The cable has come from Washington.. Otto Ohlendorf is born February 4, 1907 in Hoheneggelsen, Province of Hanover, Prussia, German Empire. The letter cited alleged mistakes in the biographical section of the document, Landsberg, A Documentary Report, which had been published in connection with the final announcement of McCloys decisions. Ultimately, only four of the 14 death sentences were carried out. I tell him Blobel has been pronounced dead at 0014, June 7. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. 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. Extermination of all Roma did not happen with the other Special Task Forces until the spring of 1942. On September 10, 1947, the US Military Government for Germany created Military Tribunal II-A (later renamed Tribunal II). All 22 defendants were found guilty of at least one charge. . This leaves me the only witness for the State Department. Have you taken a DNA test? Even the drinking water was hauled in from Augsberg. Right from the beginning, most Nazi war criminals never apologized for anything. The colonel takes the center of the floor. [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. 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. He is obsessed with fear of a suicide attempt. Father Unavailable. Heydrich appreciated young men like Ohlendorf, who were educated and yet completely committed to the ultra-reactionary ideas of National Socialism. 2140: Graham receives confirmation from Heidelberg: proceed with executions. I shake it off with difficulty. 0007: Borom says he wishes there were a seven-man gallows. Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion 1941/42: Die Ttigkeits-und Lageberichte des Chefs der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD. Ohlendorfs Einsatzgruppe was responsible for the 13-12-1941 massacre at Simferopol where at least 14,300 people, mostly Jews, were killed. The views expressed in this article are not those of Reuters News. Ohlendorf came from modest origins. 2147: Bickel receives confirmation from Frankfort: proceed with executions. Holmes, of the Military Post, asks me whether I know anything about the controversial hunting law which allows GIs to hunt in German reserves against the will of the owners. Now not only Jewish men, whether in the Communist Party or deemed of fighting age, were targeted. Defense attorneys of people accused of war crimes have looked hard for such a case because it would support the claim that their clients had no choice. A few extra folding chairs have been set up. Bickel studies Britts face. There, he was sentenced to death and died in Belgian custody. 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. . 2244: Graham hangs up the telephone. The official cameramen photograph the prisoner after one of the GI assistants places the nameplate across the condemned mans chest. He said that reviewing the sentences of the Landsberg prisoners was the most difficult task he had been charged with since coming to Germany. He closes with a soft amen. Britt throws the black hood over Blobels head. [2] He joined the Nazi Party in 1925 and the SS in 1926. They are moving faster than before, and the keys make a not inappropriate noise. . Ferencz called no witnesses and based the case on wartime SS reports that detailed mass shootings conducted by the Einsatzgruppen. . Another voice in my head says, No, you must see it through. The sentences were reduced in a number of cases where there appeared a basis for clemency. The Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness, 56 high-ranking SS and other police officers, including 24 leaders of the, 23 doctors who participated in the Nazi medical killing program that targeted mentally and physically disabled people and conducted experiments on camp prisoners; and. Of the 28 death sentences, only seven were carried out in June 1951 Pohl and Ohlendorf among them. Forced at gunpoint to jump down into these pits, they were shot after pleading for their own lives and those of their families and neighbors. The cameramans flash goes off in a sudden stab of light. 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. Browning, Christopher (with contributions by Jrgen Matthas). The SS and police now pursued, rounded up, and executed women, children, and the elderly. 2226: Graham reports that the prisoners have had their teeth examined once more, and that false teeth have been removed. Nazi sons Niklas Frank and Horst von Wachter look back at 'What Our The executioners, frequently intoxicated, became more and more numb to the end results of their deeds. Someone asks about the 650,000 signatures appended to a petition for clemency sent to President Truman from Germany. God have mercy on those who murder me. Of course, the biographical matter issued in connection with the final announcements was not part of the official documentation and was intended simply to help people remember Pohls crimes. [23] All forms of contact between the firing squads and victims were limitedper Ohlendorf's insistenceuntil the last moments before the killing started, and up to three rifleman were allocated to each person about to be shot. It is cold up here in the loft of the prison workshop which has now been temporarily outfitted for this unusual purpose. The High Commissioner listened intently, eyes fixed on his scratch pad. 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. Army still awaiting receipt of confirming cable. COL. AMEN: And when was Heydrich's death? He died on 3 March 1989, in Riedlingen, Biberach, Baden-Wrttemberg, Germany, at the age of 96. 