Catholic upbringing, fascination with the occult.
Encourage practice of Jesuit exercizes of Ignatius of Loyola
fascinated and
studied in horticulture: kept herb gardens in the killing centers
Believed in "Voelkerchaos" : an ultimate war among/between races, with the superior
race victorious. Preoccupation with and hatred of the Jews and other "racial inferiors".
Also interested in mesmerism/astrology and hypnosis.
Near Family:
Wife:Marga Concerzowo from Poland , lived apart much of the time. Married in 7/28.
Father: Gebhard , a Munich Schoolmaster; tutor for Prince Heinrich (Bavaria)
War Crimes
too numerous to mention. Includes orders to build and staff concentration camps,
including Auschwitz; co-directed Wannssee Conference
One of the directors of the Final Solution.
Vocation before Wartime
fanatical agronomist /Lab assistant in Agricultural firm.
Means of Death
Suicide, in 1945, before he could stand trial
Critical Facts:
He was quoted as saying,"The decision had to be made to make this people disappear
from earth. This is being accomplished."
..Breitman, The Architect of Genocide: Himmler & the Final Solution
He is credited with the creation of the Gestapo;
and he became Police overlord after Goering. Wrote Blut und Boden(Blood and Soul,)
expounding Aryan/Nordic Race ideals. He was obessed with Heinrich I, founder of the 1st
Reich and fancied himself his re-incarnation. He was also obsessed with teutonic legend
and ideals.
Gauleiter of Berlin Minister of Propaganda & "Popular Enlightenment"
Background and Interests:
Goebbels trained at the doctoral level in Literary Criticism, studying paradoxically under
one of the foremost Jewish Literary Critics of the day. His critical skills were later
used in developing one of the most sinister and complex propaganda campaigns of the last
millenium. He had an intense interest in classical music as did Heydrich, but his knowledge
was used in censorship for the purposes of the German War effort.
His training in the critical use of language aided him immensely in developing one of the
most sophisticated and complex Propaganda machines ever; with detailed systems of both
foreign and domestic targets: Goebbel fought a psychological warfare
as extensive as Hitler's Military one.
Near Family:
Wife and Children: Magda, and six Children
War Crimes
Goebbels and family committed suicide in Hitler's bunker in the last days of the war as Berlin was
taken by the allied forces. Because of this the Senior Propaganda minister did not stand trial for
War Crimes, although it is presumed he would have been guilty of the four major Counts that the most
central decision-makers were charged with.
Vocation before Wartime
Failed attempts at writing for traditional newspapers, found work as a bank employee, then published 2 periodicals
for the National Socialist Party:editor of two party periodicals, the weekly Völkische Freiheit ("National Freedom") and, later, of NS-Briefe ("NS Letters").
Doctoral level Education in Literary Criticism. Auspice over Labor concerns. Published Der Angriff (The Attack) a violently anti-semitic periodical
Means of Death
Poisoning/Suicide: of himself, wife and children in the bunker where
Hitler and Eva Braun hid.
Critical Facts:
Goebbels though mechanical without conscience regarding the Jews, was a master communicator. He kept a tight reign
not only on his staff, but on the entire upper echelon as much as he could, so that there would
be no 'leaks' in communication regarding his propaganda system. He controlled the radio, even to the point
of Sunday afternoon Music censorship, he arranged 'secret transmitters' abroad which on the surface looked like
local radio but were for the sole intent of promoting the goals and philosophies of the Nazis. He censored
and managed information control in German Newspapers, and tried as best as possible to manipulate the American
Press as well. His propaganda and counter-propaganda war machine rivals anything like it in history. Without
his sinister brilliance, the German populace would have known much earlier in the war what was occuring.
His plans for the Church after WWII were mind-boggling: he foresaw its re-definition and essential end.
born:3.19.1906: Solingen died:1962, after Israeli imprisonment and trial
Rank
Head of the Office of Jewish Affairs in Berlin
Responsible for "The Final Solution": the total
extermination of European Jewry. In lower level positions, he had worked centrally
with IVB4 and subsections which dealt with 'cataloging' copious information on
'suspect' groups such as freemasonry, Political Catholicism and Protestantism, the Jews and
certain occultic groups.
Background and Interests:
Eichmann was among the most ardent of anti-semites. Ordered the death of
millions of Jews. As a younger person, he studied Hebrew, although
rabbis would not teach him, suspecting his sinister motives. He was
a detailed student of Judaism (for ill purposes)and even traveled to Israel
to stay at a kibbutz, before the war, disguised as a reporter. He was detected.
Obssessed with hatred of the Jews, having been called "Der Klein Jude"(the little jew) growing up.
Near Family:
Vera Liebl, Bohemia: 1936 Four children, all boys: Admitted closeness to the youngest because
he was absent a great deal when the first three grew up.
