Here we make a list of people who were executed by Nazis.
1. Ernst Röhm
Ernst Röhm with Adolf Hitler
Ernst Röhm is one of the world’s first openly gay politician, who was a leading member of the Nazi Party and a early friend and ally of Adolf Hitler. He founded the Sturmabteilung (SA Brownshirts), which played a vital role in destroying Hitler’s opposition during the elections of 1932 and 1933 and helped him get to the office. After coming to power, Hitler saw Röhm as a liability and a rival who could overthrow him. So Hitler, at the persuasion of Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, had Röhm and his friends killed in a operation which lasted for three days from 30 June to 2 July 1934, and has now come to be known as ‘The Night of the Long Knives‘. At least 85 people were killed in this operation. The Nazis presented this operation to public as a preventive measure against a alleged impending coup by SA under Röhm. The event was a turning point in German history which established Hitler as the supreme leader.
2. Hermann Fegelein
Adolf Hitler with Hermann Fegelein and his wife Gretl Braun at their wedding
Hermann Fegelein was a General in the Waffen-SS, which was the combat branch of the Nazi Party’s paramilitary organization. He was the brother-in-law of Hitler’s wife Eva Braun through his marriage to her sister Gretl, which made him part of Hitler’s inner circle. Hermann, who was a professional soldier and got wounded in combat in September 1943 was put on duty at Hitler’s Führerbunker in Berlin during the last weeks of war. He was caught by a Reichssicherheitsdienst commander, when he deserted Hitler’s bunker and was on in way to flee to Sweden or Switzerland in civilian clothes. Hermann escaped because he didn’t want to be a part of Hitler’s suicide pact and was shot to death for desertion on 28 April 1945, two days before Hitler and Eva Braun’s suicide.
3. Noor Inayat Khan
She was a British agent under the codename Madeleine in occupied France who served in the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The SEO’s purpose was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in countries occupied by Nazi Germany. Noor who was trained in wireless telegraphy used her training to transmit information from occupied France. She was betrayed to the Germans by a double agent after which she was captured and transferred to the Dachau concentration camp. Noor Inayat was tortured by SS guards for information, but she did not divulge. She was executed on 13 September, 1944, along with three other SEO’s agent with a shot to the head. She was posthumously awarded the George Cross, which is the highest civilian decoration for gallantry in the United Kingdom.
4. Anna Letenská
She was Czech theatre and film actress who was executed with a shot to the head at Mauthausen concentration camp on 24 October, 1942, at 10:56 for allegedly helping the assassins of Reinhard Heydrich, who was one of the architects of the Holocaust.
5. Missak Manouchian
He was a French-Armenian poet turned activist, who was the military commissioner of Francs-tireurs et partisans – main-d’œuvre immigrée (FTP-MOI), which is a organization that composed of European immigrants that were opposed to the German occupation of France during World War II and carried out assassinations and bombings in the Paris Region with Nazis as targets. Manouchian and many of his comrades were arrested by the collaborationist French police forces on 16 November 1943. They were tortured to gain information and were eventually over to the Germans’ Geheime Feldpolizei (GFP). Manouchian and his 21 comrades were given show trial for propaganda purposes before their execution by gunshot on 21 February, 1944. He is now recognized as a hero of French resistance and a square in Marseille is named after him. A only known photograph (cover photo) of French Resistance members being executed by Nazi firing squad was discovered in December 2009. The photograph was later discovered to be of Manouchian and his men.
6. Victor Perez
He was a Tunisian Jewish boxer who became the World Flyweight Champion in 1931 and 1932. Victor retired from boxing in 1938. He was arrested in Paris on 21 September 1943, by Milice Francaise, a French collaborationist paramilitary force of the Vichy Regime who detained him in Drancy internment camp. He was later transported to the German extermination camp of Auschwitz on 7 October 1943, where he was assigned to serve as a slave laborer in Monowitz subcamp. On 18 January 1945, Perez was shot dead by a Nazi soldier during the death march from Monowitz in Poland to the Gleiwitz concentration camp near the Czech border. According to eye witness testimony he was shot to death while trying to share bread, against orders, with other starving prisoners.
7. Sigmund Rascher
He was a Nazi doctor who was known for conducting horrific medical experiments on prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp. Sigmund and his wife Karoline Diehl had three children kidnapped to pass them off as their own to demonstrate to Heinrich Himmler that his wife could give birth to three children even after reaching 48 years of age because of her super fertility. Himmler used a photograph of Rascher’s family as propaganda material for acceleration of Aryan population growth theory. When Karoline was pretending to be pregnant for the fourth time, she was arrested while attempting to kidnap a baby. On investigation it was uncovered that that the other three children were also kidnapped, which upset Himmler, and in April 1944 they were arrested for defrauding the public. Sigmund was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp and Karoline was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp. Sigmund and other prisoners were then taken to Dachau, where he was shot on 26 April 1945. Karoline was also executed around the same time.
8. Claus von Stauffenberg
He was a German army officer who was one of the leaders of Operation Valkyrie, which was a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler which took place on 20 July 1944 at the Wolf’s Lair near Rastenburg, East Prussia, which is now in Poland. Stauffenberg was executed by firing squad the next day. Tm Cruise played him in the movie Valkyrie (2008).
9. Sophie Scholl
She was a German student who was part of White Rose, which was a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany. On 18 February 1943, Sophie and her brother were arrested by the Gestapo for distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich. She and her brother were beheaded by guillotine on 22 February 1943. A German movie about her last days, Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage (2005), got nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in January 2006.
10. Sabina Spielrein
She was one of the first female psychoanalysts, who began as a patient and later a collogue of Swiss psychoanalyst, Carl Jung. Sabina also had a correspondence with Sigmund Freud. She was one of the first psychoanalyst to introduce the concept of death instinct. Sabina who was of Russian Jewish background was murdered by the SS death squad after the capture of Rostov-on-Don by the German troops. She along with two of her daughters and 27,000 other mostly Jewish victims were murdered on August 1942 in Zmievskaya Balka, which has a monument now to commemorate the tragic incident. A Dangerous Method (2011) is a movie based on her relationship with Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, directed by David Cronenberg.
