The most cruel woman in the world Ilse Koch is a Nazi pervert (6 photos). Nuremberg is not for everyone: Why the most notorious Nazi criminals were able to escape punishment

Hess. What hardships did the Nazi criminal experience in prison?

I acknowledge my guilt.

Meru. Degree. Depth.

And ask me to guide

for the current war.

But preferably in July.

And preferably - in the Crimea!

Leonid Filatov "About Fedot the archer, a daring young man"

Rudolf Hess - the second man in the Nazi Party - was sentenced by the Nuremberg Tribunal to life imprisonment. He spent the longest time in the Spandau prison of all Nazi criminals - more than forty years. At the mention of the prison, the imagination of most readers surely draws a cramped and dirty cell, a meager ration of the prisoner. rude supervisors. Moreover, in relation to Nazi criminals, all these restrictions and deprivations are perceived as a triumph of justice. How else? The executioner and fanatic was condemned and punished, which means that he must suffer for many years in order to realize the gravity of the crimes committed and repent of his deed!

However, all ideas about that Nazi No. 2 actually experienced hardship during his long imprisonment is largely a delusion. Hess was limited in contacts and movement. As for living conditions, they were much more comfortable than those in which the majority of citizens of the Soviet Union that won World War II lived.

It is possible to judge the “hardships” of punishment that befell Nazi No. 2 based on the stories of people who, on duty, were next to him. For example, to the memoirs of retired lieutenant colonel Margarita Nerucheva.

The prison was a castle located in the English sector of Berlin. For a month, the main surviving fascist leader was guarded in turn by American, British, French and Russian units. There were 27 people on guard at the building - officers and conscripts. In addition, there was also an internal administration in the amount of 23 people: guards, translators, a lawyer, a gardener, cooks, and medical staff. There was not a single German among them: according to the conditions worked out by the Nuremberg Tribunal, they were forbidden to enter the prison territory.

At the time of the start of M. Nerucheva's business trip, three prisoners remained in the prison, designed for 600 prisoners - Schirach, Speer and Hess. They were housed in an indoor block about 30 meters long with 32 cameras. To prevent the prisoners from passing any information to each other, there were empty rooms on both sides of each occupied cell.

The prisoners were kept alone, but attended churches and walked together.

According to German law, convicts must work every day, except for Sundays and public holidays. Initially, occupational therapy consisted of prisoners sitting at a long table gluing envelopes. They were not allowed to talk. But it was recommended to combine work with reading, so one of the criminals serving a sentence read aloud some book that was allowed by censorship. Subsequently, the prisoners worked in the garden, which, in fact, was an additional stay in the fresh air.

Hess never worked. He walked along the paths of the garden or, citing malaise, sat on a bench, fixing his eyes on one point. Margarita Nerucheva said that she witnessed a curious scene: Nazi No. 2 was sweeping the corridor. That alone was amazing. It is not known for what reasons he took up the broom - perhaps he felt remorse in front of his party comrades, who, unlike him, did not shy away from work ... However, Hess's labor enthusiasm did not last long: he collected garbage in a scoop and, furtively looking around - Is anyone watching? - angrily scattered it again ...

The Nazi criminals ate the same way as the prisoners of other German prisons. Although the former allies purchased products at their own discretion. The Soviet division of the Nazis did not indulge - no delicacies - but they kept the regime and the diet very strictly. The Americans, on their duty, fed the prisoners in much the same way as employees and guests in the officers' canteen. They brought fresh tomatoes even in winter, bought milk in Denmark. The criminals convicted by the Nuremberg Tribunal literally ate on prison grub. In one of his letters to his mother, Speer wrote: “Unfortunately, my abdomen is starting to appear ... and again the old question of weight arose before me.” Doctors who observed the prisoners were unanimous that in such conditions they could live to be 100 years old.

Restrictions on contacts for isolated Nazis were also not very severe. Each week, the prisoners had the right to send and receive one letter containing no more than 1300 words. At the same time, it was necessary to write in German, legibly, without abbreviations, numbers and shorthand. The content of the letters was limited to personal matters. In addition, the prisoners were given a half-hour visit with their loved ones every month.

Schirach and Speer valued these meetings very much. As for Hess, to the surprise of the staff, for more than 20 years he has never invited either his wife or son to come to Spandau. Hess explained it this way: "I consider it unworthy to meet anyone under such circumstances." The first time he asked for a meeting with his family was in 1969, when he became seriously ill and feared death. After recovering, Hess no longer refused to visit relatives.

He did not repent of anything, continued to idolize Hitler and subordinated his stay in prison to one goal: even after death, to remain in the memory of generations the same as he was during the years of the Third Reich. An example is Hess's letter to his wife. From it, the censor, on duty, cut out the following words: "If I had to start life over, I would repeat everything." On March 9, 1972, he spoke about this to M. Nerucheva: “I think the same about my activities as before. There were no concentration camps during my time, all the complications occurred after my flight to England. However, I must note that they were and are in other countries, including the USSR .... With regard to racial politics and genocide - here we were absolutely right, and this is confirmed by the current unrest in the United States. We didn't want this to happen in Germany. The Germans are a Nordic race, and we could not allow the mixing of Germans and Jews, representatives of another race. Our policy was correct. I still hold these views."

During another meeting with M. Nerucheva, on July 25, 1973, he stated: “I had nothing against the Russians before, but I always believed and adhere to this opinion to this day: the Soviet system is an evil that must be destroyed. As one of the leaders of the Reich, I believed that the Soviet Union was a threat to my country. That is why we decided to deliver a preemptive strike, and if there were atrocities of the Germans in Russia, then this is inevitable in any war ... "

Despite the fact that Rudolf Hess never took the true path, remaining a fascist in his soul, over the years the attitude towards him became softer and softer.

Petr Lipeyko, who served in the unit that guarded the Spandau from 1985 to 1987, described in sufficient detail the conditions under which the Nazi criminal was kept during this period. And, I must say, not every sanatorium cares about the health of vacationers as much as in prison they worried about the Nazi criminal Rudolf Hesse.

The room in which he was kept can only be called a cell with a big stretch. It consisted of five (!) Rooms, among which were a bedroom, a lounge, a library, where there were many books on astrology - the last hobby of Nazi No. 2. He read four leading German newspapers, listened to the radio, watched a large Japanese TV. The prisoner was entitled to two two-hour walks a day in an inner garden no smaller than a football field.

Hess behaved arrogantly, and sometimes defiantly. He was very unfriendly towards the guards: he openly disliked the British, did not talk to the Russians at all, and ignored the Americans. More or less tolerant, he treated only the French and sometimes even communicated with them. Also, the old fascist demanded that junior guards salute. The British quite seriously observed the subordination, the Americans turned everything into a joke, the Russians, of course, did not favor the Nazis.

P. Lipeyko described his first meeting with Rudolf Hess as follows: “He was walking towards me along a narrow path, and one of us had to give way. Here even some anger came over me: why should I, an officer in the army of the victorious country, have to do this? We stopped, and I saw from under shaggy eyebrows an attentive and authoritative look beyond my years. Hess studied the newcomer for a few moments, then slowly left the path. It is interesting that after this “duel” he began to greet me, although the old Nazi never greeted Russians.

