otto ohlendorf descendants

These, however, were turned down by the Allies. Right from the beginning, most Nazi war criminals never apologized for anything. During the subsequent Einsatzgruppen trial, Ohlendorf was the chief defendant, and was also a key witness in the prosecution of other indicted war criminals. . Using the ruse of resettlement, calls were given for Jews to assemble at a given time and place. While Ohlendorf never showed much empathy for the slain, he grew concerned about the toll taken on those under his commands. Ninety-nine out of one hundred of these communications showed as much understanding of the cases as your dog, Professor Schmid.. The CIC agents tell us that the newspaper reporters, some of them Germans, have been interviewing the wives of the seven. Washington, DC 20024-2126 He was tried at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, sentenced to death, and executed by hanging in 1951. ; 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. Copyright 2023 Facing History & Ourselves. Top Home Latest TRENDING Studio9 Specials State INDIA WORLD SPORTS The crimes for which punishment was being meted out were the worst known in history, and they had to be atoned for in order to prevent their recurrence. 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. Second mistake: He personally selected prisoners for medical experiments. I have suffered grievously at the hands of the Nazis. He says, yes, yes, yes, right, OK, ONeill, thanks, OK. If the Justices agree, there will be another two month delay, since the Court goes into summer recess. Radio transmissions were conducted weekly or bi-weekly under conditions of absolute secrecy. The Tribunal rendered its judgment on April 89, 1948. There, he was sentenced to death and died in Belgian custody. Pamphlets and leaflets attacking American injustice were circulated by unknown and unidentified organizations. He was among the last Nazis put to death on the authority of the United States for crimes committed during the Second World War. Among those brought to trial were. Thats enough. An economist by education, he is head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) Inland, responsible for intelligence and security within Germany. Over 90,000 murders are attributed to Ohlendorfs command, who testified to this effect during his trial at Nuremberg. Otto. 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. After a decade in the SS, he entered Reinhard Heydrichs SD in 1936 as an advisor on economic issues. Thus, his entire socialization as a young man occurred within the organizations of the Nazi Party. I look around. [2] He joined the Nazi Party in 1925 and the SS in 1926. [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.". He visited the morgue daily with an inmate dentist to extract gold teeth from the mouths of the corpses. He suggests that we settle down in an adjoining office for the long wait. Oswald Pohl, who received more support than any of his fellow prisoners, although his crimes (i.e., the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto) were among the worst, had great success with a booklet called The Way to God in which he explained his reason for converting to the Catholic faith. Graham gets his retirement discharge next week. 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.. Seven times I have listened as they swore, in their dying words, that they had merely carried out orders; that they had been fighting for their country; that the Americans were their enemies. (Case No. Our headquarters are located at: 89 South Street, Suite 401, Boston, MA 02111. Translated by Tom Lampert. There was one case in which the criminal admitted to having killed 60,000. Allied Control Council no. We are to proceed with executions unless instructions are received to the contrary. Two of the defendants were found guilty on only count three. A former Newsweek foreign correspondent and editor, Andrew Nagorski is the author of The Nazi Hunters, which will be released on May 10. 2140: Graham receives confirmation from Heidelberg: proceed with executions. His defense was simple: he was just following orders. To put it bluntly, this was a coordinated effort of mass killing enacted by the SS-led Special Task Force and the Wehrmacht. Students deepen their thinking about memory and identity by reflecting on the stories of Holocaust and Armenian Genocide survivors and their descendants. Many historians have written about the famous Buffalo Soldiers of the all-Black 92nd Infantry Division, who fought with distinction during World War II. Ferencz called no witnesses and based the case on wartime SS reports that detailed mass shootings conducted by the Einsatzgruppen. 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. I am to identify them before certifying. [39], Historian Donald Bloxham referred to Ohlendorf as a bureaucrat, who was trying to "prove himself in the field". Ohlendorf, Naumann, Blobel, and Braune were hanged on June 7, 1951. 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. Case #9 tried leading members of the Einsatzgruppen. I light a cigarette. 0003: The chaplain reads a prayer. Blobel speaks in a detached, remote voice. Holmes, the commandant of Landsberg Military sub-Post, is seated within speaking distance of me and next to the towns civilian (German) Registrar of Vital Statistics. The suppers were served by GIs. 