They were some of the most notorious and evil men of the 20th century. They caused the deadliest conflict in the whole of human history and brought a huge amount of suffering to millions of people all around the world. The top Nazis and remaining members of Hitler’s inner circle who faced the music at war crimes trials tried to claim that they were simply following orders, but this wasn’t the case.

Their signatures were on a number of illegal orders which led to thousands of deaths all across Europe. Men such as Rudolph Hess, Herman Guring, and Jükin von Ribbonrop were brought to the Nurember trials, the most high-profile trials held at the end of World War II. But later cases were brought against men such as Rudolfph Hurst, the comedant of Ashvitz, a man who built the deadliest single sight of slaughter of the war.

In this documentary, we look at the executions of the top Nazis and uncover what happened exactly inside the execution chambers all across Europe that brought them to justice. As a young man, Philhelm Kitle was born into a comfortable household and his father held a significant amount of land.

 But after finishing school, he sought a career inside of the German military. He started off as an officer cadet inside the Prussian army but was not allowed to join the cavalry because he was viewed as a commoner. So he had to settle in a field artillery regiment. As World War I broke out across Europe, Kiter was fighting in Flanders on the Western Front and in the trenches.

 But he was seriously injured when a shell fragment hit his arm and he spent a period of time recovering. But more promotions came as he was made a captain and at the end of the conflict he was a member of the Reichkes there the treaty of Assai limiting German army which was made up of initially only 100,000 soldiers.

 But Kitle was a man who also joined right-wing paramilitary groups and he was a frycore member who was not happy with the VHimar government and the aftermath of the first world war. He helped to organize the frycore and gained a lot of respect for this and he later became a member of the ministry of war in 1929. But when Hitler took control he was serving as a head of the organizational department of the military.

Kitle was a man who was a key part of Hitler’s plans and he was someone who was very loyal to Hitler. Hitler wanted to rearm Germany in secret and build up its military might ready for another world war. and Kitle helped in organizing secret projects to build tanks and recruit forces into the army breaking the terms of the treaty of Assai.

 He was later in 1939 made a major general and was appointed the chief of the Reich Ministry of Wars armed forces office. But Hitler in 1938 seized command of the German army and Kiter was then given his highest ranking position, the chief of the arber commando demach which made him practically the minister of war and he was now seen as the most senior soldier in Germany and he was always at cabinet meetings with Hitler.

But to many inside of Hitler’s government, Wilhelm Kiter was nothing more than a yesman and someone who Hitler had control of. He was a puppet and Kiter would do anything Hitler wanted. and he was actually seen as rather terrible at his job. Kitle was the chief of staff and Hitler’s number two in the armed forces and some even mocked him calling him literal calling him nothing more than a lackey and Guring even referred to him as a nodding donkey.

 Hitler would unleash some brutal tirades aimed at Kitle and it was once said that he has the brains of a movie usher but was made the highest ranking officer in the army because a man is as loyal as a dog. Kitle though was the front of the German army’s efforts during the Second World War and he referred to Hitler as the greatest commander of all time when German forces powered through Poland and then into France.

 He was present in the negotiations regarding the French surrender and Hitler would then turn his ideas towards the Soviet Union and he planned Operation Barbarasa in secret and in his mind. Wilhelm Kitle knew that this was possibly a step too far for the German army in 1941. However, he did not object to it and also refused to hear anyone’s concerns who voiced them.

 Hitler had overall say with the German military at the time, but Kiter would, as the war went on, continue to carry out whatever the dictator wanted. When a bomb exploded inside of Hitler’s wars headquarters, though Helm Kiter was put to work punishing those members of the military who had plotted the coup. This resulted in the executions of around 5,000 people.

 However, at the end of the conflict, he stayed close to Hitler in the Fura bunker and continued to be a part of the daily war briefings. At the end, he did decide to try and flee and he managed to get to Fenceburg to join up with the government headed up by the new president of Nazi Germany, Carl Dernitz, following Hitler’s death. However, he was arrested days later and he signed the German unconditional surrender.

 Kiter was then brought to the Nuremberg trials and it was said he had full understanding of the invasion of Poland and also he knew much about the mass slaughter of civilians at the hands of the Einat scripper inside occupied lands. Kitle’s signature was also on a number of illegal documents which gave permission for soldiers to execute prisoners of war without a trial.

 Kitle believed it was his job to rid the world of bulcheism and he ordered the executions of communists and signed further decrees allowed the killing of enemy commandos without trial too. Whilst at the Nuremberg trials he was indicted on all four counts and charges and these illegal orders came back to haunt him.

 He knew that these were against the rules and laws of war but he said he could not go against Hitler’s wishes. He said at the trial that as these atrocities developed one from the other step by step without any knowledge of the consequences, destiny took its tragic course with fateful consequence. Kitle knew what the sentence would be for him and he would have preferred to have been executed by a firing squad as a member of the military suffering a soldier’s death but this was not allowed and Wilhelm Kitle was to be executed like a common criminal and murderer on

the gallows alongside the other condemned defendants. The Nuremberg executions took place on the 16th of October 1946 and 10 executions took place early in the morning. The man who was carrying these out was John C. Woods, an American executioner who is remembered in history for his botching work, and the Nuremberg execution certainly did not go well.

 The method Woods used was the standard drop method, but he was also having to work with a trapoor that was not working well, and it was too small for someone to fall through without hitting the sides, and sometimes a trap door smashed a condemned on the head as they fell through. Wilhelm Kitle’s execution was one of those that did not go well at all.

He was executed second following Jerkin von Ribentrop the Nazi foreign minister and he was the first military commander or leader to have been executed under the concept of international law which brought professional soldiers to justice for their war crimes and actions. He walked into the execution chamber 2 minutes after von Ribentrop had plunged through the trap door and the body of the foreign minister was still driving around behind the curtain on the first scaffold and the tight rope could be seen. Kitle when he entered the room

seemed rather relaxed to begin with and witnesses claimed he had his head held high whilst the execution of his assistant secured his hands together and he confidently then stro towards the gallows. He confirmed his identity and then walked up the steps of the gallows almost as if he was expecting to receive some form of salute from the guards.

 He did not need the assistance of the American guards and seemed to pride himself on going to his death all by himself. When prompted for any final words, Wilhelm Kitle stated that I call on Almighty God to have mercy on the German people. More than 2 million German soldiers went to their deaths for the fatherland before me.

 I now follow my sons all for Germany. After this, John C. Woods then placed a black cap over his head so he could not see what was happening. Then the noose was firmly secured around his neck. Woods positioned Kitle over the trap door. He then released this and Kitle went through the trap door, but things noticeably did not go well.

 Kitle’s neck was not snapped by the noose, and it took a staggering 24 minutes for him to die. As he fell through the trap door too, the door smashed him on the head, and he was left bleeding heavily from behind the curtain, and this was not intended. Kitle behind the curtains slowly strangled to death. He was convulsing, but Woods then continued with the hangings, leaving Vilhelm Kitle to succumb to his arduous and lengthy fate.

 Woods, the executioner, later claimed that I hanged those 10 Nazis, and I’m proud of it. I wasn’t nervous. A fellow can’t afford to have any nerves in this business. I want to put in a good word for those GIs who helped me. They all did swell. I’m trying to get them a promotion. The way I look at this hanging job, somebody has to do it.

 I got into it kind of by accident years ago in the States. Woods showed little bother about these botches and was more concerned that he executed the Nazis like Kitle rather than the manner in which he did it. Wilhelm Kitle was a man who appeared to many as the most senior figure of the German army’s command.