Hess was served by two personal chefs - an Afghan and a Yugoslav. The food was exquisite, but the prisoner did not express any special gastronomic preferences. True, on holidays - at Christmas, on his birthday - he began to act up: either they brought him a Christmas tree not with such needles, then give him a rare grape variety. And the American unit, which for some reason considered it necessary to please the prisoner with all its might, sometimes drove the plane across Europe.

The fascist criminal was not refused even when he asked to install an elevator in the prison building. Hess explained this by the fact that it was difficult for him, an old man, to overcome a ladder about 1.5 m high every day, returning after a walk to his “apartments”. So that the eminent prisoner would not feel offended, the elevator was immediately installed ...

And the prisoner was very fond of walking. A small house was built especially for him in the garden. Inside were a few chairs, a table, and a lamp with a shade so that the aged Hess could read the newspapers that were regularly delivered to him by the ever-changing commandants of the prison.

Nazi No. 2 took great care of his health. He regularly went to the hospital located in the English zone of West Berlin for examination. In the basement of Spandau, the coffin ordered for the prisoner rotted away, and Rudolf Hess lived and lived and was going to live on. When in 1984 his 90th birthday was widely celebrated in Germany, the motto “Forward, towards the centenary!” sounded quite seriously. However, given the conditions of detention of the eminent prisoner described above, an impression was created. that all the staff of the prison dreamed of prolonging his life.

Hess's health was monitored by medical specialists from the four victorious countries attached to Spandau. As a last resort, a plan called "Paradox" was developed. It provided for emergency measures, including resuscitation, if the prisoner becomes ill - the age was very respectable.

Lieutenant Colonel F. V. Kozlikov said that medical examinations of the prisoner were carried out by an international council of doctors at least once a month. Physicians from each of the winning countries presided in turn. Initially, the protocol of the previous examination of Hess was considered. It is noteworthy that this document did not mention the name of the prisoner, but his number: prisoner No. 7. Then Rudolf stood up and read out a previously prepared text. In it, he informed the doctors about his health and expressed complaints and wishes regarding treatment. All these issues were immediately discussed, and the necessary decisions were made. After that, the actual medical examination of the prisoner was carried out.

Regular examinations, adjustment of appointments, balanced nutrition - the classic cardiological diet - all this was intended to provide Rudolf Hess with a Methuselah age. And it should be said that for a 93-year old man he had good health. He had arthritis, an inguinal hernia and osteochondrosis, but no life-threatening diseases were diagnosed in the Nazi criminal. By the way, this was confirmed by the autopsy. The English professor Cameron, who was about sixty years old, then philosophically remarked: "My internal organs, perhaps, look worse."

Thus, the statements of Hess Jr. that “my father spent most of his life in cruel, inhuman conditions of imprisonment, but his spirit and mind remained unbroken” are only half true. That. that Rudolf Hess remained unbroken and showed no remorse. obviously. But with regard to the inhumanity of prison conditions, one can argue ...

Frau Lampshade - Ilse Koch. In 1937, in the Buchenwald concentration camp, Ilse gained notoriety for her cruelty towards prisoners. The prisoners said that she often walked around the camp, distributing lashes to everyone she met in striped clothes. Sometimes Ilse took a hungry ferocious shepherd with her and set it on pregnant women or exhausted prisoners, she was delighted with the horror experienced by the prisoners. It is not surprising that behind her back they called her the bitch of Buchenwald.
Frau Koch was inventive and constantly came up with new tortures, for example, she regularly sent prisoners to be torn to pieces by two Himalayan bears in a state zoo. But this lady's true passion was tattoos. She ordered the male prisoners to undress and examined their bodies. She was not interested in those who did not have tattoos, but if she saw an exotic pattern on someone's body, then her eyes lit up, because this meant that she was facing another victim. Later, Ilse was nicknamed Frau Lampshade. She used the dressed skin of murdered men to create a variety of household utensils, which she was extremely proud of. She found the skin of gypsies and Russian prisoners of war with tattoos on the chest and back to be the most suitable for crafts. This allowed us to make things very decorative. Ilse especially liked the lampshades.
One of the prisoners, the Jew Albert Grenovsky, who was forced to work in the pathological laboratory of Buchenwald, said after the war that the prisoners selected by Ilse with tattoos were taken to the dispensary. There they were killed using lethal injections. There was only one reliable way to keep the bitch from getting on the lampshade - to mutilate her skin or die in the gas chamber. To some, this seemed like a blessing. Bodies of artistic value were taken to the pathological laboratory, where they were treated with alcohol and carefully skinned. Then it was dried, lubricated with vegetable oil and packed in special bags. And Ilse, meanwhile, improved her skills. She began to create gloves, tablecloths and even openwork underwear from human skin. I saw the tattoo that adorned Ilse's panties on the back of one gypsy from my block, - said Albert Grenovsky.
Apparently, Ilse Koch's savage entertainment became fashionable among her colleagues in other concentration camps, which multiplied in the Nazi empire like mushrooms after rain. It was a pleasure for her to correspond with the wives of the commandants of other camps and give them detailed instructions on how to turn human skin into exotic book bindings, lampshades, gloves or tablecloths.

In March 2015, Soren Kam, a Nazi war criminal, died at large. A member of the SS Viking unit, Kam was found guilty of murdering a Danish newspaper editor. He fled to Germany, obtaining citizenship and avoiding all attempts to bring him back to Denmark to answer for crimes for which his accomplices had already been executed.

Those who seek justice are making unprecedented efforts to find anyone.

Ivan Demyanuk.

The recent event has become very significant for those who still want to restore some kind of justice, and this happened mainly because of the verdict in the case of Ukrainian Ivan Demjanjuk.

Until the end, it was not clear who Demjanjuk was and what he was responsible for, so the court argued about whether they needed a person in front of them. Ultimately, Demjanjuk was convicted of complicity in the murder of over 28,000 people at the Sobibor concentration camp in Poland. The court declared that it had sufficient evidence, including an identity card, to prove that he was a guard between March and September 1943 and that while he was there 28,000 people were killed.

This case has set an incredible precedent for prosecution. Demjanjuk's case was the first time that a court found a person guilty, despite there being no direct link or evidence between the accused and a specific crime. There was nothing to indicate that he was an active participant in the killings, but prosecutors in Germany argued that his role as a guard in a camp where the only goal was murder was enough to convict him of complicity.

It also set a precedent for the prosecution of concentration camp guards like Demjanjuk. After this incident, wearing a uniform and being in a camp was enough to make a man guilty. It also ran counter to an earlier precedent in 1976, when SS commander Karl Streibel was acquitted of war crimes after claiming he did not know what soldiers were actually trained in.

But as in the following cases, Demjanjuk died at large, in a German nursing home in the resort town of Bad Feilnbach at the age of 92.

Heinrich Boer.

In March 2010, 88-year-old Heinrich Boer was sentenced to life imprisonment for three murders committed while he was an SS officer in the Netherlands.

According to Boer, he did carry out the murders for which he was accused, but he acted on orders from superiors when he shot the chemist Fritz Biknese, the Dutch resistance member Frans Custers, and the bicycle dealer Théun de Groot, who helped the Jews of Aachen. Boer stated that he was ordered to kill all three for their part in the resistance, but the prosecutors were able to convince the court that the killings were completely random and committed against civilians who posed absolutely no threat to any of the SS officers.

