Holocaust Research Information IV

Key People in the Holocaust

Hans Frank

Hans Frank

• Born in 1900

• Became a lawyer and worked as the legal counsel for the Nazi Party.

• Appointed by Hitler to research his family’s background to make sure there was no Jewish blood in him.

• Became Hitler’s personal lawyer.

• He was appointed the governor of Poland after it came under Nazi control.

• Ordered the Jews be segregated into ghettos.

• Ordered the executions of thousands of Polish people as political dissidents.

• He saw problems with the Nazi SS going beyond legal boundaries and tried to resign his position fourteen times, but Hitler wouldn’t accept his resignation.

• After WWII he was sentenced to death by hanging for crimes against humanity.

• He was the only Nazi to admit remorse for his role in the Holocaust.

• Frank said that the atrocities committed by the Nazis were so great that in a thousand years the guilt of the German people wouldn’t be removed.

• Hans Frank was executed on October 1, 1946.

Heinrich Himmler

• Born in Munich, Germany in 1900.

• He originally wanted to be a farmer and acquired a college degree in agronomy.

• He took part in the Beer Hall Putsch.

• In 1929 Hitler appointed him leader of the SS which had 300 men and served as Hitler’s bodyguards. By 1933 he had expanded the SS to 50,000 men.

• In 1936 he consolidated all of the police forces in Germany. He was Chief of the German police as well as the Gestapo. His power was limitless.

• In charge of security forces in all of the camps.

• He was one of Hitler’s most loyal men.

• Hitler called him, “der treue Heinrich.” (loyal Heinrich)

• Hitler entrusted Himmler to carry out the Final Solution.

• Himmler really wasn’t anti-Semitic, but he carried out his orders with his customary thoroughness and efficiency.

• He formed the Einsatzgruppen to mass murder the Jews.

• He decided that gas was the most efficient and cost effective way to kill Jews.

• Excerpt from a speech by Himmler made on October 4:

“I am talking about the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. It is one of those things that is easily said. ‘The Jewish people are being exterminated,’ every Nazi Party member will tell you. ‘Perfectly clear, it’s part of our plans. We’re eliminating the Jews, exterminating them, a small matter.’”

• Toward the end of the war, Himmler tried to negotiate a peace through the World Jewish Congress.

• He attempted to escape from Germany in May 1945, but he was captured by the British.

• He bit into a cyanide capsule that he had hidden in his mouth and died.

Herman Goering (Goring)

• Born in Roseheim, Bavaria in 1893.

• His father was a military career man, so Herman grew up going to military schools.

• He entered the army in 1912 and in 1915 he entered the air corps and flew fighter planes in WWI.

• He met Hitler in the 1930’s and joined the Nazi Party.

• He became the 2nd most powerful man in the Third Reich and Hitler’s appointed successor.

• He was put in charge of the Aryan take-over of Jewish property.

• It was his idea to make the Jews pay for the damages done to their own property during Kristalnacht.

• He used his position to fill his estate with looted treasures from conquered countries.

• At the end of the war he was arrested and put on trial at Nuremburg. He managed to obtain a cyanide capsule before he was hanged.

Reinhard Heydrich

• Born in 1904

• Joined the SS in 1932 (Hitler’s personal bodyguards)

• Appointed head of the Gestapo in 1934.

• Organized the Einsatzgruppen.

• Implemented the “Final Solution.”

• He was called the “Hangman of Europe” for his atrocities.

• Assassinated by Czech partisans that parachuted into Czechoslovakia from England on May 29, 1942.

• In retaliation for his death, Hitler ordered the annihilation of the Czech village of Lidice. The entire male population of the village was killed and the women and children were sent to death camps. The village was then bulldozed down.

Massacre at Lidice

Adolf Eichmann

• Born in Austria in 1906.

• Chief of the Jewish Office of the Gestapo during WWII.

• Tried to deport Jews from Germany.

• He began the implementation of the Final Solution by sending Jews to death camps.

