They were the parents of at least 2 sons. Each assumed the right to decide the fate of men, and death was the intended result of his power and contempt. They came from every state in West Germany, and even from the United States. June 7, 1951 If so, login to add it. Hans Theodor Schmidt was trailed and hanged in Landsberg prison, on 07-06-1951, age 51.. [13], In June 1941, Reinhard Heydrich appointed Ohlendorf to be commander of Einsatzgruppe D,[14] which operated in southern Ukraine and Crimea. The Einsatzgruppen were special task forces of the SS and Police. The men chosen for these units trained at a school for border police in the town of Pretzsch and the nearby towns of Dben and Bad Schmiedeberg in Saxony in May and June 1941. Within the RSHA, he directed Office III, which, tellingly, undertook surveillance on the German population, monitoring attitudes towards the Hitler dictatorship and producing reports about what it discovered. [3] Ohlendorf was active in the National Socialist Students' League in both Kiel and Gttingen and taught at the Nazi Party's school in Berlin. Colonel Graham, whose office is the nerve center, makes pointed reference to the possibility of suicide. [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 September 10, 1947, the US Military Government for Germany created Military Tribunal II-A (later renamed Tribunal II). Bickel says the criminals should have been hanged earlier. That was my biggest disappointment; nobody, including my mass murderers, ever said Im sorry. . The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942. Erich Naumann: Naumann commanded Einsatzgruppe B. This tribunal was tasked with trying Case #9 of the. It found 20 defendants guilty on all three counts. He believes that the executions will do no harm politically and will prove that we meant to carry out our war aims, regardless of the fact that we now want the Germans to oppose Communism. Each defendant pleaded not guilty. Even those who admitted playing a role in the mass killings denied their culpability. "[26][d], Many of the killing operations were personally overseen by Ohlendorf, who wanted to ensure they were "military in character and humane under the circumstances". Marking the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, The National WWII Museum connects two instances of remorse for Nazi criminality by leading German politicians. Right from the beginning, most Nazi war criminals never apologized for anything. He studied at the University of Pavia, where he gained his doctors degree in jurisprudence; and by 1933 he obtained the position of a research directorship in the Kiel Institute for the World Economy(at that timeInstitut fr Weltwirtschaft und Seeverkehr Institute for World Economy and Maritime Transport). They killed on their own. He will take phone calls in Grahams office. Otto Ohlendorf was convicted of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during World War II. He tells me that he always had a hard time finding matches during the invasion of Nazi-controlled France. The 11th Army of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedts Army Group South, to which Ohlendorfs unit was attached, bore responsibility for providing EinsatzgruppeD with food, lodging, gasoline, and taking care of maintenance and repair of its motor vehicles. Reichsfhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler once characterized Ohlendorf as "an unbearable Prussian" who was "without humour". He told the Israeli police investigator who questioned him after the Mossad abducted him from Argentina in 1960: I had nothing to do with killing Jews. They are followed by the chaplain, wearing a white tunic and reading from his prayer book. [30] During September 1941, Ohlendorf's group slaughtered 22,467 Jews and communists at Mykolaiv near the Black Sea port of Odesa. [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. In his opening statement, Ferencz underscored that: It is with sorrow and with hope that we here disclose the deliberate slaughter of more than a million innocent and defenseless men, women, and children. 945 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130info@nationalww2museum.org [33] From that month forward, the Einsatzgruppen had begun the process of systematically shooting not just men but women and children, a transition that historian Peter Longerich terms "a decisive step on the way towards a policy of racial annihilation". Graham says his fan mail from Nazi sympathizers has slowed down. Krausnick, Helmut, and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm. It was purely accidental that I, an American, and a Jew, became the official witness for the U.S. High Commissioner to the execution of the condemned men. [5] By 1938 he was also manager in the Trade section of the Reich Business Board (Reichswirtschaftskammer[de]). An economist by education, he is head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) Inland, responsible for intelligence and security within Germany. The Einsatzgruppen were special task forces of the, membership in organizations declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal, Four of the defendants who were charged had commanded Einsatzgruppen units sent into the Soviet Union and Soviet-controlled territory as part of. Berlin: Edition Heinrich, 1997. 