These three men were killed in 1944, and justice had to wait a very long time. Boer was arrested after the end of the war, when he admitted his involvement, but nevertheless managed to escape to Germany, where repeated attempts to extradite him for trial failed. In 1949, he was sentenced to death in absentia, and although the sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment, it was not until 2008 that he was charged. For a time, he tried to avoid trial on health grounds, but medical experts ruled that not only was he perfectly healthy to attend court, he was also healthy enough to begin serving his prison sentence. In December 2011, he was transferred from a nursing home to a prison hospital. He died in December 2013 while still in the prison hospital.

Bauer also stated that at the time he did not think he was doing anything wrong, although his opinion has now changed. According to the judge's statements, he did not appear to be a repentant man.

Oscar Groening.

"The child... He is not the enemy. The enemy is the blood in him."

In early 2005, Auschwitz's accountant, Oskar Groening, gave an interview to the BBC in which he explained how it was that even the smallest, most innocent of children were included in the Nazi policy of mass extermination. The trial against him began in April 2015 and he is accused of being an accessory to the murder of at least 300,000 people. Groening, now 93, started working in Auschwitz when he was 21 and was responsible for the money and property confiscated from those who were sent to the camp.

Groening's case is rather strange. After the war, he gave up his military life and went to work in a glass factory. He retired without telling anyone about his work at Auschwitz until he heard stories about the Holocaust denial movement. Then he witnessed the atrocities that so many people suddenly began to deny. He spoke freely and openly about the gas chambers, about the process of choosing those condemned to death, and about crematoria. He saw them all, and unlike so many wearing Nazi uniforms, he talked about what they had done.

He also claims that he had nothing to do with the actual murders that took place in the camp. In 1980 he was charged with war crimes. Those charges were dismissed, but the precedent set by Demjanjuk's verdict means that no matter what his actual role was, the fact that the "accountant of Auschwitz" was there and witnessed the atrocities means he can be found guilty.

Hans Lipshis.

Now Hans Lipszys is 95 years old and was arrested in 2013 for links to Auschwitz. Prosecutors allege that he was a concentration camp guard, while Lipszys claims that he was only a cook. While he stated that he knew nothing about what was going on in the camp, the Simon Wiesenthal Center placed him on a list of the most wanted Nazi war criminals. The court decided that there was enough evidence supporting his four-year stay in Auschwitz to come to his home and arrest him.

Lipshis lived in Germany; after the war, he went to Chicago, but was forced to leave the United States when his connection with the Nazis was discovered. Even though the courts and the government knew of his whereabouts, it wasn't until Demjanjuk's verdict that they were able to bring charges strong enough to arrest him. Among the evidence presented to the court are his documents indicating that he was a member of the SS and was in Auschwitz, even though it was rumored that he spent most of the war fighting on the eastern front. Lipshis, who is of Lithuanian descent, has also been given "ethnic German" status, something of a privileged status among those not born in Germany.

After his arrest, he ended up in a prison hospital. Before visiting the court, Lipshis was diagnosed with the initial stage of dementia. Doctors said that he was unlikely to even understand what was happening in court, and considered him incompetent for the trial.

Vladimir Katryuk.

According to a recent study, it was found that Vladimir Katryuk was an active and voluntary participant in the well-known massacre in Khatyn. Khatyn, a village in Belarus, was punished by Germany for its anti-Hitler stance when, in 1943, German troops entered the village and massacred all its inhabitants. Researchers identify Katryuk as an active participant in the massacre, describing his role as a machine gunner and evidence that indicates that he shot anyone who tried to escape from the burning barn into which they were herded.

Evidence links Katryuk to this and other atrocities; he is also on the official list of Nazi war criminals that the Simon Wiesenthal Center wants to prosecute. But the Canadian government, where Katryuk now lives, refused to extradite him.

Katryuk lived in Quebec for many years, earning a living mainly by working in the apiary. He went to Canada in 1951 under an assumed name, and even though the government knew, at least in 1999, that he had falsified his data on the application for Canadian citizenship, they did not find a specific reason for revoking citizenship. Katryuk constantly refused to talk about anything but his bees. His only comment on the accusations: "Let them talk."

In the case of Katryuk, evidence linking him to the Khatyn massacre was plentiful, but the Canadian government was clearly dragging its feet when investigating the 92-year-old beekeeper. He's not the only one with whom Canada got into a puddle. In 2009, Canada rejected an attempt to revoke the citizenship of Nazi guard Vasil Odinskiy. This led to accusations by the country that it would rather allow a Nazi war criminal to cross its borders than a Jewish refugee.

Theodor Zhekhinskiy.

Theodore Rzechinsky lived quite comfortably in an apartment complex in West Chester, Pennsylvania, USA, despite a long-standing deportation warrant based on his being a member of the SS Battalion.

In 2000, a process began against him, the purpose of which was the prosecutor's desire to cancel his citizenship in the United States. Rzechinsky initially claimed to have been a forced laborer on an Austrian farm during the war and was never a member of the Nazi Party, but archival documents show that he left the farm much earlier than he claimed and served as a guard at Gross-Rosen in Warsaw and Sachsenhausen. In addition to this, he was responsible for transport for transporting prisoners. These documents invalidated his immigrant visa, but he managed to get citizenship, settled near Philadelphia and worked for General Electric. In 1958 he was naturalized.

Along with documents indicating that he served in the Skull Battalion and was in concentration camps, many surviving prisoners testified against him. One of the testimonies was Sidney Glucksman. He was 12 at the time and described how the guards put babies and children in bags and then beat them; other prisoners were then ordered to separate the remains of the bodies from their clothing.

Then the court canceled his citizenship and appointed deportation, no one wanted to accept him.

Since there was nowhere to send him, Zhechinsky remained in the United States. In 2013, his address was still the same, although neighbors claim they haven't seen him in years. Now he must be over 90 years old, and it remains unclear what eventually happened to him and whether he is alive at all.

Charles Zentai.

Elderly Australian Charles Zentai avoided extradition and charges of war crimes thanks to bureaucratic delays. According to a 2012 ruling by the Australian High Court, the accused ex-soldier of the Third Reich could not be extradited because "... at the time he committed his crimes, there was no definition of 'war crimes' in Hungarian law", where, as the accuser claims he committed crimes.

According to Dr. Ephraim Zuroff and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Zentai was an officer in the Hungarian army in 1944. Then known as Karol Zentai, he was actively wanted in Budapest. He was charged with the murder of 18-year-old Peter Balac. Witnesses identified Zentai, who, along with other officers, attacked Balats for being Jewish and not wearing a yellow star on his clothes. The teenager was beaten to death, and the body was thrown into the Danube.

After the war, Zentai's accomplices were punished. One of them received a death sentence and the other a life sentence; Zentai meanwhile fled to Australia. In 2005, an international arrest warrant for Zentai was issued and he was arrested, but the extradition was constantly delayed by Zentai's lawyers, who pointed to his poor health. Again and again the court ruled that he should be extradited to Hungary, and again and again he and his family appealed against the decision. By 2010, a federal judge ruled that extradition was not possible.

His family claims that he is more than happy to answer questions, and he still claims that he did not kill Balac and that he was not even in Budapest at the time of the murder.

Algimantas Daylide.

The trial of ex-Lithuanian secret police officer Algimantas Dailide began in 2005. He was accused of arresting Jews who tried to leave Nazi-ruled Vilnius and then handing them over to Nazi authorities. Daylide lived in the United States with his family until 2003. He became a US citizen in 1955, and prior to his discovery by the Office of Special Investigations, he was a real estate agent in Florida.