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 served in the Nazi Party in World War II. Essentially, they were to murder commissars attached to units of the Red Army, officials of the Communist Party, and deal with any overt resistance to the German presence. Though short, he is athletic, wiry and powerful. God have mercy on those who murder me. Ohlendorf joined the SD in 1936 and became an economic consultant of the organisation. The medical officer has arrived, Lieutenant Colonel Huff. 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. At years end, Ohlendorf could report that his men had eliminated 55,000 Jews. On the 31st of January, the High Commissioners final decisions were promulgated and published. JAG officer observes that they cant do a thing until Graham has a piece of paper from the Department of the Army in the Pentagon. Because of Ohlendorfs work in this field, petitions for leniency were filed after he was sentenced to death by hanging. An economist by education, he was head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) Inland, responsible for intelligence and security within Germany. Otto Ohlendorf. They did not need commands. And one of them is a Jew whose family perished because of the berserk racial policies. Another exception, the judges said, would be if a person obeyed an illegal order to avoid physical harm, torture, or death. Soon, the five foot five airman would make US military aviation history. Counted together, the four units numbered some 3,000 men. Few defendants at any of the trials denied the accusations made against them, and often their own testimony was used to convict them. [44] Sometime in November 1944, he was promoted to Gruppenfhrer. A total of 265 have been hanged since the end of the war. He tweets @AndrewNagorski. There is a batch from German nationals offering to die in place of the condemned. Bishops, lawyers, the man on the street, all felt the same impulseto hide things under the carpet. [4] His role in collecting intelligence from his secret police agents was disliked by some of the Nazi leadership. They matter particularly because there are only a dwindling number of Nazi war criminals still alive. They are followed by the chaplain, wearing a white tunic and reading from his prayer book. Death 7 Jun 1951 - Unavailable. We shake hands with him and members of his staff. [3] Believing their expertise invaluable, Ohlendorf, Ludwig Erhard, and other experts concerned themselves with how to stabilize German currency after the war. On July 29, 1947, the 24 defendants in the Einsatzgruppen Case were indicted for their role in murdering between 723,661 and one million people as part of a systematic program of genocide. The indictment listed three charges: Twenty-four Einsatzgruppen members were charged. The defendants were arraigned between September 15 and 22, 1947. I ask. In todays world, that hardly sounds like a startling admission. This tribunal was tasked with trying Case #9 of the. He says he once had a case with a bad heartit took that one only ten minutes! Family tree. Explore resources that meet the California HistorySocial Science Framework standards. 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. I tell him I will be down to make a call after the first drop. He is a small, slight man with soft, kindly eyes. was the ninth of the twelve trials for war crimes and crimes against humanity that the US authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II. The extreme anti-Semitism of the Nazi regime was given full license with these criminal orders. .. There is still debate about how much local initiative taken by the leaders of the Einsatzgruppenand other SS officials (like the Higher SS and Police Leaders) pushed Berlin to broaden and escalate the violence from mass murder to genocidal destruction. Doubts begin to stir in us again. Wives have been asked to say their final goodbyesfor the fourth time. The decision made it harder for the shooter to know who he killed. I seat myself next to Lieutenant Colonel Borom. Another newspaper calls to inquire whether it is true that the executions will go forward. 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. I am a Jew, said Altmeier in English. . Explore the scintillating May 2023 issue of Commentary. On Jan. 3, 1946, Col. John Amen, Assistant American Associate Trial Counsel at the Nuremberg Trial, called Otto Ohlendorf as a witness. I study his photograph, compare it with the man. In the end, only 22 of those charged were tried. Referring first to the charge that the delay in carrying out the death sentences was inhuman, he said that if they had been carried out within four weeks after the final verdict, many men might have been unjustly executed: a good number of war criminals had already been released, after reviews of their sentences and their trials. Graham shakes his head. Attached to the SS with the rank of SS-Hauptsturmfhrer, by 1939, he had obtained the rank of SS-Standartenfhrer and was appointed as head of Amt III (SD-domestic branch), of the Reichs Main Security RSHA ) , a position he kept until 1945. 0007: Borom says he wishes there were a seven-man gallows. I remember that I must dial 22, which is Bickels extension in Grahams office. They access the appalling and almost incomprehensible atmosphere of the final moments of these men, women, and childrenand the murderers and their auxiliaries who organized and carried out the killing. It was a fine point of law, Mr. McCloy insisted, to claim that traditional German legal methods should be applied to cases such as these. [24] To ensure the group killing mentality, Ohlendorf forbade any commando from taking individual actions and explicitly instructed his men not to take any of the victim's valuables. 