I was wondering who the last Nazi to be executed for war crimes/crimes against humanity was. At first, I thought it was Adolf Eichman in 1961, but then I found the case of Horst Fischer, who was executed in 1966 for his role in the selections of prisoners at Auschwitz.
Was there anyone executed for Nazi crimes after Fischer?
Thank you in advance.
Zev Steinhardt
The German language Wikipedia article on persons executed in East Germany has one Johannes Kinder, aged 66 years, executed on 21 October 1976 (by unexpected shot, the method used at the time), for war crimes in the Soviet Union.
Feodor Fedorenko, who served at Treblinka, became a U.S. citizen after the war. He was deported to the Soviet Union in 1984, where he was tried for war crimes. He was executed by firing squad in 1987.
How are you defining ‘executed’? Joachim Peiper was sentenced to death for command responsibility of the Malmedy Massacre, later commuted to life imprisonment, later commuted to 35 years, and paroled on 22 December 1956 after serving 11 years. His past caught up with him on 14 July 1976 when he was assassinated at his home in Traves, France by an anti-Nazi political group.
Regardless of how loosely execution is defined (I wouldn’t count it) the two examples above post date it anyway.
That’s a awfully heavy wikipedia article.
Yes, he volunteered as a death camp guard to get out of the PoW camp. He should have stayed in the PoW camp and been shot when he returned to the USSR like all the other Soviet PoW’s instead, I suppose.
Regardless, he got what was coming to him in the end.
Wow. I had no idea that there was one as late as the late 1980s. Thank you very much!
Zev Steinhardt