After leaving the US, he and his wife settled in a small German town, still on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's most wanted list of Nazi war criminals. His name is registered in the archives of Lithuania and a lot of evidence has been found that his claim of innocence is a lie. The Lithuanian government made only a couple of attempts to subpoena him, but Dailide said he could not afford to travel from Germany to Lithuania. He also spoke of poor health, mentioning high blood pressure and chronic back pain. He later claimed to be the only caregiver for his wife, who had cancer and Alzheimer's.

According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, there is more to this story. Lithuania, they argue, is simply unwilling to prosecute Nazi war criminals, and when it comes to Germany's ability to expel Dailide, this becomes generally unlikely. And all because, thanks to the agreement of the EU countries that a person must pose a significant danger to the country before this happens, this is simply not realistic in the case of elderly criminals who are not a threat to anyone at the moment. And given the age and poor health, it is absolutely impossible.

Ernst Pistor, Fritz Jauss and Johan Robert Riess.

On August 23, 1944, Nazi troops carried out the bloodiest massacre of World War II on Italian soil. Approximately 184 civilians, including 27 children and 63 women, were shot after the discovery of the Padule di Fucecchio resistance fighters. A year later, a British officer named Charles Edmonson returned to collect testimonies from those who had survived. Villagers who survived the massacre told stories of children, including the story of a two-year-old baby crying in the arms of his mother who was shot by German soldiers a minute later. He kept these testimonies, and when he died in 1985, they ended up in an Italian court.

The documents contain the names of Ernst Pistor, Fritz Jauss, Johan Robert Riess and Gerard Deissman. All were found guilty in absentia and sentenced to life in prison. Deissman died during the investigation, and as for the others, the Italian court stated that they were sure that they would never see them sitting in prison. The remaining trio live in Germany and Italy has no legal right to force Germany to extradite them. The court also demanded that the German government pay compensation to the 32 survivors of the massacre, but Germany refused, citing immunity agreements that had been negotiated with Italy.

Riess lives in a small village south of Munich. He spends his retirement gardening, and the neighbors are skeptical about the charges he was convicted of. They had known him for decades, and even though he gardened on his own, he was given medical leave and released from Italian persecution on health grounds. Jauss lives in a nursing home near Riss, and when someone says war, they both deny their involvement.

In a rather unfortunate coincidence, the hospital that gave Riess a medical certificate exempting him from persecution is the former "Kaufbeuren hospital", which was the main medical facility for the Nazi T-4 project to get rid of children who did not meet Aryan standards.

Zirth Bruins.

A 92-year-old former SS officer, Zirt Bruins, was recently put on trial for his war crimes.

The hearing in the 1944 murder of a Dutch resistance fighter named Aldert Klaas Dijkem, who was shot in the back after being captured by the Bruins squad, took place last year. Although he admits that he served in the SS and that he was there, he claims that someone else killed Dijkem.

This is not the first time he has been under investigation. In 1949 he was given the death penalty for his war crimes. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, but he never spent a day in prison because Bruins fled to Germany, where he was granted citizenship thanks to Hitler's policy of naturalizing foreigners who worked with the Nazis. In the 1980s he was sentenced to seven years in prison for other murders of Jews in 1945, but the sentence was ultimately never carried out. The case against him was dropped due to lack of witnesses and lack of direct evidence.

The verdict was pretty disappointing, especially considering how long it took to find the Bruins. Even though Nazi hunters discovered him living under an alias in 1978, killing a civilian resistance fighter was not even considered a crime until a precedent was set. The need for changes in law and precedent, along with the age of the ex-Nazis, makes it possible to use the last chance to restore justice.

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Are you looking for this? Perhaps this is what you could not find for so long?

The international trial of the former leaders of Nazi Germany took place from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946 at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg (Germany). The original list of defendants included the Nazis in the same order that I have in this post. On October 18, 1945, the indictment was handed over to the International Military Tribunal and transmitted through its secretariat to each of the accused. A month before the start of the trial, each of them was handed an indictment in German. The defendants were asked to write on it their attitude towards the prosecution. Raeder and Lay didn't write anything (Ley's response was, in fact, his suicide shortly after the charges were brought), and the rest wrote what I have on the line: "Last word."

Even before the start of the court hearings, after reading the indictment, on November 25, 1945, Robert Ley committed suicide in the cell. Gustav Krupp was declared terminally ill by the medical board, and the case against him was dismissed pending trial.

Due to the unprecedented gravity of the crimes committed by the defendants, doubts arose whether all democratic norms of legal proceedings should be observed in relation to them. The UK and US prosecutions proposed not to give the defendants the last word, but the French and Soviet sides insisted on the opposite. These words, which have entered into eternity, I will present to you now.

List of accused.

Hermann Wilhelm Goering(German: Hermann Wilhelm Göring), Reich Marshal, Commander-in-Chief of the German Air Force. He was the most important defendant. Sentenced to death by hanging. 2 hours before the execution of the sentence, he was poisoned by potassium cyanide, which was transferred to him with the assistance of E. von der Bach-Zelevsky.

Hitler publicly declared Göring guilty of failing to organize the air defense of the country. April 23, 1945, based on the Law of June 29, 1941, Goering, after a meeting with G. Lammers, F. Bowler, K. Koscher and others, turned to Hitler by radio, asking for his consent to accept him - Goering - as head of the government . Goering announced that if he did not receive an answer by 22 o'clock, he would consider it an agreement. On the same day, Goering received an order from Hitler forbidding him to take the initiative, at the same time, on the orders of Martin Bormann, Goering was arrested by an SS detachment on charges of treason. Two days later, Goering was replaced as commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe by Field Marshal R. von Greim, stripped of his ranks and awards. In his Political Testament, on April 29, Hitler expelled Goering from the NSDAP and officially named Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz as his successor in his place. On the same day he was transferred to a castle near Berchtesgaden. On May 5, the SS detachment handed over Göring's guards to the Luftwaffe units, and Göring was immediately released. May 8 arrested by American troops in Berchtesgaden.

The last word: "The winner is always the judge, and the loser is the accused!".
In his suicide note, Goering wrote "The Reichsmarshals are not hanged, they leave on their own."

Rudolf Hess(German: Rudolf Heß), Hitler's deputy in charge of the Nazi Party.

During the trial, lawyers declared that he was insane, although Hess gave generally adequate testimony. Was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Soviet judge, who issued a dissenting opinion, insisted on the death penalty. He was serving a life sentence in Berlin in the Spandau prison. After the release of A. Speer in 1965, he remained her only prisoner. Until the end of his days he was devoted to Hitler.

In 1986, the government of the USSR, for the first time since Hess was imprisoned, considered the possibility of his release on humanitarian grounds. In the autumn of 1987, during the presidency of the Soviet Union in the Spandau International Prison, it was supposed to take a decision on his release, "showing mercy and demonstrating the humanity of the new course" of Gorbachev.

On August 17, 1987, 93-year-old Hess was found dead with a wire around his neck. He left a testamentary note handed over to his relatives a month later and written on the back of a letter from his relatives:

"A request to the directors to send this home. Written a few minutes before my death. I thank you all, my beloved, for all the dear things you have done for me. Tell Freiburg that I am extremely sorry that since the Nuremberg trial I have to acted as if I didn't know her. I had no choice, because otherwise all attempts to gain freedom would have been in vain. I was so looking forward to meeting her. I did receive her photo and all of you. Your Senior."

