Seventy-six years ago, judges in Nuremberg handed down sentences to the most horrible war criminals of the Third Reich. While some of the minds behind the holocaust escaped trials, some got their punishments.
The British, American and Soviet armies knew that the Holocaust was horrible. Still, this knowledge didn’t prepare them for the shock they experienced when they saw the conditions of the concentration camps and gained insight into the scale of Hitler’s “Final solution.”
They, trying to correct this injustice, set up an International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg to bring the major war criminals that represented the worst of the Third Reich to book.
Here are some of the war criminals and how they died:
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann served as the Nazi official in charge of overseeing the deportation of European Jews to various ghettos, camps, and extermination centres across Germany. In 1939, he joined the Gestapo and oversaw “clearing operations”, a code for deporting Jews from German-controlled territory. He was also a part of the 1942 Wannsee Conference, where the Nazi officials started plans for “the final solution to the Jewish question” in Europe. He was arrested in 1960 by the Mossad, Israel’s security service, who tracked him.
He was deported, tried and found guilty. In 1962, he was hanged at a prison in Ramla and cremated. His ashes were scattered in the Mediterranean Sea to prevent anyone from paying respects at his gravesite.
Alfred Jodl
He was chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW). He authorised the 1941 Commissar Order and the 1942 Commando Order, which permitted the execution of enemy commandos, partisans and Soviet political commissars. He was found guilty after his trial and hanged in 1946. His remains were cremated in Munich and scattered into the Isar River.
Josef Mengele
Joseph Mengele was popularly known as Auschwitz’s “Angel of Death”, famed for the human experiments he carried out on the prisoners. He selected inmates for the gas chamber and performed hideous medical experiments, especially on twins and dwarfs.
He drowned in Brazil at the age of 67.
Wilhelm Keitel
Field Marshal Keitel served as chief of the OKW and was responsible for overseeing military operations on both the eastern and western fronts. He was also a signatory to the famous Commissar Order that condemned Soviet political officers to summary execution. He permitted the “Barbarossa Decree”, which supported the harsh treatment of civilians and POWs during the German invasion of the U.S.S.R., and the “Night and Fog Decree”, which supported the execution of resistance fighters and political prisoners caught in occupied territory.
He was found guilty, and the American forces hanged him and scattered his ashes in a river in Germany.
Hermann Goering
This World War One flying ace was the highest-ranking Nazi official to go on trial at Nuremberg. He was a member of the Nazi party from its formation, and in 1933, he founded the Gestapo. He created, alongside others the concentration camp system and was Hitler’s second in command as the commander in chief of the German air force.
He turned himself over with hopes that he’ll get more lenient treatment from the Americans than from the soviets. A day before he was to face hanging, he committed suicide in his cell.
The American forces scattered his remains after they cremated his body.
