Bishops, lawyers, the man on the street, all felt the same impulseto hide things under the carpet. 0002: There is no wavering in voice or manner, never a sign of fear. Ive never killed a Jew. . 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. 2105: A prison officer comes into Grahams office to announce that the war criminals appeal to an American judge in Frankfort Military Courts has been rejected. Although much of the U.S. Army's investigative file on Ohlendorf was declassified in 1987, some documents were withheld and are being released under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. The executions are scheduled to start at three minutes past midnight. What did your Ohlendorf ancestors do for a living? How are you feeling? 10, Nuernberg October 1946-April 1949, Volume IV: The Einsatzgruppen Case & The RuSHA Case. Why might it be difficult to disobey the order of a superior or authority figure? After the IMT trial, the United States conducted twelve additional trials on the basis of the Charter. Theres no backing out now. Sometime between mid-July and mid-August 1941 Himmler, certainly with Hitlers approval, ordered the expansion of killing. 0001: Two soldiers wearing neatly pressed olive drab uniforms are first to arrive in the loft. Students explore the intertwined personal stories of Jewish refugees who attempted to flee to the United States and the American rescuers who intervened on their behalf. On February 1, a special messenger delivered an urgent dispatch from the Federal Minister of Justice, Thomas Dehler, in Bonn. [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. BillionGraves FREE Dr. Phil Otto Ohlendorf, 1879 - 1913 was born in 1879. This was done to avoid any possibility of poison or suicides. [44] Sometime in November 1944, he was promoted to Gruppenfhrer. Students turn their attention to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of a strong current of ethno-nationalism rooted in Turkish identity. . The town is tense with excitement but no real trouble is expected. "[26][d], Many of the killing operations were personally overseen by Ohlendorf, who wanted to ensure they were "military in character and humane under the circumstances". Born in February 1907 into a peasant family in Hoheneggelsen, a small town in Lower Saxony in northwest Germany, he was not yet a teenager when Germany suffered a crushing defeat in World War I. Otto Ohlendorf was the Head of Amt lll of the Reich Main Security Office during the Second World War and organiser of mass murders in the Southern Ukraine in 1941 and 1942. While some perpetrators in the Holocaust claimed, and may have believed, that they would be physically harmed if they did not follow orders to participate in mass murder, historian Doris Bergen notes that the Nazis did not harm those who refused: Germans were not forced to be killers. Ohlendorf Name Meaning & Ohlendorf Family History at - Ancestry [3] Ohlendorf was active in the National Socialist Students' League in both Kiel and Gttingen and taught at the Nazi Party's school in Berlin. Three times the gallows had been prepared, three times the official army executioner was instructed to have his gear ready, three times the wives of the condemned men visited their husbands for the last time. Three times the prisoners ate their last meal.. [3] Believing their expertise invaluable, Ohlendorf, Ludwig Erhard, and other experts concerned themselves with how to stabilize German currency after the war. His job was to wait for a possible last-minute reprieve by the Supreme Court. OHLENDORF: Heydrich was wounded at the end of May 1942, and died on 4 June 1942. After a talk by Hans Joachim Von Merkatz, a functionary of an influential right-wing political group, Ehlers introduced Bundestag Deputy Jakob Altmeier, a Socialist party member. 1935: JAG1 lieutenant colonels from Heidelberg, two of them, have arrived to serve as army witnesses. They report to the commandant, Colonel Graham. He served there with figures like Adolf Eichmann and Ernst Kaltenbrunner, both roughly his age, who aided Himmler and Heydrich in their policies of terror, mass extermination, and genocide across the European continent. He didnt know what they were for a moment, suspected a suicide attempt. One hour and some 25 minutes are left now. 08-06-1951, age 44, hangedat theLandsberg PrisoninBavaria. 2400: Now we hear footsteps and the voice of a chaplain praying in sonorous German. 