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. They are brought in on huge trays by a young prisoner whose face could be that of a friendly, smiling Kansas farmer. 2100: Graham is excited over report from Munich newspaper to the effect that there has been another stay of execution. 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. Jesus famously said when he was crucified: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. The Nazi criminals knew all too well what they were doing. Ohlendorf's apparently reliable testimony was attributed to his distaste for the corruption in Nazi Germany and a stubborn commitment to duty. His face is that of a storekeeper or a teacher. Marking the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, The National WWII Museum connects two instances of remorse for Nazi criminality by leading German politicians. They were to be the last death sentences on the soil of the Federal Republic. 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.. Has been making a lot of trouble for us.. As higher SS and Police Leader in Austria after the Anschluss, he supervised and had knowledge of the activities of the Gestapo and the SD in Austria. Otto Ohlendorf was born on the 4th of February 1907. Another defendant, Rudolf Hss, the commandant at Auschwitz, used the same defense. Gaps, recalled Schubert, existed in what was transmitted. After the sentencing, Ferencz decided to meet with Ohlendorf in a courtroom holding cell. The resources Im getting from my colleagues through Facing History have been just invaluable. Shes a nuisance, he says. COL. 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. Writer was one Frederick Wiehl, Pohls counsel in Germany: There will be no execution on Tuesday. For the Nazi hunters -- the government investigators and prosecutors along with the freelance operatives who have tracked and exposed the perpetrators -- this magnifies the role of these remaining court cases. Two cameramen, both GI noncoms, are fooling with their apparatus. 0003: Britt steps back, glances at Graham. It is still remotely possible. Over 90,000 executions are attributed to Ohlendorf's command, who testified to this effect during his trial at Nuremberg. . Nineteen nations expressed their adherence to this agreement, and the trials were conducted by quadripartite tribunals at Nuremberg in 1946 and 1947. What did the shift entail? The Germans knew what had happened to thembut they did not know, they did not want to know what had happened to other people. New York: Macmillan, 1982. Graham says the men have eaten their last supper. Little or nothing was said in print or on the air about the crimes committed by these men. 2350: I look into the telephone shack to see exactly where I have to call Bickel after the first drop. 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. Graham says prisoners have been gaining weight on the excellent prison fare. The GI interpreter asks: Have you any last words? The prisoner replies: Jawohl!. Over 90,000 murders are attributed to Ohlendorfs command, who testified to this effect during his trial at Nuremberg. The meeting took place in McCloys offices in a Frankfort building that had once been the headquarters of the I. G. Farben empire. 2. Gustav Ohlendorf (1892-1989) FamilySearch 2120: Graham receives message from Heidelberg. Millions were killed in these camps, and hundreds of thousands died from malnutrition, overwork, and other excesses. Otto Ohlendorf. With Alexander Bickel of the Office of the General Counsel, I motored to Landsberg-on-the-Lech, in Bavaria, on Tuesday the 6th, in an army staff car with a GI driver, arriving at 7 P.M. An attorney from McCloys office was detailed to remain in the Frankfort headquarters of the High Commissioner, where he was in radio-telephone communication with the General Counsels office in the State Department in Washington. This quickly devolved into identifying and executing Jewish men considered potential partisans. Encased in the statistics from EinsatzgruppeD were the extinguished lives of 90,000 people. It found 20 defendants guilty on all three counts. 0001: Two soldiers wearing neatly pressed olive drab uniforms are first to arrive in the loft. They report to the commandant, Colonel Graham. The others are relaxed now, smoking. Ferencz presented the case in just two court sessions. ; 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). We left the death chamber after Schmidt, of Buchenwald infamy, had been pronounced dead and after I had signed the affidavits as the governments official witness. He tells me that he always had a hard time finding matches during the invasion of Nazi-controlled France. We are to stand at attention during the hangings. Hoheneggelsen, Province of Hanover, Prussia, German Empire, Otto Ohlendorf at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Ohlendorf. Otto Ohlendorf (1866 - 1866) - Genealogy Graham says: I ought to accept this offer; that guys been begging to be executed.. There is a fire extinguisher resting on a stone ledge at the end of the wall. GI alert units are much in evidence, tommy guns at the ready. 0004: Britt springs the trap. His wrists are tied behind him. And one of them is a Jew whose family perished because of the berserk racial policies. As Waitman Wade Beorn has argued, the, Holocaust by Bullets does not dominate our consciousness the same way as Auschwitz. I have a sinking feeling as I realize that in all probability seven men will be hanged in a little while, and that I am to witness the spectacle. 