Executions

  • Operation Silbertanne (silver fir) was the codename of a series of murders taking place between September 1943 and September 1944 during the German occupation of the Netherlands. The assassinations were carried out by a death squad composed of Dutch members of the SS and Dutch veterans of the Eastern Front. The objective of the operation was

    Read more →

  • The last words of Evil Men

    On 16 October 1946, some of the most notorious German war leaders were hanged in Nuremberg. Their executions came after a landmark trial in which 23 of the highest-ranking figures of the Third Reich faced charges of crimes against humanity. The final statements of the condemned were broadcast widely, drawing intense public attention and extensive

    Read more →

  • To many Koenraad (or Koen), Rozzendaal is a forgotten Hero, but for at least one friend of mine, he isn’t. Koen (Koenraad) Rozendaal was born in Oud-Beijerland, the Netherlands . On April 19, 1911. He was a Dutch resistance fighter during the Second World War and a member of the KP-Waterland.KP stands for Knok Ploeg

    Read more →

  • On 25 October 1944, Fake Krist, a fanatic employee of the German Sicherheitsdienst, was shot dead by the Haarlem resistance, in the Netherlands Initially, the attack was attributed to Hannie Schaft’s resistance group, but later it turned out that a police squad with members from Halfweg, resistance group had liquidated Fake Krist. To this end,

    Read more →

  • Despite his English sounding name, Harald Turner was born in the town of Leun in the district of Hesse in Germany in 1891. He served as an SS commander in Serbia during WWII. His description of some crimes he had been involved in are truly chilling, not so much because of the horrific crimes themselves

    Read more →

  • The killing of Athletes

    It is often said that the death of a million is a statistic but the death of one is a tragedy, and unfortunately this is true. People just become desensitized when they see the pictures of a great number of corpses. It is just human nature, a defense mechanism because the brain just can’t fathom the

    Read more →

  • So many involved in the Nazi atrocities did get off so lightly or escaped punishment altogether. How the judges in the war crimes trials came to some of the sentences or lack thereof has always been a puzzle to me. Additionally there were also many how fled to countries where they knew they would face

    Read more →

  • The name Johann Reichhart might not be one synonymous with Nazi Germany but his ruthless killing streak made him one of the most feared members of the regime. Reichhart was born into a line of German executioners dating back eight generations. He got his start as a judicial executioner in 1928. Johann Reichhart took 3,165 lives

    Read more →

  •   This story might surprise many for the Netherlands is known as a tolerant and multi cultural society, this wasn’t always the case. The Martyrs of Gorkum (Dutch: Martelaren van Gorinchem) were a group of 19 Dutch Catholic clerics and friars who were hanged on 9 July 1572 in the town of Brielle (or Den Briel) by militant Dutch Calvinists during the 16th century

    Read more →

  • Bloody Sunday was a series of killings of members of the German minority that took place at the beginning of World War II. On September 3, 1939, two days after the beginning of the German invasion of Poland, highly controversial killings occurred in and around Bydgoszcz (German: Bromberg), a Polish city with a sizable German

    Read more →