0007: Borom says he wishes there were a seven-man gallows. Ohlendorf took part in Himmlers flight from Flensburg and was arrested with him near Lneburg, where Himmler committed suicide. The Einsatzgruppen were special task forces of the SS and Police. Ohlendorf led the mobile SS death squad in Crimea. It is quiet and orderly; beautifully manicured grounds with only a knoll of American soldiers near the big gates to destroy the illusion of a rest camp. This Board, consisting of New York State Supreme Court Justice David Peck, Commissioner Frederick A. Moran (the chairman of the New York Board of Parole), and Brigadier General Conrad E. Snow, was not empowered to review the decisions of the Military Tribunals on questions of law or fact, but to consider disparities among the sentences for comparable crimes and other matters which tended to show that the sentences imposed were excessive. The Board was directed to consider anything that might warrant mitigation of sentences.. Otto Ohlendorf joined the Nazi Party in 1925 and in 1926. In 1936, three years after Hitler and the Nazi Party came int Show more The. Otto Ohlendorf was born on the 4th of February 1907. Graham says the last suppers were cooked at Augsberg, some miles away from Landsberg Prison. Report on the Otto Ohlendorf IRR File | National Archives 2353: I return to the Death House, climb up the last stairway, see the gallows for the first time. 2 (a subunit of Einsatzgruppe A), who received a death sentence, was extradited to Belgium. 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. The latter have invented stories about how their husbands are being mistreated. These discussions aimed at the creation of a new government that could procure a separate peace with the Allies. Hans Theodor Schmidt was trailed and hanged in Landsberg prison, on 07-06-1951, age 51.. Here the testimony of Heinz Hermann Schubert, Ohlendorfs longtime subordinate, is extremely valuable. 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. First Blobel, then the jurist Braune; Naumann, the SS General; Ohlendorf, the economist and lawyer who murdered 90,000; Pohl and Schallermair and Schmidteach in his turn. Claudia Bautista,Santa Monica, Calif. You must have JavaScript enabled to use this form. Ohlendorf's comment that Mueller was ordered to remain adds weight to the probability that Mueller died in Berlin. [39], Historian Donald Bloxham referred to Ohlendorf as a bureaucrat, who was trying to "prove himself in the field". There are 513 prisoners in Landsberg as of 2120 hours on June 6. Edited by Alex J. Kay, Jeff Rutherford, and David Stahel. The Military Tribunals, Mr. McCloy went on, had been set up by men of peace, good will, and great character. Will I be able to perform this simple act? Gustav Ohlendorf (1892-1989) FamilySearch Reinhold Hanning, a 94-year-old former Auschwitz guard who will go down in history as one of the last of Hitlers perpetrators to be charged for his role in the Third Reich, offered an apology. 2. . He had to wait, though, for his appointment with the hangman. ". I returned to Grahams office. A previous version of this newly revised reading was titled We Were Not Supposed to Think., After the first trial ended in October 1946, the United States held 12 other trials at Nuremberg under the authority of the International Military Tribunal. There was another who admitted responsibility for the massacre of 30,000 Jews (in Kiev). and other experts, who planned, e.g., how to introduce the new German currency Deutsch Mark. 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. The sergeant aide is looking into the pit where architect Blobel is hanging. 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. Graham says: I ought to accept this offer; that guys been begging to be executed.. They seem collected and self-controlled, and I make an effort to get a grip on myself. Have you taken a DNA test? [47][48] Himmler committed suicide shortly after being captured. He hangs up. COL. AMEN: And when was Heydrich's death? [29] On 1 August 1941, Einsatzgruppen commanders including Ohlendorf, received instructions from Gestapo chief Heinrich Mller to keep headquarters (Hitler especially) informed of their progress in the East; Mller also encouraged the speedy delivery of photographs showing the results of these operations. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009. 1920: Bickel reports to Fred Hulse, in McCloys office in Frankfort. Learn how the Nuremberg defendants' argued that German leaders were following orders when committing atrocities during the Holocaust. In his opening statement, Ferencz underscored that: It is with sorrow and with hope that we here disclose the deliberate slaughter of more than a million innocent and defenseless men, women, and children. . After his sentencing, Ohlendorf told him: The Jews in America will suffer for this.. He will take phone calls in Grahams office. His face is that of a storekeeper or a teacher. There had been three last-minute reprieves prior to June 7the most recent on May 24, ninety minutes before the actual hangings were due to take place. They are moving faster than before, and the keys make a not inappropriate noise. The rope doesnt fit correctly. One telegram to Graham pleads for the privilege of hanging in place of Pohl. He visited the morgue daily with an inmate dentist to extract gold teeth from the mouths of the corpses. Each chaplain is allowed all the time he needs in the cell with the condemned man before he is led to the gallows. And, he went on, American-German relations would improve greatly if the Landsberg death sentences were commuted. He says a sergeant reported finding cherry pits in one of the death cells. Explore the scintillating May 2023 issue of Commentary. To say this is a case of too little too late is a vast understatement. He is amazingly efficient and cold-blooded. Tens of thousands of Roma and members of the Communist Party of the USSR were also slain. Schubert claimed that, unlike the radio transmissions, these reports contained exact details and descriptions of the places in which the actions had taken place, the course of the operations, losses, numbers of places destroyed and persons killed, arrest of agents, reports on interrogations, reports on the civilian sector, etc. Heydrich and others at the Reich Security Main Office parsed this material and assessed the success of the commanders. 