by Jon E. Lewis
In a few minutes an American Army doctor accompanied by a Russian Army doctor and both carrying stethoscopes walked to the first scaffold, lifted the curtain and disappeared within.
They emerged at 1.30 a.m. and spoke to an American colonel. The colonel swung around and facing official witnesses snapped to attention to say, “The man is dead.”
Two GIs quickly appeared with a stretcher which was carried up and lifted into the interior of the scaffold. The hangman mounted the gallows steps, took a large commando-type knife out of a sheath strapped to his side and cut the rope.
Von Ribbentrop’s limp body with the black hood still over his head was removed to the far end of the room and placed behind a black canvas curtain. This all had taken less than ten minutes.
The directing colonel turned to the witnesses and said, “Cigarettes out, please, gentlemen.” Another colonel went out the door and over to the condemned block to fetch the next man. This was Ernst Kaltenbrunner. He entered the execution chamber at 1.36 a.m., wearing a sweater beneath his blue double-breasted coat. With his lean haggard face furrowed by old duelling scars, this terrible successor to Reinhard Heydrich had a frightening look as he glanced around the room.
He wet his lips apparently in nervousness as he turned to mount the gallows, but he walked steadily. He answered his name in a calm, low voice. When he turned around on the gallows platform he first faced a United States Army Roman Catholic chaplain wearing a Franciscan habit. When Kaltenbrunner was invited to make a last statement, he said, “I have loved my German people and my fatherland with a warm heart. I have done my duty by the laws of my people and I am sorry my people were led this time by men who were not soldiers and that crimes were committed of which I had no knowledge.”
This was the man, one of whose agents – a man named Rudolf Hoess – confessed at a trial that under Kaltenbrunner’s orders he gassed 3 million human beings at the Auschwitz concentration camp!
As the black hood was raised over his head Kaltenbrunner, still speaking in a low voice, used a German phrase which translated means, “Germany, good luck.”
His trap was sprung at 1.39 a.m.
Field Marshal Keitel was pronounced dead at 1.44 a.m. and three minutes later guards had removed his body. The scaffold was made ready for Alfred Rosenberg.
Rosenberg was dull and sunken-cheeked as he looked around the court. His complexion was pasty-brown, but he did not appear nervous and walked with a steady step to and up the gallows.
Apart from giving his name and replying “no” to a question as to whether he had anything to say, he did not utter a word. Despite his avowed atheism he was accompanied by a Protestant chaplain who followed him to the gallows and stood beside him praying.
Rosenberg looked at the chaplain once, expressionless. Ninety seconds after he was swinging from the end of a hangman’s rope. His was the swiftest execution of the ten.
There was a brief lull in the proceedings until Kaltenbrunner was pronounced dead at 1.52 a.m.
Hans Frank was next in the parade of death. He was the only one of the condemned to enter the chamber with a smile on his countenance.
Although nervous and swallowing frequently, this man, who was converted to Roman Catholicism after his arrest, gave the appearance of being relieved at the prospect of atoning for his evil deeds.
He answered to his name quietly and when asked for any last statement, he replied in a low voice that was almost a whisper, “I am thankful for the kind treatment during my captivity and I ask God to accept me with mercy.”
Frank closed his eyes and swallowed as the black hood went over his head.
The sixth man to leave his prison cell and walk with hand-cuffed wrists to the death house was sixty-nine-year-old Wilhelm Frick. He entered the execution chamber at 2.05 a.m., six minutes after Rosenberg had been pronounced dead. He seemed the least steady of any so far and stumbled on the thirteenth step of the gallows. His only words were, “Long live eternal Germany,” before he was hooded and dropped through the trap.
Julius Streicher made his melodramatic appearance at 2.12 a.m.
While his manacles were being removed and his hands bound, this ugly, dwarfish little man, wearing a threadbare suit and a well-worn bluish shirt buttoned to the neck but without a tie (he was notorious during his days of power for his flashy dress), glanced at the three wooden scaffolds rising up menacingly in front of him. Then he glared around the room, his eyes resting momentarily upon the small group of witnesses. By this time, his hands were tied securely behind his back. Two guards, one on each arm, directed him to Number One gallows on the left of the entrance. He walked steadily the six feet to the first wooden step but his face was twitching.
As the guards stopped him at the bottom of the steps for identification formality he uttered his piercing scream: “Heil Hitler!”
The shriek sent a shiver down my back.
