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Holocaust Research
Information IV
Key People in the Holocaust
Hans Frank
Hans Frank
• Born in 1900
• Became a lawyer and worked as the
legal counsel for the Nazi Party.
• Appointed by Hitler to research his
family’s background to make sure there
was no Jewish blood in him.
• Became Hitler’s personal lawyer.
• He was appointed the governor of
Poland after it came under Nazi control.
• Ordered the Jews be segregated into
ghettos.
• Ordered the executions of thousands of
Polish people as political dissidents.
• He saw problems with the Nazi SS
going beyond legal boundaries and tried
to resign his position fourteen times, but
Hitler wouldn’t accept his resignation.
• After WWII he was sentenced to death
by hanging for crimes against humanity.
• He was the only Nazi to admit remorse
for his role in the Holocaust.
• Frank said that the atrocities committed by
the Nazis were so great that in a thousand
years the guilt of the German people wouldn’t
be removed.
• Hans Frank was executed on October 1,
1946.
Heinrich Himmler
• Born in Munich, Germany in 1900.
• He originally wanted to be a farmer and
acquired a college degree in agronomy.
• He took part in the Beer Hall Putsch.
• In 1929 Hitler appointed him leader of the SS
which had 300 men and served as Hitler’s
bodyguards. By 1933 he had expanded the
SS to 50,000 men.
• In 1936 he consolidated all of the police
forces in Germany. He was Chief of the
German police as well as the Gestapo. His
power was limitless.
• In charge of security forces in all of the
camps.
• He was one of Hitler’s most loyal men.
• Hitler called him, “der treue Heinrich.” (loyal
Heinrich)
• Hitler entrusted Himmler to carry out the Final
Solution.
• Himmler really wasn’t anti-Semitic, but he
carried out his orders with his customary
thoroughness and efficiency.
• He formed the Einsatzgruppen to mass
murder the Jews.
• He decided that gas was the most efficient
and cost effective way to kill Jews.
• Excerpt from a speech by Himmler
made on October 4:
“I am talking about the evacuation of
the Jews, the extermination of the
Jewish people. It is one of those things
that is easily said. ‘The Jewish people
are being exterminated,’ every Nazi
Party member will tell you. ‘Perfectly
clear, it’s part of our plans. We’re
eliminating the Jews, exterminating
them, a small matter.’”
• Toward the end of the war, Himmler
tried to negotiate a peace through the
World Jewish Congress.
• He attempted to escape from Germany
in May 1945, but he was captured by
the British.
• He bit into a cyanide capsule that he
had hidden in his mouth and died.
Herman Goering (Goring)
• Born in Roseheim, Bavaria in 1893.
• His father was a military career man, so
Herman grew up going to military
schools.
• He entered the army in 1912 and in
1915 he entered the air corps and flew
fighter planes in WWI.
• He met Hitler in the 1930’s and joined
the Nazi Party.
• He became the 2nd most powerful man
in the Third Reich and Hitler’s appointed
successor.
• He was put in charge of the Aryan takeover of Jewish property.
• It was his idea to make the Jews pay for the
damages done to their own property during
Kristalnacht.
• He used his position to fill his estate with
looted treasures from conquered countries.
• At the end of the war he was arrested and put
on trial at Nuremburg. He managed to obtain
a cyanide capsule before he was hanged.
Reinhard Heydrich
• Born in 1904
• Joined the SS in 1932 (Hitler’s personal
bodyguards)
• Appointed head of the Gestapo in 1934.
• Organized the Einsatzgruppen.
• Implemented the “Final Solution.”
• He was called the “Hangman of Europe” for
his atrocities.
• Assassinated by Czech partisans that
parachuted into Czechoslovakia from
England on May 29, 1942.
• In retaliation for his death, Hitler ordered the
annihilation of the Czech village of Lidice.
The entire male population of the village was
killed and the women and children were sent
to death camps. The village was then
bulldozed down.
Massacre at Lidice
Adolf Eichmann
• Born in Austria in 1906.
• Chief of the Jewish Office of the Gestapo
during WWII.
• Tried to deport Jews from Germany.