The last word: "I don't regret anything."

Joachim von Ribbentrop(German: Ullrich Friedrich Willy Joachim von Ribbentrop), Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler's foreign policy adviser.

He met Hitler at the end of 1932, when he gave him his villa for secret negotiations with von Papen. With his refined manners at the table, Hitler impressed Ribbentrop so much that he soon joined the NSDAP, and later the SS. On May 30, 1933, Ribbentrop was awarded the title of SS Standartenführer, and Himmler became a frequent visitor to his villa.

Hanged by the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal. It was he who signed the non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, which Nazi Germany violated with incredible ease.

The last word: "Wrong people charged."

Personally, I consider him the most disgusting type that appeared at the Nuremberg trials.

Robert Lay(German: Robert Ley), head of the Labor Front, by whose order all trade union leaders of the Reich were arrested. He was charged with three counts - conspiracy to wage a war of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity. He committed suicide in prison shortly after the indictment, before the actual trial, by hanging himself from a sewer pipe with a towel.

The last word: refused.

(Keitel signs the act of unconditional surrender of Germany)
Wilhelm Keitel(German: Wilhelm Keitel), Chief of Staff of the Supreme High Command of the German Armed Forces. It was he who signed the act of surrender of Germany, which ended the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War in Europe. However, Keitel advised Hitler not to attack France and opposed the Barbarossa plan. Both times he resigned, but Hitler did not accept it. In 1942, Keitel dared to object to the Fuhrer for the last time, speaking in defense of Field Marshal Liszt, defeated on the Eastern Front. The Tribunal rejected Keitel's excuses that he was only following Hitler's orders and found him guilty of all charges. The sentence was carried out on October 16, 1946.

The last word: "An order for a soldier - there is always an order!"

Ernst Kaltenbrunner(German: Ernst Kaltenbrunner), head of the RSHA - SS Imperial Security Main Office and State Secretary of the German Imperial Ministry of the Interior. For numerous crimes against the civilian population and prisoners of war, the court sentenced him to death by hanging. On October 16, 1946, the sentence was carried out.

The last word: "I am not responsible for war crimes, I was only doing my duty as the head of the intelligence agencies, and I refuse to serve as a kind of Himmler's ersatz."

(on right)

Alfred Rosenberg(German Alfred Rosenberg), one of the most influential members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), one of the main ideologists of Nazism, Reich Minister for the Eastern Territories. Sentenced to death by hanging. Rosenberg was the only one of the 10 executed who refused to give the last word on the scaffold.

The last word in court: "I reject the 'conspiracy' charge. Anti-Semitism was only a necessary defensive measure."

(in the center)

Hans Frank(German Dr. Hans Frank), head of the occupied Polish lands. On October 12, 1939, immediately after the occupation of Poland, he was appointed by Hitler as head of the administration for the population of the Polish occupied territories, and then as governor general of occupied Poland. He organized the mass destruction of the civilian population of Poland. Sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out on October 16, 1946.

The last word: "I view this trial as a God-pleasing supreme court to sort out and bring to an end the terrible period of Hitler's rule."

Wilhelm Frick(German Wilhelm Frick), Minister of the Interior of the Reich, Reichsleiter, head of the NSDAP deputy group in the Reichstag, lawyer, one of Hitler's closest friends in the early years of the struggle for power.

The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg held Frick responsible for bringing Germany under Nazi rule. He was accused of drafting, signing and enforcing a number of laws prohibiting political parties and trade unions, creating a system of concentration camps, encouraging the activities of the Gestapo, persecuting Jews and militarizing the German economy. He was found guilty on counts of crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. On October 16, 1946, Frick was hanged.

The last word: "The whole accusation is based on the assumption of participation in a conspiracy."

Julius Streicher(German Julius Streicher), Gauleiter, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Sturmovik" (German Der Stürmer - Der Stürmer).

He was charged with inciting the murder of Jews, which fell under Charge 4 of the process - crimes against humanity. In response, Streicher called the process "the triumph of world Jewry." According to the test results, his IQ was the lowest of all the defendants. During the examination, Streicher once again told psychiatrists about his anti-Semitic beliefs, but he was found to be sane and capable of answering for his actions, although obsessed with an obsession. He believed that the accusers and judges were Jews and did not try to repent of his deed. According to the psychologists who conducted the survey, his fanatical anti-Semitism is rather a product of a sick psyche, but on the whole he gave the impression of an adequate person. His authority among the other defendants was extremely low, many of them frankly shunned such an odious and fanatical figure as he was. Hanged by the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal for anti-Semitic propaganda and calls for genocide.

The last word: "This process is the triumph of world Jewry."

Hjalmar Shacht(German Hjalmar Schacht), Reich Minister of Economics before the war, Director of the National Bank of Germany, President of the Reichsbank, Reich Minister of Economics, Reich Minister without portfolio. On January 7, 1939, he sent a letter to Hitler stating that the course pursued by the government would lead to the collapse of the German financial system and hyperinflation, and demanded that financial control be transferred to the Reichs Ministry of Finance and the Reichsbank.

In September 1939 he strongly opposed the invasion of Poland. Schacht reacted negatively to the war with the USSR, believing that Germany would lose the war for economic reasons. November 30, 1941 sent Hitler a sharp letter criticizing the regime. January 22, 1942 resigned as Reich Minister.

Schacht had contacts with conspirators against the Hitler regime, although he himself was not a member of the conspiracy. On July 21, 1944, after the failure of the July Plot against Hitler (July 20, 1944), Schacht was arrested and held in the Ravensbrück, Flossenburg and Dachau concentration camps.

The last word: "I don't understand why I've been charged."

This is probably the most difficult case, on October 1, 1946, Schacht was acquitted, then in January 1947, the German denazification court was sentenced to eight years in prison, but on September 2, 1948, he was nevertheless released from custody.

Later he worked in the German banking sector, founded and headed the banking house "Schacht GmbH" in Düsseldorf. June 3, 1970 died in Munich. We can say that he was the luckiest of all the defendants. Although...

Walter Funk(German Walther Funk), German journalist, Nazi Minister of Economics after Schacht, President of the Reichsbank. Sentenced to life imprisonment. Released in 1957.

The last word: "Never in my life have I, either consciously or out of ignorance, done anything that would give rise to such accusations. If, out of ignorance or as a result of delusions, I committed the acts listed in the indictment, then my guilt should be considered from the perspective of my personal tragedy but not as a crime.

(right; left - Hitler)
Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach(German: Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach), head of the Friedrich Krupp concern (Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp). From January 1933 - press secretary of the government, from November 1937 the Reich Minister of Economics and Commissioner General for War Economy, simultaneously from January 1939 - President of the Reichsbank.

At the trial in Nuremberg, he was sentenced by the International Military Tribunal to life imprisonment. Released in 1957.

Karl Doenitz(German: Karl Dönitz), Grand Admiral of the Third Reich Fleet, Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, after Hitler's death and in accordance with his posthumous will - President of Germany.

