Execution of Edelweiss Pirates

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Helge
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Execution of Edelweiss Pirates

#1

Post by Helge » 31 Dec 2011, 08:10

Edelweiss Pirates - On November 10, 1944, 13 young people and men were publicly hanged by the Gestapo in Cologne Ehrenfeld without a trial - young dissidents (Edelweiss Piraten), foreign laborers who had gone underground, and concentration camp prisoners who had escaped - whose resistance activities ranged from the crimes of procuring supplies to direct attacks on local NS figures.

http://www.obersalzberg.de/
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Sota ei päätä kuka on oikeassa, vain sen että kuka on jäljellä.
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Re: Edelweiss Pirates in popular memory

#2

Post by michael mills » 31 Dec 2011, 13:37

Edelweiss Pirates - On November 10, 1944, 13 young people and men were publicly hanged by the Gestapo in Cologne Ehrenfeld without a trial - young dissidents (Edelweiss Piraten), foreign laborers who had gone underground, and concentration camp prisoners who had escaped - whose resistance activities ranged from the crimes of procuring supplies to direct attacks on local NS figures.
Utter rubbish. The 13 males executed were members of a criminal gang that had committed a number of crimes including murder.

Some of the younger members of the criminal gang were also members of the Edelweisspiraten, but they were not hanged for their membership in that group of juvenile delinquents, but for their complicity in crimes of violence as members of a criminal gang that included older men who had long criminal careers.

It is time to cease the romanticisation of these executed common criminals. I refer Helge and others to my previuous posts, in which I provided links to articles in "Spiegel" and "Die Zeit" which demolish the myth of the Edelweisspiraten as heroic resisters.

They were nothing of the sort; they were just juvenile delinquent punks, showing the age-old juvenile delinquent's alienation from society by engaging in the sorts of anti-social activities that juvenile delinquent punks have always engaged in.


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Re: Edelweiss Pirates in popular memory

#3

Post by Helge » 31 Dec 2011, 15:37

Hello Michael,
I wrote the subject of the picture (http://www.obersalzberg.de/) Concerning the argument my thinking is the same as yours.

Helge

http://www.histomil.com/viewtopic.php?f=95&t=6627
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Edelweiss.png (282.95 KiB) Viewed 6814 times
Sota ei päätä kuka on oikeassa, vain sen että kuka on jäljellä.
War does not decide who is right but only those who are left.

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Re: Edelweiss Pirates in popular memory

#4

Post by michael mills » 01 Jan 2012, 00:29

Fine, Helge.

I misunderstood what you wrote. I thought it was your own opinion rather than something you were quoting from the site where the photo is locayed.

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Re: Edelweiss Pirates in popular memory

#5

Post by Bernaschek » 01 Jan 2012, 10:54

michael mills wrote:The 13 young men hanged were actually members of the Ehrenfeld Group, which was a criminal gang that had committed several murders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehrenfeld_Group

Thus does historical reality confound Adam Carr's romanticism.
here clearly resistance fighters; I wonder how you read that text.

should they have pelted the Nazis with flowers ?

Ehrenfeld seems to have been a criminal, but that I read in the "Zeit" article, not in the Wikipedia link you have put here.

you have a point in comparing with todays NeoNazis /Skinheads, but those I would rather compare to 60s Hippies or Leftwingers.
It took much more guts for Edelweiss Piraten ( not or not mainly the Cologne group here)to resist the HJ and other aspects of the system - much higher stakes.
"nuts"

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Re: Edelweiss Pirates in popular memory

#6

Post by Helge » 01 Jan 2012, 11:58

Sota ei päätä kuka on oikeassa, vain sen että kuka on jäljellä.
War does not decide who is right but only those who are left.

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Re: Edelweiss Pirates in popular memory

#7

Post by michael mills » 01 Jan 2012, 23:55

here clearly resistance fighters; I wonder how you read that text.
I read it as common criminal activity.

Do you think that stealing, blackmarketeering and murder are not criminal activities?

They are crimes in any society, no matter what its political system.