As its echo died away an American colonel standing by the steps said sharply, “Ask the man his name.” In response to the interpreter’s query Streicher shouted, “You know my name well.”
The interpreter repeated his request and the condemned man yelled, “Julius Streicher.”
As he reached the platform, Streicher cried out, “Now it goes to God.” He was pushed the last two steps to the mortal spot beneath the hangman’s rope. The rope was being held back against a wooden rail by the hangman.
Streicher was swung around to face the witnesses and glared at them. Suddenly he screamed, “Purim Fest 1946.” (Purim is a Jewish holiday celebrated in the spring, commemorating the execution of Haman, ancient persecutor of the Jews described in the Old Testament.)
The American officer standing at the scaffold said, “Ask the man if he has any last words.”
When the interpreter had translated, Streicher shouted, “The Bolsheviks will hang you one day.”
When the black hood was raised over his head, Streicher said, “I am with God.”
As it was being adjusted, Streicher’s muffled voice could be heard to say, “Adele, my dear wife.”
At that instant the trap opened with a loud bang. He went down kicking. When the rope snapped taut with the body swinging wildly, groans could be heard from within the concealed interior of the scaffold. Finally, the hangman, who had descended from the gallows platform, lifted the black canvas curtain and went inside. Something happened that put a stop to the groans and brought the rope to a standstill. After it was over I was not in a mood to ask what he did, but I assume that he grabbed the swinging body and pulled down on it. We were all of the opinion that Streicher had strangled.
Then, following removal of the corpse of Frick, who had been pronounced dead at 2.20 a.m., Fritz Sauckel was brought face to face with his doom.
Wearing a sweater with no coat and looking wild-eyed, Sauckel proved to be the most defiant of any except Streicher.
Here was the man who put millions into bondage on a scale unknown since the pre-Christian era. Gazing around the room from the gallows platform he suddenly screamed, “I am dying innocent. The sentence is wrong. God protect Germany and make Germany great again. Long live Germany! God protect my family.”
The trap was sprung at 2.26 a.m. and, as in the case of Streicher, there was a loud groan from the gallows pit as the noose snapped tightly under the weight of his body.
Ninth in the procession of death was Alfred Jodl. With the black coat-collar of his Wehrmacht uniform half turned up at the back as though hurriedly put on, Jodl entered the dismal death house with obvious signs of nervousness. He wet his lips constantly and his features were drawn and haggard as he walked, not nearly so steady as Keitel, up the gallows steps. Yet his voice was calm when he uttered his last six words on earth: “My greetings to you, my Germany.”
At 2.34 a.m. Jodl plunged into the black hole of the scaffold. He and Sauckel hung together until the latter was pronounced dead six minutes later and removed.
The Czechoslovak-born Seyss-Inquart, whom Hitler had made ruler of Holl
and and Austria, was the last actor to make his appearance in this unparalleled scene. He entered the chamber at 2.38 ½ a.m., wearing glasses which made his face an easily remembered caricature.
He looked around with noticeable signs of unsteadiness as he limped on his left clubfoot to the gallows. He mounted the steps slowly, with guards helping him.
When he spoke his last words his voice was low but intense. He said, “I hope that this execution is the last act of the tragedy of the Second World War and that the lesson taken from this world war will be that peace and understanding should exist between peoples. I believe in Germany.”
He dropped to death at 2.45 a.m.
With the bodies of Jodl and Seyss-Inquart still hanging, awaiting formal pronouncement of death, the gymnasium doors opened again and guards entered carrying Göring’s body on a stretcher.
He had succeeded in wrecking plans of the Allied Control Council to have him lead the parade of condemned Nazi chieftains to their death. But the council’s representatives were determined that Göring at least would take his place as a dead man beneath the shadow of the scaffold.
The guards carrying the stretcher set it down between the first and second gallows. Göring’s big bare feet stuck out from under the bottom end of a khaki-coloured United States Army blanket. One blue-silk-clad arm was hanging over the side.
The colonel in charge of the proceedings ordered the blanket removed so that witnesses and Allied correspondents could see for themselves that Göring was definitely dead. The Army did not want any legend to develop that Göring had managed to escape.
As the blanket came off it revealed Göring clad in black silk pyjamas with a bluejacket shirt over them, and this was soaking wet, apparently the result of efforts by prison doctors to revive him.
The face of this twentieth-century freebooting political racketeer was still contorted with the pain of his last agonizing moments and his final gesture of defiance.