The Nuremberg Tribunal for war crimes (in particular, the conduct of the so-called unlimited submarine warfare) sentenced him to 10 years in prison. This verdict was contested by some jurists, as the same methods of submarine warfare were widely practiced by the victors. Some of the Allied officers, after the verdict, expressed their sympathy to Doenitz. Doenitz was found guilty on the 2nd (crime against peace) and 3rd (war crimes) counts.

After his release from prison (Spandau in West Berlin), Doenitz wrote his memoirs "10 years and 20 days" (meaning 10 years of command of the fleet and 20 days of the presidency).

The last word: "None of the charges has anything to do with me. American inventions!"

Erich Raeder(German Erich Raeder), Grand Admiral, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy of the Third Reich. On January 6, 1943, Hitler ordered Raeder to disband the surface fleet, after which Raeder demanded his resignation and was replaced by Karl Doenitz on January 30, 1943. Raeder received the honorary position of chief inspector of the fleet, but in fact he had no rights and obligations.

In May 1945, he was taken prisoner by Soviet troops and transferred to Moscow. By the verdict of the Nuremberg trials, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. From 1945 to 1955 in prison. Petitioned to replace his prison sentence with execution; the control commission found that "it cannot increase the punishment." January 17, 1955 released for health reasons. Wrote memoirs "My Life".

The last word: refused.

Baldur von Schirach(German: Baldur Benedikt von Schirach), head of the Hitler Youth, then Gauleiter of Vienna. At the Nuremberg trials, he was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He served his entire sentence in the Spandau military prison in Berlin. Released September 30, 1966.

The last word: "All troubles - from racial politics."

I fully agree with this statement.

Fritz Sauckel(German: Fritz Sauckel), leader of the forced deportations to the Reich of labor from the occupied territories. Sentenced to death for war crimes and crimes against humanity (mainly for the deportation of foreign workers). Hanged.

The last word: "The gap between the ideal of a socialist society, hatched and defended by me, in the past a sailor and a worker, and these terrible events - concentration camps - deeply shocked me."

Alfred Jodl(German: Alfred Jodl), Chief of the Operations Department of the Supreme High Command of the Armed Forces, Colonel General. At dawn on October 16, 1946, Colonel-General Alfred Jodl was hanged. His body was cremated, and the ashes were secretly removed and scattered. Jodl took an active part in planning the mass extermination of civilians in the occupied territories. On May 7, 1945, on behalf of Admiral K. Doenitz, he signed in Reims the general surrender of the German armed forces to the Western Allies.

As Albert Speer recalled, "Jodl's accurate and restrained defense made a strong impression. It seems that he was one of the few who managed to rise above the situation." Jodl argued that a soldier cannot be held responsible for the decisions of politicians. He insisted that he honestly fulfilled his duty, obeying the Fuhrer, and considered the war a fair cause. The tribunal found him guilty and sentenced him to death. Before his death, in one of his letters, he wrote: "Hitler buried himself under the ruins of the Reich and his hopes. Let whoever wants to curse him for this, but I can't." Jodl was fully acquitted when the case was reviewed by the Munich court in 1953 (!).

The last word: "The mixture of just accusations and political propaganda is regrettable."

Martin Borman(German: Martin Bormann), head of the party chancellery, accused in absentia. Chief of Staff of the Deputy Fuhrer "since July 3, 1933), head of the NSDAP Party Chancellery" since May 1941) and Hitler's personal secretary (since April 1943). Reichsleiter (1933), Reich Minister without Portfolio, SS Obergruppenführer, SA Obergruppenführer.

An interesting story is connected with it.

At the end of April 1945, Bormann was with Hitler in Berlin, in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery. After the suicide of Hitler and Goebbels, Bormann disappeared. However, already in 1946, Arthur Axman, the head of the Hitler Youth, who, together with Martin Bormann, tried to leave Berlin on May 1-2, 1945, said during interrogation that Martin Bormann died (more precisely, committed suicide) in front of him on May 2, 1945.

He confirmed that he saw Martin Bormann and Hitler's personal physician, Ludwig Stumpfegger, lying on their backs near the bus station in Berlin where the battle was taking place. He crawled close to their faces and clearly distinguished the smell of bitter almonds - it was potassium cyanide. The bridge over which Bormann was going to escape from Berlin was blocked by Soviet tanks. Bormann chose to bite through the ampoule.

However, these testimonies were not considered sufficient evidence of Bormann's death. In 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg tried Bormann in absentia and sentenced him to death. The lawyers insisted that their client was not subject to trial, since he was already dead. The court did not consider the arguments convincing, considered the case and delivered a verdict, while stipulating that Bormann, in the event of detention, has the right to file a request for pardon within the prescribed time frame.

In the 1970s, while laying a road in Berlin, workers discovered the remains, which were later tentatively identified as the remains of Martin Bormann. His son - Martin Borman Jr. - agreed to provide his blood for DNA analysis of the remains.

The analysis confirmed that the remains really belong to Martin Bormann, who really tried to leave the bunker and get out of Berlin on May 2, 1945, but realizing that this was impossible, he committed suicide by taking poison (traces of an ampoule with potassium cyanide were found in the teeth of the skeleton). Therefore, the "Bormann case" can safely be considered closed.

In the USSR and Russia, Borman is known not only as a historical person, but also as a character in the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring" (where Yuri Vizbor played him) - and, in this regard, a character in jokes about Stirlitz.

Franz von Papen(German: Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen), German chancellor before Hitler, then ambassador to Austria and Turkey. Was justified. However, in February 1947, he again appeared before the denazification commission and was sentenced to eight months in prison as the main war criminal.

Von Papen tried unsuccessfully to restart his political career in the 1950s. In his later years he lived in Benzenhofen Castle in Upper Swabia and published many books and memoirs trying to justify his policies in the 1930s, drawing parallels between this period and the beginning of the Cold War. He died on May 2, 1969 in Obersasbach (Baden).

The last word: "The accusation horrified me, firstly, by the realization of irresponsibility, as a result of which Germany was plunged into this war, which turned into a world catastrophe, and secondly, by the crimes that were committed by some of my compatriots. The latter are inexplicable from a psychological point of view. It seems to me that the years of atheism and totalitarianism are to blame for everything. It was they who turned Hitler into a pathological liar."

Arthur Seyss-Inquart(German: Dr. Arthur Seyß-Inquart), chancellor of Austria, then imperial commissioner of occupied Poland and Holland. In Nuremberg, Seyss-Inquart was charged with crimes against peace, planning and unleashing a war of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was found guilty on all counts except criminal conspiracy. After the announcement of the verdict, Seyss-Inquart admitted his responsibility in the last word.

The last word: "Death by hanging - well, I did not expect anything else ... I hope that this execution is the last act of the tragedy of the Second World War ... I believe in Germany."

Albert Speer(German: Albert Speer), Imperial Reich Minister for Armaments and War Industry (1943-1945).

In 1927, Speer obtained a license as an architect at the Technische Hochschule Munich. Due to the depression taking place in the country, there was no work for the young architect. Speer updated the interior of the villa free of charge to the head of the headquarters of the western district - NSAC Kreisleiter Hanke, who, in turn, recommended the architect Gauleiter Goebbels to rebuild the meeting room and furnish the rooms. After that, Speer receives an order - the design of the May Day rally in Berlin. And then the party congress in Nuremberg (1933). He used red panels and the figure of an eagle, which he proposed to make with a wingspan of 30 meters. Leni Riefenstahl captured in her documentary-staged film "The Victory of Faith" the grandeur of the procession at the opening of the party congress. This was followed by the reconstruction of the NSDAP headquarters in Munich in the same 1933. Thus began Speer's architectural career. Hitler looked everywhere for new energetic people who could be relied upon in the near future. Considering himself a connoisseur of painting and architecture, and possessing some abilities in this area, Hitler chose Speer in his inner circle, which, combined with the latter's strong careerist aspirations, determined his entire future fate.