1-86-NARA-NARA or 1-866-272-6272, Nazi War Crimes Interagency Working Group, Discussions held in Berlin in April 1945 between senior SS officials including Ohlendorf, SS-General Felix Steiner, and SS-General Richard Hildebrandt. Instead of engaging in the individual Genickschuss, a shot to the nape of the neck, Ohlendorf decided to have his men fire on those rounded up from a distance. Crimes against peace: participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of invasions, aggressive wars, etc. No newsmen will be admitted to the executions, by unanimous decision of the High Commissioners staff and General Handys advisers. 504-528-1944, Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, Two Moments of Remorse for Nazi Crimes: Willy Brandt, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the Memory of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Operation FLAX, April 1943: Severing the German, General William H. Simpsons Ninth US Army and the Crossing of the Rhine, Black Volunteer Infantry Platoons in World War II, Kasserine Pass: German Offensive, American Victory. A curious time to take a bath. Schmidt had participated actively in these atrocities and it had been necessary to restrain him because he frequently assumed greater authority than he actually possessed. I think of the evil conspiracies which have been hatched within these high walls. In a webinar in December 2020 with The National WWII Museum, historian Michael Geyer stressed the significance of those ideological fighters who implemented the Third Reichs vicious programs of mass murder. He says there is to be a conference on the subject in the near future, urges me to attend. They seem collected and self-controlled, and I make an effort to get a grip on myself. Why might it be difficult to disobey the order of a superior or authority figure? 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. 2353: I return to the Death House, climb up the last stairway, see the gallows for the first time. How are you feeling? 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. Now not only Jewish men, whether in the Communist Party or deemed of fighting age, were targeted. . 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 September and October Einsatzgruppe D moved on to cities like Cherson, Berdyansk, and Taganrog. My eyes are fixed on the rope. Gaps, recalled Schubert, existed in what was transmitted. The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942. Each chaplain is allowed all the time he needs in the cell with the condemned man before he is led to the gallows. Ohlendorf took part in Himmlers flight from Flensburg and was arrested with him near Lneburg, where Himmler committed suicide. I was there myself, Excellency. As Waitman Wade Beorn has argued, the, Holocaust by Bullets does not dominate our consciousness the same way as Auschwitz. . 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. Ohlendorf stated that he tried to mitigate any "unnecessary agitation" for the victims during the, Justifying the murder of children, Ohlendorf stated, "the children were people who would grow up and surely being the children of parents who had been killed, they would constitute a danger no smaller than their parents. However, it should.. Ferencz, now 96, pointed out that right after the war, this refusal to admit guilt or show any compassion to the victims was widespread. Discover life events, stories and photos about Otto Ohlendorf (1907-1951) of . After the IMT trial, the United States conducted twelve additional trials on the basis of the Charter. Ohlendorf's apparently reliable testimony was attributed to his distaste for the corruption in Nazi Germany and a stubborn commitment to duty. The High Commissioner listened intently, eyes fixed on his scratch pad. He is dressed in a shabby suit and spring topcoat, his shoes have been worn through the soles, his hands are those of a farmer. Case #9 is usually referred to as the Einsatzgruppen Case. The SS and police now pursued, rounded up, and executed women, children, and the elderly. He says, whatever I have done, I did as a soldier who obeyed orders. Students develop a contract establishing a reflective classroom community as they prepare to explore the historical case study of this unit. Little or nothing was said in print or on the air about the crimes committed by these men. In the spring of 1941, he assigned a new mission to Ohlendorf. Radio cars were in the prison compound in anticipation of a possible breakdown of telephone communications. Excellent. 