Surviving In A Cruel New World After World War 2 | Crime in Post-War Germany | Documentary

In the years following the end of the Second World War, Germany experienced a period of disorder and uncertainty. Its people endured extreme conditions, often with little hope for a brighter future. Many Germans were compelled to seek new ways to ensure their survival. Driven by hunger, numerous women placed themselves in perilous situations, venturing out of town to obtain food through trade. Sadly, it was not uncommon for them to become victims of sexual assault and rape during these dangerous journeys. The chaos extended beyond the general population, as post-war life posed significant obstacles to law enforcement, particularly in Berlin, where gangsters and criminals sowed discord in the midst of turmoil. Traumatized and burdened by their painful past under the Nazi regime, the darkest aspects of human nature were revealed, leading to the commission of terrifying and heinous crimes.

The documentary Crime in Post-War Germany shows how strained life was between 1945 and 1949 in the four occupied zones. Using the example of individual, particularly serious criminal cases, like in Dresden where a wood collector comes across the severed legs of a person or in Hamburg, where the so-called rubble murders terrify the whole city.

Criminal psychologists and forensic experts set out to search for clues and analyze the brutal crimes. Historians and witnesses describe the state of emergency of the late 1940s which ended with the founding of two German states.

Documentary: Crime in Post-War Germany

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Interesting links and sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/
https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/100-voices/ww2/
https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-II

Germany 1945 12 years of dictatorship and 6 years of war are over a people who refer to themselves as the master Race Face the ruins of their past an occupied country utterly demoralized the old values have been thrown out a new order has yet to be established the postwar years are chaotic and

Cruel rapes and attacks cannibalism robbery and murder spectacular criminal cases are testimony to an era in which the world has been turned upside [Applause] down what were people capable of in those Times what drives them to such brutal axe and how do criminals exploit the chaos of the postwar Years one in 10 Germans have died in World War II a quarter of all homes have been destroyed or badly damaged millions of people are fighting for survival the years 1945 to 49 are some of the most understudied uh years uh in German history um because there is a in the

History books that’s told there is the history until 1945 with the apocalyptic end and then you have the founding of the two competing German states in 49 in these four very formative years they are messy they are complicated but they are formative with the war over the Allies

Are in charge they divide up Germany between Them the Soviet occupied the East the British the Northwest and the French and Americans the South Gish paration is in the US Zone the scene of a mysterious murder in 1947 this small place is nestled close to the TU spiter Germany’s highest mountain one December morning in 1947 a housemate makes a horrific

Discovery the restaurant owner tenta hner lies lifeless on her kitchen floor her skull smashed in it must have been a pretty horrible sign sight Center lying on the floor in a pool of blood her skull smashed and a knife through her neck pinning her to the floorboards who was this

Woman when the police arrive soon afterwards curious neighbors get in their way possible Clues are rendered useless what’s behind this murder British writer Ian seya has a private archive where for years he’s been gathering information about the postwar era in Germany including the tenter hner

Case by 1945 she was uh 35 years old um she had red hair and um uh she was actually um referred to by the popular press at the time as the um red Princess uh garish nil the Queen of Hearts during the war tenter hner ran a popular restaurant in Munich she was

Considered an Ardent Nazi sympathizer she’s alleged to have had a relationship with the head of the regional Nazi party the galigher of upper Bavaria in 1944 tenter hner moved to garage paron keran on the border of Austria the town is a magnet for drug smugglers and black market te after the

War some 5,000 American GIS are stationed in garish Parton Kian they marched in in April 1945 and enjoy this mountainous idle but it conceals a shadowy World a lot of the American Military were involved in cigarette smuggling uh drug smuggling and of course all the many of the Germans as as well so yet totally Lawless um in garish at that time [Applause] totally everyone meets at the vies Russell Center haer’s restaurant an affair with an American

Officer allows her to take over the popular establishment he makes sure her connections with the Nazis are swept under the table and the land lady knows how to manipulate Smugglers and tricksters G eyes and policemen usually to her own Advantage tenta hner is not just charismatic she’s also a good businesswoman the 35-year-old has her eyes everywhere and she knows how to turn a profit with sensitive information she was working for um different sections of um of the US military I mean absolutely amazing she played one side

Off against the other she was working for um uh the American Army Counter Intelligence core uh Detachment in garish um which is counter Espionage um she worked for um the US um army criminal investigation department indeed a secret document from the American military police shows Center hner is not just a narcotic

Smuggler but also a source of unimaginable value sender hner is leading a risky double life and she knows it she confesses to a friend how scared she is that fear is not unfounded the American occupying forces are planning to take action the US Army already has a detailed report about the Shady things

Going on in the town mention is also made of tenta hner even General Lucius d clay military governor of the US Zone in Germany is informed we put the land lady knows none of this on the 22nd of December 1947 she has a get together with friends in her flat above

The vice Russell her lover and an American officer are also present they left at 3:30 in the morning her guests testify later did tenter hner have another visitor that that night Kasten babian is a pathologist at University clinic in liip he has analyzed the police report and put together his own theory about

That mysterious night I think she met someone she knew otherwise she wouldn’t have let him in at this hour and certainly wouldn’t have received this person in a dressing gown I think it was an acquaintance with whom she ate and drank this wasn’t a carefully planned murder there was an argument a

Fight emotions ran high the weapons used in the attack were from the kitchen suggesting a spontaneous Act the killer stabs Senter hner with her own kitchen knife her severe head wounds were probably made by an axe it was never found the police initially believe they’re dealing with robbery and murder