The last word: "The process is necessary. Even an authoritarian state does not remove responsibility from each individual for the terrible crimes committed."

(left)
Constantin von Neurath(German Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath), in the early years of Hitler's reign, Minister of Foreign Affairs, then Viceroy in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

Neurath was accused in the Nuremberg Court of having “assisted in the preparation of war, … participated in the political planning and preparation by the Nazi conspirators of aggressive wars and wars in violation of international treaties, … authorized, directed and took part in war crimes … and in crimes against humanity, … including in particular crimes against persons and property in the occupied territories.” Neurath was found guilty on all four counts and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. In 1953, Neurath was released due to poor health, aggravated by a myocardial infarction suffered in prison.

The last word: "I have always been against accusations without a possible defense."

Hans Fritsche(German: Hans Fritzsche), Head of the Press and Broadcasting Department in the Ministry of Propaganda.

During the fall of the Nazi regime, Fritsche was in Berlin and capitulated along with the last defenders of the city on May 2, 1945, surrendering to the Red Army. He appeared before the Nuremberg trials, where, together with Julius Streicher (due to the death of Goebbels), he represented Nazi propaganda. Unlike Streicher, who was sentenced to death, Fritsche was acquitted on all three charges: the court considered it proven that he did not call for crimes against humanity, did not participate in war crimes and conspiracies to seize power. Like the two others acquitted at Nuremberg (Hjalmar Schacht and Franz von Papen), Fritsche, however, was soon tried for other crimes by the denazification commission. After receiving 9 years in prison, Fritsche was released for health reasons in 1950 and died of cancer three years later.

The last word: "This is a terrible accusation of all time. Only one thing can be worse: the coming accusation that the German people will bring against us for abusing their idealism."

Heinrich Himmler(German: Heinrich Luitpold Himmler), one of the main political and military figures of the Third Reich. Reichsführer SS (1929-1945), Reich Minister of the Interior of Germany (1943-1945), Reichsleiter (1934), head of the RSHA (1942-1943). Found guilty of numerous war crimes, including genocide. Since 1931, Himmler has been creating his own secret service - the SD, at the head of which he put Heydrich.

From 1943, Himmler became the Imperial Minister of the Interior, and after the failure of the July Plot (1944), he became the commander of the Reserve Army. Beginning in the summer of 1943, Himmler, through his proxies, began to make contacts with representatives of Western intelligence agencies in order to conclude a separate peace. Hitler, who learned about this, on the eve of the collapse of the Third Reich, expelled Himmler from the NSDAP as a traitor and deprived him of all ranks and positions.

Leaving the Reich Chancellery in early May 1945, Himmler went to the Danish border with someone else's passport in the name of Heinrich Hitzinger, who had been shot shortly before and looked a bit like Himmler, but on May 21, 1945 he was arrested by the British military authorities and on May 23 committed suicide by taking potassium cyanide .

Himmler's body was cremated and the ashes scattered in a forest near Lüneburg.

Paul Joseph Goebbels(German: Paul Joseph Goebbels) - Reich Minister of Public Education and Propaganda of Germany (1933-1945), imperial propaganda leader of the NSDAP (since 1929), Reichsleiter (1933), penultimate chancellor of the Third Reich (April-May 1945).

In his political testament, Hitler appointed Goebbels as his successor as chancellor, but the very next day after the suicide of the Fuhrer, Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide by poisoning their six young children. "There will be no act of surrender under my signature!" - said the new chancellor, when he learned about the Soviet demand for unconditional surrender. May 1 at 21 o'clock Goebbels took potassium cyanide. His wife Magda, before committing suicide after her husband, told her young children: "Don't be afraid, now the doctor will give you an inoculation, which is given to all children and soldiers." When the children, under the influence of morphine, fell into a half-asleep state, she herself put a crushed ampoule with potassium cyanide into the mouth of each child (there were six of them).

It is impossible to imagine what feelings she experienced at that moment.

And of course, the Fuhrer of the Third Reich:

Winners in Paris

Hitler behind Hermann Göring, Nuremberg, 1928.

Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Venice, June 1934.

Hitler, Mannerheim and Ruthie in Finland, 1942.

Hitler and Mussolini, Nuremberg, 1940.

Adolf Gitler(German: Adolf Hitler) - the founder and central figure of Nazism, founder of the totalitarian dictatorship of the Third Reich, Fuhrer of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from July 29, 1921, Reich Chancellor of National Socialist Germany from January 31, 1933, Fuhrer and Reich Chancellor of Germany from August 2 1934, Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces in World War II.

The generally accepted version of Hitler's suicide

On April 30, 1945, in Berlin surrounded by Soviet troops and realizing complete defeat, Hitler, together with his wife Eva Braun, committed suicide, having previously killed his beloved dog Blondie.
In Soviet historiography, the point of view was established that Hitler took poison (potassium cyanide, like most Nazis who committed suicide), however, according to eyewitnesses, he shot himself. There is also a version according to which Hitler and Brown first took both poisons, after which the Fuhrer shot himself in the temple (thus using both instruments of death).

Even the day before, Hitler gave the order to deliver canisters of gasoline from the garage (to destroy the bodies). On April 30, after dinner, Hitler said goodbye to people from his inner circle and, shaking hands with them, retired to his apartment with Eva Braun, from where the sound of a shot was soon heard. Shortly after 3:15 pm, Hitler's servant Heinz Linge, accompanied by his adjutant Otto Günsche, Goebbels, Bormann and Axmann, entered the Fuhrer's quarters. Dead Hitler sat on the couch; there was a blood stain on his temple. Eva Braun lay next to her, with no visible external injuries. Günsche and Linge wrapped Hitler's body in a soldier's blanket and carried it into the garden of the Reich Chancellery; Eve's body was carried out after him. The corpses were placed near the entrance to the bunker, doused with gasoline and burned. On May 5, the bodies were found on a piece of blanket sticking out of the ground and fell into the hands of the Soviet SMERSH. The body was identified, in part, with the help of Hitler's dentist, who confirmed the authenticity of the corpse's dentures. In February 1946, Hitler's body, along with the bodies of Eva Braun and the Goebbels family - Joseph, Magda, 6 children, was buried at one of the NKVD bases in Magdeburg. In 1970, when the territory of this base was to be transferred to the GDR, at the suggestion of Yu. V. Andropov, approved by the Politburo, the remains of Hitler and others buried with him were dug up, cremated to ashes and then thrown into the Elbe. Only the dentures and part of the skull with the entrance bullet hole (discovered separately from the corpse) survived. They are stored in the Russian archives, as well as the side handles of the sofa on which Hitler shot himself, with traces of blood. However, Hitler's biographer Werner Maser expresses doubts that the discovered corpse and part of the skull really belonged to Hitler.

On October 18, 1945, the indictment was handed over to the International Military Tribunal and transmitted through its secretariat to each of the accused. A month before the start of the trial, each of them was handed an indictment in German.