• He began the implementation of the Final
Solution by sending Jews to death camps.
• Ironically, he didn’t hate Jews, yet he
zealously sent millions of people to the
death camps.
• Before the end of the war, Himmler
issued an order to stop gassing
prisoners, yet Eichmann ignored it .
• He was responsible for the deaths of 4
million Jews in death camps and 2
million by mobile extermination units.
• Because he worked in an office and not in a
camp, his name was not known by the Allies.
He was able to escape from Germany after
the war.
• He fled to Argentina and was tracked down
by the Israeli secret police in 1960. He was
kidnapped and carried off to Israel and put on
trial for crimes against humanity.
• He was executed on May 31, 1962.
Adolf Hitler
• Born April 20,1889, the fourth child of
Alois Shickelgruber and Klara Hitler in
Austria.
• Alois was an illegitimate child whose
father has never been known. (This is
why there have been rumors that Hitler
had Jewish blood in him!)
• As a child, Hitler’s family lived close to a
Benedictine monastery whose coat of
arms featured a swastika (an ancient
symbol of good luck).
• As a youngster, Hitler wanted to be a
priest.
• He dropped out of school at the age of
16 because he was not a good student
and was in poor heath.
• In 1903 Alois died.
• Using the small inheritance from his father’s
estate, Adolf moved to Vienna to study art,
but could not get admitted into the art school.
• He lived in Vienna for six years, and often
stayed in homeless shelters which were
financed by wealthy Jewish businessmen.
• During the time he stayed in Vienna he
developed his prejudices against Jews,
although two of his closest friends were
Jewish.
• Hitler’s mother died of cancer in 1907 under
the care of a Jewish doctor, although he
never blamed the doctor for his mother’s
death.
• He tried to avoid being drafted into the army
during WWI, but the police served him a draft
notice, and he had a choice of going into the
military or going to jail.
• He served four years in combat and then was
temporarily blinded by mustard gas in 1918.
• During WWI there were many
Communist-led uprisings in Germany.
• The Socialist Party finally gained control
of Germany.
• When WWI ended, the monarchy ended
in Germany. An election was held to
elect a President and a 423 member
National Assembly. This government
was known as the Weimar Republic.
• The Treaty of Versailles humiliated Germany
and sent her into economic ruin.
• Hitler saw the German Worker’ Party as a
means to reach his political ambitions.
• Hatred of Jews was fundamental Nazi Party
doctrine.
• Hitler developed his public speaking skills
and became a forceful, hypnotic speaker.
• Jews were the target of all of Hitler’s
speeches, and so the Jews became the
scapegoats for all of Germany’s economic
problems.
• In 1920 the red flag with the black swastika
was adopted as the Nazi Party’s symbol.
• In January 1923, French and Belgian troops
marched into Germany and occupied part of
the country. The Germans resented their
presence.
• The Nazi Party tried to take over the
Weimar Republic in 1923 (Beer Hall
Putsch).
• Hitler was captured, imprisoned for 9
months of a 5 year sentence, and while
incarcerated, wrote Mein Kampf.
• Germans reading Mein Kampf were led
to believe that their destiny was to
dominate the world.
• By 1930 the Nazi Party had become a
political force in Germany, and Hitler
promised to create a new German empire
that would rule the world for 1,000 years.
• In the 1930 elections, several Nazis were
elected to the National Assembly.
• In 1932 Hitler ran against Hindenburg for the
Presidency of Germany.
• Hindenburg won the election by a substantial
number of votes, but appointed Hitler as his
Chancellor in 1933.
• When Hindenburg died, Hitler became
his successor. Germany was under the
domination of a dictator instead of a
president.
• Any Nazi political opponents were killed
or imprisoned.
• By 1937, Germany was preparing for
war and intended to dominate the world.
• In 1938 Germany made Austria and the
Sudentenland part of Germany.
• In 1939 Hitler invaded Poland, causing
France and England to declare war on
Germany. Immediately German tanks swept
into western Europe and nation after nation
fell to the German war machine.
• In 1941 Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, and
although at first successful, the Russian
winter decimated the German army, angering
Hitler, and giving the Soviets time to prepare
for a defensive assault in the spring.