War Crimes
Eichmann was the intelligence behind the blueprint for
the Final Solution, or Endlosung. He methodically
planned both the massive deaths and the governmental cover-up
by "double-speak": for example, death by massacre was "regular
treatment", death by gassings was, "special treatment" for deported
Jews.
Vocation before Wartime
Worked for his father's electrical construction company and for a vacuum oil sales company. 1934:
Himmler's Security Office (SD)
Means of Death
Execution in Israel; 1962. After thousands of hours
of interogation, and a fair trial/imprisonment, unlike
his victims.
Critical Facts:
Among the few, found in Argentina in 1960 by the
Mossad, living a peaceful family life. (He had also travelled in Florida in 1951
nder an assummed name. Lived in front
of a train track.
born:April 30,1893:Wesel (Niederrhein) died:executed October 16,1946
(guilty at Nuremberg)
Rank
1933 Hitler's Foreign Affairs Advisor
1936 Ambassador to London
1938
Germany's Foreign Minister
Background and Interests:
Von Ribbetrop was a social climber. He married into money & business:
His father-in-law owned a champagne company. Von Ribbetrop handled foreign
affairs and negotiations, particularly with England, and loved the English
lifestyle. Because of numerous gifts from foreign dignitaries, including land
he was often the subject of jealously by other of the SS vying for position. In WWI
he earned the Iron Cross. He is best known for arranging the Nazi-Soviet Pact
and for his negotiations with Britain. While appreciating British life style,
he fostered the increasing anti-British sentiment worldwide.
Near Family:
not available
War Crimes
Tried at Nuremberg and found guilty. Ribbentrop claimed to have no knowledge of the death camps,
but the essential factor of being instrumental in war plans, strategy and effort left him among those
found guilty at Nuremberg and executed.
Vocation before Wartime
Salesman and Representative for his father-in-law's Champagne company; Also worked for a newspaper
Hitler's designated successor: actually took the reigns of office for
a few days, believing Hitler was dead, when Hitler found out, Goring was arrested.
Background and Interests:
once PRESIDENT OF REICHSTAG. In charge of aviation Head of Luftwaffe.
Developed the "pilot program" for Gestapo/SS that Himmler created.
Near Family:
wife:
child:
War Crimes
charged with multiple war crimes at Nuremberg, found guilty and sentenced to
death by hanging. He broke open a vial of cyanide which had been encapsulated
under his tooth, and committed suicide before he could be hung. He had
surrendered to the Americans, fearing Reich retaliation for prematurely
and unwittingly taking over control upon the receipt of a false wire informing
him of Hitler's death. American airmen entertained him as a guest upon capture.
Remained openly defiant throughout the war crimes trial, accusing Allied
Countries of committing the same war crimes.
Vocation before Wartime
former president of Reichstag. Aviator.
Means of Death
suicide by cyanide capsule to avoid hanging at Nuremberg.
Critical Facts:
Responsible for the Police Force. Ringleader of last resistance at Nuremberg.
As Speer attempted to repent and turn others to admitting wrongdoing at the trial,
Goering attempted the opposite: to make a last stand ,denial and paradoxically a
justification of atrocities citing the atrocities committed against germans in
WWI and WWII. He was silence by pictoral and testimonial evidence.
Born:March 7,1904 Halle an der Saale (near Leipzig) Died:May, 1942, Prague, assasinated near a garden park as he left a vehicle.
Rank
Executive Head of Gestapo; Head of SD (secret service), Ultimately: 1933 Oberfuhrer (akin to Brigadier General.)
Background and Interests:
Heydrich was raised in a musical family: His father was the head
of Halle's Conservatory. He had a love of classical music and revolutionary
politics. Climbed to position of oberleutnant in navy and was then recruited
to the Nazi party. Known as a womanizer. Very focused on aryan concepts of the
physique. Utterly ruthless and filled with self-hatred, he was obsessed with
worry over whether he might have been even remotely Jewish.
Near Family:
Father: Richard Bruno Heydrich; founder/director of Halle's conservatory.
Mother: Elzabeth A.A. Kranz. Wife: Lina von Olsten married: 12/24/31.
War Crimes
The Slaughter of Prague, Mass killings and Organization and
Implementation of the Einsatzgruppen: the literal and formidable town by
town destruction and desolation of Jewish Europe in cruelty, sexual assault
and mass killings and burials, often of the still living. Perhaps the
cruelest of the hierarchy and one of the most disturbed.
Vocation before Wartime
Navy officier, violinist, wireless operator
Means of Death
Assasinated: Kubis, unable to shoot Heydrich as he
rounded a corner in Prague in his Mercedes, threw a bomb
which mortally wounded Heydrich. He died days later after
a meeting with Himmler.
Critical Facts:
Meglomania: loved power: removed interrogations from police of a political
nature to the Gestapo. Solidified his own power. Obsessed with self-hatred,
he is reported to have once shot at his image in a wall-size mirror.