However, he was simply a man who was just very loyal to Hitler and who would carry out anything the dictator wanted. He was a soldier who flagrantly knew he was breaking laws and rules of war when he issued illegal orders and he knew that his actions resulted in the executions and slaughter of thousands of people.

 But inside the execution chamber of Nuremberg prison, he experienced a horrific execution which did not go how it was intended to. He was one of the most influential Nazis at the beginning of World War II and as the conflict rolled on he actually became much less powerful. Jükin von Ribentrop was the Nazi foreign minister and his duties at the start of the war included finding allies for the Germans but he also was involved in drafting infamous treaties that linked nations that would one day become enemies.

Von Ribentrop was a man who was greatly disliked by other members of Hitler’s inner circle and this included Herman Guring who even towards the end of the war threatened to beat him up. Guring referred to him as a jumped up champagne salesman and he was right in a sense. Von Ribbon had previously performed that job but he wiggled his way into power at the very top of the Nazi party but at the end of World War II he was brought to the Nurburg trials.

 He was sentenced to death and was seen as one of the most prominent aggressors of the deadliest conflict in the history of the planet. But why specifically was he executed inside Nuremberg prisons gymnasium on the gallows? And what did he do that incriminated him? As mentioned, Jükin von Ribentrop was the Nazi foreign minister.

 The most important reason and most profound one why he was sent crashing through the gallows to his death was because he had a pivotal role in helping Hitler to prepare and launch aggressive wars. As foreign minister, Rimmanrop was one of the most senior diplomats in Nazi Germany and he worked very closely with Hitler on foreign policy.

 Before the outbreak of war, he helped undermine international efforts to contain the Nazi expansion. He was involved in negotiations surrounding the annexation of Austria in 1938 and the dismantling of Czechosvakia. He also played a central role in securing one of the most infamous arrangements and agreements, the 20th century, the Molotov Rimro pact signed between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union in August 1939.

This agreement obviously named after him was a public pact which promised peace between the two nations for a period of 10 years. But inside it contained secret protocols dividing Eastern Europe and in particular Poland between the Germans and the Soviets and their spheres of influence.

 This agreement removed the danger of a two-f frontont war for Germany briefly and gave Hitler confidence to invade Poland on the 1st of September 1939. This was of course the invasion that triggered the whole of the Second World War to break out in Europe. At the Nuremberg trials brought against prominent members of the Nazi government, prosecutors argued that Ribbentrop knew Germany’s diplomatic agreements were being used to facilitate military conquest rather than preserve peace.

 The judges agreed and found him guilty of helping plan and prepare wars of aggression. The tribunal also found Ribentrop guilty of participating in the overall Nazi conspiracy to dominate Europe through force. Although he was not a military commander, he was part of Hitler’s inner circle and he attended many highlevel meetings where major foreign policy decisions were being discussed.

 The court concluded that he was not merely carrying out routine diplomatic duties, but was actively helping to achieve Nazi objectives which were illegal and brought much suffering to people all across Europe. Ribentrop also often acted as Hitler’s representative in negotiations with foreign governments. He used diplomacy to isolate Germany’s enemies, secure allies, and weaken opposition to German expansion.

Prosecutors argued that he was fully aware that these actions formed part of a larger plan that would lead to war and conquest. The judges rejected the idea that he was simply following orders. They concluded that he willingly participated in the Nazi leadership’s plans and therefore shared responsibility for the consequences.

The judges also rejected the idea that he was simply following orders. This being a defense that many prominent Nazis at Nuremberg and other trials try to use to protest. But Jükin von Rimmentrop was convicted specifically of war crimes because of his involvement in policies which affected prisoners of war and civilians inside occupied German lands.

 During the war, his ministry transmitted orders and diplomatic communications relating to the treatment of captured allied personnel and occupied populations. Evidence presented at Nuremberg showed that Ribbentrop’s foreign office frequently cooperated with other Nazi agencies involved in harsh occupation policies. One specific issue examined during the trial was the treatment of captured Allied personnel and prisoners of war.

The foreign office often assisted in implementing policies that violated international agreements governing the treatment of prisoners. Although he was not personally present at the scene of many of these crimes, the tribunal ruled that he had sufficient knowledge of what was happening and he continued to support the policies.

 The judges therefore considered him criminally responsible. But one of the most damaging parts of the case against Ribbentrop concerned the persecution of people all across Europe. The foreign office under him played a very key and important role in coordinating with Germany’s allies and occupied territories. Diplomatic representatives pressured governments in countries such as Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Croatia to hand over Jewish citizens for deportation.

Documents presented at the Nuremberg trial showed that Rivanchoprop received reports about anti-Jewish measures and deportations. His ministry often helped overcome resistance from foreign governments when they hesitated to cooperate with these Nazi demands. By 1946, the allies had uncovered extensive evidence of the Holocaust.

 The tribunals concluded that Ribbon knew the deported Jews were being subjected to brutal persecution and ultimately death. His active participation in the diplomacy machine that facilitated these deportations contributed significantly to his conviction for crimes against humanity. But during the Nurember trials, Rimrob tried to portray himself as a loyal subordinate who merely was carrying out Hitler’s instructions.

He claimed that Hitler kept many important matters secret and argued that he did not know the full extent of the Nazi crimes. He also insisted that many diplomatic actions were normal statecraftraft rather than criminal activity. The judges were completely unconvinced and they pointed to many pieces of evidence and documents that all bore his signature showing that he was massively involved in major decisions.

 The tribunal concluded that he had not simply followed orders but had actively helped implement brutal Nazi policies. On the 1st of October 1946, Jükin von Ribentrop was found guilty of all four counts. Conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. This was one of the most severe verdicts handed down at Nuremberg.

 Only a small number of the defendants were convicted of all four counts. The judges considered his position as foreign minister especially important because he had used diplomacy to advance Hitler’s aggressive and criminal policies and as a result he was sentenced to death by hanging. Jurkin von Rimmentrop was executed within Nuremberg prisons gymnasium shortly after midnight on the 16th of October 1946.

He was the first of the condemned Nuremberg Nazi leaders to be led to the gallows. Witnesses described him as nervous and composed. Before his execution, he spoke briefly and expressed hope for Germany’s future. It was specifically said about his execution by an eyewitness that, I quote, Bon Ribentrop was able to maintain his apparent stoicism to the last.

 He walked steadily towards the scaffold between his two guards, but he did not answer at first when an officer standing at the foot of the gallows went through the formality of asking his name. When the query was repeated, he almost shouted, “Yurkin von Ribbon Trop and then mounted the steps without any sign of hesitation.” When he was turned around on the platform to face the witnesses, he seemed to clench his teeth and raise his head with the old arrogance.

 When asked whether he had any final messages, he said, “God protect Germany in German.” And then added, “May I say something else?” The interpreter nodded, and the former diplomatic wizard of Nazdom spoke his last words in loud, firm tones. My last wish is that Germany realize its entity, and that an understanding be reached between the east and the west.

 I wish peace to the world. As the black hood was placed in position on his head, von Rimmanrop looked straight ahead. Then the hangman adjusted the rope, pulled the lever, and von Ribmanrop slipped away to his fate. The hanging was carried out by American Master Sergeant John C. Woods, a bungling and botching executioner.

 And like several of the executions that night, the drop for ribbon trop was not calculated well. This led to him not dying from a broken neck, but instead he died from strangulation, and this prolonged his suffering and lasted many minutes. After death was confirmed, an American army photographer captured an image of his corpse and this was then placed inside of a coffin and was cremated with the ashes being scattered in a tributary of the Isa River.

 But in the eyes of the Nuremberg trial, Jükin von Ribatrop was not merely a diplomat. He was a senior architect of Nazi foreign policy which helped to make the Second World War become the deadliest and most destructive conflict in human history. He was a man convicted of all four charges and huge amounts of evidence were found about his crimes.