• Ironically, he didn’t hate Jews, yet he zealously sent millions of people to the death camps.

• Before the end of the war, Himmler issued an order to stop gassing prisoners, yet Eichmann ignored it .

• He was responsible for the deaths of 4 million Jews in death camps and 2 million by mobile extermination units.

• Because he worked in an office and not in a camp, his name was not known by the Allies. He was able to escape from Germany after the war.

• He fled to Argentina and was tracked down by the Israeli secret police in 1960. He was kidnapped and carried off to Israel and put on trial for crimes against humanity.

• He was executed on May 31, 1962.

Adolf Hitler

• Born April 20,1889, the fourth child of Alois Shickelgruber and Klara Hitler in Austria.

• Alois was an illegitimate child whose father has never been known. (This is why there have been rumors that Hitler had Jewish blood in him!)

• As a child, Hitler’s family lived close to a Benedictine monastery whose coat of arms featured a swastika (an ancient symbol of good luck).

• As a youngster, Hitler wanted to be a priest.

• He dropped out of school at the age of 16 because he was not a good student and was in poor heath.

• In 1903 Alois died.

• Using the small inheritance from his father’s estate, Adolf moved to Vienna to study art, but could not get admitted into the art school.

• He lived in Vienna for six years, and often stayed in homeless shelters which were financed by wealthy Jewish businessmen.

• During the time he stayed in Vienna he developed his prejudices against Jews, although two of his closest friends were Jewish.

• Hitler’s mother died of cancer in 1907 under the care of a Jewish doctor, although he never blamed the doctor for his mother’s death.

• He tried to avoid being drafted into the army during WWI, but the police served him a draft notice, and he had a choice of going into the military or going to jail.

• He served four years in combat and then was temporarily blinded by mustard gas in 1918.

• During WWI there were many Communist-led uprisings in Germany.

• The Socialist Party finally gained control of Germany.

• When WWI ended, the monarchy ended in Germany. An election was held to elect a President and a 423 member National Assembly. This government was known as the Weimar Republic.

• The Treaty of Versailles humiliated Germany and sent her into economic ruin.

• Hitler saw the German Worker’ Party as a means to reach his political ambitions.

• Hatred of Jews was fundamental Nazi Party doctrine.

• Hitler developed his public speaking skills and became a forceful, hypnotic speaker.

• Jews were the target of all of Hitler’s speeches, and so the Jews became the scapegoats for all of Germany’s economic problems.

• In 1920 the red flag with the black swastika was adopted as the Nazi Party’s symbol.

• In January 1923, French and Belgian troops marched into Germany and occupied part of the country. The Germans resented their presence.

• The Nazi Party tried to take over the Weimar Republic in 1923 (Beer Hall Putsch).

• Hitler was captured, imprisoned for 9 months of a 5 year sentence, and while incarcerated, wrote Mein Kampf.

• Germans reading Mein Kampf were led to believe that their destiny was to dominate the world.

• By 1930 the Nazi Party had become a political force in Germany, and Hitler promised to create a new German empire that would rule the world for 1,000 years.

• In the 1930 elections, several Nazis were elected to the National Assembly.

• In 1932 Hitler ran against Hindenburg for the Presidency of Germany.

• Hindenburg won the election by a substantial number of votes, but appointed Hitler as his Chancellor in 1933.

• When Hindenburg died, Hitler became his successor. Germany was under the domination of a dictator instead of a president.

• Any Nazi political opponents were killed or imprisoned.

• By 1937, Germany was preparing for war and intended to dominate the world.

• In 1938 Germany made Austria and the Sudentenland part of Germany.

• In 1939 Hitler invaded Poland, causing France and England to declare war on Germany. Immediately German tanks swept into western Europe and nation after nation fell to the German war machine.

• In 1941 Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, and although at first successful, the Russian winter decimated the German army, angering Hitler, and giving the Soviets time to prepare for a defensive assault in the spring.