• The U.S. entered the war in 1941, and
in 1944 the Allies invaded Europe at
Normandy Beach, liberating European
countries as they marched toward
Germany.
• In the meantime, organized,
mechanized killing of the Jews was
being carried out within Germany and
its conquered countries.
• Numerous attempts were made to
assassinate Hitler, but they all failed.
• Hitler married Eva Braun on April 29, 1945,
and the happy couple carried out their
suicide-pact on April 30, 1945 in an
underground bunker before Berlin was
conquered by the Allies.
• After shooting themselves, their bodies were
taken outside by Hitler’s staff, doused with
gasoline and set ablaze.
• Soviet troops seized the remains when they
captured the bunker. But what happened later
has been shrouded in mystery.
• The remains had been kept by the
counterintelligence unit of the Soviet 3rd
Army, part of an intelligence organization
called SMERSH -- a Russian acronym for
"Death to Spies." The soldiers buried and dug
up the remains at least three times in 194546 as the army moved around Germany.
• They were finally interred on SMERSHcontrolled grounds in Magdeburg, a town
about 70 miles west of Berlin -- until the
Soviet government in 1970 ordered the
remains be dug up and burned.
• Hitler's jaw, however, had been
removed and brought to Moscow in
1945, to be included as evidence in an
investigation into Hitler's death.
• Hitler was successful in killing 2/3 of the
European Jews.
Holocaust Memorial in Berlin
Geli Raubal
• Geli was born June 4, 1908, and died
September 18,1931, at the age of 23.
• Her mother, Angela, was Hitler’s halfsister making Geli his half-neice.
• Note: Hitler’s father, Alois, was married
three times. Hitler’s mother, Klara, was
Alois’s niece. The Vatican granted a
dispensation so they could marry
because Klara was already pregnant.
• When Geli was 18 and Hitler was 37,
she and her mother moved into Hitler’s
mansion in Obersalzberg so her mother
could be his housekeeper and cook.
• Hitler had been romantically attracted to
Geli since she was 13 years old.
People said that when he was around
her he was transformed into a happy
person.
• Because Hitler wasn’t married, Geli
acted as a hostess whenever he
entertained guests.
• When Geli turned 20, Hitler moved her
to his nine room apartment in Munich, to
get away from her mother’s watchful
eyes. He did this under the pretense of
enrolling her in medical school.
• Geli had no freedom in Munich because Hitler
kept her to himself and wouldn’t let her do
anything except attend classes unless he was
with her.
• It was said that Hitler wasn’t attracted to
women like “normal” men are and with them
he was chauvinistic and intolerant.
• Hitler’s Nazi friends complained that Geli was
a distraction to Hitler and kept him from his
political duties.
• Geli had the idea that Hitler would
eventually marry her.
• Her real ambition was to be a singer so
she dropped out of medical school,
against Hitler’s wishes.
• In retaliation, Hitler kept her as a
prisoner inside the apartment.
• At the same time, Hitler began “dating”
Eva Braun. He could never marry Geli
because she was his niece, and it would
have caused a scandal when he ran for
a political office.
• On the morning of Saturday, September
19, 1931, Geli’s body was found on the
floor of her bedroom in Hitler’s
apartment.
• She was bleeding from a wound near
her heart, but the bullet missed her
heart and pierced a lung.
• A Walther 6.35 lay on the couch .
• An unfinished letter to a friend was
found near her body, but this was not a
suicide note.
The Mystery of Geli ‘s Death
• There has always been much
speculation as to whether Geli killed
herself or whether Hitler killed her.
• Hitler was 60 miles away but he could
have killed Geli and then traveled that
distance from Munich.
• Geli’s brother, Leo Raubal, was incredulous
when his mother phoned him to tell him that
his sister had committed suicide.
• No autopsy was ever performed on her body,
but eye witnesses said that she had a broken
nose and other bruises. Her body was
immediately sent to Austria for burial.
• The trajectory of the bullet indicates that for
the bullet to have entered just above her
heart and lodged itself above the level of her
hip, the barrel of the pistol had to be pointing
downwards, and the hand holding the gun
had to be higher than her heart.
