End of the Third Reich

Chapter 6 Riddles of the Third Reich: Otto Skorzeny

Some of them survived their husbands for decades, some died at the end of the war

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.

Himmler's career ended with a prison cell in which he committed suicide in 1945.
His widow married neo-Nazi Wulf-Dieter Burwitz and gave birth to two more "Aryans". Neither she nor her daughter renounced the ideas of fascism. In 1952, Gudrun participated in the creation of the Viking Youth organization, which was banned in 1994.

Eva Brown

The stately blonde Eva Braun was the wife of the Fuhrer for only 40 hours and had an age difference with him of 23 years. Born in the family of a school teacher in 1912. She graduated from the monastery school, went in for athletics. At the Institute of English ladies-in-waiting, she studied French and accounting. I quickly mastered the camera. Acquaintance with the Fuhrer happened in 1929 in a photo studio.

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".

Today it is "The Mysterious Disappearance of the Leaders of the Third Reich". The Second World War was coming to an end, the highest German officials realized that the defeat of Germany was inevitable. Then, in 1945, the Organization of Former SS Servicemen appeared. The task of this structure was to provide assistance to high-ranking German war criminals, the organization had enough material resources. Values ​​stolen in countries conquered during the war and others material resources the Nazis now spent on preparing and carrying out the illegal transfer of SS men away from retribution, for example, to Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.

SS-Sturmbannführer Fritz Paul Schwend

It should be emphasized that the former fascist leaders not only had the opportunity to escape punishment for their crimes. They also had chances to open their own business and become successful businessmen, because in many banks of the world they had opened secret deposits in advance. An example is the post-war life of SS-Sturmbannführer Fritz Paul Schwend. The track record of this criminal is mass executions of civilians. They searched for him vigorously, but in vain. Even during the war, P. Schwend organized a successfully functioning group in the economic department of the VI department of the RSHA. The basis of its activity was the sale of counterfeit money. Having acquired a solid account, P. Schwend also obtained forged documents. There were several of them: in the name of Vendich, Turi, Berkter and others. P. Schwend settled in Peru in the spring of 1945 and became the owner of a prosperous company.

However, not all German military officials managed to arrange their future fate so safely. Many of them were taken prisoner. For example, SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann was sent to an American transit camp. Nevertheless, he prepared to escape, and, it must be admitted, very successfully. Somehow (the circumstances of the escape remained unclear) he ended up in Latin America and lived there secretly for a long time. However, in the late 1950s. Israeli intelligence Mossad, or rather, first Khanokmin (punishing angels), a special Jewish unit, came on his trail. The fact is that even before the outbreak of World War II, A. Eichmann acted as an expert on Jewish issues of the Imperial Main Security Directorate. He (among other figures of the Third Reich) had the idea to turn Auschwitz into a place of the “final solution of the Jewish question”, that is, a place where people were massacred.

"Punishing Angels" specialized in searching for Nazi criminals who killed Jews in concentration camps. The Israeli secret services got on the trail of A. Eichmann quite by accident. One L. Herman, an Argentinean of Jewish origin who lived in Buenos Aires, said that his daughter's young man boasted that his father had great services to Germany during the Second World War. After checking, it turned out that the “honored Nazi” was none other than A. Eichmann. However, all data had to be carefully checked to make sure the identity of the perpetrator was genuine. But while decisions were being made in the intelligence structure on how best to deliver A. Eichmann (if this is the same Nazi) to Israel to do justice, A. Eichmann disappeared. Then several Mossad employees arrived in Argentina, and one of them, E. Elrom, was especially eager to catch the criminal, since all his relatives died in a concentration camp. Mossad agents had all the necessary information on A. Eichmann. They were aware of all his family holidays (birthdays, weddings, etc.), had a detailed verbal portrait. The agents did not have only A. Eichmann's photograph.

It should be said that Eichmann was ready to cooperate with Israeli agents, he frankly answered the questions asked of him, which were necessary for the subsequent trial of him. He was frightened and confused, kept repeating that he would either be shot or poisoned.
The search for A. Eichmann was crowned with success in 1959. The agents managed to establish that, under the guise of a bankrupt laundry owner, Eichmann lived in the same Buenos Aires, but already under the name of Ricardo Clement. Again, in order to obtain irrefutable evidence, R. Clement's house was monitored around the clock. The work of the agents was eventually crowned with success. Once R. Clement came home with a huge flower bouquet, as it turned out later, on the day of his silver wedding. The scouts checked their data and were finally convinced that this was the Nazi who managed to escape immediately after the war.

Mossad developed a plan of operation to capture A. Eichmann and deliver him to Israel. Israeli intelligence chief I. Harel flew to the capital of Argentina. The plan of the operation was thought out to the smallest detail, up to the organization of a special travel agency to deliver to Argentina under the guise of tourists a group of intelligence officers consisting of 30 people. Documents were prepared in advance for A. Eichmann. For the duration of the operation, a fleet of cars and other vehicles was specially rented.