 For this he was sentenced to death and the court deemed that he deserved death. On the 16th of April 1947, two years after the Second World War had come to an end in Europe, one of the most disgusting and evil Nazis and war criminals was led throughout the concentration camp he once oversaw. He was led towards a gallows which had been specially made for him, and this wooden structure, which sat within a short walk from his former office, would be the final steps he would ever take.

 The execution of the former commodant of Achvitz, Rudolfph Hurse, was planned expertly, and every small detail was refined to ensure nothing went wrong, but also that Hurst suffered. He was, after all, a man who had built a camp of death, and he was responsible for over 1.1 million people’s demises and exterminations.

Hurse himself apologized for his actions and crimes, and he was somewhat repentant. But no one could excuse him for what he had done and what suffering he had caused to Polish people and European people during World War II. Rudolfph Hurst was a man who had the blood of millions of people on his hands, and he was a terrible criminal who even murdered in his teenage years.

But how was his execution so expertly planned? and what threatened to make it go wrong. Rudolph France Ferdinand Hurse was the commonant of Ashvitz and he had a long history associated with death and murder following the first world war of which he served as the youngest non-commissioned officer in the German army.

 He joined the right-wing paramilitary groups and he got involved in the violence of these groups such as the frycore. Hurst said of his moments with the group that I quote, “The fighting in the Baltic states was more savage and more bitter than any I had experienced in the First World War. There was no real front, for the enemy was everywhere.

 When it came to a clash, it was a fight to the death, and no quarter was given or expected. Houses were set on fire and burned the occupants to death. On innumerable occasions, I came across this terrible spectacle of burned out cottages containing the charred corpses of women and children. He took part in armed attacks on Polish people.

 In 1923, he was arrested by the police after he and other members of the frycore had beaten a local school teacher to death. The man who had ordered this hit was no other than Martin Borman, who would later go on to become the private secretary of Adolf Hitler. Hurse was relatively well behaved behind bars and was released from prison four years after being sentenced.

 And after meeting his wife Hedvik and having children, Hurst began searching for a new career. He joined the SS, the paritry organization of the Nazi party which was at the time overseen by Hinrich Himmler. Hurse and Himmler would become acquaintances and later close friends, and he rose throughout the ranks and took a job in December 1934 in Dhau concentration camp.

 Hurse was promoted and then was placed in charge of the firing squad at a different camp, Saxonhausen, and he was actually the man who gave the order to fire upon the first conscientious objector of World War II, who was executed. And Hurse also fired the finishing coupe gunshot to his head. His reputation for being a barbaric and brutal guard continued and Hurst was then sent to inspect a site in Poland that would become Achvitz.

 Himmler gave him the authority to run this camp as a commodant and he then developed the site to become a ruthless place of mass murder. Hurse was determined to do things differently and he wanted to make the most efficient site of slaughter that he could all whilst he lived in a villa next door with his family. It was he who introduced the torture blocks and medical experimentation centers where doctors like Angel of Death Ysef Mangala operated and also it was he who introduced gassings to the camp and personally oversaw the tests in which

Soviet PS were gassed in the basement of Block 11. Hurse also implemented the Deathwing range based upon his previous experiences running the firing squads at other camps. Himmler, the head of the SS, selected Ashvitz to be one of the sites for the extermination of Europe’s Jewish people, as it had been set up with relatively good railway access, and it was also quite isolated, too.

 Hurse then developed the gas chambers, and these were created along with Crerematoria in which the bodies of the deceased were then burned in. Gassing operations saw thousands of people being killed every single day and the victims were selected from the railway yards after they had disembarked from the trains.

 Men were separated from women and those suitable for slave labor were allowed to live for a brief time. The elderly, the ill, the struggling and children with their mothers were usually sent straight to the gas chambers by Hurst’s ruthless guard force who used extreme violence to drive them there.

 He later said of his killing process that he personally implemented that I quote, “Technically, it wasn’t so hard. It would not have been hard to exterminate even greater numbers. The killing itself took the least time. You could dispose of 2,000 heads in half an hour, but it was the burning that took all the time. The killing was easy.

 You didn’t even need guards to drive them into the chambers. They just went in expecting to take showers. and instead of water we turned on poison gas. The whole thing went by very quickly. It was also Rudolph Hurst who specifically introduced a cyclone B pesticide into the camp and he was actually shockingly replaced from his work in Ashvitz in November 1943 as it had been discovered that he was actually having an illegal relationship, an affair with a communist political prisoner who was locked up inside of his camp. But Rudolph Hurse was brought back

the following year to oversee Operation Hurse, the mass killing of 430,000 Hungarian Jews who were all exterminated in just 56 ruthless days. At the end of the war, Hurst spent time at Ravensbrook, an all female camp, and he oversaw the creation of the gas chamber there, and was personally responsible for killing 2,000 women prisoners.

But he was warned by Hinrich Himmler that the end of the war was coming. And with that he went on the run. He had been provided with a ty capsule to bring his life to an end if he was ever captured, but he knew that he would be strung up for his crimes eventually. Hurse split up from his family and he was later arrested in 1946 after his wife gave the British a tip off to where he truly was.

 He had been hiding as a gardener under a false name and he was then battered badly and beaten by the British during his arrest. Despite not being brought to the Nuremberg trials alongside other high-ranking Nazis, Rudolph Hurst did testify as a defense witness for Erns Kenbrunner, the most senior SS officer on trial. Hurse admitted his crimes and inflated his death toll almost as if he was boasting about what he had done during World War II.

 He claimed and I quote, “I commanded Avitz until the 1st of December 1943 and estimate that at least 2 and a half million victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning and at least another half million succumb to starvation and disease, making a total of around 3 million dead. This figure represents about 70 to 80% of all persons sent to Ashvitz as prisoners.

 The remainder having been selected and used for slave labor in the concentration camp industries. Included among the executed and burned were approximately 20,000 Russian prisoners of war previously screened out of prison of war cages by the Gestapo who were delivered at Avitz in Vermach transports operated by regular Vermach officers and men.

 The remainder of the total number of victims included around a 100,000 German Jews and great numbers of citizens mostly Jewish from the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Greece or other countries. We executed around 400,000 Hungarian Jews alone at Avitz in the summer of 1944. He was in 1946 handed over to the Polish authorities and he was tried for his crimes as the comedant of Avitz.

 He was sentenced to death for his crimes, but the execution of the comedant would be planned meticulously with the aim of ensuring that nothing went wrong. The judges were lobbied by the former prisoners of the camp to allow the execution to take place inside of Ashvitz and this was permitted. The judges were concerned to begin with that securing the camp would be tricky and that there would be an angry mob who were there to lynch Hurse on the way to the camp.

 Because of this, they ensured that they had a number of different execution dates ready for the action of bringing the Ashvitz commodant’s life to an end. The first execution date was to have been the 14th of April, 1947. But there were concerns and murmurings in the local area that people were waiting to attack the convoy containing Hurse and the authorities then decided to postpone for a couple of days.

 On the 16th of April 1947, Rudolph Hurse early in the morning was taken from his prison cell to the gates of Ashvitz. There were only around 100 official witnesses, including cause officials and also former prisoners of the camp who had been given tickets to ensure that they were allowed in the camp to witness what was going to happen.

 All of them were checked for weapons and were patted down before they were given entry, and some of them to ensure they had a good view, even climbed up onto the roofs of nearby buildings to ensure they saw exactly the final last seconds of Rudolph Hurst’s life. The gallows had also been meticulously created. They were actually made by German prisoners of war who were working at dawn that morning and they made them with a trap door.