Director of Hitler Youth Movement: Hitlerjugend
Gauleiter of Vienna
SA: Gruppenfuhrer
Background and Interests:
From an early age belonged to Wehrjugendgruppe, a racist youth group.
Went on to
head Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Studentenbunds (NSDStB, National
Socialist Students' Union)
In 1933 appointed head of Hitlerjugend: replaced by end of the war, but credited
with indoctrinating an entire
generation into Nazi beliefs and philosophies.
Near Family:
American Mother, German Father
Married: Henriette Hoffman;
Children: 3 boys; 1 girl
Divorced 1950 in prison
War Crimes
Served 20 years in Spandau Prison: Prison where Hoss was incarcerated.
Only him and Speer decried Hitler's actions during Nuremberg trials.
Vocation before Wartime
From early, involved in leadership in youth movements with fascist bent: from
1933 when he was only 26 he led the Hitler Youth.
Means of Death
Died naturally after retiring in Germany.
Critical Facts:
von Shirach became wildly successful in raising the younger German generation up
in the National hubris of the Third Reich and Fuhrer-worship. He was widely known for
his large youth rallies. During an apex in the war when funds were tight, thousands of
dollars (marks) were spent on a Europe-wide Hitlerjugend rally. It became known as
Baldur's Children's Party and was decried by others in Hitler's high command, as being an
expensive endeavor all for show.
Educated at Institue of Technology in Berlin-Charlottenburg
During the war, Speer oversaw city planning and architecture.
He also designed production lines
for utter efficiency for the Nazi war effort.This efficiency was
partly dependent upon the enforced slave labor of the Jews and other
persons and was noted for prolonging the war. Speer was personal
architect to Hitler and had a 'symbiotic' relationship with him:
he was given the task of designing buildings that would withstand
a thousand years.
Near Family:
Father: A. Speer: Architect
Wife: Margarete Weber: eloped with
to avoid family's anger over class differences.
War Crimes
Speer was largely accountable for prolonging the war by keeping up massive production efforts
during the allied siege, without which, the war would have ended. He is also responsible for his
utter skill at organization/planning of Nazi efforts especially the massive Nazi rallies/assemblies
which led to Aryan nationalistic ethnocentrism, or simply, to extreme aryan racial pride. The use
of Jews and other political / religious prisoners for torturous slave labor often leading to death
and performed under conditions of freezing starvation could have alone been his infamy.
Vocation before Wartime
Architect, had wanted instead to be a Mathematician
Means of Death
lived to be 74; died of natural causes.
Critical Facts:
Put on trial for war crimes at Nuremberg, he was one of the few to truly
repent of his efforts to forward Hitlers' genocide. After being found guilty
in 1946, unlike many of the others who were hung, he was given a prison sentence
and served 20 years. So complete was his repentance that some termed him later
in life "The Good Nazi", although his earlier efforts caused millions more to
die.
Catholic, happily married. Wife kept a rose garden at Auschwitz.
Army background at 15;
1923 participated in parchim feme murder/10yrs in prison,
out in '28; in business
Near Family:
Wife: Children:5
War Crimes
Camp Commandant of Auschwitz, appointed in 1940;
responsible for over 2.5 million grusome deaths.(He estimated to Eichmann as many as 5 million killed at Auschwitz alone.)
Known for extreme cruelty, organized mass murders.
Vocation before Wartime
Army in turkish theatre/1934
joined SS, appointed to Dachau in Germany,
later to Sachenhausen as adjutant
Means of Death
Hoss initially 'escaped' to England but was tried as a war criminal after the war.
He was tried at a tribunal in Warsaw, and then hung at Auschwitz.
Critical Facts:
in prison wrote a report on Auschwitz and his function in it, partially summarized in Auschwitz Chroniclesan archival data base which includes german federal and auschwitz archives.
While revisionist like to argue against massive gassings at the killing centers, Hoess was quite clear about his own
eyewitness account: "The gassing was carried out in the detention cells of Block 11. Protected by a gas mask, I watched the killing myself. In the crowded cells, death came instantaneously the moment the Zyklon B was thrown in. A short, almost smothered cry, and it was all over... I must even admit that this gassing set my mind at rest, for the mass extermination of the Jews was to start soon, and at that time neither Eichmann nor I was certain as to how these mass killings were to be carried out. It would be by gas, but we did not know which gas and how it was to be used. Now we had the gas, and we had established a procedure."
Another note: It was Hoess himself in a communique to Eichmann, reported by Eichmann to Israeli Police who stated that his estimates of the numbers at Auschwitz were 4-5 million (at just this lager). Eichmann argued less, but both argued more than the traditional 2.5 million cited.
"
by Elizabeth Kirkley Best, copyright 2000, all rights reserved.