• The U.S. entered the war in 1941, and in 1944 the Allies invaded Europe at Normandy Beach, liberating European countries as they marched toward Germany.

• In the meantime, organized, mechanized killing of the Jews was being carried out within Germany and its conquered countries.

• Numerous attempts were made to assassinate Hitler, but they all failed.

• Hitler married Eva Braun on April 29, 1945, and the happy couple carried out their suicide-pact on April 30, 1945 in an underground bunker before Berlin was conquered by the Allies.

• After shooting themselves, their bodies were taken outside by Hitler’s staff, doused with gasoline and set ablaze.

• Soviet troops seized the remains when they captured the bunker. But what happened later has been shrouded in mystery.

• The remains had been kept by the counterintelligence unit of the Soviet 3rd Army, part of an intelligence organization called SMERSH -- a Russian acronym for "Death to Spies." The soldiers buried and dug up the remains at least three times in 1945-46 as the army moved around Germany.

• They were finally interred on SMERSH-controlled grounds in Magdeburg, a town about 70 miles west of Berlin -- until the Soviet government in 1970 ordered the remains be dug up and burned.

• Hitler's jaw, however, had been removed and brought to Moscow in 1945, to be included as evidence in an investigation into Hitler's death.

• Hitler was successful in killing 2/3 of the European Jews.

Holocaust Memorial in Berlin

Geli Raubal

• Geli was born June 4, 1908, and died September 18,1931, at the age of 23.

• Her mother, Angela, was Hitler’s half-sister making Geli his half-neice.

• Note: Hitler’s father, Alois, was married three times. Hitler’s mother, Klara, was Alois’s niece. The Vatican granted a dispensation so they could marry because Klara was already pregnant.

• When Geli was 18 and Hitler was 37, she and her mother moved into Hitler’s mansion in Obersalzberg so her mother could be his housekeeper and cook.

• Hitler had been romantically attracted to Geli since she was 13 years old. People said that when he was around her he was transformed into a happy person.

• Because Hitler wasn’t married, Geli acted as a hostess whenever he entertained guests.

• When Geli turned 20, Hitler moved her to his nine room apartment in Munich, to get away from her mother’s watchful eyes. He did this under the pretense of enrolling her in medical school.

• Geli had no freedom in Munich because Hitler kept her to himself and wouldn’t let her do anything except attend classes unless he was with her.

• It was said that Hitler wasn’t attracted to women like “normal” men are and with them he was chauvinistic and intolerant.

• Hitler’s Nazi friends complained that Geli was a distraction to Hitler and kept him from his political duties.

• Geli had the idea that Hitler would eventually marry her.

• Her real ambition was to be a singer so she dropped out of medical school, against Hitler’s wishes.

• In retaliation, Hitler kept her as a prisoner inside the apartment.

• At the same time, Hitler began “dating” Eva Braun. He could never marry Geli because she was his niece, and it would have caused a scandal when he ran for a political office.

• On the morning of Saturday, September 19, 1931, Geli’s body was found on the floor of her bedroom in Hitler’s apartment.

• She was bleeding from a wound near her heart, but the bullet missed her heart and pierced a lung.

• A Walther 6.35 lay on the couch .

• An unfinished letter to a friend was found near her body, but this was not a suicide note.

The Mystery of Geli ‘s Death

• There has always been much speculation as to whether Geli killed herself or whether Hitler killed her.

• Hitler was 60 miles away but he could have killed Geli and then traveled that distance from Munich.

• Geli’s brother, Leo Raubal, was incredulous when his mother phoned him to tell him that his sister had committed suicide.

• No autopsy was ever performed on her body, but eye witnesses said that she had a broken nose and other bruises. Her body was immediately sent to Austria for burial.

• The trajectory of the bullet indicates that for the bullet to have entered just above her heart and lodged itself above the level of her hip, the barrel of the pistol had to be pointing downwards, and the hand holding the gun had to be higher than her heart.