• Although it would not be impossible for Geli to
shoot herself by holding the gun above her
chest and shooting downward, it is hard to
imagine why she would have held the gun in
this position .
• The Munich Post, a Socialist newspaper,
reported that Geli’s death was murder and not
suicide and called for a full investigation of
her death. This was never done.
• In 1931 the Nazi Party dominated the criminal
justice system in Munich and the Nazis were
getting away with murder.
• The public prosecutor in Munich wanted
to charge Hitler with Geli’s murder, but
the Minister of Justice, Gurtner, stopped
him.
• Geli was a Catholic and was given the
full rites of the Church for a Catholic
funeral. This is not done for Catholics
that commit suicide.
• Geli’s brother questioned the priest,
Father Pant, why Geli was given a
Catholic funeral. The priest answered
that he could not have done what he did
if Geli had committed suicide.
• Seven years after Geli’s death, Father
Pant contacted a Parisian newspaper
after reading an article by Otto Strasser
in which Geli’s name appeared.
• Father Pant is quoted as telling the
editor of the paper, “It was I who buried
Angela Raubal, the little Geli of whom
Otto Strasser wrote. They pretended
that she committed suicide; I should
never have allowed a suicide to be
buried in consecrated ground. From the
fact that I gave her a Christian burial
you can draw conclusions which I
cannot communicate to you.”
• Hitler never recovered from Geli’s death. He
kept a room in his apartment as a shrine to
her.
• After her death Hitler became a vegetarian
and also turned to mass murder.
• It is interesting to note that every woman that
had a “romantic” relationship with Hitler either
committed suicide or attempted suicide.
• He finally married Eva Braun and less than
24 hours later, they both committed suicide.
Geli and Hitler
Geli’s burial site in
Austria.
Oskar Schindler
• Born in 1908 in Austria-Hungary as a
Catholic.
• Married Emilie Pelze at the age of 20 and
remained married to her for 45 years
although he had numerous affairs and a wellknown reputation as a womanizer.
• Joined the Nazi Party in 1938 so that he
could be a businessman, but didn’t hate
Jews.
• In 1938 he was persuaded to be an
agent for the German Intelligence Corps
that required him to supply information
about military and industrial installations
in Poland where he had business
dealings.
• By doing this he was exempt from
serving in the military during WWII.
• When Germany took over Poland,
Schindler went to Krakow to take over a
Jewish business that had been
confiscated by the SS. To make more
money, he used Jewish slave labor and
paid the Nazis for supplying the workers
for his factory.
• Schindler’s goal was to become filthy
rich from the war, but he became aware
of the suffering of the Jews and in the
end used all of his wealth to save the
lives of his 1,300 factory workers.
• Schindler used the greed of the Nazis to
accomplish what he wanted . This
included bribery, black marketeering,
and lies.
• Around the time that Schindler acquired
his “Emalia” factory which produced
enamel pots and pans for the German
army, the Nazis began moving Jews
from the ghettos to death camps.
• Schindler’s Jewish accountant, Itzhak Stern,
put him in touch with the few Jews left that
had any money. They invested in Schindler’s
factory and in return, were given jobs in the
factory. He hired more Jewish workers,
insisting that they were essential and paid the
Nazis so they could stay in Krakow.
• Schindler made money but all of his workers
were well fed, no one was ever beaten, and
no one was killed.
• In 1942 Schindler watched the
liquidation of a Jewish ghetto. Watching
innocent people being packed into train
cars touched something inside of him,
and he became resolved to save as
many Jews as possible.
• He was able to begin a factory near the
Plaszow concentration camp for 900
Jewish workers. They made defective
bullets for German guns.
• He was able to save most of his workers
when his munitions factory was transferred to
the Sudentenland in 1944.
• After the war, Schindler fled to Argentina with
his wife, but in 1958 he left his wife and
returned to Germany.
• He spent the rest of his life living in Germany
and Israel, penniless, but taken care of by the
Jews he saved.
• Schindler died in 1974 and is buried in
Israel.
• Schindler’s life is a testimony to how
one person, any person, can act
courageously even in the worst
circumstances.
The End of Part IV