shift entail? 2 (a subunit of Einsatzgruppe A), who received a death sentence, was extradited to Belgium. Most of them are biblical quotations, others enclose pressed flowers. Graham is amused. This was not a small group, Geyer elaborated. In 19411943, On September 10, 1947, the US Military Government for Germany created Military Tribunal II-A (later renamed Tribunal II). Otto Ohlendorf was convicted of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during World War II. But the judges at Nuremberg maintained that it would have been impossible for members of Einsatzgruppen not to know that murdering civilians was both illegal and immoral. I notice on the other side of the loft a neatly piled stack of white pine coffins which presumably were made for the war criminals whose sentences have been commuted. Each assumed the right to decide the fate of men, and death was the intended result of his power and contempt. Ohlendorf described the broad extent of Himmler's "degrading" and "unworthy" efforts to gain a post in the Doenitz government and Himmler's real anger on hearing that he was an "encumbrance" who would do the new government more harm than good. The waiter is a former Malmdy murderer, one of Pfeiffers flunkeys. Main telephone: 202.488.0400 On January 2, 1942, Ohlendorf reported that his unit had killed 17,645 Jews between November 16 and December 15, 1941, in western Crimea. They were the parents of at least 2 sons. Graham is noncommital. He cited examples from the Medical Case in which the defendants were charged with and convicted of performing medical experiments on concentration camp inmateshigh altitude tests, freezing tests, tests with typhus and malaria germs, artificially induced infections, salt water tests, etc. After him are Konstantinos Karamanlis, Giovanna of Italy, Compay Segundo, Erich Mielke, Daniel Bovet, and Barbara Stanwyck. Those bastards, he mutters, those unmitigated bastardsif they try anything. That sick feeling comes over me again. [52] He expressed no remorse for his actions, telling prosecutor Ben Ferencz that the Jews of America would suffer for what the prosecutor had done, and seemed to have been more concerned about the moral strain on those carrying out the murders than those being murdered. How does Doris Bergens statement that the Nazis did not force people to be killers affect your opinion of the way Hss and Ohlendorf explain their choices? . 2151: There is a lot of bustle in Grahams office now, as uniformed officers and men come and go. This unit perpetrated mass murder in the northernmost sector of the Eastern Front, primarily the Baltic countries and the area around Leningrad (today: St. Petersburg). A total of 265 have been hanged since the end of the war. In their judgment at the Einsatzgruppen trial, the judges wrote: No court will punish a man who, with a loaded pistol at his head, is compelled to pull a lethal lever. He says, were all set; well call you right after the first one is pronounced dead, and after the last. A curious time to take a bath. Whos Who in Nazi Germany. New York: Macmillan, 1982. He coordinated plans to rebuild the German economy after the war. One remarks that it seems late in the day politically to be hanging Germans even if they are war criminals. Reichsfhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler once characterized Ohlendorf as "an unbearable Prussian" who was "without humour". He says: Thats it, boys. Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion 1941/42: Die Ttigkeits-und Lageberichte des Chefs der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD. They said that when an individual follows an order that is illegal under international law, he is responsible for that choice, except under certain circumstances. Create a FREE Account. On August 8, 1945, in London, the governments of the USA, France, Britain, and the USSR resolved to punish those German officers and men and members of the Nazi party who have been responsible for or have taken a consenting part in atrocities and crimes. Roughly 600 men (the smallest of the four), drawn from the SS and the various police agencies in the Reich, would serve under him. His job was to wait for a possible last-minute reprieve by the Supreme Court. The 24 defendants in Case #9 were all leading members of Einsatzgruppen that operated on the Eastern Front during World War II. Ohlendorf's apparently reliable testimony was attributed to his distaste for the corruption in Nazi Germany and a stubborn commitment to duty. I study his photograph, compare it with the man. They offer a last chance for confronting not just the legal but the moral issues that the perpetrators have so consistently tried to dodge in the past. He was sentenced to death on 08-04-1948 and spent three years in detention before being hanged at the Landsberg Prison in Bavaria on 07-06-1951, age 44, and he buried on the Spottinger prison cemetery. Hitler envisioned Barbarossa as a modern crusade against Jewish Bolshevism and the Einsatzgruppenwould be at the forefront of this war of subjugation and extermination against the Soviet Union. Britt adjusts the noose over the mans hooded head. . 