One of the main points of the operation was the question of transporting A. Eichmann. The special services considered two options: by sea (but it took at least two months) and by the plane of the Israeli airline El Al, which was supposed to deliver the Israeli delegation to their homeland, who attended the celebrations on the occasion of the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Argentina's independence.

The beginning of the operation was scheduled for May 11, 1960. In the evening, on the street where Signor R. Clement lived, two cars stopped at some distance from each other. Their drivers began to fiddle with the motor. They were waiting for the bus in which A. Eichmann was supposed to arrive home. The former Nazi got off only the fourth bus, causing the scouts to get pretty worried. Everything happened in a matter of seconds. And Eichmann did not even have time to open his mouth, as he was dragged into the back seat. At the safe house, the scouts first of all checked the presence of A. Eichmann's personal number on his shoulder. In its place was a scar. However, A. Eichmann immediately confessed, explaining that he was the one they were looking for, and that he had destroyed his number while still in the American camp.

A. Eichmann signed a document confirming that he agreed to leave for Israel. The haughty and domineering SS man turned into a miserable and depressed person. Israeli intelligence could not be afraid that A. Eichmann would be searched for by his relatives: it was dangerous for them to contact the police, because then they had to admit that the wanted person was living on forged documents. Still, the scouts decided to play it safe. One of the crew members of the plane (of course, a dummy) was taken to the hospital with a "concussion." When he was discharged, a photo of A. Eichmann was pasted into the document. For the departure of other agents also prepared fake passports.

Just before the flight, A. Eichmann was injected with a tranquilizer, picked up by the arms and dragged on board the plane. The guard, who watched as the whole trio, laughing loudly and waving their arms, headed towards the plane, was quite surprised, but they explained to him that this was supposedly a reserve crew that would not take part in the flight and therefore allowed himself to drink pretty much. Since all three were indeed wearing El Al uniforms, no one bothered to check their documents. On May 11, 1961, the trial of the Nazi criminal A. Eichmann took place in Jerusalem. He was accused of mass extermination of people and sentenced to death by hanging.

SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Eduard Roschmann

For some time E. Roshman (about three years) lived in one of the European countries. Since he was considered dead, no one was looking for him. Perhaps not only because they believed in his death - the considerable sums in the accounts of the Organization could well slow down any search. Then E. Roshman received false documents and went to Latin America. He lived in Argentina for a year under the guise of a Swiss citizen Fritz Werner, then the “Swissman” suddenly disappeared. E. Roshman was reborn under the name of Federico Bernardo Wegner, an Argentine citizen. After some time, someone sent E. Roshman a check for a fabulous amount at that time - $ 50,000, and the sender could not be found. Needless to say, this was the work of the same Organization, which carefully took care of former colleagues.

With the money received from the Organization, E. Roshman went into business. His company "Stenler and Wegner" sent precious wood to European countries. It should be noted that the Argentine authorities were not too curious about the personality of E. Roshman - again due to the fact that the Organization protected its wards from the police of those countries in which they were hiding from the international court. So E. Roshman lived comfortably in Argentina for about 20 years. However, in the 1970s he was identified by one of the witnesses of the brutal reprisals of E. Roshman with his victims. This became known to the German authorities. Anti-fascist organizations stepped up their activities, and Argentina had to agree to the extradition of a war criminal to Germany: in the face of the world community, it was impossible to continue to shelter the German executioner.

E. Roshman undoubtedly knew that they were going to extradite him to Germany for trial (most likely, he was warned about this in advance). Further events developed according to the classic detective story. E. Roshman was visited by an unknown person and ordered to move to Paraguay. The instructions Roshman received were very clear and precise: to get on the bus in the evening, to arrive at the designated place to the owner of the Pes-Mar bar and wait for further instructions from him. E. Roshman did just that. He was settled in a secluded boarding house. For several months he lived in a new place, trying not to draw attention to himself. However, one day he felt bad - it looks like something with his heart. He was placed in one of the hospitals. Some time later he died there. When the police began to study the documents of the deceased, they discovered that this was not the gentleman he claimed to be. The Paraguayan police contacted the Argentinean, and the latter confirmed that the deceased was a war criminal to be extradited to Germany.

The ending of this story is not quite usual: the body of E. Roshman was suddenly somehow stolen from the morgue. This suggests that Roshman's death is the work of the Organization. And the autopsy could somehow put the police on the trail of the one who followed the instructions of the Organization and ended E. Roshman in the hospital.