 Some have also theorized that these men may have actually acted as the hangmen and the executioners. So it was rather poetic that Rudolph Hurse was being executed by his fellow former comrades and war criminals and those who were on his side in the Second World War. This may have been because many Polish executioners may have also refused the job as they didn’t want to touch a man who they deemed to be so evil.

 Armed uniformed guards stood all around Achvitz and around the sight of the gallows to ensure that no one made a single move towards Rudolph Hurse. Now he arrived at the camp at 8:00 a.m. and he was taken to the building that once housed his office. This was relatively close to the gallows which was made near to the crerematoria and in a clearing.

After Hurst was given a cup of coffee as a final drink, he was then taken to the cell known as a bunker inside the punishment center of block 11. This was also known as the death block, and it was where Hurst had ordered many prisoners to be tortured. At 10:00 a.m. he was led out through his former camp, and he strolled calmly and energetically towards the gallows.

 He was paraded through the camp’s main street, and his hands and arms had been secured behind his back. A priest was also present, a man named Father Zeremba, who was actually a local man, a local priest from the village of Ozishm next to the camp. As Hurse approached the gallows, the death sentence was read, and everyone looked on.

 He was helped onto a wooden stall which had been placed under the gallows, and then the noose was thrown over the cross beam. The hangman then placed a noose around his neck and huran and adjusted the knot slightly and moved his head. Then the executioner was instructed to pull out the stool from underneath Rudolph Hurse.

 And then the trapdo was sprung open, and this then left Rudolph Hurse struggling and kicking for air hanging from the gallows. There was a very little drop, and his neck was not instantly snapped. This was also intended, as the authorities wanted him to slowly strangle to death, and to suffer a death which was not instant and quick, but instead prolonged and painful.

 He struggled for a few minutes, as the air was choked out of his lungs, and the priest then began to pray at the foot of the gallows. The gallows had been sprung at 10:08 a.m. and by 10:21 a.m. the doctor who was present had pronounced that Rudolph Hurse, the comedant of Avitz, was in fact dead.

 There are even rumors that his body was cremated inside of Avitz inside the very ovens that he had many thousands of people burned, but this is debated as some would consider this disrespectful to his victims. The media were also instructed to not report at length about the execution and the proceedings.

 They only mentioned the execution briefly in newspapers and they were not allowed to print any eyewitness accounts either. And this was actually the last public execution that ever took place in Poland. So everything about the execution of the commons of Ashvitz was planned meticulously and to the minute by the Polish authorities who carried out the proceedings.

 They had everything relating to his execution burned. But today, the gallows which were used still stand as a haunting reminder of the brutality of the man who once oversaw Ashvitz. Hurse was forced to be executed inside of his former camp for a very powerful reason. It was the very instrument and tool of death he built from the ground up, and the prisoners wanted closure for their family members and also friends who had all suffered and died at the camp.

 The execution of Rudolph Hurse today stands as a moment of profound importance for the people of Poland in the aftermath of World War II. But only a very few select people saw the man who had brought such terror to the country and the war be condemned in front of their very eyes. Erns Cartenbrunner was born in Austria on the 4th of October 1903.

 He was part of a rather wellto-do family with his father being a lawyer and he was educated in Linds where Adolf Hitler lived during his childhood. He was childhood friends with another man who would become an infamous Nazi Adolf Ikeman who was instrumental in implementing the final solution. Cenbr then obtained the law degree and began working in a law firm before opening his own office.

 He later married and had three children. However, on the 18th of October 1930, he joined the Nazi party. Despite living in Austria, he joined the German party, which would later become banned in Austria. He became a district speaker for the party and later joined the SS in late August 1931. By 1933, he was a head of the National Socialist Lawyers League in Lintz, a group of pro-Nazi lawyers who would regularly meet.

 Kenbrunner was arrested for conspiracy to overthrow the Austrian government and was held in a detention camp. However, led a hunger strike which forced his and almost 500 other party members to be released. He was later then jailed for high treason, but the charge was dropped again, but with this charge, he was banned from practicing law.

 He rose throughout the SS ranks and was considered a leader of the Austrian SS. He repeatedly traveled to meet with other high-ranking SS members such as Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Hydrich but was arrested again in 1937. In March 1938, Hitler’s Nazi Germany annexed Austria into its empire and Reich and Caterbrer helped with this coup and for this was given a role as a state secretary for public security in the new government which was controlled by himlaw.

 Further promotions came for him and he helped to open up and establish Mount Housen concentration camp, the first Nazi concentration camp in Austria and he later also became a high SS and police leader for the main SS command center in Austria. As the second world war broke out, he continued his work within the SS. He was placed into the reserve of an SS and began to utilize for the war effort the large intelligence network he set up in Austria during his time there.

This impressed Himmler who appointed him the chief of the Reich security main office. In this role he oversaw the Gustapo Crypo and SD replacing the assassinated Reinhard Hydrickch and Cumber remained in his job until the end of the conflict. He was a devoted anti-semite and was present at a meeting in December 1940 when it was decided that all Jews who were incapable of working were to be killed and gassed.

It was with Cenbrunner’s leadership of the RSHA that the pace of the Holocaust was picked up and the extermination of the Jews was accelerated. Deportations to concentration camps were also hastened and it was said that he wished all Jews in the Reich and the occupied countries to be liquidated. He also showed his barbarism when he pushed for a law stating that all homosexuals would be forced to undergo compulsory castration.

Whilst inspecting Mount Housen in 1943, he took great interest in watching demonstrations of different methods of killing, gunshot, hanging, gassing, and 15 prisoners were selected to be killed purely to demonstrate to countbr. He also forced Ashvitz to take more prisoners and subsequently gas thousands of them as soon as they got to the camp.

During a meeting with a Hungarian official, it was decided that 750,000 of Hungary’s Jews would be taken straight to the concentration camps and killed. Carterbrunner himself was a very scary man, and it was even rumored that Hinrich Himmler was frightened of him due to his tall height, facial scars, and horrific temper.

 He carried out the later investigations of the July 20th plot and it’s estimated that 5,000 people were executed for the failed attempted bombing of Hitler inside the Wolf Slayer with thousands more being deported to concentration camps. He was a virulent anti-semite and someone who was incredibly loyal to Hitler and he was fanatical about his furer.

 As the Second World War continued throughout its final years, more celebration and accolades were placed onto Cerbr for his work. However, by 1944, it was clear that the war was only going one way for Nazi Germany, heading towards a defeat. With the Red Army closing in on the Germans, Erns Cenbrer ordered that all of the prisons inside concentration camps were to be killed, and he had briefly been placed in charge of the remaining German forces in southern Europe by Himler in April 1945.

As Hitler made his final trip out of the Fura bunker in Berlin, Kazenbr was there that day. However, he quickly realized Hitler was planning to die in his bunker and because of this, he fled Berlin. On the 12th of May 1945, he was captured along with some SS guards in a cabin at the top of a mountain in Austria by American soldiers.

Information had been obtained about their hideout and they went to some extreme lengths to hide out. The US soldiers, after hearing the intelligence about Kamaran’s whereabouts, decided to climb up the icy and glacial rock terrain for 6 hours in the complete dark, a rather dangerous feat to try and apprehend the leader of the RSHA.

At the cabin, there was a short standoff, but all four Nazis were captured without a shot being fired. And upon his arrest, Camera claimed he was a doctor, and he gave a fake name. However, as he arrived off the mountain and into the local town, his mistress spotted him and called out to him, giving him a hug.

 And this left the Catra’s positive identification. Following his arrest, he was then taken to the Nuremberg trials, where he was charged with conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. During the beginning of the trial, he was actually absent from proceedings and suffering from two subaractid hemorrhages, and he took a few weeks to recover.

