Truth about hangings of convicted July 1944 defendents

[Panzermahn]

So, regarding the manner of hangings of the convicted defendents of the July 1944 plot;



10 hours to die = is a myth
piano wire = is a myth

meathooks = on contention now
simultaneous hangings = ???
stripped naked before hanging = ???

[David Thompson]

Michael -- You said:

The comments by the moderator are another example of his tendency to divert attention from the more important issue (whether the British Military Intelligence fabricated a photograph of the execution of the officers condemned for treason and showed it in Switzerland, presumably for the propaganda purpose of exaggerating the brutality of the procedure, and whether the photo of the hanging of Witzleben and Hoepner published in "Die Nation" of 14 February 1945 was the British-produced fake) to a subsidiary one (whether there were post-war legends about the executions, and what their nature were) for the obvious purpose of delegitimating any questioning of the claimed brutality of that particular act of the German Government.

In doing so, the moderator reverses the significance of the two issues.

You must have overlooked the title of the thread: "Truth about hangings of convicted July 1944 defendents," as well as the bold emphases, imparted by Panzermahn to Mr. Irving's quote for the purpose of focusing the readers' attention on "the more important issue":

it was evidently the origin of several post-war legends about the executions including rumours that the men were hanged from meathooks and took ten hours to die.

I suggest that if anyone is attempting a diversion here or reversing the significance of the two issues, it is you.

You also said:

Irving's source is a note by Leiter F of Hinkel's staff. If the moderator had bothered to check Irving's book, he would have discovered that Hans Hinkel was a journalist and an official in Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry, the head of the Jewish desk in that ministry. There is no apparent link to the SS whatever.

You have overlooked or ignored the "apparent link to the SS" in Mr. Irving's footnote to his claim:

23 SS Sturmbannführer Ulenberg (RMVP) to Hinkel, Mar 5 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep.50.01, vol.831).

[Peter H]

Acording to here hanging ( strangulation) may take 10 minutes:

http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/starke/hanging.html

Essentially, execution by hanging is strangulation, effected by restricting the executee's air supply at the neck, unconsciousness occurring between two and four minutes and death within ten, resulting in death by asphyxiation. This, however, is not humane.

Even though the condemned is not suffering for up to ten minutes(being unconscious before that) the first few minutes would be extremely painful.Death is normally declared by a doctor,when vital signs cease.Britain banned the strangulation method in 1830 as inhumane.

If the alternate drop method is done properly the condemned immediately blacks out and is usually declared dead within a few minutes.

[David Thompson]

10 hours to die = is a myth
piano wire = is a myth

meathooks = on contention now
simultaneous hangings = ???
stripped naked before hanging = ???

Here are the eyewitness accounts of the execution given in Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel's work, The Men Who Tried To Kill Hitler, Pocket Books Inc., New York: 1966, pp. 160-161:

160 The Men Who Tried to Kill Hitler

Once the defendants had been sentenced to death, they were hastened away to the Plötzensee prison for execution. They were forbidden any form of spiritual help or consolation by the priests or pastors at the prison, but in spite of this prohibition two of the Protestant pastors managed to enter the cells of the condemned men.

An eye-witness account of the execution by one of the prison warders reveals the utter loneliness of these men, as one by one they were brought in to die under the harsh lights needed for the cameras:

Imagine a room with a low ceiling and whitewashed walls. Below the ceiling a rail was fixed. From it hung six big hooks, like those butchers use to hang their meat. In one corner stood a movie camera. Reflectors cast a dazzling, blinding light, like that in a studio. In this strange, small room were the Prosecutor General of the Reich, the hangman with his two assistants, two camera technicians, and I myself with a second prison warden. At the wall there was a small table, with a bottle of cognac and glasses for the witnesses of the execution. The convicted men were led in. They were wearing their prison garb, and they were handcuffed They were placed in a single row. Leering and making jokes, the hangman got busy. He was known in his circles for his "humour." No statement, no clergymen, no journalists.

