As the world began to recover from the horrors of World War ll, the hunt for the most savage and famously known Nazi war criminals began.
The Allied Forces began their hunt for these most dreaded war criminals with the goal of bringing all those responsible for atrocities committed during the Second World War to justice.
There were those who managed to slip through the system’s cracks and crevices and successfully evade capture — and eventually vanished into history.
These elusive individuals were the most infamous and heinous of all Nazi war criminals, who were responsible for the deaths of countless innocent people.
The perpetrators’ whereabouts were unknown for decades, leaving a trail of sadness and misery in the hearts and souls of those who were seeking justice and demanding for the hammer of justice to fall with all its might on these infamous Nazi war criminals.
The search for answers was tiring and never-ending — with no stone left unturned in the quest to find these loathed criminals and answers related to their crimes. Despite the passing of time, the pursuit of justice persisted as a smoldering flame that wouldn’t go out until the offenders were brought to justice.
Aribert Heim The Inhumane Doctor
Aribert Heim was not just any ordinary doctor; he had a dark secret. He enjoyed inflicting pain and suffering on innocent people. He was ruthless, and his experiments on Jewish prisoners were beyond inhumane. He showed no remorse for his actions, and people feared him.
After the war ended, Heim was captured by the US Army to be trialed and his victims and their families were hoping that justice will be served, but unfortunately, it never happened. Heim managed to escape, leaving behind his sinister past.
Years went by, but the memories of Dr. Death lingered on — there were many who wondered where Heim could be hiding, but no one had a clue. Then, in 1962, the police caught wind that Heim was living under a new identity.
The police went to Heim’s house in hopes of arresting him, but by the time they got there, he had already left the place — leaving his family alone to face the consequences for the crimes they never committed.
People speculated where he could have gone. Some believed he was living in Egypt under the name Tarek Farid Hussein. Others said he was hiding in South America or Spain. But no one knew for sure.
The truth finally emerged in 1992 when the New York Times reported that Heim had died of cancer in Cairo. Heim lived a long life, but his victims were never able to get the justice they rightly deserved.
Heinz Lammerding The Commander of Das Reich
Heinz Lammerding, once a significant figure in the German army, was recognized as the commander of the infamous SS “Das Reich” division during WWII.
But on D-Day, as Allied troops invaded France, French resistance fighters began attacking German soldiers throughout the countryside.
When a German officer was captured, Lammerding ordered brutal reprisals that resulted in the deaths of over 800 innocent civilians in the towns of Tulle and Oradour.
After the war, Lammerding was prosecuted in a French court, and not surprisingly at all, he was found guilty — and given a death sentence but was spared due to the British and German governments’ refusals to extradite him.
He went on to develop a lucrative engineering company and lived freely in Dusseldorf until his death from cancer at the age of 66.
However, the ruins of Oradour still stand as a permanent reminder of the atrocities committed by Lammerding and the Nazi regime.
Karl Silberbauer A Sergeant Known For Arresting Anne Frank
Karl Silberbauer was a staff sergeant in the SS and reported directly to the notorious Adolf Eichmann he was also in charge of coordinating the extermination of the Jews, — — a task he took on with brutal and extreme efficiency.
In 1944, it was Silberbauer who led the Gestapo raid and arrested the inhabitants of the Secret Annex, including the young Anne Frank and her family.
Silberbauer wasn’t content with just making arrests — he rummaged through their belongings and tossed their valuables onto the floor, including a handwritten diary belonging to Anne Frank.
After the war, Silberbauer moved on to become an inspector with the Vienna police. But his past caught up with him in 1963 when he was exposed as the commander of Anne Frank’s arrest.
The Austrian government did not see Silberbauer’s crime as serious misconduct or something that was punishable by law and thus he was also allowed to keep his position after a disciplinary hearing.
Silberbauer passed away suddenly in 1972 at the age of 61, but his reputation lives on as the person who oversaw the incarceration of one of the most famous victims of the Holocaust.
Walter Rauff — A Colonel Responsible For Killing Thousands
Walter Rauff, an SS colonel, was notorious for his involvement in the construction and deployment of “gas vans” during World War II.
These vehicles were used to suffocate victims by pumping exhaust into the sealed rear compartment through a hose — Rauff’s was the reason behind thousands of deaths in Eastern Europe
After the war came to its conclusion, Rauff was captured in Italy by the Allied Forces but he managed to escape from an Allied Prisoner Of War camp. He was then sheltered by the Vatican before fleeing to Syria and eventually settling in Chile.
Incredibly, while living in Chile, Rauff was recruited and paid by the West German intelligence services from 1958 to 1962.
However, he was eventually indicted for the deaths of 90,000 victims from North Africa to the Baltic.