They covered him up quickly and this Nazi warlord, who like a character out of the days of the Borgias, had wallowed in blood and beauty, passed behind a canvas curtain into the black pages of history.
SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The editor has made every effort to locate all persons having rights in the selections appearing in this anthology and to secure permission for usage from the holders of such rights. Any queries regarding the use of material should be addressed to the editor c/o the publishers.
Part I: Blitzkrieg
Anderson, Sir John, “The Protection of Your Home Against Air Raids”, quoted in Lilliput Goes to War, ed Kaye Webb, Hutchinson, 1985
Chamberlain, Neville, “Britain Declares War on Germany”, quoted in Voices from Britain, ed Henning Krabbe, Allen & Unwin, 1947
Churchill, Winston S., “Churchill Offers ‘Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat’ ”, quoted in The World’s Great Speeches, ed Lewis Copeland, Lawrence W. Lamm and Stephen J. McKenna, Dover, 1999
Churchill, Winston S., “The Battle of Britain: The View from the Operations Room, No. 11 Fighter Group” is an extract from The Second World War, Volume II, Cassell, 1949
Cowles, Virginia, “Finland: Guerilla War in the Snow” (originally published as “Killed in Finnish Snow”), Sunday Times, 4 February 1940
Flower, Desmond, “Battle of Britain: The Blitz”, quoted in The War 1939–1945, ed Desmond Flower and James Reeves, Cassell & Company, 1960
Grigg, Joseph W., “Poland: Inside Fallen Warsaw”, United Press, 1939
Hall, Roger, “Battle of Britain: Dogfight Over South-East England” is an extract from Clouds of Fear, Bailey Brothers & Swinfen Ltd, 1975. Copyright © 1975 RMD Hall
Heide, Dirk van de, “Operation Yellow: The German Attack on Rotterdam” is an extract from My Sister and I, Harcourt, Brace and World Inc, 1941. Copyright © Harcourt, Brace & World Inc
Hillary, Richard, “Battle of Britain: A Spitfire Pilot Bales Out” is an extract from The last Enemy, Macmillan, 1943. Copyright © 1942 Richard Hillary. Reprinted by permission of Macmillan
Hitler, Adolf, “Hitler Orders War: Directive Number 1”, quoted in Panzer Leader, Michael Joseph, 1952, trans Constantine Fitzgibbon
Karol, K.S. “We Marched Around in Circles” is an extract from Between Two Worlds, Henry Holt, 1987
Murrow, Edward R., “The Blitz”, broadcast 13 September 1940. Copyright © CBS Inc.
Panter-Downes, Mollie, “Home Front: London at War”, The New Yorker, September 1939. Copyright © 1939 Mollie Panter-Downes
Pexton, L.D. “Sergeant Pexton is Taken Prisoner”, unpublished diary, Imperial War Museum, London
Priestley, J.B., “The Blitz”, BBC broadcast 15 September 1940, quoted in The Long March of Everyman, ed Theo Barker, Andre Deutsch/British Broadcasting Corporation, 1975
Rommel, Erwin, “Operation Yellow: Crossing the Meuse”, is an extract from The Rommel Papers, ed B.H. Liddell Hart, Collins, 1953. Copyright © 1953 B.H. Liddell Hart, renewed 1981 Lady Liddell Hart, Fritz Bayerlain-Dittmar and Manfred Rommel.