2249: Graham answers the telephone. [19] Supporting military operations, Ohlendorf's group was attached to the Eleventh Army. Dehler indicated that an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court would be based on these alleged mistakes. ; War crimes: atrocities committed against persons or property constituting violations of the customs of war; murder, ill treatment, deportation to slave labor camps, plunder of public or private property, killing of hostages, wanton destruction of towns, devastation not justified by military necessity, etc. That sick feeling comes over me again. At age 27, Benjamin Ferencz was the chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg trial of the commanders of the Einsatzgruppen, the special squads that conducted mass killings of Jews, Gypsies and other civilian enemies on the Eastern Front before the killings shifted to the gas chambers in the camps. All of the remaining convicted defendants in this case were released from prison in 1958. It just seemed a necessity. USA.gov, The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration Case #9 is usually referred to as the Einsatzgruppen Case. The Germans knew what had happened to thembut they did not know, they did not want to know what had happened to other people. I ask. . in accordance with the laws of the liberated countries and of the free governments that will be created therein. After consultation, there was established an International Military Tribunal for the trial of war criminals whose crimes had no particular geographical location. . Discover life events, stories and photos about Otto Ohlendorf (1907-1951) of . I took a cup of coffee and a couple of the doughnuts being handed out by the mess sergeant, and sat down to listen to the game. Another newspaper calls to inquire whether it is true that the executions will go forward. Someone suggests that the prisoners must be well heeled to have been able to lay out the money it cost to circulate the petition. The Sicherheitsdienst (SD) | Holocaust Encyclopedia One task which Ohlendorf disdained was providing guards for the harvest at the behest of Army commanders, who wanted to prevent the Romanians from consuming any of the goods. [41] He did, however, express misgivings about the barbarity and sadism being meted out by the Romanian units that accompanied the Einsatzgruppen in their murderous tasks, since they were not only leaving a trail of corpses in their wake, they were also pillaging and raping in the process. 100-year-old tried for war crimes: Germany's continued confrontation 2140: Graham receives confirmation from Heidelberg: proceed with executions. An act of grace from you, Mr. McCloy, would be a great gesture of reconciliation between the American and the German people, and it will never be forgotten.. Otto Ohlendorf 1907-1951 - Ancestry I never had a German come up to me and say Im sorry all the time I was in Germany, he told me. Ohlendorf, Otto. - WW2 Gravestone Extending the Genocidal Program: Did Otto Ohlendorf Initiate the Systematic Extermination of Soviet Gypsies? In Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization. Create a FREE Account. [34], Between February and March 1942, Himmler ordered that gas vans should be used to murder women and children so as to reduce the strain on the men, but Ohlendorf reported that many of the Einsatzkommandos refused to utilize them since burying the victims proved an "ordeal" afterwards. His wrists are tied behind him. Now I dont think I can stick it out. He could count on two streams of information. Each month, a courier brought the written reports directly to Berlin. The sentences were announced on April 10, 1948: Matthias Graf was released with time served. [caption=0c5326ca-3fd0-4df0-8f36-5840fd057055] - [credit=0c5326ca-3fd0-4df0-8f36-5840fd057055]. Benjamin Ferencz, International Law Scholar and Former Nuremberg Prosecutor, shares his experience as Chief Prosecutor at the trial of the Einsatzgruppen commanders. Also new is mention of Himmler's belief on May 6 that Field Marshall Ferdinand Schoerner, the new Commander-in-Chief of the Army, might protect him, and his consideration of joining Schoerner's army so that he could be killed in battle. Seventy years after the Nuremberg trials, something truly extraordinary happened in a German courtroom last week. Eduard Strauch, the head of Einsatzkommando 2 (a subunit of Einsatzgruppe A), who received a death sentence, was extradited to Belgium. Carlo Schmid, vice-president of the Bundestag, one of the principal Socialist party leaders, and a highly regarded anti-Nazi and enemy of anti-Semitism, then added that We wish to create a new moral climate in Germany. He said that if