Despite his indictment, Chile refused to extradite Rauff on the grounds of the statute of limitations. Rauff lived openly in Chile until his death at the age of 77 in 1984, where he was celebrated by former Nazis at his funeral.
Roland Freisler The Minister With Immense Power
Roland Freisler was a man who held immense power in Nazi Germany. He served as both the president of the Volksgerichtshof, also known as the “people’s court,” and the Secretary of State for the Reich Ministry of Justice. He misused his power over countless lives for over three years and executed countless people.
But behind his imposing title and gavel, Freisler was a man who revealed his own sense of importance. He had a bombastic courtroom demeanor, shouting and berating those who stood before him with sarcastic quips and cutting insults.
His theatrics were so chilling that even the Nazi regime, which prided itself on its propaganda, decided not to publicly show films of his courtroom proceedings to the German people.
Sadly, many innocent people fell victim to Freisler’s ruthless tactics, including Sophie Scholl, a young woman who bravely opposed the Nazi regime, and Mildred Harnack, an American citizen who was living in Germany with her husband.
Along with that, he presided over the trial of the 20th July defendants, a group of military commanders who had attempted to kill Adolf Hitler.
Despite his many atrocities, Freisler was never held accountable for his actions. However, karma finally caught up with him on February 3, 1945, when an Allied bomb struck his courtroom, crushing him to death.
Kurt Franz The Savage Member Of The Nazis
Kurt Franz was a young SS officer who eagerly joined the Nazi T4 euthanasia program during the early days of the Third Reich — soon Franz became one of the most trusted men of higher rank Nazi officials and thus he quickly rose through the ranks and soon he was transferred to an extermination camp of Belzec and later to Treblinka.
Despite his boyish looks, Franz was a brutal and sadistic commander who took pleasure in inflicting pain and suffering on the camp’s prisoners.
He would release his massive St. Bernard on the helpless inmates, laughing as he watched them struggle to survive the dog’s savage attacks.
It was in 1959, that Franz’s reign of terror finally came to an end — it was when he was arrested for his role in the killing of more than 300,000 innocent people.
Franz was convicted in 1965; however, being the elusive and cunning person he was he managed to avoid justice presenting his health deterioration as the reason. He lived out the remaining years of his life as a free man in Wuppertal, Germany.
It’s particularly disturbing that Franz kept treasuring his memories of the camps even after his sentencing. Authorities found a photo album called “Beautiful Years” that contained pictures of the horrendous crimes he had perpetrated when they conducted a raid on his residence.
Erich Von Dem Bach-Zelewski The Mass Murdering General
Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was a high-ranking Waffen-SS general, notorious for his brutal actions during World War II.
Bach-Zeleweski played a significant role during the conflict, operating in both the Soviet Union and Poland, he was another member of the Nazis who was responsible for killing thousands of innocent lives.
Perhaps the most chilling example of Bach-Zelewski’s cruelty was his involvement in the murder of 35,000 individuals near Riga.
Shockingly, he boasted that he had successfully eradicated the Jewish population in Estonia.
His reputation for brutality was cemented by his ruthless suppression of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 — this tragic event led to the deaths of at least 150,000 civilians and another 15,000 members of the Polish underground movement.
Despite his reprehensible actions, Bach-Zelewski managed to avoid prosecution for his war crimes by testifying at Nuremberg.
Even after evading most of his well-deserved punishment he still had to face a sentence of 10 years of home detention in 1951, for his involvement in the killing of German political opponents.
Additional time was later added for similar offenses, but he was never brought to justice for his heinous actions during the war.
Erich Koch The One Who Killed Millions
Erich Koch was a notorious figure in World War II as a Nazi administrator in Poland and the Soviet Union.
Koch was known as the most brutal man in the Polish and Soviet Union regions because of his record, which stated that Koch was responsible for killing about 4 Million people and forcing more than 2 million into forced labor.
Ironically, despite forbidding German troops from retreating from East Prussia, Koch himself fled to Northern Germany.
It took until 1949 for him to be captured. His British captors turned him over to Poland instead of the USSR, and he was finally sentenced to death after eight years.
However, Koch’s sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment, which puzzled many.
It was suspected that Russia was behind this decision, as they believed Koch had knowledge of the whereabouts of the “Amber Room” and other Soviet art treasures. Koch ultimately died in Polish captivity in 1986 at the age of 90.
Conclusion
Throughout history, we have seen war criminals and mass murderers evade justice. It is hard to fathom how they managed to do so, given that the world was fairly advanced and our justice systems were almost fully developed at the time.
Despite this, these criminals managed to dodge everything that came their way. Let us hope that the whole world starts living in peace so that we never have to see anything like this again.