Results: international military tribunal sentenced:
To death by hanging: Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Seyss-Inquart, Bormann (in absentia), Jodl (who was fully acquitted posthumously, when the case was reviewed by a Munich court in 1953).
To life imprisonment: Hess, Funk, Raeder.
By 20 years in prison: Schirach, Speer.
To 15 years in prison: Neurata.
To 10 years in prison: Denica.
Justified: Fritsche, Papen, Shakht.

Tribunal recognized as criminal organizations SS, SD, SA, Gestapo and the leadership of the Nazi Party. The decision to recognize the Supreme Command and the General Staff as criminal was not made, which caused the disagreement of the member of the tribunal from the USSR.

A number of convicts filed petitions: Goering, Hess, Ribbentrop, Sauckel, Jodl, Keitel, Seyss-Inquart, Funk, Doenitz and Neurath - for pardon; Raeder - on the replacement of life imprisonment with the death penalty; Goering, Jodl and Keitel - about replacing hanging with execution if the request for pardon is not granted. All of these applications were denied.

The death penalty was carried out on the night of October 16, 1946 in the building of the Nuremberg prison.

Having passed a guilty verdict on the main Nazi criminals, the International Military Tribunal recognized aggression as the gravest crime of an international character. The Nuremberg trials are sometimes referred to as the "Court of History" because they had a significant impact on the final defeat of Nazism. Funk and Raeder, sentenced to life imprisonment, were pardoned in 1957. After Speer and Schirach were released in 1966, only Hess remained in prison. The right-wing forces of Germany repeatedly demanded that he be pardoned, but the victorious powers refused to commute the sentence. On August 17, 1987, Hess was found hanged in his cell.

The wives of the leaders of the Third Reich had different fates and different beliefs. They were next to those whose names are rightly ostracized today. Some of them survived their husbands for decades, some died at the end of the war.

Magda Goebbels

Magda Goebbels (Ritschel) is considered the most outstanding of the Nazi wives. The blond beauty was born in 1901. She was brought up in the monastery of the Ursulines in Vilvoorde, she loved her Jewish stepfather and kept his last name - Friedländer.
Beliefs changed as easily as men. For the sake of marriage with restaurateur Günter Quandt, she became a Protestant. Then she threw herself into the arms of Khaim Arlozorov and divorced.
In 1928, she heard the speeches of Joseph Goebbels and was carried away by him. It was the union of beauty and the beast: Goebbels was not distinguished by health and beauty, he was a clubfoot. Hitler insisted on the marriage, who believed that the appearance of the “true Aryan” would become the hallmark of the Third Reich.

The marriage was concluded on December 19, 1931. The couple were united by a lust for power, ambition and ... children. There were seven of them, and all of them were named after Hitler with the letter "H": Harold, Helga, Hilda, Helmut, Holda, Hedda and Haida.
In 1938, Magda received the German Mothers' Cross of Honor. She personified the "ideal Aryan" and made speeches on the radio.
She did not share her husband's ideas to exterminate the Jews, but remained faithful to him and the Fuhrer.
On May 1, 1945, when the collapse was obvious, she dressed all the children in cold blood, and then the doctor gave them lethal injections. Goebbels chose not to see this. Then he shot himself, and Magda poisoned herself. Why she did not leave the children alive is still a mystery.

Elsa Hess

Elsa Hess (Pröl) was the daughter of a wealthy doctor. Born in 1900. She became one of the first students at the University of Munich. Studied German philology. In 1920, she was fond of the Nazi Rudolf Hess, joined the NSDAP.

Hitler also played a major role in concluding the marriage. The marriage took place on December 20, 1927 in Munich. 10 years later, the Fuhrer became the godfather of the Hesses' son, Wolf.
She was a real companion. Visited Hitler and Hess in prison, took out and reprinted "Mein Kampf." She was not left without the support of the Fuhrer after her husband's escape to Scotland, she received a pension. In 1947 she was arrested and placed in a camp in Augsburg. A year later, being at large, she moved to Allgäu, where she opened a boarding house. Until her death in 1995, she remained a staunch fascist.

Emma Goering

Emma Goering (Sonnemann) was born in 1894 in the family of a chocolate magnate. In her youth, she became interested in theater, married the actor Karl Kestlin, and divorced. Until the age of 38, she played in the theater in Weimar.

She met Gestapo founder Hermann Goering in 1932. Thanks to him, she transferred to the Berlin theater. In 1936, Goering married her on the orders of Hitler, who believed that there were "too many bachelors" among his associates. He drowned his wife in stolen luxury after she gave birth to his daughter Edda.

A member of the party, Emma justified her husband in every possible way, but continued to be friends with the Jews and some of them owe her their lives.
After the defeat of the Nazis, Goering was convicted and committed suicide by taking cyanide. Emma was arrested in 1947 and charged with genocide, but was released in the courtroom. In 1967, she wrote the book Life with My Husband. She died in 1973.

Elsa Koch

Elsa Koch (Köhler), the wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald and Majdanek concentration camps, Karl Koch, was called the "Buchenwald Witch" and "Frau Lampshade".
Born in a Dresden worker's family, after school she worked as a librarian. Member of the NSDAP since 1932. In 1936 she married Koch, became a guard in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, then a senior warden. She was cruel to prisoners, poisoned them with dogs, and beat them. It is believed that on her orders, prisoners with tattoos were killed, from the skin of which bindings and lampshades were made.

In 1943 the Kochs were arrested by the SS. Koch was accused of murdering a doctor, corruption and executed, Elsa was acquitted.
In 1947, she was arrested by the Americans, but was soon released. She was re-arrested in 1951, she was sentenced to life imprisonment. She hanged herself in 1967 in the Eichach prison in Bavaria.

Gerda Bormann

Hitler's personal secretary Martin Bormann's wife, Gerda Bormann, was the daughter of
Chairman of the Supreme Party Court of the NSDAP, Walter Buch, and she was brought up on the ideas of Nazism. She was a head taller than her husband.
I met him at the age of 19. A year later, she got married, and at the same time joined the party. Witnesses at the wedding were Hitler and Hess. She gave birth to 9 children. She put forward the idea of ​​polygamous marriage in the interests of the state and called for several marriages at once. She did not pay attention to her husband's intrigues and gave advice on how best to turn novels.

Before the collapse of the Nazis, she fled to South Tyrol, where she contracted cancer and died from mercury poisoning, which was used in chemotherapy. The children were adopted by a priest.

Margaret Himmler

Margaret Himmler (von Boden) was a Prussian aristocrat who in 1928 had a share in a homeopathic clinic. Having married Heinrich Himmler, who was 8 years younger than her, she was forced to sell the business. Himmler bought a farm, chickens and tried to force his wife to live in subsistence farming, but it did not work out. A year later, their daughter Gudrun was born.

Became Hitler's mistress in 1931. Twice she tried to commit suicide - once by shooting herself in the neck, the second time - by poisoning herself with pills. In 1936 she became Hitler's personal secretary. Seriously engaged in photography and filming. In June 1944, British intelligence still considered her to be just a secretary.
She married Hitler on April 29, 1945 in a bunker in Berlin. Bormann and Goebbels became witnesses. The charred bodies of the "newlyweds" fell into the hands of the Soviet administration. The remains were finally destroyed in 1970, during the operation "Archive" (you can read about it at the link).