Ken Runner’s lawyers did try to get him a pardon due to ill health, but this was refused and upon his release he was taken straight back to the trial. During his time in Nuremberg, he claimed everything he had done was rubber stamped and approved by his assistants and that his signature had been counterfeited by Gestapo Chief Hinrich Müller.

 And he claimed that he did not have any understanding or knowledge of the final solution. He claimed as the head of the RSHA he was only involved in acts of espionage and intelligence which were not in fact war crimes. He passed the blame also onto Hinrich Himmler who had taken his own life saying he was his superior and they even protested against the ill treatment of the Jews to Himmla and Hitler.

Expressing complete denial. He was eventually found out as there was clear documentational evidence about his visit to Mount and he even claimed that he tried to end the final solution. It was clear he was talking nonsense and for his crimes he was sentenced to death being found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Captain Brun was to be hanged and spent the last few weeks of his life in prison at Nuremberg. A gallows had been created in the gymnasium of Nuremberg prison and on the 16th of October the condemned men were executed. There were a number sentenced to death at Nuremberg. The most high-profile being Hyman Guring, who actually took his own life prior to the hangman doing it for him.

 The first to be executed by the infamous US executioner John C. Woods was Yokin von Ribbonrop. Woods’s methods of executing the condemned that day have been called into question, especially as a number of those war criminals took a long time to die. One taking 28 minutes and also the executions were not clean. Many of the condemned were hit on the head by the trapoor on the way down.

 And today, Woods remains a divisive executioner. After Wilhelm Kitle’s execution, Ernst Cenbrer was taken into the execution chamber at 1:52 a.m. He shuffled into the room accompanied by two guards and was led up the steps of the gallows. As he arrived at the trap doors, the executioner asked him for any final words.

 Kenbrunner stated, “I’ve loved my German people and fatherland with a warm heart. I have done my duty by the laws of my people, and I’m sorry my people were led this time by men who were not soldiers, and that crimes were committed of which I had no knowledge. Even as he was about to die, Catherine has still maintained his innocence.

 The hood was then placed over his head, and with his final words, he wished Germany luck. His execution was one of the swifter to have taken place that morning and there were only around 7 minutes from the time he was executed and pronounced dead till the next condemned man Alfred Rosenberg plunged to his death. Overall, Lance Captain Brun was a man who was instrumental in the evils of the Third Reich and was key to the horrific suffering of many inside the concentration camps and prisons that the Nazis presided over. He was incredibly

high up within the Nazi party and had the personal respect of Adolf Hitler and his work preciding over the Gustapo SD and Crypo was instrumental in Hitler and Himmler implementing their police state. It’s important to understand that he was a man who was clearly anti-semitic and he was definitely one of the worst villains of the Second World War.

Ultimately, he was a man who wanted the Holocaust to be sped up with ruthless efficiency. And for this at the end of the conflict he would pay the ultimate price himself. Carl Herman Frank was a long-standing supporter of the Nazi party and he joined in 1923 and was involved in setting up a number of regional offices for the political party.

 He was very much one of the old fighters. He witnessed Hitler speak many different times and over time he helped to spread Nazi propaganda by even setting up a Nazi bookstore. He was someone who was trusted at high levels to organize SA and SS men and was actually also blind in one eye which had previously caused him issue with joining the military during the first world war.

He inside of the Sudatan land, the territory of Czechoslovakia, helped to organize a Nazi splinter group there. And he was one of the most radical Nazis inside of the land. When the Nazis annex the Sudatland after Hitler was given it following the Munich Conference, he began to rise throughout the ranks of the Nazi party more properly.

 Frank also joined the SS, Hitler’s group of paramilitaries, who would operate and run the concentration and extermination camps. Frank was also an elected member of the Richtag the Parliament and in 1939 he was appointed as a secretary of state of the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. He was acting like a deputy prime minister and Hinrich Himmla the head of the SS also made him the higher SS and police leader.

 This meant he was very very powerful and Frank was involved in introducing a reign of terror into the region and he was also involved in putting down any resistance that the Nazis faced to their regime. He went after resistors brutally and many were arrested and some were executed using the guillotine within Czech prisons. He was very much a hardline Nazi and when Hitler brought in Reinhard Hydrich to also oversee the region and to put the region down, Frank and Hydrickch worked brutally together.

 Their aim was to keep the area as productive as possible for the German war effort as Czech factories were making tanks, armaments, and weapons for the German military. And it was vital that these factories remained productive. But together, Frank and Hydrickch deported thousands to concentration camps, and they also arrested thousands more.

 Hundreds were also executed, and many of them were strung up from lamp posts in Czech towns and cities to act as a stark warning. But following the assassination of Hydrickch in 1942, Frank remained the deputy protector and alongside Kurt Duga, Frank was in charge of overseeing the reprisals in which the villages of Leadis and Lazaki were raised to the ground. All of the men were shot.

 The women were all sent to concentration camps where most of them died and children deemed to be worthy of being Germanized were sent back to Germany practically kidnapped and were then raised by SS families. The other children were killed. Further promotion came for him and the Nazis viewed Frank as an able deputy and he was made a general of the Voffen SS and also a general of the police.

 He eventually became the most powerful Nazi in Bohemia and Moravia and he was granted cabinet rank in the Nazi government without being known as a Reich minister. This actually brought him into many meetings with Adolf Hitler and other senior Nazis and he would regularly rub shoulders with Hinrich Himmler.

 But in 1944 he continued his ruthless approach and Frank conducted many antipartisan attacks. But the Germans began to struggle against the resisters. He brazenly lied to Hitler, claiming that the partisan threat in the Czech lands had been dealt with once and for all. But this really wasn’t the case, and he was losing men left, right, and center.

 At the end of the Second World War, Carl Herman Frank was arrested by the Americans, and he was later tried by the people’s court in Prague. He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity and was made to face some music for his involvement in the slaughter of people in Leadis and Lazaki. But his execution method was one which was not necessarily standard all across Europe.

 Carl Herman Frank was to be pole hanged. Now pole hanging as a method was one which originated in lands which were formerly under the control or influence of Austria Hungary and their empire. It was also known as the Austrian gallows and it utilized a 3 m tall post and the condemned was suspended from the post and hanged by a noose which was wrapped around their neck.

 A system of ropes and pulleys were secured around the top and bottom of the post or pole, and a chestling held the condemned in place. When the executioner and his assistant were ready, they then released a drop, and it was hoped that death would come quickly. Executioners claimed that this method was actually quicker than using a traditional gallows and a long drop, but the evidence suggests otherwise, as it was rare that it is actually carried out correctly.

 Often the condemned would struggle and strangle for longer and this would lead to death taking many minutes. A noose was secured around the top of the post and the executioner would guide the fall of the condemned and try to push the neck to one side. As mentioned, this method was used because it was standard and a standard method of execution that had been used against significant criminals before the second world war and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia.

It may have also been deployed to separate the German methods of execution which had been used during second world war to the Czech ones. In a sense, it may have been the checks feeling liberated. Using pole hanging sent a message to the crowds and people who watched that Czechoslovakia was now free from the Nazis and German occupation and German methods which were ruthlessly used such as the metal guillotine, the foulb would not be used anymore.

Now 5,000 people flocked to Pancra Prison in Prague to witness the execution of Carl Herman Franc. The execution was made very public, so that everyone and all the people in Prague could see that justice was being carried out upon a man who had brought so much terror to them for many, many years. It was very much a public showing of revenge, and there would be no doubt to anyone that Frank was dead.