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. No matter what happens to our application on Monday in the District Court in Washington for a permanent injunction prohibiting the executions, there will be no executions. Otto Ohlendorf is born February 4, 1907 in Hoheneggelsen, Province of Hanover, Prussia, German Empire. The waiter is a former Malmdy murderer, one of Pfeiffers flunkeys. His murderous activity certainly influenced the decision-making process of the other Einsatzgruppenleaders, insofar as Ohlendorfs formal transgressions were obviously in no way restricted, neither by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt[RSHA] nor by the relevant military commander. In September 1941, the earliest known murder of Soviet Roma by EinsatzgruppeD occurred at Nikolayev. The numbers killed reached over 35,000 by early October. Graham says the men have eaten their last supper. On the other side, Heinrich Himmler, who detested the state interventionstregime of Albert Speer as totally bolshevik and was himself hoping for a career in a militarily defeated Germany, protected the working group around Ohlendorf, Ludwig Erhard. [40] Another historian, Mark Mazower, described Ohlendorf as a "gloomy, driven, self-righteous Prussian". Over 90,000 executions are attributed to Ohlendorf's command, who testified to this effect during his trial at Nuremberg. Ohlendorf himself spoke out for active and courageous entrepreneurship, which was intended to replace bureaucratic state planning of the economy after the war. Mr. Britt is testing the rope now; he lifts and then lowers himself on the closed trap. [35][e] When gas van killing operations were conducted, it was usually at night to keep the population from witnessing the macabre affair. 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. 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 cable has come from Washington.. He joined the Nazi Party in 1925 (member nr 6631) and the SS (member nr 880) in 1926. Lincoln and Jerusalem: University of Nebraska Press and Yad Vashem, 2004. He refuses to comment. [50], Ohlendorf was called as a witness by the prosecution during the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg on 3 January 1946. Modern mechanized armies need a robust logistics chain to provide fuel, ammunition, and other sinews of war to sustain combat operations. Eventually, auxiliaries drawn from the peoples of the USSR, including the recently annexed Baltic States, augmented their ranks. I look for signs of the desperate hater, the ruthless killer, but I dont find any. 0004: Britt springs the trap. Ohlendorfs apparently reliable testimony was attributed to his distaste for the corruptionin Nazi Germany and a stubborn commitment to duty. 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. I wonder what they will be using these for now. We tell one another the prisoners could easily have spared themselves this inhuman waiting, simply by refraining from submitting petitions. 1935: JAG1 lieutenant colonels from Heidelberg, two of them, have arrived to serve as army witnesses. [46], In May 1945, Ohlendorf participated in Himmler's flight from Flensburg. He is talking in his friendly Alabama drawl, but I scarcely know what he is saying. Main telephone: 202.488.0400 And the way we treat them.. 2215: Graham exhibits his petitions and telegrams again. Defending his actions, Ohlendorf compared Einsatzgruppenactivities to the Biblical Jewish extirpation of its enemies; he likewise claimed that his firing squads were no worse than the press-button killers who dropped the atom bomb on Japan. During the Einsatzgruppen Trial, Ohlendorf was the chief defendant, and was also a key witness in the prosecution of other indicted war criminals. Lost your password? 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. how it requires 15 to 19 minutes in some cases for final consummation. Warrant Officer Britt then places the prisoner on the trap door. The Germans knew what had happened to thembut they did not know, they did not want to know what had happened to other people. In 1947-48, Ohlendorf was the most notable of the 23 members of the Einsatzgruppentried by the Americans. The Einsatzgruppen were special task forces of the SS and Police. The judges agreed that members of the Einsatzgruppen had not been threatened with physical harm if they did not murder their victims. Have you ever done this before? 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. Mueller vanished after the war, and for years it was surmised that Mueller offered himself to the U.S. or USSR for intelligence purposes. [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. Attorneys for the defense of the condemned men (including counsel engaged in Washington, D.C., and paid for by the federal government) made plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. There is some new detail concerning Himmler's state of mind on May 6, 1945 after Hitler's Last Testament appointed Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz as the successor while expelling Himmler from the Nazi Party. ". He was sentenced to death on 08-04-1948 and. BillionGraves FREE Dr. Phil Otto Ohlendorf, 1879 - 1913 was born in 1879. 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 2244: Graham hangs up the telephone. Here the testimony of Heinz Hermann Schubert, Ohlendorfs longtime subordinate, is extremely valuable. 1920: Bickel reports to Fred Hulse, in McCloys office in Frankfort. [16] Transfers from the RSHA to the Einsatzgruppen were in part due to personnel shortages but also to keep the initial killing operations confined to those who already knew the details, such as Ohlendorf, Arthur Nebe, and Paul Blobel. On June 17, as the day of the assault on the USSR loomed, Heydrich summoned Ohlendorf and the commanders of EinsatzgruppenA, B, and C to Berlin for a crucial meeting. 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. Sundance Screenwriters Lab, Articles O