08-06-1951, age 44, hangedat theLandsberg PrisoninBavaria. Will I be able to perform this simple act? The town is tense with excitement but no real trouble is expected. June 6, 1951 Translated by Tom Lampert. Otto Ohlendorf, the head of the SD Domestic office in the RSHA, personally commanded Einsatzgruppe D. This unit deployed to southern Ukraine, Crimea, and the North Caucasus. Students analyze images and film that convey the richness of Jewish life across Europe at the time of the Nazis ascension to power. Washington, DC 20024-2126 No, he says rather unhappily. Benjamin Ferencz, International Law Scholar and Former Nuremberg Prosecutor, shares his experience as Chief Prosecutor at the trial of the Einsatzgruppen commanders. In an interview, he pointed out that the prosecution had been waiting for one of the defendantsto address the witnesses who had survived and had their whole families annihilated with one humane wordit would have cleared the air. That never happened. GI alert units are much in evidence, tommy guns at the ready. There is a telephone call. After a decade in the SS, he entered Reinhard Heydrichs SD in 1936 as an advisor on economic issues. Seven times I secretly murmured kaddish, the prayer for the dead, not for the executed man but in memory of their victims. IMPORTANT PRIVACY NOTICE & DISCLAIMER: YOU HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO USE CAUTION WHEN DISTRIBUTING PRIVATE INFORMATION. This upsurge of public feeling reached a climax on January 9, when High Commissioner McCloy agreed to receive a six-man Bundestag delegation representing the leading political parties, to ask for amnesty for the war criminals. Otto Ohlendorf served in the Nazi Party in World War II. Few defendants at any of the trials denied the accusations made against them, and often their own testimony was used to convict them. 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. He talks about his law practice in Alabama, tells me how he once saved a man from the gallows. We are to stand at attention during the hangings. Our small talk is mostly about McCloy and his amazing courage. God have mercy on those who murder me. Counted together, the four units numbered some 3,000 men. Ohlendorf's testimony horrified the court and had a depressing effect on the defendants. 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.. Someone suggests that the prisoners must be well heeled to have been able to lay out the money it cost to circulate the petition. [25] One of Ohlendorf's most trusted "proper" military-style murderers, SS-Haupsturmfhrer Lothar Heimbach, once exclaimed, "A man is the lord over life and death when he gets an order to shoot three hundred childrenand he kills at least one hundred fifty himself. ". Warrant Officer Britt then places the prisoner on the trap door. To put it bluntly, this was a coordinated effort of mass killing enacted by the SS-led Special Task Force and the Wehrmacht. [18] Additional manpower for Einsatzgruppe D came from Ukrainian auxiliary police formations. 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. They acted on their own. Over 90,000 murders are attributed to Ohlendorfs command, who testified to this effect during his trial at Nuremberg. The Registrar sits very still, his legs crossed, staring at the gallows. 2210: We wait, smoking and looking uneasily at the clock. Klein, Peter, ed. For the Nazi hunters -- the government investigators and prosecutors along with the freelance operatives who have tracked and exposed the perpetrators -- this magnifies the role of these remaining court cases. 2140: Graham receives confirmation from Heidelberg: proceed with executions. 2355: Quite a few people are now in the loft. Dehler indicated that an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court would be based on these alleged mistakes. This was not the unprecedented, continent-wide industrialized process of mass annihilation of Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Jews, Roma, and other victims were transported from all over to Europe to ultimately be gassed and cremated. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. Afterwards, Ohlendorf secured a position as director of research at the Institute for World Economy and Maritime Transport in Kiel. . In June 1941, Reinhard Heydrich appointed Ohlendorf to be commander of Einsatzgruppen D ((mobile killing unit D) which operated in southern Ukraine and Crimea. His job was to wait for a possible last-minute reprieve by the Supreme Court. [35][e] When gas van killing operations were conducted, it was usually at night to keep the population from witnessing the macabre affair. He is determined to prevent suicide. When Otto Friedrich Ohlendorf was born on 31 January 1893, in Millstadt, St. Clair, Illinois, United States, his father, Friedrich Ohlendorf, was 24 and his mother, Maria Schwab, was 21.