Martin Borman

Witnesses gave directly opposite testimonies about whether M. Bormann was able to get out of Berlin. Whether this was done unconsciously or with a well-defined purpose is also a question. The main version is that M. Borman was wounded, but he did not stop, but continued to walk, but in the end he was still killed. Whether this happened on the outskirts of the capital, or even in the central part of the city, no one could definitely say. At the International Tribunal in Nuremberg, M. Bormann was sentenced to death in absentia, since the Nazi criminal himself was not present at the trial.

After some time, information began to leak into the press that M. Bormann did not die after all, but safely got out of Berlin. Regarding the further fate of M. Bormann, there are several versions. According to one of them, M. Bormann got a good job in Latin America.

According to other sources, M. Bormann made himself a plastic surgery and there was no need for him to hide in Latin America. There were witnesses who claimed that he moved freely around Europe. Other assumptions are based on the fact that M. Bormann was in fact none other than a Soviet intelligence officer. According to this version, in the 1920s. on the initiative of the German communist Ernst Thalmann, M. Bormann was sent to Leningrad under the name Karl. This action was known to a very narrow circle of people. Later, M. Bormann returned to Germany and gained so much confidence in the Fuhrer that he became his right hand.

Former member of the Reichstag Paul Heisslen claimed that M. Bormann showed up in Chile with documents in the name of Juan Gomez. This statement was disputed by the former Spanish diplomat in the UK, Ángel de Velasco. Allegedly, he helped M. Bormann get to Argentina. Along with Chile and Argentina, according to other sources, Paraguay appears.
When, on May 2, 1945, M. Bormann handed over to the Soviet Union a coded message in which he asked for help, he was rescued as a "Soviet intelligence officer" by the commander of the tank corps, General I. A. Serov. M. Borman lived in the Soviet Union for 27 years after the war, and after his death he was buried in the cemetery in Lefortovo. The author of the publication of the above facts was a certain B. Tartakovsky. However, he does not provide any serious and significant evidence.

More truthful is the assumption that M. Bormann committed suicide even when he was in surrounded Berlin. When he realized that there was no hope of salvation, he took potassium cyanide. This version is supported by a number of facts. Firstly, workers who in 1972 carried out construction work in one of the districts of Berlin discovered a skeleton. Traces of poison were found in the oral cavity of the deceased. M. Borman's personal dentist identified the denture, which was made by him personally. Secondly, the genetic examination carried out unambiguously confirmed that the remains belong to M. Bormann. Consequently, he died in Berlin on May 2, 1945.

SS Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller

Subsequently, specialists from the CIA came to G. Muler. They first established surveillance of Willi Kriechbaumann, who during the war was a subordinate of G. Müller, and found out that they meet periodically. After the war, V. Krichbauman was recruited by the West German intelligence - the BND, which was led by R. Gehlen. There is evidence that SS-Standartenführer Friedrich Panzinger, one of Müller's employees, began working in Gehlen's department after the war. During the Second World War, F. Panzinger was looking for Soviet intelligence officers and their German informants both in Germany itself and abroad. Thus, the exposure of Soviet agents in France and Belgium in 1942 was directly related to the activities of F. Panzinger, who was a very valuable personnel for Gehlen.

There is evidence that Gehlen wanted to get Muller himself into his department, since he knew very, very much. However, the CIA also became interested in G. Muller, and, most likely, it made him a more attractive offer. In any case, the American journalist Gregory Douglas found documents that indicate that contact was established between Mueller and one of the CIA employees.

The CIA, having previously made sure that G. Muller is perfectly versed in everything related to Soviet intelligence, and that the secret archives that he took out of Germany are of great value, made G. Muller an offer to become a CIA officer. G. Douglas believes that Muller agreed to this proposal, and as evidence of his version he cites the diaries of G. Muller allegedly found by him. In them, the former SS Gruppenfuehrer describes his marriage to an American from high society, his meetings with E. Hoover (CIA chief), Senator P. Macartney, and President G. Truman.

You can either believe or not believe the testimony of an American journalist, but the fact that American intelligence knew about the whereabouts of G. Muller is obvious. Moreover, some employees of the CIA, in the order, so to speak, of personal initiative, carried out their own searches. In the same time top management American intelligence kept all information about Muller strictly secret and prevented attempts by mid-level officers to get on his trail.

Another version concerning the life of G. Muller after the end of the war is based on the assumption that Muller collaborated with Soviet intelligence. SS Brigadeführer W. Schellenberg, head of SD foreign intelligence, claimed that Müller was recruited by the Soviets in the middle of World War II, and after the end of the war he joined the Communist Party, and that in 1948 he was seen in Moscow. There is no concrete evidence for any of these claims.

However, W. Schellenberg's statements are to a certain extent confirmed by the story of Rudolf Barak, who at that time (1950s) was in charge of Czechoslovak intelligence. On the instructions of the then head of the KGB, I. A. Serov, he and his employees carried out an operation to secretly transport G. Muller from Argentina to Moscow. Soviet scouts established and then conveyed to their Czechoslovak colleagues that Muller lives in Cordoba and, apparently, periodically changes his place of residence.

