executions in east germanyexecutions in east germany

And for that, the 37-year-old mother of two young children had five massive jolts of electricity pumped through her body. Michael was more sceptical of the Venona papers and wondered if they were CIA disinformation. It was feeble stuff, as the FBI knew, yet Myles Lane, the chief assistant attorney for the Southern District of New York, told the press: If the crime with which she, Ethel, is charged had not occurred perhaps we would not have the present situation in Korea.. Lavrenti Beria, for example, argued on 27 May 1953 that the Soviets should abandon East Germany. She was, one cable noted, a devoted person ie a communist but, the cables also stressed, [she] does not work, ie she was not a spy. Previous death sentences were replaced by life imprisonment. Ruth was free to stay home and look after their children. Yeah, if I had my choice of execution methods, Id pick either the guillotine or a bullet to the base of the skull. (article 31 GG) Federal law overrides state law.[10]). In: Evangelisches Staatslexikon. To quote Hitler, "after ten years of hard prison, a man is lost to the people's community anyway. The last execution in East Germany is believed to have been the shooting of Werner Teske, convicted for treason, in 1981; the last execution of a civilian (after 1970, capital punishment was rare and used almost exclusively for espionage and occasionally Nazi war criminals) was Erwin Hagedorn, for sexually motivated serial child murder. [32][33], The convicts were not told they had been denied clemency until the day of their execution. Ruth died in 2008, David in 2014. By the thousands your wives and children will become widows and orphans. Ethels innocence raises more questions than it settles. In several countries, more recent executions were carried out for (alleged) war crimes, treason, genocide, or other crimes against the state, most notably the Ceauescus, who were executed in 1989 in Romania after being convicted in an irregular (and actually illegal) military trial. The GDR he asked rhetorically: what does it amount to? 2) They Were (Almost) Everywhere. While Julius had a close relationship with his mother, Sophie, Ethel and her mother, Tessie, had a difficult one. It was more personal. The Rosenbergs were executed for spying in 1953. Can their sons reveal He recoils, poleaxed by the thought. But we now know how important those early years of life are, and Ethel must have given those two boys so much in those years that it lasted all their lives. Executions Around the World | Death Penalty Information Center 01/06/2021 Seventy years ago, thousands of Germans gathered in the Bavarian town of Landsberg to demonstrate against the death penalty for Nazi war criminals. This was a state created from, and sustained by, force and violence. These were messages sent between Soviet intelligence agencies that had been intercepted and decrypted by US counterintelligence from 1943 to 1980. Second, they had amazing adoptive parents. In handcuffs and bound for separate cells, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg share a final kiss in a prison van outside court after their arrest in New York in 1950. ichael and Robert never saw the Greenglasses again after the trial, and all Michael remembers of them is: David looked like a nondescript schlub and Ruth was a cold fish. Robert and Michael are optimistic that President Biden will look favourably at their campaign to exonerate their mother, Ethel Rosenberg. [3], There has also been debate on the question whether this article could legally be abolished by a two-thirds majority in Bundestag and Bundesrat. 11. Understandably, some of the Soviet leadership came to believe that East Germany was heading for internal catastrophe. Despite the newly founded Federal Republic's protests, the Western Allied powers continued for some time to practice capital punishment in their separate jurisdiction. Ethel and Juliuss sons Robert, left, and Michael Meeropol, who took their adoptive parents surname. Ethel, however, was a very different story. They constantly question their own memories of the past. Your execution is imminent." At the end of the 1941-45 war, as many as two million East German women were raped by Soviet soldiers, one estimate being that 200,000 died as a direct result. The British Hangman Who Executed Belsen's Most Sadistic Nazis - Haaretz ExecutedToday.com East Germany When the Nazi head of Hbeners congregation found out about the arrest, he excommunicated the boy from the Mormon Church. [8], In 2017 the German Federal Constitutional Court, in its verdict on the attempt to ban the National Democratic Party of Germany, considered the party's demand for a referendum on the reintroduction of capital punishment as anti-constitutional and incompatible with the liberal democratic basic order. Edmond Rveil spoke to local media this week about how, as an 18-year-old officer for the resistance on 12 June 1944, he had witnessed the mass execution of 47 German soldiers and one French. Their parents lives were destroyed by this case; instead of spending so much of their lives reliving it, why not leave it in the past? Countless others, who'd committed less heinous crimes or were accessories, received prison sentences. Cavaignac 477 subscribers 1.2K views 10 months ago The death penalty in East Germany was often subject to. Category : People executed by East Germany by guillotine Reporting from Dresden, Germany. When asked if