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. BillionGraves FREE Dr. Phil Otto Ohlendorf, 1879 - 1913 was born in 1879. In November 1944 he was promoted again to Gruppenfhrer. I agree. There is a staff sergeant, stout and unsmiling, unarmed, standing at the door. June 7, 1951 as adjutant general and quartermaster general, etc. I have suffered grievously at the hands of the Nazis. The defendants were arraigned between September 15 and 22, 1947. Otto Ohlendorf, the head of the SD Domestic office in the RSHA, personally commanded Einsatzgruppe D. This unit deployed to southern Ukraine, Crimea, and the North Caucasus. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. Graham remarks acidly that the postage on this petition alone must have cost about 120 Deutsche Mark, or $30. Seven times I secretly murmured kaddish, the prayer for the dead, not for the executed man but in memory of their victims. He wears black shirt, black trousers, leather belt and sandals. . The numbers killed reached over 35,000 by early October. That is in large part the product of the efforts of Nazi hunters like Ferencz, Bauer and others who pushed for such trials, not allowing the past to be buried along with its victims. Apart from all this, illustrated weeklies went in for special feature stories denouncing the cruelty of the American authorities in keeping the condemned men waiting so long for a final verdict. Germany has come a very long way since then. [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. The decision made it harder for the shooter to know who he killed. Martin Holler has argued convincingly that Otto Ohlendorf became to a certain degree the trailblazer for the complete solution of the Gypsy question on Soviet soil. . Ohlendorf said that Himmler showed the letter to him and that he altered Himmler's text because "it had been unfortunately worded." Hans Theodor Schmidt was trailed and hanged in Landsberg prison, on 07-06-1951, age 51.. 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. WIKITREE PROTECTS MOST SENSITIVE INFORMATION BUT ONLY TO THE EXTENT STATED IN THE TERMS OF SERVICE AND PRIVACY POLICY. He is a German SS functionary and Holocaust perpetrator during the Nazi era. We wait. Otto Ohlendorf in MyHeritage family trees (Family site (Family Tree Legends)) view all Immediate Family Conrad Christoph Carl Ohlendorf father Ernestine Wilhelmine called Minn. mother Emilie Emmie von Roeder sister Carl Ohlendorf brother Julius Ohlendorf brother Albert Ohlendorf brother Herman Ohlendorf brother Ida Emilie Caroline Thoene sister Across the corridor, the GI service unit was still listening to the ball game being broadcast from Ebbets Field, Brooklyn. We are to proceed with executions unless instructions are received to the contrary. Himmler communicated approval directly to the heads of some of the Special Task Forces. Hanning declared he was sincerely sorry and ashamed that he had belonged to a criminal organization that committed mass murder and countless atrocities, and that he had never done anything to prevent such actions. [35][e] When gas van killing operations were conducted, it was usually at night to keep the population from witnessing the macabre affair. In the end, only 22 of those charged were tried. 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. He doesnt want it delayed or snafued by a suicide, which would mean writing lengthy reports and involve him in interminable red tape. 100-year-old tried for war crimes: Germany's continued confrontation with Nazi past The man, who has not been named due to German privacy laws, is charged with "knowingly and willingly" assisting in the murder of 3,518 people as a former SS guard at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. A total of seven men, then, were to be executed at Landsberg. He is tried at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, convicted, and executed on June 8, 1951 in Landsberg Prison, West Germany, https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1042218. Are there some basic moral teachings that are so fundamental that every person should be expected to know and try to follow them, no matter what society they live in. [55], Despite his attempts to establish moral equivalency for atrocities upon the Allies, Otto Ohlendorf was convicted of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during World War II. It now appears that the hanging will take place after all, unless defense counsel can find some new loophole. His hand is moist, clammy. One hour and some 25 minutes are left now. I keep my eyes away from that rope. Ohlendorf joined the SD in 1936 and became an economic consultant of the organisation. An economist by education, he was head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) Inland, responsible for intelligence and security within Germany. 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. Though short, he is athletic, wiry and powerful. . . 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. Einsatzgruppen trial - Wikipedia Schmidt had been in charge of Buchenwald for three years. Then he saw them off as they left Pretzsch to get ready for the invasion. For example, Otto Ohlendorf commanded Einsatzgruppe D while it committed mass murder in territories that are part of Romania and Moldova, as well as in Ukraine and around the Crimean Sea. Ohlendorf Name Meaning & Ohlendorf Family History at - Ancestry These trials are known as the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings. Case #9 of these twelve trials is known today as the Einsatzgruppen Case.