One after another, all ten faced their turn. All showed the same courage. It took, in all, twenty-five minutes. The hang-man wore a permanent leer, and. made jokes unceasingly. The camera worked uninterruptedly, for Hitler wanted to see and hear how his enemies had died. He was able to watch the proceedings that same evening in the Reich Chancellery.

The Bloody Assize 161

It was his own idea. He had had the executioner come to him, and had personally arranged the details of the procedure. "I want them to be hanged, hung up like carcasses of meat." Those were his words.

More detailed still is the account given subsequently by one of the newsreel cameramen:

The room was about thirteen feet wide and twenty-six feet long. A black curtain divided this room in two. Only a little daylight came in through two small windows. Immediately in front of these two windows were eight hooks in the ceiling, and from these the convicts were to be hanged. There was also a contrivance in the room for beheading. The former General was the first prisoner to be led through the black curtain into the room. Two executioners escorted him. Previously, the prosecutor had re-read the death sentence to the condemned men in the anteroom, with the added words: "Defendant, you have been sentenced by the People's Court to Death by hanging. Executioner, perform your function."

The defendant went to the end of the room with his head high, although urged by the hangman to walk faster. Arrived there, he had to make an about-face. Then a hempen loop was placed around his neck. Next he was lifted by the executioners, and the upper loop of the hempen rope was attached to the hook on the ceiling. The prisoner was then dropped with great force, so that the noose tightened around his neck instantly. In my opinion, death came very quickly.
After the first sentence had been carried out, a narrow black curtain was drawn in front of the hanged man, so that the next man to be executed would not be aware of the first one.... The executions were carried out in very rapid succession. Each doomed man took his last walk erect and manly, without a word of complaint.

[Larry D.]

Golly gosh......then the hemp material must have been woven around the piano wire.

Third Reich Myth No. 11,971 exposed. Pardon my sarcasm. Although none us knows with certainty because none of us was there, this account from Manvell and Fraenkel has an unmistakable ring of truth to it.

[michael mills]

You have overlooked or ignored the "apparent link to the SS" in Mr. Irving's footnote to his claim:

23 SS Sturmbannführer Ulenberg (RMVP) to Hinkel, Mar 5 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep.50.01, vol.831).

I do not resile from my original criticism of the moderator's assumption of an "SS investigation".

The moderator, blinded by Ulenberg's SS rank, has overlooked the letters RMVP after his name.

They stand for "Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda" (= Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda), ie Goebbel's ministry.

What we have here is an official in Goebbels' ministry, Ulenberg, reporting another official in that same ministry, Hinkel.

Ulenberg's SS rank simply indicates that, like many German bureaucrats, he had honorary membership in the Allgemeine SS. It does not mean that he was a member of a State SS organisation such as the Waffen-SS or the Security Police.

Thus, there is still no indication that the faking of a photo of the hangings by a British agent was the result of an "SS investigation". Since the photo in question was possessed by the British Legation in Switzerland, in is likely that the information about the showing of that photo to Swiss officers and about its origin was obtained by German agents in Switzerland, who forwarded it back to Germany, where it came into the hands of Ulenberg.

[David Thompson]

Michael -- You said:

The moderator, blinded by Ulenberg's SS rank, has overlooked the letters RMVP after his name.

That wasn't the point at issue in the quote you provided. The point at issue was your erroneous claim:

If the moderator had bothered to check Irving's book, he would have discovered that Hans Hinkel was a journalist and an official in Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry, the head of the Jewish desk in that ministry. There is no apparent link to the SS whatever.

Irving's footnote (which I saw when checking Irving's book) showed that the letter to Hinkel was written by an SS-Sturmbannfuehrer (Major). Neither of your contentions in the passage quoted above -- that I hadn't bothered to check Irving's book, and that there is no apparent link to the SS -- were accurate.

Furthermore, you contended:

Ulenberg's SS rank simply indicates that, like many German bureaucrats, he had honorary membership in the Allgemeine SS. It does not mean that he was a member of a State SS organisation such as the Waffen-SS or the Security Police.