Shirer, William, “France Surrenders” is an extract from Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934–1941, Alfred A. Knopf, 1941. Copyright © 1940, 1941 William Shirer. Renewed 1968 William Shirer
Toomey, Jack, “One Man’s War: Private Jack Toomey in France”, unpublished letter, Imperial War Museum, London
Wiart, Adrian Carton de, “Norway: The Rout of the BEF” is an extract from Happy Odyssey, Jonathan Cape, 1950
Wissler, D.H., “Battle of Britain: A British Fighter Pilot’s Diary”, unpublished diary, Imperial War Museum, London
Woolf, Virgina, “The Blitz” is an extract from A Writer’s Diary, Harcourt Brace and Co. 1954. Copyright © 1954 Leonard Woolf. Copyright renewed 1982 by Quentin Bell and Angelica Garnett
Part II: The Battle of the Atlantic
Carse, Robert, “Voyage to Murmansk” is an extract from The Story of World War II, ed Curt Riess, Garden City Publishing, 1944
Curry, Frank, “One Man’s War: The Diary of an Asdic Operator” is reprinted from Veterans Affairs Canada website
Healiss, Ronald, “Survival” is extracted from “Arctic Rescue”, 70 True Stories of the Second World War, Odhams Press Ltd., nd
Kennedy, Ludovic, “The Pursuit of the Bismarck” is an extract from On My Way to the Club, Collins, 1989
Kretschmer, Otto, “U-99 Attacks a Convoy”, quoted in The Battle of the Atlantic, Donald MacIntyre, TS Batsford Ltd. 1961. Copyright © 1961 Donald MacIntyre
Macintyre, Donald, “Hunting U-boats” is an extract from U-boat Killer, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1956
Prien, Gunther, “The Royal Oak is Torpedoed” is an extract from Hitler and His Admirals, Anthony Martienssen, Seeker & Warburg, 1948
Schaefer, Heinz, “A U-boat is depth-charged” is an extract from U-Boat 977, William Kimber, 1952
Washbourn, R.E., “The Battle of the River Plate”, quoted in Freedom’s Battle, Volume I: The War at Sea 1939–45, ed John Winton, Hutchinson, 1967
Wemyss, D.E.G., “Fatal Six Weeks” is an extract from Relentless Pursuit, William Kimber, 1965
Part III: The War in the Desert
Anon, “Heis Uber Afrikas Boden” is reproduced from Panzer! website
Anonymous British Gunner, “In the Cauldron”, quoted in The War 1939–1945, ed Desmond Flower and James Reeves, Cassell & Company Ltd, 1960
Bayerlain, Fritz, “El Alamein: The Defeat of the Afrika Korps”, quoted in The War 1939–1945, ed Desmond Flower and James Reeves, Cassell & Company Ltd, 1960
Berndt, Alfred, “Rommel’s Ailing Health” is an extract from The Rommel Papers, ed B.H. Liddell Hart, Collins, 1953. Copyright © 1953 B.H. Liddell Hart, renewed 1981 Lady Liddell Hart, Fritz Bayerlain-Dittmar and Manfred Rommel
Crimp, R.L., “One man’s war: Desert weariness” is an extract from “The Diary of a Desert Rat”, unpublished M.S., Imperial war Museum
Crisp, Robert, “Operation Crusader: Tank Battle at Sidi Rezegh” is an extract from Brazen Cha
riots, Frederick Muller, 1959. Copyright © 1959 Robert Crisp
Douglas, Keith, “El Alamein: German prisoners”, is an extract from Alamein to Zem, Zem ed Desmond Graham, Oxford University Press, 1979
Green, John, “One Man’s War: The Diary of a British Soldier at El Alamein” was first published in The Mammoth Book of War Diaries & Letters, ed Jon E. Lewis, Robinson 1998. Copyright © 1998 the heirs of John Green. Reproduced by permission
Joly, Cyril, “The Italians Surrender at Beda Fomm”, “A Tank is ‘Brewed-Up’ ” are extracts from Take These Men, Penguin Books, 1956
Maund, M.R., “Swordfish Attack the Italian Fleet” is quoted in Freedom’s Battle, Volume I: The War at Sea 1939–45, ed John Winton, Hutchinson, 1967
Montgomery, Bernard, “Montgomery Takes Over as Commander Eighth Army”, “El Alamein: The Plan” are extracts from The Memoirs of Field-Marshal The Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, William Collins, Sons & Co. Ltd, 1958. Copyright © 1958 Bernard Law, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
Moorehead, Alan, “Tunis Falls” is an extract from African Trilogy, Hamish Hamilton, 1944
Pyle, Ernie, “Operation Torch: GI Meals” is an extract from Here is Your War, World Publishing Co., 1945
Rommel, Erwin, “Dearest Lu”, “Tobruk: The Conqueror Enters”, “El Alamein: The View from the Afrika Korps”, “A Meeting with the Fuhrer” are extracts from The Rommel Papers, ed B.H. Liddell Hart, Collins, 1953. Copyright © 1953 B.H. Liddell Hart, renewed 1981 Lady Liddell Hart, Fritz Bayerlain-Dittmar and Manfred Rommel
Roosevelt Jnr, Theodore, “Fighting Like the Devil”, quoted in Lines of Battle, ed Annette Tapert, Times Books, 1987. Original letter held in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress
Salisbury, Ray, “Envoi”, quoted in Letters Home, ed. Mina Curtiss, Little Brown and Company, 1944
Schmidt, Heinz Werner, “Enter Rommel” is an extract from With Rommel in the Desert, Harrap, 1951
