Comrade | Guevara
After the surrender of Nazi Germany, the European International Military Tribunal tried the military and political leaders under the war demon Hitler in Nuremberg, of which 12 of the most heinous were sentenced to hanging, except for Goering, who committed suicide before the execution, and Baumann, who was tried in absentia, and 10 Nazi war criminals were officially executed on October 16, 1946. Among them, the last war criminal to go to the gallows was Atul Seth-Enquart, the foreign minister of Nazi Germany, who had made his fortune by betraying his native Austria and was notorious for his frenzied persecution of the Jews.
01 Selling the country for glory
Born in 1892 in Moravia , austria-Hungary ( in present-day Czech ) , Seth-Inquart moved to the capital Vienna with his parents at the age of 15 and then studied law at the University of Vienna. After the outbreak of World War I, Seth Enquart enlisted in the army, fought and wounded in Russia, Romania and Italy, and completed his degree while recuperating. After World War I, Seth Inquart became a lawyer, admiring Hitler, an Austrian, and eventually established close ties with the German Nazi Party in 1931 and became the head of the Nazi Party's branch in Austria.
Seth Inquart bust
Hitler, who was committed to the unification of Germany and Austria of the same origin, carried out various threats and inducements against Austria from the beginning of his rise to power, instigated the Nazi Party led by Seth Inquart to hold riots in Vienna and other places, and even instructed the Nazis to assassinate the unwilling Austrian Chancellor Taulpheus in July 1934. After Taurpheus's assassination, Schuschnigg came to power and, in order to stabilize the domestic situation, had to appoint Seth Inquart as minister, and three years later he was appointed as state adviser.
In February 1938, Hitler threatened military action at the Berchtesgaden Conference, forcing Schuschnigg to put Seth Inquart in charge of the Austrian Ministry of Security and the Ministry of the Interior, and agreed to maintain special relations between Germany and Austria, hoping to accelerate the merger of the two countries. Due to Austria's weakness and the fruitless appeal to Britain, France, Italy and other powers for help, Schuschnigg resigned on the grounds that he was unable to resist the German invasion, and President Miklas was forced by Hitler to appoint Seth Inquart as chancellor.
The Austrian people welcomed the Germans into Vienna
On 12 March of the same year, the day after Seth Inquart became Chancellor, a telegram was sent to Berlin requesting German troops to enter Austria in order to maintain social order in the country, which legitimized the German invasion of Austria. The next day, congress quickly passed the Ode Merger Bill due to the influence exerted by Seth-Inquart, but President Miklas refused to sign it and resigned. However, Miklas's move did not save Austria's already doomed fate, and Seth Inquartsch succeeded to the presidency with Hitler's support and quickly signed the annexation bill.
Seth Enquardt and Hitler
On March 15, 1938, the German-Austrian merger bill officially entered into force, and Germany annexed Austria in a bloodless manner, and the British, French, Italian and other powers still took a silent attitude towards this. Subsequently, Hitler, as a conqueror of the motherland, followed the German occupying forces into Vienna for an inspection, which is quite ironic. After the German-Austrian merger, Seth Inquart was appointed governor of the Eastern Frontier of Germany by Hitler for his traitorous "merits" and was awarded the title of General of the SS. Shortly before that, Seth Inquart had openly joined the Nazi Party in Germany.
02 Evil is heinous
As a result of the "peaceful" merger of Germany and Austria, Seth Inquart was deeply favored by Hitler, and he also used practical actions to "repay" the trust of the Nazi tyrant. During his more than a year as Governor-General of the German Eastern Krai, Seth-Inquart worked several times with the Security Police and the SS Security Service to bloodily suppress anti-Nazis in Austria, driving Jews from Austria to eastern Germany and confiscating their property, eventually throwing them into concentration camps.