I will list the items in the article that indicate criminality.
Steinbrück, who escaped from a concentration subcamp in Cologne in July 1943
Professional criminals were sent to concentration camps. The fact that Steinbrück had been sent to a concentration camp inicates that he was probably a hardened criminal with a long record, not just a juvenile delinquent.
The activities of the group began to gain momentum. They stole food and vehicles and sold goods on the black market. Later, they bought guns.[1] As the group expanded, so did the number and scope of the thefts. One particular heist was the Butterraub, the butter robbery. The first time, they stole a few quintals of butter, selling it afterward on the black market for 12,000 reichmarks, at a time when the average wage was 50 reichmarks a week. The second time, they stole 26 quintals of butter and got 123,000 marks for it.[1] Several people, mostly Communists, but also some young people, left Steinbrück over this because the activity drew attention and they felt Steinbrück's behavior was reckless, increasing the risk of arrest.
The criminal activities names in the above passage are:

- stealing food and vehicles
- selling goods on the black market
- illegal possession of firearms
- stealing butter and selling it on the black market at exorbitant prices for the purpose of self-enrichment.

It is noteworthy that members of Steinbrück's gang who may have been genuine political opponents of the National Socialist regime, eg Communists, left the gang because of its blatant criminality and psychopathic nature.
On the run, Steinbrück met a deserter, Roland Lorent, who had just killed a local Nazi leader and was also looking to hide. The two teamed up and conceived a plan to go on a "Nazi hunt". They stole bicycles and gathered weapons.
The criminal activities here are murder and conspiracy to murder. Killing a person because of that person's membership of a political party, regardless of whether or not that person has committed any wrongdoing, is murder under the law of any civilised country.
When they got there, they found a police guard. Both Steinbrück and Lorent opened fire, seriously injuring the guard. A member of the SA, riding toward them on a bicycle was also killed, as was a man wearing boots, whom they assumed was a Nazi. Later, they went to an embankment by the train tracks to wait. While there, they fired into a group of people, killing a member of the Hitler Youth.
The crimes here are grievous bodily harm of a policeman and murder of three people, one of them a juvenile.

In any civilised country, it is a serious crime to fire on and wound a member of the police force on duty.

In addition, killing persons because they belong to particular political organisations, or are thought to belong to them, is considered a hate crime in many countries, and attracts a harsher penalty than normal.

Note that the police captured a total of 63 persons, including 19 teenagers. Of these, they executed only 13, or about one in five. Obviously they executed only the worst offenders, the ones who had committed the murders.

It took much more guts for Edelweiss Piraten ( not or not mainly the Cologne group here)to resist the HJ and other aspects of the system - much higher stakes.
It takes even more guts to be a suicide bomber.

But suicide bombers are considered criminal in civilised societies, even though they sacrifice their own lives. What counts is the fact that they have killed other people.

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Re: Edelweiss Pirates in popular memory

#8

Post by htk » 02 Jan 2012, 14:31

Hi Michael

I with you on this one. Although youre reasoning "Professional criminals were sent to concentration camps. The fact that Steinbrück had been sent to a concentration camp inicates that he was probably a hardened criminal with a long record, not just a juvenile delinquent." is not completely true

Professional criminals were also send to standard prisons ... but also people under protective custody (Schutzhaft) were send to KZ lagers. So to make the assumption that Steinbruck was a hardened crimal with a long record is a step to far. EVERYBODY could be send to a KZ

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Re: Edelweiss Pirates in popular memory

#9

Post by michael mills » 02 Jan 2012, 14:56

According to the "Zeit" article, he tried to join the Gestapo but was rejected.

After that, he impersonated a Gestapo agent, and I think that was probably the reason for his being sent to a KZ.

He appears to have been a violent psychopath who was looking for an outlet for his aggression. Initially he sought that outlet through an avenue sanctioned by the State, namely the Gestapo, but when he was rejected he turned violently against the State and became a criminal.