It turned out that he did not know Spanish very well. There was no exact information about his activities in Argentina. He could be in business, but there was no evidence to support this. R. Barak's employees managed to win the trust of G. Muller. When they made sure that in front of them was really the person they were looking for (according to the photo of Muller, one former Nazi), they mixed G. Muller with sleeping pills in a glass of wine and took him by plane to Prague. Then he was sent to Moscow.

R. Barak was sure that Muller began to cooperate with the KGB. However, the Czech does not provide specific facts. True, there was one nuance that deserves attention: when G. Muller was still in Prague, he exchanged a barely noticeable nod with A. Korotkov, the former resident of Soviet intelligence in Berlin before the war. It is noteworthy that R. Barak, after the operation to take Muller to Moscow, met with both A. Korotkov and N. Khrushchev (this was in 1958). But neither one nor the other said a word about the operation, which was carried out two years earlier.

Returning to the question of whether G. Müller really died in Berlin in May 1945, it should be noted that there is no definite answer. First of all, because, although the grave in which G. Müller was supposedly buried was found in Berlin, when it was dug up in 1963, not one, but three whole skeletons were found. Analyzes carried out by experts showed that none of them could belong to G. Müller. Therefore, the question of Muller's death in Berlin surrounded by Soviet troops remains without a definite answer.

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On November 20, 1945, the International Tribunal began its work in Nuremberg, trying the main Nazi war criminals. Prior to this, for several months, representatives of the victorious powers in World War II (the USSR, the USA, England and France) carefully studied the documents of the German departments, interviewed witnesses of Nazi crimes.

And now the accused were brought into the courtroom ...

The man who took the far left seat in the front row of the dock did not bear much resemblance to his former images in the ceremonial portraits. Once upon a time, his chest, hung with orders, was compared to a jewelry store window. Now he appeared before the international tribunal greatly emaciated, without shoulder straps and orders. For many years he was the second person in the Nazi hierarchy after Hitler, his official successor. called

this man Hermann Wilhelm Göring, former Reichsmarschall, former President of the Nazi Reichstag, former Commander of the German Air Force.

Goering was very firm before the tribunal. “I protect my face, not my head,” he once said. The chance of avoiding the death sentence was so small that "number two" apparently only really cared about what kind of memory he would leave about himself in history.

Goering differed from the other defendants in his biography. He was born in 1893 in Bavaria in the family of the former governor of the largest German colony - German South-West Africa. The Goerings were wealthy people who owned two castles in Bavaria and Austria.

Goering met World War I with the rank of infantry lieutenant, then moved to aviation, flew a reconnaissance aircraft, a bomber, and became a fighter pilot. For military merit and courage he was awarded many awards, including the highest German orders of that time. As one of the best pilots of Kaiser Germany, he was entrusted with the command of the famous Richthofen squadron at that time.

Then he was very popular in Germany, his photographs did not leave the pages of illustrated magazines. But in 1918 the war ended, and the "handsome Herman" was entered by the victorious powers into the list of war criminals. It turned out that his squadron dropped bombs on peaceful cities.

Like many front-line officers, Goering did not accept the revolution in Germany (November 1918), which overthrew Kaiser Wilhelm II and proclaimed a bourgeois-democratic republic. He declared the surrender of the new German Social Democratic government to the Entente a shameful act of betrayal. Goering categorically refused to serve in the Republican German army (Reichswehr) and left for Denmark, and from there to Sweden, where he earned a living by demonstration flights on orders from German aircraft manufacturing companies.

In 1921 Goering returned to Germany. In Munich, he met and became close friends with Hitler, who instructed him to lead the formation of assault troops. Goering was very successful in this field. During the Hitler putsch in Munich on November 8-9, 1923, he led one of the coup columns and was seriously wounded in a clash with the police. He managed to avoid arrest - his wife and friends managed to take him to Austria. There he spent a month and a half in the hospital. To relieve the severe pain that the wound caused him, the doctors had to inject him with morphine, as a result of which Goering developed a need for drugs, which he had to get rid of in the future with great effort.

Accused of high treason, Goering decided not to return to Germany. However, when in the fall of 1927 Hindenburg, who had been shortly elected President of Germany, announced a political amnesty, Goering immediately went to Bavaria and again established close contact with Hitler. He instructed him to provide the party with the support of leading industrial and political circles and sent him to Berlin.

In the capital Goering developed vigorous activity. Unlike other Nazis who tried to "conquer Berlin" at rallies and street fights, he acted at receptions and in salons. Origin, upbringing, erudition, connections - all this favorably distinguished him from other Nazi leaders. Goering managed to establish close relations with leading industrialists and bankers and use these connections in the interests of Hitler and the NSDAP.

