Art, obsession, and identity
Heinrich Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany. Appointed Reichsführer-SS by Hitler, he was responsible for setting up and controlling the concentration camps, thus becoming a main architect of the Holocaust.
Adolf Hitler rose to power as leader of the Nazi Party, becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933. Under his leadership and racially motivated ideology, the Nazi Party inflicted terror, destruction, and brutal horrors throughout the Third Reich. Numerous atrocities were carried out under the direct orders of individuals loyal to the Führer, men given unprecedented power over life and death. But who were they?
Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess took down and edited much of Hitler's dictation for 'Mein Kampf' in 1923, later becoming his private secretary. Hess was responsible for signing into law much of the government's legislation, including the notorious Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which effectively stripped the Jews of Germany of their civil rights. In 1941, Hess stunned the regime by flying to Scotland in an abortive attempt to negotiate a peace deal with the Allies.
A decorated WWI pilot, Hermann Göring became one of the most powerful figures in Nazi Germany. After overseeing the creation of the Gestapo, which he ceded to Himmler in 1934, Göring was appointed commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe. Göring was Hitler's acknowledged successor, and it was he who ordered security police chief Reinhard Heydrich to organize and coordinate a solution to the "Jewish question."
As minister for propaganda for the Third Reich, Joseph Goebbels wielded enormous power and influence. A master orator, Goebbels used his platform to broadcast his deeply virulent anti-Semitism, later advocating for the extermination of the Jews.
Assuming the position of Hitler's private secretary after Rudolf Hess's flight to Britain, Martin Bormann was also head of the party chancellery. He proved himself a master of intrigue, manipulation, and political in-fighting, with even the likes of Himmler and Göring wary of his power. It was Bormann who gave Adolf Eichmann absolute powers over Jews.
The Wannsee Conference was chaired by SS and police official Reinhard Heydrich, during which he presented plans to finalize the deportation and genocide of all Jews in German-occupied Europe. Heydrich's assassination in Prague led to murderous reprisals against the Czech population, including the destruction of the town of Lidice and village of Ležáky.
Adolf Eichmann was among the major organizers of the Holocaust. In January 1942, he participated in the infamous Wannsee Conference, at which the implementation of the genocidal Final Solution to the Jewish Question was planned.
Known as the "Angel of Death," Josef Mengele is synonymous with the horrors of Auschwitz. As a doctor working at the extermination camp, Mengele conducted medical experiments on inmates and personally selected prisoners for execution in the gas chambers.
One of Hitler's most thuggish servants was Julius Streicher. The founder and publisher of the virulently anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer, Streicher was a committed National Socialist and enthusiastically espoused right-wing, ultra-nationalist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Semitic principles.
As head of the Gestapo in Vichy France, Klaus Barbie was personally responsible for the torture and deportation of thousands of Jews and French Resistance partisans to concentration camps—and became known as the "Butcher of Lyon" for doing so.
Ernst Röhm was a significant figure in the early years of the Nazi Party. A close confident of Hitler, Röhm co-founded the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Party's violent militia. After 1933, Röhm's relationship with the Führer began to deteriorate. Feared as a rival, Hitler had his former ally murdered along with dozens of other political opponents in what became known as the Night of the Long Knives.
Chief of the Gestapo, Heinrich Müller (seated far right) was another Wannsee Conference attendee and equally central in the planning and execution of the Holocaust. He's pictured here with Heinrich Himmler, Franz Josef Huber (secret state police), Arthur Nebe (criminal investigation department), and Reinhard Heydrich.
Odilo Globocnik, an Austrian Nazi, played a central role in Operation Reinhard, the organized annihilation of at least 1.5 million Jews, mostly of Polish origin, in the Majdanek, Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzec extermination camps.
A key figure in the development of the concentration camps (he was appointed commandant of Dachau in 1933, the first camp to be built in Nazi Germany), Theodor Eicke later became commander of the feared SS Division Totenkopf of the Waffen-SS on the Eastern and Western fronts.
Leader of the Austrian SS and subsequently of all police forces in Nazi Germany, Ernst Kaltenbrunner was a committed anti-Semite and fanatical Hitler loyalist. He controlled the administrative apparatus for carrying out the extermination of European Jewry in 1943–45.
Hans Frank's responsibilities included his role as Governor-General of the occupied Polish territories, a tenure that saw him become directly involved in the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews.
Arthur Seyss-Inquart was Reich commissioner for the German-occupied Netherlands during a period in which Anne Frank and her family went into hiding in Amsterdam.
As Adolf Eichmann's right-hand man, Alois Brunner rounded up and deported Jews in occupied Austria, Greece, Macedonia, France, and Slovakia. Brunner managed to evade capture after the cessation of hostilities and ended up in Syria. He died in Damascus most likely in 2001.
As chief of the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht from 1938 to 1945, Wilhelm Keitel loyally supported Hitler's policies. He had plenty of blood on his hands, signing a number of criminal orders and directives that led to numerous war crimes.
Rudolf Höss was the longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz, a period during which an estimated 1 million-2.5 million inmates perished.
Franz Stangl was in charge of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps. He nurtured his taste for killing as an employee of the T-4 Euthanasia Program, a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia.
As chief of the Reich Chancellery, Hans Lammers held one of the most powerful positions in the Third Reich. An honorary member of the SS, Lammers, along with Martin Bormann, increasingly controlled access to Hitler.
Karl Wolff is credited with arranging for the early surrender of Axis forces in Italy. But as an ambitious SS officer, he was also implicated in the deportation of Italian Jews.
A German Nazi politician and SS officer, Fritz Sauckel was in charge of a program involving the deportation for slave labor of five million people under cruel and insufferable conditions.
As with Franz Stangl, Viktor Brack was one of the prominent organizers of the euthanasia program Aktion T4. In addition, Brack conferred with Odilo Globočnik about the use of gas in the practical implementation of the Final Solution.
Despite his mid-ranking SS status Walter Rauff, as an aide of Reinhard Heydrich, is thought to have been responsible for nearly 100,000 deaths during the Second World War. He ordered the use of mobile gas chambers to dispatch most of his victims.
Josef Kramer had the dubious double honor of commanding both Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen (where he was dubbed the "Beast of Belsen"). He was directly responsible for thousands of deaths.
One of history's most prolific mass murderers, Sicherheitsdienst (SD) commander Paul Blobel organized and executed the Babi Yar massacre, the largest massacre of the Second World War at Babi Yar ravine in September 1941. Image: US Army Signal Corps
SS officer Erich Priebke commanded the unit that was responsible for the Ardeatine massacre in Rome on March 24, 1944, in which 335 Italian civilians were killed in retaliation for a partisan attack on an SS regiment. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, Priebke fled to Argentina, where he lived for almost 50 years before being extradited to Italy to face trial.
Sources: (History) (BBC) (HistoryNet) (Britannica)
See also: The awful truth about Albert Speer, Hitler's architect
Click through and meet the most notorious criminals of the Third Reich.
Who were Hitler's closest allies?
Notable Nazis of the Third Reich
LIFESTYLE History
Adolf Hitler wasn't alone in perpetrating the worst crimes in recoded history. The Nazi dictator had at his command a criminal circle of deranged henchmen who in turn organized the murder of millions of people, most of them Jews, in what became known as the Holocaust. As the Third Reich fell, Hitler and those within his inner circle took their own lives. After the Second World War, many others responsible for these war crimes were tried at Nuremburg and subsequently executed. A few, however, evaded justice and ended their days as free men. So, who exactly were these cruel and brutal individuals?
Click through and meet the most notorious criminals of the Third Reich.