Can you establish that as a fact? As you remarked:

What we have here is an official in Goebbels' ministry, Ulenberg, reporting another official in that same ministry, Hinkel.

If Ulenberg only held "honorary membership in the Allgemeine-SS," why did he introduce his "honorary" SS rank title into official interdepartmental correspondence which, according to you, was unrelated to the SS? If you are just speculating, isn't it much more likely that Hinkel, as the head of "the Jewish desk" in the Reich Ministry, would have had a serving SS officer assigned to him as liaison for the Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Ministry's handling of the "Jewish Question"?

You also said:

Thus, there is still no indication that the faking of a photo of the hangings by a British agent was the result of an "SS investigation". Since the photo in question was possessed by the British Legation in Switzerland, in is likely that the information about the showing of that photo to Swiss officers and about its origin was obtained by German agents in Switzerland, who forwarded it back to Germany, where it came into the hands of Ulenberg.

In the first place, there's no showing yet that the British faked the photo. What we have is an allegation by Irving:

Investigations showed that it was a fake furnished by a Mr Saunders, a British secret service agent; it was evidently the origin of several post-war legends about the executions including rumours that the men were hanged from meathooks and took ten hours to die.23

the only reference for which is a letter (which we don't have here) about the investigations (which we also don't have), which Irving says was written by a person using an SS officer's rank to an official in the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. I think it is fair to say that this, by itself, can scarcely establish Irving's first proposition as true. The second proposition in Irving's sentence above is backed by nothing, and contains a demonstrably false characterization of the hangings from meathooks as "rumours" and "post-war legends."

In the second place, the letter from SS-Sturmbannfuehrer (Major) Ulenberg -- whose rank may or may not have been honorary -- is dated 5 Mar 1945. As you remarked:

Since the photo in question was possessed by the British Legation in Switzerland, in is likely that the information about the showing of that photo to Swiss officers and about its origin was obtained by German agents in Switzerland, who forwarded it back to Germany, where it came into the hands of Ulenberg.

Since mid-1944 German foreign intelligence operations were run by the SD-Ausland department (Amt VI) of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). See the memoirs of SS-Brigadefuehrer Dr. Walter Schellenberg (who ran the department), translated as Hitler's Secret Service, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York: 1956, p. 353. Dr. Schellenberg describes the extensive investigation which was conducted by the RSHA into the 20 July 1944 assassination plot at pp. 350-353.

The diary entries of Hinkel's boss, Dr. Goebbels, have survived for this period (27 Feb-9 Apr 1945) and mention nothing about either Hinkel or any investigation by the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. See Final Entries 1945: The Diaries of Joseph Goebbels, G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York: 1978.

Under these circumstances, are you contending that the investigation of the photograph obtained in Switzerland was actually, or would likely have been, conducted by some agency other than the RSHA?

[Brumbar]

A couple of points:

1) The earliest mention I've found of the "piano wire" reference is in William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, on page 1071. He cites John Wheeler-Bennett's Nemesis of Power as the source.

2) Regarding the career of this fellow Hinkel, he was, as Mr. Mills points out, at one time head of the Propaganda Ministry's Jewish Section, but it seems at the time of the executions he held (also?) another position there:

These executions and those that followed were filmed by a crew supervised by the Reich cultural administrator and director of the film depatment in the Propaganda Ministry, Hans Hinkel. Goebbels himself commissioned the film Verrater von dem Volksgericht of which he promised all the Gauleiters a print.

--Goebbels by Ralf Georg Reuth, page 334. Reuth cites a letter from Hinkel to Undersecretary Werner Naumann dated 31 August 1944 (Bundesarchiv Koblenz, R 55/664) as the source.

[David Thompson]

More on Hans Hinkel, from some of my previous posts in other sections of the forum:

Reich cultural administrator and director of the film department in the Reich Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 682#284682
A deputy in the Reichstag
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 996#111996
In 1937 served as editor of the Reich Culture Chamber Handbook
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 411#571411

[Peter H]

Has anyone got details on SS Sturmbannführer Ulenberg?