 There was also very little remorse for Carl Herman Frank at all and the crowd were rather content and did tend to celebrate when the death sentence was carried out. So Carl Herman Frank was publicly pole hanged as it was the standard method of execution inside of Czechoslovakia and it was also a method that separated the Czech methods from the German ones which were linked to so much suffering and terror during World War II.

 He did take a number of minutes to succumb to his fate on the execution post, but no one that day who witnessed his death mourn the life of Carl Herman Frank. It was rare that many members of the SS who were the perpetrators of the Holocaust faced their fate. However, the most prominent case postwar of a man being brought to justice was Adolf Ikeman.

Ikeman would be hauled in front of a trial after his capture in 1960 and was taken to Jerusalem where his publicized trial attracted millions of viewers. Eventually, for his role in the mass murder during the Holocaust, he was sentenced to death. So, join us today as we look at the justified execution of Adolf Ikeman.

 And remember to support our channel. Please make sure to subscribe. One of the most notorious names associated with the Holocaust is Adolf Ikeman. Ikeman was born on the 19th of March 1906 and would work for a short period after school at his father’s mining company. His family had moved to Austria and he transitioned into life being a traveling oil salesman in 1927.

He would travel throughout Austria and other territories during this time. But he would also become exposed about the politics and beliefs of the Nazi party. He would be advised by a close family friend and local SS leader Erns Cenbrunner to join the Nazi party. Interestingly, Kenbrer would be executed at the Nuremberg trials.

 On the 1st of April 1932, he would join the Austrian branch and then 7 months later was confirmed as a member of the SS. He did lose his job after the Nazis seized power in January 1933 and he returned to Germany after the Nazi party were banned in Austria. He worked at Dhaka concentration camp but then requested to be moved to the SD.

 He was eventually accepted into this and was initially tasked with confiscating objects associated with the Freemasons. Ikeman then exhibited these with many high-ranking Nazis attending the exhibition and he rose throughout the ranks of the SS. At the time the Nazis were using violence and pressure to encourage Jews to leave Germany and immigrate to different countries.

 With this around 250,000 Jews left Germany between 1933 and the start of the Second World War. Ikeman was transitioned into the Jewish department at the Berlin headquarters of the SS and would take an interest in Jewish affairs, learning Hebrew and Yiddish. He gained a reputation as a specialist in Jewish matters and through promotions rose even further up the SS hierarchy.

In 1938, he was sent to Vienna to help organize and facilitate Jewish immigration from Austria after the country had been annexed by Germany. When he left his post in Vienna, around 100,000 Jews had already left the country legally. As the Second World War broke out, Ikeman would transition into a deportation specialist rather than immigration.

German policies towards Jews became incredibly strict with many being deported forcibly and threatened. In October 1939, Ikeman was posted to oversee the command for the Reich Central Office for Jewish immigration for the entire German Empire. He would during his time organize a deportation of thousands of Jews into ghettos and other areas, including concentration camps and labor camps.

 Many would be sent to places with no food and water, being forced to fend for themselves. It would be Ikeman’s office that would organize the deportations with thousands being kept in horrific conditions in ghettos which would have awful overcrowding, poor food supplies and terrible sanitation. The death rates inside the ghettos were incredibly high and it was Ikeman’s command which oversaw these conditions and also the eventual deportations to camps such as Ashvitz.

Ikeman’s role as overseeing deportations was incredibly well documented and the logistics of the deportations were planned in minute detail. He worked with other agencies that seized Jewish houses and property and he arranged the deportation of thousands of Roman gypsies and his office benefited financially from the property seized by those persecuted.

So Ikeman was the cog who was instrumental in the suffering of millions. He was tasked with forcing people out of their homes and sending them to ghettos and then the camps. In 1942, things changed with deportation of the Jews when the 1C conference was hosted by Reinhard Hydrickch. Following the conference, the final solution to the Jewish question was placed into action in which the Nazis orchestrated the mass murder of the Jews of Europe.

 Before this, Ikeman produced a set of statistics based on how many Jews from different countries could be massacred. Under Ikeman’s supervision, huge deportations would take place following the conference almost immediately to the extermination camps. Ikeman would oversee the transportation of millions of Jews to the death camps where they were murdered within minutes of them arriving.

 He kept a close log of this and carried out his duty with ruthless efficiency. After Germany invaded Hungary, Ikeman arrived in the country and set to work on ordering those Jews captured straight to Ashvitz to be used as forced labor or to be sent straight to their deaths. Ikeman provided the commonant of Ashvitz, Rudolph Hurst, with instructions as to how to implement the final solution using the gas chambers.

Ikeman even ordered extra trains to be used for the victims to be sent to Ashvitz. Such was the need to exterminate these poor victims so quickly. On the 24th of December 1944, Ikeman left Buddhapest after organizing more deportations just before the Soviets arrived. He returned to Berlin, ordering many of his documents to be burned and following this fled Germany, heading to Austria as the war ended.

 Ikeman was captured after the war finished by US forces, but spent time in different SS camps. However, had false papers stating that his name was Otto Ecman. He escaped from a work detachment when he realized his identity had been discovered and then went under more false names and quickly relocated. In 1948, he obtained a permit to head to Argentina under the false name Ricardo Clement using the Nazi rat lines to escape.

 He arrived in Buenos Aries on the 14th of July 1950 and worked as a department head for MercedesBenz. As stories of the Holocaust were unraveled after the Second World War, stories of Ikeman and the man who prided himself on the efficient slaughter of many would emerge. But Ricardo Clement or Ikeman lived a seemingly normal life in Argentina.

In 1957, a German prosecutor informed Israel that Ikeman was living in Argentina and agents from the Israeli intelligence service Mossad would arrive to hunt him down. In early 1960, Ikeman was located in the San Fernando area of Buonoseries under his false name. Argentina had a history of refusing extradition requests.

 So, the decision was made by the Israelis to simply snatch Ikeman and bring him to Israel for trial. Over a period of time, the officers of Mosad would stalk their prey, noticing how he arrived home from work by bus every day at the same time. They planned to seize him as he was walking beside an open field near to the bus stop whilst heading home.

 On the day of his arrest, Ikeman did get on a later bus and was wrestled to the ground by Mossad agents later on. He was then taken to several safe houses and held for 9 days until his identity was confirmed. He was then sedated and flown back to Israel being smuggled out of the country. The Ikeman trial was held on the 11th of April, 1961, and it was held at the Jerusalem District Court.

 It took 56 days for the prosecution to outline their evidence, using witnesses and implicating evidence to try and secure a guilty verdict. Ikeman was charged under the Nazi collaborators and Nazi punishment law, allowing Israeli courts to punish perpetrators of the Holocaust. He was indicted on 15 counts including crimes against the Jewish people and crimes against humanity.

He was also charged with being an SA SD and Gustapo member. The biggest amount of evidence leveled against Ikeman was the fact he had worked to expel Jews from Germany and had participated in the deportations resulting in the mass murder of millions. He did gain the nickname from this, the architect of the Holocaust.

Ikeman was held within a glass booth inside of the courtroom to prevent his assassination. He stated how he was simply following orders and was just a cog in the machinery of destruction. He did admit his guilt about the arrangements of transport of millions of Jews, but did not feel guilty about the consequences in the deaths.

 His plea that he was only following orders was not accepted, and it was proven that he was a key perpetrator of the genocide of the Jews. For this on December the 12th 1961 he was found guilty and 3 days later was sentenced to death. An appeal was rejected and for this Ikeman’s sentence was carried out. Ikeman was transferred to Ramler prison to await his execution.

He was kept under a close guard of 22 men who were carefully selected. He was kept here for around 6 months and was closely guarded to ensure he did not take his own life. Food was even brought to him in sealed containers to avoid poisoning with the guards trying his food before. The prison service had begun to find someone to carry out the sentence of death with Shalon Nagar being chosen a former paratrooper to carry out the job.