0003: Britt steps back, glances at Graham. Graham nods. The Einsatzgruppen trial (officially, The United States of America vs. Otto Ohlendorf, et al.) With the onset. Radio cars were in the prison compound in anticipation of a possible breakdown of telephone communications. I learn that he was sent up for shooting captured paratroopers. Everyone present agrees that the only hope is John J. McCloy. COL. Reference to telephone orders by Himmler days before Hitler's suicide. The defendants were arraigned between September 15 and 22, 1947. A first-generation American of Lebanese descent, James Jabara was intent on being a fighter pilot. Christopher Browning and Jrgen Matthus have contended that the turning point from mass murder to genocide was reached with the liquidation of the Jewish community in Nikolayev in mid-September 1941. Receiving support from the 11th Army, Ohlendorfs men murdered 5,000 Jews there, including women and children. Holmes confides that the Registrar had refused to attend the executions for political reasons, that he had been ordered to attend, that he was a die-hard Nazi. Left to right: Kthe Ohlendorf, wife of Otto Ohlendorf; Margot Schmidt, wife of Hans Theodor Schmidt, adjutant at Buchenwald concentration camp; von Ysenburg, who brought word to the wives of the reprieve; Magda Braune, wife of Werner Braune; and Elisabeth Naumann, wife of Erich Naumann. Colonel Graham, whose office is the nerve center, makes pointed reference to the possibility of suicide. These discussions aimed at the creation of a new government that could procure a separate peace with the Allies. Fourteen of the thirty-two men who served as judges in these tribunals had sat in the highest courts of their home states, eleven had sat in state appellate or trial courts, and the others included a law school dean and several eminent bar association members. Germany has come a very long way since then. Afterwards, Ohlendorf secured a position as director of research at the Institute for World Economy and Maritime Transport in Kiel. [53], At the trial, Ohlendorf attempted to present the operations in the Soviet area "not as a racist programme for the annihilation of all the Jews but as a general liquidation order primarily aimed at 'securing' the newly won territory". On the 31st of January, the High Commissioners final decisions were promulgated and published. TTY: 202.488.0406. tried leading members of the Einsatzgruppen. They report to the commandant, Colonel Graham. . Ohlendorf said that Himmler until the very end believed that an agreement could be struck and that he hoped to be the Allies' "confidence man in Europe. I look at him with astonishment. The Tribunal rendered its judgment on April 89, 1948. Between July 1941 and April 1942, Heydrichs staff in the RSHA prepared 195 reports, condensing and consolidating all the horror in these documents for use by Nazi officials. And Ohlendorfs men engaged in such depravity over and over again. In an interview, he pointed out that the prosecution had been waiting for one of the defendantsto address the witnesses who had survived and had their whole families annihilated with one humane wordit would have cleared the air. That never happened. He was the leader of the SS in Austria prior to the Anschluss and played a principal role in the betrayal of his native country to the Nazi conspirators. Wildt, Michael. [3][55], "Five death sentences were confirmed: the sentence against Oswald Pohl, as well as those passed against the leaders of the Mobile Killing Units, Paul Blobel, Werner Braune, Erich Neumann, and Otto OhrlendorfIn the early morning hours of 7 June, the Nazi criminals were hanged in the Landesburg prison courtyard.". Judgment was finally rendered more than two years later, on April 14, 1949 (in United States vs. Weizaecker et al. Schallermair had been directly in charge of prisoners in a sub-camp of Dachau named Muehldorf where large numbers of beatings were personally administered by him. I really never gave much thought to whether it was wrong. The cameramans flash goes off in a sudden stab of light. The Holocaust in Eastern Europe: At the Epicenter of the Final Solution. Holmes starts discussing the injustices of the law. Modern mechanized armies need a robust logistics chain to provide fuel, ammunition, and other sinews of war to sustain combat operations.

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