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 handcuffed 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-Christmas 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 Holland and Austria, was the last actor to make his appearance in this unparalleled scene. He entered the chamber at 2.38 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 blue jacket 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.
Appendix:
Estimated Number of Jews Killed in the Final Solution
Country
Estimated pre-final solution population
Estimated Jewish population annihilated
Per cent
Poland
3,300,000
3,000,000
90
Baltic countries
253,000
228,000
90
Germany/Austria
240,000
210,000
90
Protectorate
90,000
80,000
89
Slovakia
90,000
75,000
83
Greece
70,000
54,000
77
The Netherlands
140,000
105,000
75
Hungary
650,000
450,000
70
SSR White Russia
375,000
245,000
65
SSR Ukraine*
1,500,000
900,000
60
Yugoslavia
43,000
26,000
60
Belgium
65,000
40,000
60
Rumania
600,000
300,000
50
Norway
1,800
900
50
France
350,000
90,000
26
Bulgaria
64,000
14,000
22
Italy
40,000
8,000
20
Luxembourg
5,000
1,000
20
Russia (RSFSR)*
975,000
107,000
11
Finland
2,000
— —
— —
Denmark
8,000
— —
— —
TOTAL
8,861,800
5,933,900
67
* The Germans did not occupy all the territory of this republic.
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SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In order to reprint material in this volume the editor has made every reasonable effort to secure permission from relevant copyright holders. Any errors or omissions should be notified to him c/o Constable & Robinson.
Anonymous, ‘Expulsion of Polish Jews from Germany’, reprinted from the Guardian, 31 October 1938. Copyright © 1938 Guardian Media
Anonymous, ‘Kindertransport: A Girl Arrives in Britain’, reprinted from Milton, The Tiger in the Attic. Copyright © 2005 Edith Milton/University of Chicago Press
Anonymous, ‘Kristallnacht: A Planned Action’, The Wiener Library (http://wienerlibrary.co.uk)
Anonymous, ‘Kristallnacht: A Jew is Taken to Oranienburg Concentration Camp’, The Wiener Library (http://wienerlibrary.co.uk)
Anonymous, ‘Life Inside the Warsaw Ghetto’, reprinted from Grynberg (ed.), Words to Outlive Us. Copyright © 1998 and 1993 Panstowe Wysawnictwo Naukowe. Translation copyright © 2002 Metropolitan Books
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Franz Blaha, ‘Medical Experiments at Dachau’, reprinted from the International Military Tribunal 1974-9, Trial of the Major War Criminals: Official Text
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Virginia Cowles, ‘Hitler Speaks’, reprinted from Looking for Trouble, Hamish Hamilton, 1942. Copyright © 1942 Virginia Cowles
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______, ‘First Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law’, ibid.
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