In 1928 he was elected to the Reichstag from the Nazi Party. Skillful organizer, good

an orator, a skilled tactician, he made a huge contribution to the Nazi conquest of power and the establishment of the dictatorship of the NSDAP. Very quickly pushing back all his political competitors in the party, Goering soon becomes Hitler's right hand.

Many dark pages in the history of the Nazi regime are associated with the name of Goering. Litigation against the communists in connection with the burning of the Reichstag, the creation of concentration camps and the Nazi security service, the physical destruction of the leadership of the storm troopers in the summer of 1934, the confiscation of Jewish property, the taxation of the Jewish population of Germany with indemnities after the pogroms that occurred in November 1938, the management of economic preparations for war , the command of German aviation, which criminally destroyed peaceful cities, the robbery of occupied countries - Goering was personally responsible for all this and much more.

Unlike many of the figures who made up Hitler's entourage, Goering was not a die-hard Nazi dogmatist. This, however, did not prevent him from always unquestioningly carrying out the will of the Fuhrer. And Hitler highly appreciated his merits. On September 1, 1939, on the day Germany declared war on Poland, he appointed him his official successor, and on July 19, 1940, for the contribution made by Goering's aviation to the defeat of France, he awarded him the highest military rank of Reichsmarschall introduced especially for him.

However, then Goering's position in the Nazi leadership began to gradually weaken, mainly due to the military failures of the air force led by him.

In addition, Goebbels, Himmler and Bormann were increasingly weaving intrigues against Goering, each of whom aimed at the place of the Fuhrer's successor. As a result, his prestige in the eyes of Hitler, party members and the country's population began to decline. Goering increasingly gave rise to criticism in his address. The Reichsmarschall again began to use drugs, which could not but affect his qualities as a politician and personality. The craving for luxury, which was inherent in him before, took on more and more ugly forms. Rich villas stuffed with looted works of art, incredible toilets that were changed three times a day, buying up jewelry - all this looked monstrous against the backdrop of the disasters that “total war” brought to the German people. The former ace turned into a greedy money-grubber, and his rivals, no longer embarrassed, declared that he was dishonoring the National Socialist movement with his moral decay.

At the end of April 1945, when Berlin was surrounded by the Red Army and fighting took place on its streets, Goering flew to Bavaria and from there made an attempt to enter into negotiations with the Americans. The Reichsmarschall had a crazy idea that he could achieve a separate peace with the Western powers and, together with them, strike at the Red Army. But Goering's plans were thwarted not by the Americans, but by Hitler, who ordered the SS men to arrest the traitor. The Reichsmarschall was saved from the SS massacre by Luftwaffe officers loyal to him, to whom he turned for help. On May 9, he voluntarily surrendered to the American command.

Next to Goering in the dock sat another loyal paladin of the Fuhrer - Rudolf Hess. The behavior of this Nazi leader in court did not fit in with his appearance. Tall, athletically built, with a heavy gaze of deep-set eyes, he either pretended to be a mentally ill person and defiantly tried to commit suicide, then he referred to a complete loss of memory. At the request of the court, the doctors carefully examined the defendant and concluded that his actions were of a "consciously-intentional simulative nature." After that, Hess had no choice but to abandon the version of insanity.

Hess was born in 1894 in Alexandria in the family of a German merchant. He spent his childhood in Egypt, then studied at commercial schools in Switzerland and Germany. During the First World War, he volunteered for the front and served in the same regiment with Hitler, was wounded several times and rose to the rank of infantry lieutenant. At the end of the war he went to serve in aviation.

After the war, Hess decided to continue his commercial education and for this he moved to Munich. Here he fell under the influence of right-wing circles and again met with Hitler. In 1920 he joined the NSDAP. He sincerely admired Hitler and already in the early 20s. began to create around him the cult of the "great leader of the German nation."

Hess played an active role in the putsch of 1923 (see article "Adolf Hitler"). He was entrusted with the capture as hostages of several leaders of the Bavarian Republic. After the suppression of the putsch, he fled to Austria, but soon returned and was arrested. He was placed in the Landsberg prison, where Hitler was also kept. In prison, Hess, who had the skills of shorthand, wrote the manuscript of his future book“My struggle” (“Mein Kampf”), it included many of the thoughts of Hess himself. From that time on, he began to perform under Hitler, in fact, the duties of a personal secretary.

In 1932, the Fuhrer entrusted his faithful assistant and follower with the leadership of the newly created central party commission of the NSDAP, and in 1933 appointed him his deputy in the party. As head of the party office, Hess received the portfolio of a minister the same year.

