World War II: The Autobiography (86 page)

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 Holland 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