the U.S. and the other occupying powers in West Germany granted clemency, the Soviet Military Administration in Eastern Germany would in all probability follow suit. He wears black shirt, black trousers, leather belt and sandals. as adjutant general and quartermaster general, etc. Wistrich, Robert. Two cameramen, both GI noncoms, are fooling with their apparatus. [caption=0c5326ca-3fd0-4df0-8f36-5840fd057055], [credit=0c5326ca-3fd0-4df0-8f36-5840fd057055], United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, Mass Shootings of Jews during the Holocaust, Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, German Invasion of Western Europe, May 1940, Genocide of European Roma (Gypsies), 19391945, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Library bibliography: The Nuremberg Trials, Poster Set: Justice and Accountability (PDF), Holocaust Survivors and Victims Resource Center. [6], Ohlendorf joined the SD in 1936 and became an economic consultant of the organisation. The defendant answered: You cant cast pearls before swine., High Commissioner McCloy indicated that in certain cases at Landsberg, new evidence had made it possible to reduce the death sentence to time served. [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.". Ohlendorf was married with Kthe Wolpers on 10-06-1934 and they had five children, two boys and three girls, Henning, born 11-02-1938, Behrend, born 18-09-1943, Irmtraut, born March 25-03-1936, Meinhard, born 30-10-1940 and Ulrike, born 11-05-1945. . He says he once had a case with a bad heartit took that one only ten minutes! We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies and the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. It was clear from the moment Dr. Herman Ehlers (Bundestag president) delivered his opening address, that the delegates had made elaborate preparations for the meeting. He then concluded: If I can find one honest man in Sodom, Ill save the city!. Soon, the five foot five airman would make US military aviation history. Hitlers Hangman: The Life of Heydrich. Facing History & Ourselves uses lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate. A tall, gray-faced woman is signing out. [45] Hoping to salvage the reputation of the SD, Ohlendorf offered his services in the hopes that he could shape the postwar reconstruction of Germany, but along "National Socialist lines", remaining convinced as was Admiral Karl Dnitz (who gave Ohlendorf the economics portfolio), that some form of Nazism would ultimately survive. Fourteen defendants were sentenced to death. After leaving Flensburg on the 9th, he regularly sent a man to Ohlendorf to see if Montgomery had replied. Doubts begin to stir in us again. The Bundestag adopted a unanimous resolution condemning the execution of any of the prisoners. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1981. There is a telephone call. He seems calm and placid as a lake. Washington, DC 20024-2126 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. It is cold up here in the loft of the prison workshop which has now been temporarily outfitted for this unusual purpose. [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. In 1947-48, Ohlendorf was the most notable of the 23 members of the Einsatzgruppentried by the Americans. Each assumed the right to decide the fate of men, and death was the intended result of his power and contempt. The chief prosecutor was 27-year-old Ben Ferencz. He coordinated plans to rebuild the German economy after the war. . 2255: Borom, the lieutenant colonel from Heidelberg, is lighting his pipe. Two of the men have fathers who were high-up servants of Hitler and soaked in the blood of the Holocaust. I have suffered grievously at the hands of the Nazis. And for providing the also rapidly dwindling number of Holocaust survivors the chance to face their tormenters. He shakes hands also with Bickel when I introduce them. In 19411943, On September 10, 1947, the US Military Government for Germany created Military Tribunal II-A (later renamed Tribunal II). 1900: Arrive with Bickel in army staff car. His face is yellow in the lamplight. Top Home Latest TRENDING Studio9 Specials State INDIA WORLD SPORTS ; 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). These, however, were turned down by the Allies. Everyone present agrees that the only hope is John J. McCloy. 1, The judges at Nuremberg rejected the following orders defense. Bickel says he will not be a witness. [17] Einsatzgruppe D was the smallest of the task forces, but was supplemented by Romanians along their way through the killing fields of Bessarabia, southern Ukraine, and the Caucasus. He has executed scores of criminals and has been flown from Texas to perform his job again. Over 90,000 murders are attributed to Ohlendorfs command, who testified to this effect during his trial at Nuremberg. [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. An economist by education, he is head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) Inland, responsible for intelligence and security within Germany.
Republic Services Bulk Pickup Schedule 2022, Mike Murdock Health Condition, Smoke Friendly Apartments Near Me, Articles O