In Nazi Germany, the power of Hess, Nazi number three, Hitler's official successor (after Goering), was enormous. On behalf of Hitler, Hess ran all the affairs of the Nazi Party. By a special decree of Hitler, he was entrusted with control over all the activities of the fascist government and other state bodies. Not a single order of the government, not a single law of the Reich was valid until they were signed by Hitler or Hess. Hess was entrusted with making decisions on behalf of the Fuhrer, he was declared "the absolute representative of the Fuhrer", and his office - "the office of the Fuhrer himself." With him, Hitler discussed all issues related to both domestic and foreign policy, and for all the crimes of Nazism, Hess was responsible to the same extent as Hitler and Goering.

Hitler completely trusted Hess. Therefore, preparing for an attack on the USSR, he entrusted him with a secret mission of particular importance - to achieve a truce with the British. On May 10, 1941, Hess secretly flew to Great Britain in a specially equipped fighter plane. However, this mission failed. The British rejected the German proposals, and the world community became aware of the arrival of Hess in England. Hitler had no choice but to declare his deputy in the party insane. In England, Hess was arrested, and after the end of the war, in the autumn of 1945, he was taken to Nuremberg, where he appeared before the International Tribunal that tried the main Nazi criminals.

Next on the list of defendants at Nuremberg was Joachim von Ribbentrop, the former Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany.

At the meetings of the International Tribunal, Ribbentrop behaved very modestly and even ingratiatingly, he was the first to jump up from his seat when the judges entered the hall. With all his appearance, he showed how crushed by the scale of suffering that befell mankind because of the criminal policy of Nazism. But as soon as the accuser reminded the former minister of his personal responsibility, he immediately assumed the pose of an innocently slandered person.

Ribbentrop was born in 1893 in the Rhineland into the family of an officer. After his father's resignation in 1908, the future Reich Minister lived in Switzerland and worked in England, the USA and Canada. This gave him a certain outlook, life experience and excellent knowledge of French and English which Hitler later appreciated so much in him.

With the outbreak of the First World War, Ribbentrop left all his business in America, where he headed a small export-import wine trade enterprise, and returned to Germany. He volunteered for the hussar regiment, participated in the battles in the East and Western fronts, was wounded, awarded the Iron Cross First Class and rose to the rank of Oberleutnant. At the end of the war, Ribbentrop was briefly used in the diplomatic service.

In 1919 Ribbentrop went into business. A profitable marriage with the daughter of the largest German champagne producer Otto Henkel opened up wide prospects for him. By 1925 Ribbentrop was already a successful businessman. Industrialists, politicians, journalists and cultural figures willingly visited his luxurious Berlin mansion. Until 1930, Ribbentrop was not involved in politics, although he sympathized with conservative parties. However, as the economy worsens

German Foreign Minister

Ribbentrop and Foreign Minister

Affairs of Italy Ciano. 1939

The economic and political crisis that had engulfed Germany since the late 1920s, he began to lean more and more towards the NSDAP. Since 1930, Hitler, Goering, Himmler and other Nazi leaders became frequent guests in Ribbentrop's house, and in May 1932 he himself joined the NSDAP. In January 1933, Ribbentrop played exclusively important role in bringing the Nazis to power. Negotiations were held in his house on the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor between the leaders of the NSDAP, on the one hand, and representatives of President Hindenburg and the right-wing bourgeois parties, on the other. Ribbentrop himself often took on the role of mediator in these complex negotiations.

For his services, he expected to receive a high post in the German Foreign Office. And he got it. Some time after coming to power, Hitler created a special foreign policy body of the NSDAP, which was supposed to operate in parallel with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He put Ribbentrop at its head, and this body itself received the name "Ribbentrop's bureau." The bureau was gradually filled with people from the SS, and Ribbentrop himself, who was close friends with Himmler, eventually received the very high rank of Obergruppenführer (general) of the SS.

In 1936, Ribbentrop was appointed German Ambassador to Great Britain, and in February 1938, German Foreign Minister. Since that time, he played an important role in the implementation of the aggressive plans of the "Third Reich". There was not a single criminal action of the German military, in the preparation and assistance of which, by means of diplomacy, Ribbentrop would not take part. The accession of Austria and the Czech Republic to the German Empire, the attack on Poland, the occupation of Denmark and Norway, Belgium and Holland, the defeat of France, the attack on Yugoslavia and Greece, the aggression against the USSR, the forging of aggressive blocs, the economic robbery of the occupied countries - the measure of Ribbentrop's personal responsibility for all these the crime was huge.

The ministry headed by him played a grim role in the extermination of Jews in the countries occupied and allied with Nazi Germany. In particular, in the spring of 1943, Ribbentrop insistently demanded that the Hungarian regent Horthy "complete" the anti-Jewish measures in Hungary. "Jews must be exterminated or exiled to concentration camps- there is no other option, ”Ribbentrop emphasized.