he had anything to say before his sentencing, Hbener confronted the judges again. The last person executed in Germany was the East German Werner Teske, who was executed at Leipzig Prison in 1981. But memories of their parents were always there. Erna Dorn was executed in secret in Dresden, East Germany on this date in 1953. The previous month, Ethels younger brother, David Greenglass, had been arrested for the same crime. Ethel was killed for being a wife. These were his friends! However, his wife, Ruth, said that Ethel had typed up the information David had given Julius to pass on to the Soviets. He even used to play hangman with his father, although he didnt realise the irony until he was an adult. In 1995, the Venona papers were declassified. The campaign to exonerate Ethel is starting again, and the Meeropols are optimistic that President Biden will look at it favourably. Berlin marks East German uprising of 1953 - DW - 06/17/2017 What happened to East German executioners who worked for Stasi - Quora 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. What Russia needed was a peaceful Germany, he added; whether it was socialist or not was immaterial. Bay Area to Univ of Heidelberg, Germany for summer school for foreigners. His death was therefore seen as a real chance to call a halt to economic and political horrors, and open the way to German unity at the same time. > However, many Germans disobeyed. In those days, that wasnt the thought process. They know their argument defies the confines of bite-size headlines, and so is a difficult one to sell to the public: Julius was guilty, although the extent of his guilt was exaggerated in an attempt to scare him into naming names; Ethel was possibly complicit, but not culpable. German row over jail term for woman who attacked neo-Nazis Then he began listening to forbidden radio broadcasts and became convinced that the regime was not just racist and manipulative, but was losing the war. EL Doctorows 1971 novel, The Book Of Daniel, the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact, a songwriter whose biggest hit was Strange Fruit, original mentor was none other than Roy Cohn. [5], The Penal Code was formally[6] amended in 1951 to conform to the abolition. But the human rights group estimates that thousands went unreported. The government and FBI hoped that, too. There was a huge mansion with a guard post manned by two soldiers. ET. By Smolkas time, that perimeter was buffered by an internal border that made it difficult for ordinary people to approach near enough to West Germany to escape. The precise timing of the June 1953 revolt was significant. We crossed anyway, lol! At the same time, while it was spontaneous and unplanned, it had even more remarkably a secondary, hidden goal: German reunification. Ugh! The killing followed the Soviet protoc. It began with a strike action by construction workers in East Berlin on 16 June against work quotas during the Sovietization process in East Germany. Are they close to a breakthrough? Communist leaders at the time certainly claimed that it was far more than industrial action, denouncing it as an attempted coup detat against the government of the GDR, supported by western intelligence and acted accordingly. Can their sons reveal the truth? She told me it was down to three things, Sebba says. 2 GG) keinen Bestand haben knnte". Nothing! Ethel and Julius Rosenberg after their arrest in New York for espionage in 1950. t was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs So goes the opening sentence of, t is a bitter, rainy spring day when I interview the Rosenbergs sons. My wife is my wife. Do you want to add anything, Chando? says Michael. The US soldiers warned us at what was known as Checkpoint Charlie, that once we crossed over to their side there was nothing they could do for us. Indeed, it is shamefully clear today that all western governments, in fear of Soviet retaliation, would not intervene to assist the East Germans. Ethel must have been an extremely good mother.. So why didnt Julius save Ethel? She was the mastermind of this whole conspiracy, assistant prosecutor Roy Cohn told the judge. Surviving family were given pensions. BTW: The Guillotine is probably one of the best modes of execution ever invented. Equally significantly, the Korean war had just begun, which was seen by the US as a fight to stop communism destroying the American way of life. For the SPD, which genuinely opposed capital punishment outright, Seebohm gave them cover for an objective they were too afraid to pursue on their own, whereas for more than half of those in the CDU, the political advantages of shielding Nazi war criminals from execution overrode their support for capital punishment in ordinary murder cases. Germany detains 3 more suspects linked to far-right coup plot But even then it had enormous power that would grow over time; in the GDR by 1985 there was one Stasi officer to every 180 citizens. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. But he and Robert repeatedly emphasise that their uncle Davids claim that he gave Julius atomic information in September 1945 is extremely dubious. History hangs heavy on Germany: there is so much of it, and understanding even its more dramatic aspects is often not easy. German Court Convicts 4 Leftists in Attacks Targeting Neo-Nazis Mnchner Platz Memorial, Dresden - Dark Tourism - the guide to dark The Stasi had 91,000 employees at its peakroughly one in every 30 residents was a Stasi agent. Hed have been in prison and Ethel would have been released to take care of us thats the deal the government made with the Greenglasses. Prosecutors said Tuesday the three suspects were detained Monday evening in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. First, given that she was a true believer in communism, why didnt she join her husband, brother and sister-in-law in spying? I ask why it matters so much to them what people understand. [22] Courts (or whatever was in place of a court) sometimes were officially granted the right to inflict capital punishment, even where not provided by law, and sometimes did so by their own discretion. 1960: Manfred Smolka, East German border guard Long live the Guillotine! The capital punishment provision was finally scrapped from Hesse's state constitution in 2018 by popular vote, with 83% of the votes in favor.[11]. East Germany continued to use the guillotine until 1967, but records of executions there are very sketchy. Within months he would be deadthe youngest-ever victim of the Third Reichs infamous Peoples Court. With either one of them its lights-out in seconds or less although both of them are not nice to watch. Roland Freisler, the President of the National Socialist Peoples Court (Volksgerichtshof). East Germany abolished capital punishment in 1987. It has also been argued that Article 102, according to its systematical place, does not guarantee a basic right but enacts a judicial restriction. At the trial, under Cohns questioning, David testified that in September 1945 he gave Julius a sketch and description of the atomic bomb, and that Ethel was deeply involved in the discussions between them. So what am I gonna do, call my wife a liar? It was further amended on 13 January 2022 to clarify that Morton Sobell served 18 years in a number of different prisons, not just Alcatraz as an earlier version indicated. It made me want to hug and kiss him all the time, says Michael. This ban is stated in article 102 GG: "Die Todesstrafe ist abgeschafft" - Capital punishment is abolished. Just to let you know I Love my mothers family from Titschendorf Germany. In Woody Allens Crimes And Misdemeanours, Clifford (played by Allen) says sarcastically that he loves another character like a brother David Greenglass, referencing Ethels brother, who testified against her and Julius to save himself and his wife. We are all talking by video chat, and when I ask where Robert is, he replies that hes at home in Massachusetts, in a town 90 miles west of Boston and 150 miles north-east of New York City. We know she was deeply in love with her husband, and her letters to him during their imprisonment are filled with her longing to lift my willing lips to yours. As the constitution requires that prisoners have a chance of regaining freedom with other means than extralegal pardon only,[7] prisoners are checked for release on parole after 15 years for regular intervals. (I know, Dr. Eventually, Juliuss mother, Sophie, took them in, but two little boys were too much for their frail grandmother to handle. Law for the upholding of the legal peace, 1. Finally, the trial arrived. After World War II, hundreds of executions of common and war criminals were carried out on West German soil, albeit the overwhelming majority of them were carried out by the Allied occupation authorities, not German authority. I was sure it would work, I said, but the side effects didnt seem to be worth it. Rob and I are unusual siblings in so many ways. The Guillotine was used in France until September of 1972. Theres a few minutes of documentary video about him, in German, here. Get HISTORYs most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week. But my wife put her in it. Some 200,000 of them died directly or indirectly as a result of communist policies carried out between 1945 and 1989 1% of the entire population. Smolka was among three million East Germans or more who escaped over the border to West Germany in the 16 years after the defeat of the Nazis divided the country. Many Jews of their milieu were communists and the Greenglasses letters show they were even more enthusiastic about communism than the Rosenbergs. Im a very revenge-oriented person, but its never about beating people to a pulp. Topics World War II Meet the Youngest Person Executed for Defying the Nazis Meet the Youngest Person Executed for Defying the Nazis When Helmuth Hbener learned the truth about Nazi Germany,. But even with that, Myles Lane, who had publicly laid the blame for the Korean war at Ethels feet, admitted privately in a closed-door meeting of the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy: The case is not strong against Mrs Rosenberg. Section 3 of article 79 GG expressly prohibits only amendments of articles 1 and 20, which suggests that article 102 can in principle legally be amended or repealed under article 79. However, Lane said the real reason West Germany abolished capital punishment early-on was to protect Nazi war criminals from execution. If Ethel did think this, she might have been right. Despite the view of history propagated by its own ideologues, it is clear that communism was imposed on the East Germans by violence. I have to die now for no crime at all, hesaid. But Ive never heard of someone surviving the guillotine.). Sebbas theory strikes me as more likely: I think she just had other concerns: she was looking after her children and trying to be present for them. During her three years in prison, she faithfully kept up her subscription to Parents magazine. Nuremberg executions - Wikipedia Among the crimes subject to mandatory, the following non-exhaustive list illustrates the width of crimes concerned: Many of the crimes covered a wide range of actions. But as an adult I would much rather be the child of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg than the child of David and Ruth Greenglass.. "[27] The SPD and CDU initially both rejected the proposal, the SPD since nearly 80 percent of the West German public supported capital punishment, and the CDU since they mostly supported capital punishment for ordinary murderers. German court hands student lengthy prison sentence for attacks on neo [34][35], In 2018 the state of Hessian voted in a Referendum on the Death Penalty.