• Although it would not be impossible for Geli to shoot herself by holding the gun above her chest and shooting downward, it is hard to imagine why she would have held the gun in this position .

• The Munich Post, a Socialist newspaper, reported that Geli’s death was murder and not suicide and called for a full investigation of her death. This was never done.

• In 1931 the Nazi Party dominated the criminal justice system in Munich and the Nazis were getting away with murder.

• The public prosecutor in Munich wanted to charge Hitler with Geli’s murder, but the Minister of Justice, Gurtner, stopped him.

• Geli was a Catholic and was given the full rites of the Church for a Catholic funeral. This is not done for Catholics that commit suicide.

• Geli’s brother questioned the priest, Father Pant, why Geli was given a Catholic funeral. The priest answered that he could not have done what he did if Geli had committed suicide.

• Seven years after Geli’s death, Father Pant contacted a Parisian newspaper after reading an article by Otto Strasser in which Geli’s name appeared.

• Father Pant is quoted as telling the editor of the paper, “It was I who buried Angela Raubal, the little Geli of whom Otto Strasser wrote. They pretended that she committed suicide; I should never have allowed a suicide to be buried in consecrated ground. From the fact that I gave her a Christian burial you can draw conclusions which I cannot communicate to you.”

• Hitler never recovered from Geli’s death. He kept a room in his apartment as a shrine to her.

• After her death Hitler became a vegetarian and also turned to mass murder.

• It is interesting to note that every woman that had a “romantic” relationship with Hitler either committed suicide or attempted suicide.

• He finally married Eva Braun and less than 24 hours later, they both committed suicide.

Geli and Hitler

Geli’s burial site in Austria.

Oskar Schindler

• Born in 1908 in Austria-Hungary as a Catholic.

• Married Emilie Pelze at the age of 20 and remained married to her for 45 years although he had numerous affairs and a well-known reputation as a womanizer.

• Joined the Nazi Party in 1938 so that he could be a businessman, but didn’t hate Jews.

• In 1938 he was persuaded to be an agent for the German Intelligence Corps that required him to supply information about military and industrial installations in Poland where he had business dealings.

• By doing this he was exempt from serving in the military during WWII.

• When Germany took over Poland, Schindler went to Krakow to take over a Jewish business that had been confiscated by the SS. To make more money, he used Jewish slave labor and paid the Nazis for supplying the workers for his factory.

• Schindler’s goal was to become filthy rich from the war, but he became aware of the suffering of the Jews and in the end used all of his wealth to save the lives of his 1,300 factory workers.

• Schindler used the greed of the Nazis to accomplish what he wanted . This included bribery, black marketeering, and lies.

• Around the time that Schindler acquired his “Emalia” factory which produced enamel pots and pans for the German army, the Nazis began moving Jews from the ghettos to death camps.

• Schindler’s Jewish accountant, Itzhak Stern, put him in touch with the few Jews left that had any money. They invested in Schindler’s factory and in return, were given jobs in the factory. He hired more Jewish workers, insisting that they were essential and paid the Nazis so they could stay in Krakow.

• Schindler made money but all of his workers were well fed, no one was ever beaten, and no one was killed.

• In 1942 Schindler watched the liquidation of a Jewish ghetto. Watching innocent people being packed into train cars touched something inside of him, and he became resolved to save as many Jews as possible.

• He was able to begin a factory near the Plaszow concentration camp for 900 Jewish workers. They made defective bullets for German guns.

• He was able to save most of his workers when his munitions factory was transferred to the Sudentenland in 1944.

• After the war, Schindler fled to Argentina with his wife, but in 1958 he left his wife and returned to Germany.

• He spent the rest of his life living in Germany and Israel, penniless, but taken care of by the Jews he saved.

• Schindler died in 1974 and is buried in Israel.

• Schindler’s life is a testimony to how one person, any person, can act courageously even in the worst circumstances.

The End of Part IV