No less criminal were other, purely SS, affairs of the German Foreign Minister. For example, he reprimanded the Italian ambassador for insufficient cruelty in the fight against partisans and persistently advised without exception "to destroy gangs, including men, women and children, whose existence threatens the lives of Germans and Italians." Ribbentrop did not hesitate in the question of the fate of the British and American pilots shot down in the skies of Germany. He categorically insisted that they all be lynched on the spot.

In the first days of May 1945, Ribbentrop managed to escape. He went to Hamburg, where he took a room in an unremarkable house under the nose of the English military headquarters and led the life of a harmless layman. A former companion of Ribbentrop lived in Hamburg, and with his help the fugitive Reich Minister hoped to secure a safe hiding place for himself. However, the companion's son informed the occupying authorities of his appearance in the city, and on June 14, 1945, Ribbentrop was arrested.

On the dock in Nuremberg, in addition to Goering, Hess and Ribbentrop, there were about two dozen more Nazi politicians, diplomats and military men who played a key role in the life of the "Third Reich".

Here, next to Ribbentrop, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel is a typical representative of the Prussian military, the chief of staff of the German high command. It was he who gave orders to the troops not to stand on ceremony with the civilian population of the countries attacked by the Wehrmacht, to shoot on the spot everyone who offered resistance, as well as commissars and Jews.

Following him is Ernst Kaltenbrunner, SS Obergruppenführer, head of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) and the Security Police, Himmler's closest aide. From his office came directives on the extermination of millions of people in death camps, on the persecution of all opponents of Nazism.

Behind Kaltenbrunner is Alfred Rosenberg, Hitler's deputy for the "spiritual and ideological training" of members of the Nazi Party, the Imperial Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, one of the "ideological pillars" of National Socialism.

Next to him is Hans Frank, the Reichsleiter of the NSDAP on legal issues, the Imperial Minister of Justice, and the Governor General of Poland. At one time he was Hitler's lawyer at the trial in Munich after the failure of the putsch of 1923.

Side by side with Frank - Wilhelm Frick, one of the oldest figures in the Nazi Party, the head of its faction in the Reichstag even before Hitler seized power, then the Minister of the Interior of the Nazi government. He led the development of barbaric racial laws, which served as the "legal" basis for the persecution and destruction of entire peoples.

Behind Frick is Julius Streicher, Gauleiter, one of the founders of the NSDAP, an ideologue of anti-Semitism.

Further, Walter Funk is the Reich Minister of Economics, President of the Reichsbank and Plenipotentiary General for the War Economy. Under his leadership, weapons for the Wehrmacht were forged, and his Reichsbank accepted for storage gold rings and dental crowns taken from concentration camp victims.

Next to him is Hjalmar Schacht, the political representative of the German monopolies and banks under Hitler. Without the money that German industrialists and bankers transferred through this person to the cashier of the NSDAP, there would, perhaps, have been no Nazi dictatorship, no Wehrmacht armed to the teeth, no World War II.

No less representative is the second row of defendants.

Here are the grand admirals Karl Doenitz and Erich Raeder - state pirates who violated all maritime laws and customs, giving orders to sink civilian ships.

Beside them is Baldur von Schirach, organizer and leader of the Nazi youth organization "Hitler Youth", Gauleiter of the NSDAP and imperial governor in Vienna.

Following him is Fritz Sauckel, SS Obergruppenführer, General Commissioner for the Use of Manpower, who drove millions of people from the occupied countries to forced labor in Germany and did everything so that almost every one of those driven was worked out to death.

Behind him - Alfred Jodl, Colonel General, Chief of Staff of the Operational Command of the High Command armed forces, and Franz von Papen, the former Reich Chancellor, who opened the way to power for Hitler, and then the German ambassador to Austria and Turkey.

Next to Papen is Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a prominent figure in the Nazi Party, the imperial governor in Austria, deputy governor-general of Poland, imperial commissioner for the occupied Netherlands, a man who drowned the Polish and Dutch liberation movements in blood.

Behind him is Albert Speer, a close friend of Hitler, the Imperial Minister of Armaments and Ammunition, who created new types of weapons for the German army and supervised the development of rocket and nuclear weapons.

And two more - Konstantin von Neurath and Hans Fritsche. The first until 1938 was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany and helped Hitler take the very first steps in his aggressive foreign policy, and then was the Nazi protector of Bohemia and Moravia. The second served as Deputy Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, led radio propaganda in the "Third Reich".

But not all Nazi figures who could be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity were in the hall. Hitler and Goebbels committed suicide in a bunker under the Reich Chancellery, the first on April 30, the second on May 1, 1945. Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer SS, one of the most sinister figures of the Nazi regime, escaped trial by poisoning himself with potassium cyanide on May 23, 1945. During the investigation in the Nuremberg prison, Robert Ley, one of the leaders of the NSDAP, the head of the Nazi "labor front", hanged himself.