 They wanted an ordinary man to administer the justice and the suffering for those during the Holocaust onto Whiteman. Also, another man was commissioned to make a huge oven capable of being able to burn a body for cremation. with this being brought to the prison as well. On the day of Ikeman’s execution, streets around the prison were cordoned off.

 Shalom Nagar felt like he had won the lottery being the executioner. On the 1st of June 1962, Ikeman’s sentence was carried out. He spent the last few hours of his life with a priest and was given a glass of wine. He was then taken up to the execution chamber where a specially constructed gallows had been made.

 And he was taken up to the stairs and had the noose placed around his neck standing above a speciallymade trap door. According to official reports, there were supposedly two people who pulled the lever, executing the war criminal. This was to ensure that Nether would know whose hand killed Ikeman. Nagar’s account stated that he looked Ikeman dead in the eyes who refused to have his face covered during his execution.

He was even allegedly wearing his slippers. Then Nagar pulled the lever and he fell dangling by his neck. After an hour, two men went to release the body. It was said that his face was white as chalk, his eyes were bulging, and his tongue was dangling out. The rope rubbed the skin off his neck, and his tongue and chest were covered in blood.

 Ikeman’s corpse was then taken to the oven which had been specially made and his body was cremated with his ashes being scattered beyond the Israeli territorial waters so that they would not defile the holy land. Adolf Ikeman was the architect of the Holocaust who carried out his horrific duties with ruthless efficiency. Ikeman was known for efficiently organizing the mass killing of millions and he took great pride in this.

 He was an evil man who was ingrained in Nazi race laws and wished to inflict mass suffering on the Jews of Europe. After the Second World War, justice would finally catch up with Ikeman with his capture by Mossad and subsequent execution. The architect of the Holocaust definitely got eventually what he deserved. Arthur Graer was born in January 1897 and little of his upbringing would suggest he would later turn into a monster.

 During the First World War, Gerisa volunteered to work inside of the Imperial German Navy and rather than being based on vessels, he served inside of different naval forts. But then he traded the coast for the trenches of the western front and served as an observer but also he was involved in the dangerous work of mine clearance. He then changed again to be part of the Naval Flying Corps, but during one flight he was shot down and was hurt and wounded by the gunfire, but he was then classified in September 1919 as 50% war disabled. And because of this, he was

released from the Navy. For his first world war service, he was given the Iron Cross first class. However, after the conflict, he joined the Fryore as he was not very impressed with the concessions that the new German government made with the Treaty of Versailles. This imposition caused chaos across Germany.

For example, they were banned from having an army of more than 100,000 soldiers. They were also not allowed to have an air force. But Arthur Graiser was someone who was said to have been very anti-Christian and rebellious. and he quickly noticed the politics of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. He was an early member of the German Social Party, a nationalistic group, but he then switched his allegiance to the Nazis and also then joined the SA Hitler’s brown shirts in December 1929.

Two years later, Gryer joined the SS and quickly he rose throughout the ranks of the paramilitary group. Gorisa was seen by Hitler and Himmler as well as others as someone who could be trusted in a position of power and he was then made the deputy president of the free city of Donsish before he was made the senate president of the area.

 Gisa was in particular a close acquaintance and friend with Martin Borman Hitler’s private secretary and also Rudolfph Hess the deputy furer. But inside of the city of Dansish, Giza could do whatever he wished in the land, and he took great steps to offend Polish people and also diplomats. He sent rude notes and messages to Polish politicians about the city and created a lot of anger.

However, following the German invasion of Poland, he then became the chief of the civil administration for Posen, which was then incorporated into the German Third Reich. Gryer then became appointed the gallowiter of Reich Scalow Posen and he was named the Reich defense commissioner of the created military district.

Because of this he was then given a number of promotions within the SS and the land that he was responsible for became very rich and this wealth was then absorbed into the Nazi hierarchy. But Arthur Grizzer was a brute in this region and he oversaw it with much horror and evil and he was incredibly anti-semitic and he forced Polish people out of the lands and ordered them to resettle in other places.

 He was a man who carried out the ruthless policies of Hinrich Hemla and he executed civilians who were said to have been defiant and resisting. It was claimed about Arria that he was a powerfully built figure. He was a tall man and you could see his arrogance, his conceit. He was so vain, so full of himself, as if there was nothing above him, a god almost.

Everybody tried to get out of his way. People had to bow to him, salute him. And the Polish he treated with great contempt. For him they were slaves, good for nothing but work. He once said during a speech that no longer must we stand in the wings. We must altogether become a master race. But it was inside of these lands where the Nazis carried out horrific attacks against the civilian population with Giza being the one who signed off on much of this.

 He used SSmen to take 1,558 civilians from mental hospitals where they were then gassed inside of the soldout concentration camp in summer 1940. Giza also moved Germans into the lands which had been conquered in the Soviet Union following the launching of operation barbarasa. He was a man who had great contempt for the church.

 And he cut off support from the church and sent many church officials, priests, and members of the clergy to concentration camps. And there some of them were executed being shot dead. 1,700 priests from Poland were sent to the Dhau concentration camp and many succumb to starvation, disease, and the horrific slaughterous policies of the camp.

 But GZA was one who wanted to punish members of the clergy further and he wanted the deadly policies of the Holocaust to be enacted very early on. He argued with other Nazis, including Herman Guring about why it was taking so long to rid the Jews from the city of Lodge. And he then was told by Himmler himself in September 1941 that 60,000 Czech and German Jews were to be sent to the Lodge ghetto.

 He then asked if he could slaughter 100,000 inside of his region. Arthur Grizzer used gas fans to execute many. Inside of the lands that he oversaw, around 150,000 Jews were killed between autumn 1941 and April 1942. He continued to also have civilians strung up and executed to strike fear into the hearts of other people.

 As the war continued on, he did not waver in his devotion to the Nazi cause and was seen as one of the most horrific local leaders and governors. His campaign of terror led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. And as the Second World War turned against the Germans in January 1945, he ordered an evacuation of the region of Posen as the might of the Soviet Red Army was advancing towards the area.

Arthur Geriser himself left the city and he then reported to Hinrich Kimla aboard his train but he was then stabbed in the back by specifically Martin Borman a man who he believed he was on cordial terms with Borman had lied to look better in Hitler’s eyes but he wanted to make Grieza look bad and wanted to step on his toes.

Borman ordered for Posen to be held and then defended. But Grizzer was said to have been a deserter and a traitor as he left the area behind. And Hitler then through Borman’s manipulations viewed Grieza in this manner. However, he had more things to be worried about as the American army approached Austria where he was hiding.

But he then surrendered himself to the American army as he knew the Second World War was well and truly over. Arthur Graza must have known that he would probably have been taken to the hangman’s gallows for his actions during the conflict as a war criminal. He was handed over to the Polish government as a majority of his crimes were committed inside of the lands and he was then tried for war crimes.

 He claimed that he was only following the orders given to him by a superior officer and that orders were sent from men such as Himmler, but the defense of just following orders was considered not to have been good enough. He was portrayed as one of the most barbaric gowlighters and he was then convicted of a huge number of crimes which included the murder of civilians and prisoners of war as well as torture, persecution, destruction of the Polish culture, looting, stealing children against the will of their parents, slaughter in the

ghettos, and much more. He was then sentenced to death by the Polish court and was to be executed by hanging. In July 1946 on a sunny morning in Pausnan, Arthur Graiser, the brutal local leader of the region, was taken out to his execution in front of a crowd of around 15,000 people. These civilians were stood in the grounds of what was known as the Citadel, a fortress which had during the war been damaged heavily by bombing and reduced to rubble.