Jews on the "death train" to the concentration camps
After the german-Austrian merger, Hitler began to carry out plans to dismember and annex neighboring Czechoslovakia, but the implementation was difficult. In view of this, Seth Inquart took the initiative to share the worries of the lord, and in March 1939 he went to Presburg to lobby the autonomous state of Slovakia in Czechoslovakia and successfully persuaded his cabinet to declare independence, which was a major blow to the Czech side and led to its final surrender to Germany. Two months later, Seth Inquart was promoted to Minister of Germany "for merit".
In September 1939, not long after the German invasion of Poland, Seth-Enquat was appointed administrator of the German occupation zone in southern Poland. On 12 October of the same year, six days after the german and Soviet unions had destroyed Poland, Seth Inquart was promoted to deputy governor of the Polish Governor's Palace. The Polish Doge's Office administers the rest of the Polish territories, except for those directly annexed to Germany and annexed to Soviet occupation, including the four regions of Warsaw, Lublin, Radom and Krakow, which are of vital importance to Germany's war of aggression.
Polish laborers who were sent to Germany
At that time, the governor of Poland was Hans Frank, a notorious Nazi who openly declared at the beginning of his term that "Poles should become slaves of the German Empire." During his tenure, Frank imposed a policy of economic oppression, forcibly recruited more than 1 million Poles to work as laborers in Germany, and brutally persecuted and slaughtered polish social elites. At the same time, Frank also actively pursued a plan to exterminate Jews, killing at least 3 million Jews. During this time, Frank was actively assisted by his deputy, Seth Inquart, and together committed a series of heinous crimes.
In May 1940, at the high recommendation of SS chief and Gestapo chief Himmler, Seth Inquart became governor of the Netherlands. Upon his arrival, Seth Inquart vigorously supported the Dutch National Socialist Movement and authorized the party to create an auxiliary police organization to ban other parties and arrest former government officials. At the same time, Seth-Inquart also cooperated with senior local SS leaders and police chiefs to shoot and kill hostages arrested for violating the occupation authorities and to send all those suspected of hostility to occupation policies to concentration camps.
Inquart during his tenure as Governor-General of the Netherlands
As in his time in Poland, Seth-Inquart pursued a policy of maximum economic oppression and property expropriation in the Netherlands, and forced 500,000 Dutchmen to germany to work as laborers, and he was "familiar" with the persecution of Jews. According to the crimes announced at the Nuremberg Trials, Seth Inquart ransacked the property of Jews during his five years as governor of the Netherlands, and then escorted about 120,000 people to Auschwitz for massacre, and the total number of Jews in the country was only 140,000!
03 Death is more than enough
After Hitler committed suicide, Seth Inquart, who had been promoted to foreign minister, had fantasies of making peace with Britain and the United States in order to save the dog's life, but he committed heinous crimes and certainly could not escape justice. After the surrender of Nazi Germany, Seth Inquart was arrested by the Allies and soon transferred to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, where he was charged as a Class A war criminal with conspiracy against peace, planning and commission of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity. After trial, the court found all three counts except conspiracy against peace and sentenced Seth Inquart to hanging in accordance with the law.
Seth Inquart on the Gallows
Perhaps mentally prepared, so when the verdict was announced, Seth Inquart said rather calmly: "Hanging... Well, looking at the whole thing, I don't expect anything different, it doesn't matter. In the early hours of October 16, 1946, 10 Nazi war criminals were hanged, and after a lottery, the 54-year-old Seth Inquart was the last to go to the gallows. Before his execution, Seth Inquart said quietly: "I hope that my death is the last scene in the tragedy of the Second World War, and I hope that the lessons learned in the Great War should be that peace should exist between people." I believe in Germany! ”
bibliography
William Scheyler (U.S.): The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, World Knowledge, 2015.
Richard Ofvery, A Graphic History of the Third Reich, Golden City Press, 2013.
Liddell Hart ( English ) : A History of the Second World War , Shanghai Translation Publishing House , 1978.