Michael Miller's site doesn't mention him.

[David Thompson]

Peter H -- See http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 683#730683

Sturmbannführer Alfred Ulenberg Born 13.2.1910 Party Nr 291119 SS Nr 15923 Hauptamtlicher führer der Allgemeine SS beim 58 standarte 1935 Beim SDHa 1938 Beim RHSA 1944 Sbf 20.4.44 Usf 9.11.34 Osf 9.11.35 Hsf 9.11.38 Awarded the WSC 1 with swords, SA Sports badge in bronze

As anticipated, SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Ulenberg was attached to the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt = Reich Security Main Office) in 1944, and before that was attached to the SD main office (SDHa = Sicherheitsdienst Hauptamt - Security Service Main Office).

[Michael Miller]

He was quite an early member of the SS, as evidenced by his relatively low SS-Nr.; probably joined in 1930 or '31. And not just an honorary one- as of 1935, at least, he was a full time (hauptamtlicher) Allgemeine-SS officer.

Best,
~ Mike

[michael mills]

Now let's see some proof for the dog-whistled allegation that the information passed by Ulenberg to Hinkel on 5 March 1945, to the effect that the alleged photo of Witzleben and Hoepner hanging published in "Die Nation" on 14 February of that year was a fake furnished by a British agent called Saunders, was a falsification by Ulenberg or others in the RSHA.

[michael mills]

After doing some searching, I have ascertained that during the war-years there was an anti-fascist weekly newspaper with the title "Die Nation" published in Switzerland.

For some information on the weekly and its editor Peter Surava:

http://www.gms-minderheiten.ch/pdf/hirschsurava.pdf

I would assume that this was the newspaper that published the alleged photo of Hoepner and Witzleben hanging.

It seems that the published photo was furnished to Swiss officers by the British Legation in Switzerland.

The issue is whether that photo was genuine, or whether it was a forgery by a British agent, as apparently reported by Ulenberg to Hinkel.

[David Thompson]

Michael -- You wrote:

Now let's see some proof for the dog-whistled allegation that the information passed by Ulenberg to Hinkel on 5 March 1945, to the effect that the alleged photo of Witzleben and Hoepner hanging published in "Die Nation" on 14 February of that year was a fake furnished by a British agent called Saunders, was a falsification by Ulenberg or others in the RSHA.

No one has made that allegation in this thread, with a dog-whistle or in any other manner. My statement, posted for all to read in ordinary English at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 607#728607 , is that there is insufficient information to take Mr. Irving's claim as true, as you did:

In the first place, there's no showing yet that the British faked the photo. What we have is an allegation by Irving:

Investigations showed that it was a fake furnished by a Mr Saunders, a British secret service agent; it was evidently the origin of several post-war legends about the executions including rumours that the men were hanged from meathooks and took ten hours to die.23

the only reference for which is a letter (which we don't have here) about the investigations (which we also don't have), which Irving says was written by a person using an SS officer's rank to an official in the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. I think it is fair to say that this, by itself, can scarcely establish Irving's first proposition as true.

If you feel competent to establish the truth of Mr. Irving's claim, step right up.

You also wrote:

The issue is whether that photo was genuine, or whether it was a forgery by a British agent, as apparently reported by Ulenberg to Hinkel.

This is hardly the issue. No one here has taken a position on whether the photo was genuine, or claimed that it was forged by a British agent, except for you and Mr. Irving. The actual issue raised by Panzermahn at the beginning of this thread (see http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 419#723419 ) is whether, as Mr. Irving puts it, and with Panzermahn's emphasis, the photo:

was evidently the origin of several post-war legends about the executions including rumours that the men were hanged from meathooks and took ten hours to die.23

That claim is not supported by Mr. Irving's footnote, and Mr. Irving's statement dismissing the hanging of the condemned men by meat-hooks as a "post-war legend" and "rumour" is either ignorant or deliberately misleading.