Before 7:00 a.m., a car containing the condemned drove through the crowds and outstepped Arthur Graer. He was blindfolded and dressed in a suit. Next to him were two guards who held him and guided him up the steps of the gallows which had been specifically built for his execution. Whilst Arthur Graiser was stood on the gallows, his hands were secured behind his back and he stood there staunchly without any emotion and mumbled a number of prayers to himself before the executioner approached him.

 He did this despite the fact he was clearly not a very religious man. He had seemed to accept death, and it was on the horizon, and he did not ask for forgiveness at all, and neither did he act defantingly. The executioner was dressed all in black, and he then secured the noose around his neck before taking some final checks, and with this then pushed the lever, which sent Arthur Grer crashing through the trap door.

 He was confirmed dead in minutes, and as an act of disgust and protest against Gryer’s actions and crimes, the executioner threw away his white gloves that he’d used to hang Grer. He was a man who was not the most well-known Nazi. But Arthur Grizzer should be remembered alongside Rudolph Hurse and other evil overseers of lands and concentration camps because he was responsible for a huge amount of slaughter.

The crimes outlined by the court were endless and horrific and it showed what a truly terrible man he really was. Giza was a Nazi who wanted to eradicate hundreds of thousands of people and he would carry out the wishes of his superiors such as Hitler and Hinrich Himmler. He was a man who complained that the terrible policies of the Nazis were not being carried out quick enough and he ruled over his region with complete terror.

On the 24th of October 1946, one of the most senior and brutal war criminals who remained alive inside of a prison was led into the courtyard of his sight of incarceration and he was taken towards the execution post. Kurt Duga was the former chief of the order police and he claimed that millions of police officers were loyal to him.

 He was a man who committed scores of atrocities inside of Czech lands during World War II, but he was sentenced to death by hanging. But Duga was not executed on a traditional gallows. He was brought towards the execution pole or post inside of Pancrack prison and witnessing his execution were thousands of people. Pole hanging was a method deployed inside Czech lands and the executioners claimed when it was performed successfully.

 It could bring about death quicker than using a traditional gallows. But the reality was that this rarely ever occurred and that the condemned was often left strangling in front of the crowd. This was the fate that Kurt Duga experienced. But why specifically was he poleh hanged? Kurt Duga was one of the most prominent and powerful Nazis, but he is often forgotten and overshadowed by men such as Herman Guring, Hinrich Himmler, and those who were brought to the Nuremberg trials.

 He was someone who rose throughout police ranks to become the chief of the order police, and he was a ruthless overseer and someone who was deemed trustworthy, and he would carry out the wishes of Hitler and Himmler without any questions asked. Duga had through his command of the order police at least 120,000 police officers under his command, all of whom were loyal to him.

 But he carried out many other roles during the war, too. He personally witnessed the mass murder of over 4,000 people and seemed okay with seeing the slaughterous policies of the Nazis. He was also present at the conference regarding the final solution. But in 1942 he became the deputy protector of Bohemia and Moravia following the assassination of Reinhard Hydrich.

Duga was ordered to brutally put the people of Czechoslovakia down and to keep them under submission. He was also ordered to make them pay for the death of Hydrich. And with this he along with his deputy Carl Herman Frank were responsible for the raising of Leis and Lazaki two Czech villages in which all of the men in these were murdered and the women and children were sent to concentration camps.

 After having a massive heart attack in May 1943, he was relieved of his duties and Hitler gave Duga a large property to live on. At the end of World War II, he was arrested by the British and was then extradited to Czechoslovakia and was tried for many of his crimes against humanity. It was clear that Kurt Duga didn’t really care and he was also very unrepentant and he remained a staunch Nazi.

 He said he was beloved by 3 million policemen and that he was only following the orders of Hitler. He also said he had a clear conscience and never once apologized for his murderous actions and crimes. Because of this, he was sentenced to death and his execution would take place the very next day after he was condemned.

 Now, the execution method was not standard hanging using a traditional gallows, but was instead pole hanging. And with this, the equipment used in these hangings was very different. First of all, a 3 m post oral pole was used. Pole hanging was a short drop variant of hanging that emerged from the Austrohungarian Empire and firstly the condemned was taken up to the 3 m post and then a rope was attached around their feet and this was passed through a pulley at the bottom of the pole.

 Then the condemned was hoisted to the top of the pole and they were secured in place by a chest sling which was under their arms. Then the noose was secured around their necks and this was then connected to a hook at the top of the pole. When everything was ready, the chest sling was released and the prisoner then jerked downwards and the assistant executioner guided the fall using a foot rope and this would result in strangulation.

Sometimes executioners stood behind too and tried to force the head to one side in an attempt to dislocate or break the neck. This was exactly what happened to Kurt Duga. He slowly strangled in front of a crowd which had gathered. But why specifically was pole hanging used? When Czechoslovakia fell under German occupation, they utilized methods of execution such as the German guillotine known as the Falb.

 This was a compact allmetal beheading machine and there was a guillotine placed inside many Czech prisons and it was used to take the heads off those who were suspected of resisting the Nazi occupation. But when the Nazis fell from power and were ousted, the checks brought back in the checks brought back in their traditional methods of execution.

These were closely linked to the identity of the country and had been used for many decades before the war and it differentiated the execution methods from those used during the war by the Nazis who had control of the lands. The checks wanted to separate themselves from the occupation and those evil overseers.

 So that was one reason why pole hanging was reintroduced. It was also a very public execution method and pole hanging allowed the public to get up very close to the whole process of the execution. Despite being carried out inside of a prison’s courtyard, witnesses were invited in to see the execution method being used.

 Specifically, Kurt Duga was executed in front of thousands and it allowed the process of justice to be shown in front of the very people that Kurt Duga had tormented. The people who came to see the execution had been for many years terrorized and many had lost close friends and neighbors and sometimes even family members who opposed and resisted.

 The pole hanging method allowed these people to see that some form of vengeance was being had for the actions of the evil Nazis and it was also an action that made local government seem more popular and authoritative. The public could also not deny what had happened to the Nazis when they were executed in front of their own eyes.

Also, pole hanging was not a military execution and it was a punishment given out to civilians and those who were not members of the armed forces. Pole hanging carried an important distinction. It was for criminals and not honorable enemies and firing squad executions were the method which was used closely with soldiers and enemy combatants.

By hanging Duga, it sent a message that stripped him of all of his offices and labeled him simply as just a criminal and not a military officer who was following the military orders of a commanding officer. Duga was not a soldier who fought in the war, but he was criminally responsible for mass murder.

 The method of pole hanging was also common in countries which previously were under the influence of the Austrohungarian Empire and this method caused death by strangulation. It was not like the British long drop method which was designed to snap the neck and bring about death quickly. It could take minutes and the method was slower and more physically distressing and also more painful.

 The method was also distressing for the public to see and it may have been considered appropriate considering the particularly grave crimes that Kurt Duga was involved in. There was also a significant amount of symbolism with Duga’s execution. He had embodied state terror, police violence, and mass repression. And hanging was meant to reflect moral condemnation, not just physical punishment.

 The Czech land suffered huge losses under the Nazi occupation and used such public executions to assert that justice had been carried out after years of imposed terror. So Kurt Duga was executed by pole hanging for a number of reasons. From the public seeing that the man who had terrorized the nation was being brought to justice to the fact that the method was seen as fitting for a man who caused such terror.

 After his death, he was actually buried in a local cemetery in an unmarked grave and is still interred there today. Thank you for watching. If you did find this video interesting, maybe click subscribe. Once again, thank you so much for watching one of these videos.