So he does not appear to have been motivated by any ideological comitment; he adopted an anti-nazi pose because he was not accepted by the Nazis. Maybe if he had been accepted by the Gestapo, he would have ended up beating and killing genuine resisters.

Steinbruck's lack of ideological commitment is mirrored in other Edelweisspiraten, who continued their delinquent activities after the German defeat, and became a big problem for the Allied occupation authorities. They even took to attacking DPs.

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Re: Edelweiss Pirates in popular memory

#10

Post by htk » 02 Jan 2012, 16:41

well the GESTAPO was not know for their sense of humour ! so it could be that impersonating a GESTAPO agent could would earn him a trip to the KZ (if not loosing ones turnip for it ...)

If Dirlewanger ended up being a boss of a entire brigade ... i personally dont see why a psycho couldnt be a GESTAPO agent (especially during the war)

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Edelweiss Pirates Obit Jean Julich

#11

Post by JTG » 09 Feb 2012, 17:04


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Re: Edelweiss Pirates in popular memory

#12

Post by waldzee » 12 Feb 2012, 20:04

The picture shows death by strangulation, rather than by conventional ‘drop hanging.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging
The conclusion was that the pictures were taken to terrify the population at large.
Which raises the question of who the’ real deviant’s were…?
Any security force which tortures its citizens for public consumption has gone rather off the rails…

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Re: Edelweiss Pirates in popular memory

#13

Post by michael mills » 12 Feb 2012, 23:58

The picture shows death by strangulation, rather than by conventional ‘drop hanging.’
This form of hanging was also used by the Polish Government.

There are photographs showing public executions of German prisoners in Poland immediately after the war, using this method of hanging. The photographs show Polish spectators carrying their children on their shoulders so as to have a better view.

The conclusion is that these hangings by strangulation were carried out in public in order to provide entertainment for a Polish crowd.

Which raises the question of who the real deviants were.

Any security force which tortures its enemies for public consumption has gone rather off the rails.

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Re: Execution of Edelweiss Pirates

#14

Post by waldzee » 13 Feb 2012, 01:10

michael mills wrote:
The picture shows death by strangulation, rather than by conventional ‘drop hanging.’
This form of hanging was also used by the Polish Government.

There are photographs showing public executions of German prisoners in Poland immediately after the war, using this method of hanging. The photographs show Polish spectators carrying their children on their shoulders so as to have a better view.

The conclusion is that these hangings by strangulation were carried out in public in order to provide entertainment for a Polish crowd.

Which raises the question of who the real deviants were.

Any security force which tortures its enemies for public consumption has gone rather off the rails.
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To quote Jack Benny:
“ Vee shall now half a joint Chermann Polish outing. Vee Chermanns vill do the concentrating,& you Poles shall do the camping….”
:x , :lol: Depends on your recent history, ol chap... Any special reason for going 'off topic"?

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Re: Execution of Edelweiss Pirates

#15

Post by waldzee » 13 Feb 2012, 09:21

michael mills wrote:
The picture shows death by strangulation, rather than by conventional ‘drop hanging.’
This form of hanging was also used by the Polish Government.

There are photographs showing public executions of German prisoners in Poland immediately after the war, using this method of hanging. The photographs show Polish spectators carrying their children on their shoulders so as to have a better view.

The conclusion is that these hangings by strangulation were carried out in public in order to provide entertainment for a Polish crowd.

Which raises the question of who the real deviants were.

Any security force which tortures its enemies for public consumption has gone rather off the rails.
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Also, from the same thread, posters who'd like to have their research and thoughts taken seriously should consider this, on how an unsourced post is viewed by serious readers:

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Michael, I have noticed that your usually precise scholarship goes ‘off the rails ‘when Poland is bought up. Can you provide evidence of Strangulation as Polish government policy?
It appears is that the edelweiss movement was too easily infiltrated by criminal groups, & that young people are easily misled/coerced into crime as rebellion... however- why this would justify public torture by the security force is not tenable.The Nazi gov’t prevented the Edelweiss from ‘structuring’ in any positive way…

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