[36][37][38][39]. Apr 7, 2021 In December 1945, Albert Pierrepoint was given an unusual mission: to execute 13 Nazi war criminals in one day. Her death was so brutal that eyewitnesses reported that smoke rose out of her head. The very next year, he arranged to meet his abandoned wife and daughter on the Bavaria-Thuringia frontier to smuggle them over, too. [25] However, Heinrich Himmler offered SS members convicted of capital crimes the option to commit suicide with a pistol. She called Michael at home and told him that she, like his father, had been arrested. In 1952 Stalin had, in two notes, re-opened the question of German nationalism by offering to permit a united Germany, apparently on the basis of free elections, in return for its neutrality. Perhaps my willingness to separate Ethel from Julius is a sign I dont feel the same way about my parents, he says. I dont remember much else about my time there, just that the city seemed quiet, not many pedestrians like you will find today, especially on Unter den Lindenstrasse. It was a common move for Mormon churches in Germany and occupied countries, as many congregations worried they might be persecuted by the Nazis, too. We drove from West Germany, traveled about 120 miles through East Germany and entered West Berlin. The East German revolt of June 1953 was the first uprising by working people against communism since the very early days of the system, and it opened a period which witnessed other mass protests in Poznan, Budapest, Prague, and elsewhere. Murder was defined as killing with premeditation; only murder or attempted murder of one's sovereign was capital treason.[14]. Hbeners actions were extremely risky. Early life and career Werner Teske was born on 24 April 1942 in Berlin, [1] and went to school from 1948 to 1960 in Berlin-Lichtenberg, [2] graduating with the Abitur. She was guilty of supporting her husband, Anne Sebba, author of Ethel Rosenberg: A Cold War Tragedy, tells me. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were sent to the electric chair for being Soviet spies, but their sons have spent. Dads unwillingness to rat out his fellows wasnt about him wanting to be a soldier of Stalin, says Michael. It says much about the East German regime and the courage of ordinary East Germans. Judge Irving Kaufman carefully considered their sentence. After our initial interview, I end up speaking to them, together and separately, several times over the course of a month, mainly because I have so many questions, but also because they are so delightful to talk to: wildly intelligent, always interesting, completely admirable. The Bavarian Constitution, while not providing the death penalty by itself, for a long time contained a rule of implementation of it[12] which was abrogated in a summary constitutional amendment in 1998. Like many on the left, the Meeropols were shocked by Trumps victory. Many members of the West German parliament were shocked when Hans-Christoph Seebohm, the leader of the far-right German Party, introduced a motion to abolish capital punishment. In 1966 At the age of 17 I traveled from S.F. The personal stuff is obvious, but the political stuff is equally powerful.. She didnt have a codename. I was quite aware of the history and situation there but felt somehow I was safe. They told almost no one their real surname, and Robert, who was a toddler when his parents were imprisoned, never considered reverting to it. Hbener and his friends were imprisoned in Berlins Pltzensee Prison along with other political prisoners. Werner Teske - Wikipedia His friends were sentenced to imprisonment in labor camps, but Helmuth Hbener was convicted of conspiracy to commit high treason and treasonous furthering of the enemys causes and sentenced to death by beheading. None of this sat well with Hbener, and in 1938, when he was 13 years old, hequit the Hitler Youth when they participated inKristallnacht, a night of terror during which Nazi sympathizers destroyed synagogues, set fire to Jewish property and attacked Jews. On June 17, 1953, tens of thousands of people gathered in East Berlin to protest at the Soviet Union-backed government's plans to increase work quotas, taxes and prices amid an . We have dealt with so many struggles, so we are very enmeshed, says Michael. The prison was notorious for its harsh treatment of prisoners and as a site of countless summary executions. Its been many years but I remember dropping my passport through a slot in the wall and having to walk to the east side where I waited about 20 minutes. [15] During the German empire, the legal methods were the hand-held axe, in some states also the guillotine for civilian crimes, and the firing squad for military crimes.