Martin Bormann, Hitler's secretary and closest adviser, who headed the NSDAP party office after Hess's flight to England, was not in the dock either. Bormann was sentenced in absentia. For many years it was believed that he managed to escape from Germany and hide somewhere abroad. Only in the early 70s. convincing evidence was obtained that he could not escape from encircled Berlin and on May 2, 1945 committed suicide (as

Many Nazi leaders, using potassium cyanide) under the Bridge of the Invalids in Berlin.

On October 1, 1946, the International Tribunal in Nuremberg finished its work and pronounced a sentence on the defendants. 12 of them were sentenced to death by hanging (Göring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, Bormann), 3 to life imprisonment (Hess, Funk, Raeder) . Doenitz, Schirach, Speer and Neurath received 10 to 20 years in prison, while Schacht, Papen, Fritsche, despite the objections of the Soviet judges, were acquitted.

An exceptional role in justifying Schacht was played by his close ties with American industrialists and bankers, as well as the desire of Western judges to exonerate the "captains of industry" of responsibility for the outbreak of war. If Schacht had been convicted, in retaliation he would certainly have told the public about the role of American capital in arming Germany on the eve of the war and about the connections maintained by the German and American monopolies during its years.

As for Fritsche and Papen, in comparison with other defendants, their guilt was much less, and they could not be charged with the gravest war crimes and conspiracy against peace and humanity. Fritsche was, in general, a small fry in the Nazi political apparatus, and Papen, a representative of the conservative Prussian elite, was not a member of the NSDAP. An important role in the justification of Papen was apparently also played by his close ties with industrial circles and the Catholic Church. It is known, in particular, that before the start of the Nuremberg trials, the Pope petitioned the American judge for Papen.

On October 16 of the same year, the death sentences handed down by the International Tribunal were carried out. Only Goering escaped hanging. Two hours before the execution, he committed suicide with the help of potassium cyanide, unknown by whom and how it was transferred to him in prison.

The convicts who escaped the death sentence were placed in the Spandau prison in Berlin. However, already in 1954, Neurath was pardoned, and in 1957-1958. Funk and Raeder sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1956, Doenitz was released after serving his term, and in 1966 Speer and Schirach were released. Only Rudolf Hess remained in prison. In subsequent years, a sharp political struggle unfolded around him. Right-wing forces in Germany and other Western countries began to insistently demand his pardon. However, the victorious powers refused to commute the sentence. Hess remained in prison until his death on August 17, 1987. With his death, the last page of the life of the political leaders of the "Third Reich" was closed.

REICHSTAG BURNING

At 9 pm on February 27, 1933, the 24-year-old Dutch anarchist Marinus van der Lubbe entered the Reichstag and, using special incendiary devices, set fire to a large meeting room in several places. The fire quickly engulfed the room, and the firefighters who arrived at the scene half an hour later could no longer cope with the flames that shot up to the very dome of the building. Hitler and other Nazi leaders immediately declared the burning of the Reichstag to be the work of the Communists, who allegedly wanted to give this action a signal for an uprising against the Nazi government. According to pre-prepared lists, about 4 thousand leading figures of the Communist Party of Germany were immediately arrested, and the KKE itself was deprived of all deputy mandates in the Reichstag. This was followed by mass arrests of ordinary communists. The KKE was almost completely destroyed. Those of its members who survived and did not come to terms with Nazism went underground and fought underground.

Who benefited from the burning of the Reichstag? The systematic defeat of the Communist Party after him - the main opponent of the NSDAP - suggests that he was primarily in the interests of the Nazi leadership. The opinion has been repeatedly expressed that the Nazis themselves staged this arson, using van der Lubbe only as a figurehead. This is also supported by the fact that an underground passage led from Goering's residence to the Reichstag, which could be used for provocation. And it's hard to imagine that one person could set fire to such a huge building. However, during the trial of the Reichstag fire, which took place in Leipzig in September-December 1933, neither the Nazi leaders nor the communists who were in the dock could provide convincing evidence that van der Lubbe did not act alone: ​​the Nazis could not to prove the involvement of the communists, the communists - the participation of the Nazis. After the war, the issue of the Reichstag fire was carefully investigated by an international commission headed by the famous Swiss historian Hofer, but even she failed to refute the version of the sole responsibility of the Dutch anarchist.

The Nazi elite tried to turn the trial of the Reichstag fire into a show trial of German communists and leaders of the Communist International, who were in Germany at that time (Georgy Dimitrov and others). Goering was the main witness at this trial. However, the plans of the Nazis failed. Dimitrov and his comrades not only refuted all the accusations against them, but also used the court session to expose Nazism. The court was forced to fully acquit them.

Van der Lubbe was sentenced to death. On January 10, 1934, the Nazis carried it out. In the post-war period, the van der Lubbe case was considered several times by West German courts. In 1967, it was finally recognized that the punishment was too harsh.