Expensive items of jewelry are missing but why were 15,000 rice Mark left in the living room not taken the investigators question neighbors and acquaintances the only clue a man was seen standing in front of her house before the murder who is this stranger centner had several Affairs one after the

Other they generally ended quickly and there was probably some jealousy involved I think it must have been a crime of passion involving someone’s hurt feelings like or rejection or something like that the police briefly put one of her lovers under arrest but they have no proof against him maybe her Shady business dealings

Have something to do with her death the US military also investigate but the Case Files disappear and they still haven’t been found maybe a clue that someone close to the Americans wanted to silence Senter hner that’s what Ian Seer believes the British writer is still looking for the

Missing piece of jewelry it could yet help solve this mysterious case well perhaps because of this distinctive uh bracelet because even um you know 70 odd years later this is a very distinctive piece of jewelry and if it’s still intact it’s worth a lot of lot of money there may be somebody who’s

Seen it in um in a jewelry case somewhere somebody may have actually had it to sort of to alter to change it’s so distinctive that somebody just somebody might recognize it or recognize having done something with it and that could lead to solving the crime of

Course the case of tenter hner is the story of a morally ambivalent woman looking to profit in difficult times maybe that sealed her Fate the post-war years posed major challenges for women until 1945 many have to look after themselves and provide for their children alone if their husbands do ever come back from the front they often don’t get on anymore many couples divorce three times as many as before the war people’s experience of violence in

The Nazi era and in the war didn’t just remain in their heads the years right after the war were also an era of violence side hunger forces many women to head out to the countryside to trade clothes or jewelry for a sack of potatoes or other food but these Journeys known as

Hoarding trips can be dangerous because a serial rapist is striking fear across Berlin and Brandenburg span and our station in Berlin’s British sector many people heading out to the country into the Soviet zone start their Journey here in April 1946 a young woman decides to take the train to brandenberg but she can’t get a seat there are too many people traveling a man approaches her he says

He can help her get to where she wants to go the same day she follows him that’s a fatal mistake the young woman is called Barbara Schuler she’s just 19 years old the perpetrator beats her and rapes her then he lets her go the perpetrator knew that many women

Traveled without husbands because the husbands were prisoners of War for example or because the women were widows and at the time it was very easy to start a conversation and offer someone Help a little later the perpetrator approaches a woman again an East German film retells the story like Barbara Schuler she also trusts the man over the next few months the rapist strikes more frequently he entices more and more women to the woods attacks them and

Rapes them all to the north and east of the city why did the victims fall for his trick ludia bica is a criminal psychologist she compares the testimonies of the women the descriptions of the crime are similar such perpetrators are very manipulative and seem very friendly but he was always

Kind and suggested helping them showing them a shortcut or helping them in some other way to reach their destination and as soon as they were in the forest his demeanor changed completely and he started to treat them in a really rough and domineering way insulting them and also using physical violence beating

Them and brutally raping them one thing in particular plays into the hands of the perpetrator a police force that is still completely disorganized many police officers had actively supported the Nazi regime they were part of it the German police was deeply complicit in the Holocaust by bullets

The roving Ein grou uh that uh that accounted for roughly half of the victims of the Holocaust so there was um the need to reverse RT back to uh some kind of local police um the only issue is who can you trust after the war most policemen come

In from other professions or they’re just starting out there’s little experience or equipment historian Regina stol explains how little they had to work with the police has an emergency evidence collection kit with them for example there was a brush in it that you could pull out like this and used to take

Fingerprints there was powder for that in here and also a small ruler for measuring splinters of glass or other small objects and of course the obligatory magnifying glass but this type of forensic evidence kit isn’t going to provide conclusive findings today forensic pathologist Kasten baban has Cutting Edge Methods at

His disposal DNA tests and databases to identify perpetrators what was feasible in the 1940s shortly after the war biological Clues were identified via blood groups and other characteristics but they needed a relatively large amount of Trace material saliva sperm and not just tiny droplets they needed larger quantities and it was much more

Difficult to link the material to a perpetrator than it is today today we can say with 99.999% accuracy whether the sperm came from that man or not that wasn’t possible back then so the police mainly rely on descriptions of the perpetrator many police files are stored of police headquarters on Alexander

Plant in the Soviet sector one of the victims goes to try and identify the man the police have photos and fingerprints the victim says she recognizes the rapist in one of the photos villy kritz is he the rapist they hunting kritz comes from a neighborhood close to the crime

Scene ludia binika has established that he came from simple background there are several cases of abuse in the family for the psychologist it all adds Up emotional neglect in this family is very likely and especially in the case of Serial offenders you can see that these events early on in their lives have contributed to the low level of compassion and violent compulsions which they then display later in their crimes the police believe vly kritz is the

Suspect at 24 he had already been imprisoned for rape and again at 31 for theft and pimping but vly kritz only serves 2 years of his three-year sentence as the Russian army approaches in 1945 he is freed in the confusion of the war’s end since then there’s been no trace of him

In July 1948 the police are investigating a murder a woman has been raped and strangled to death it turns out the crime took place in the same section of woods where Barbara schula was raped 2 years ago is it possible that vinly kritz is behind this crime too

Serial offenders learn as they go along often the offenses are first played through in their imaginations and then acted out their methods are refined over time strangulation as a cause of death can also be explained by the nature of the offense the woman resists tries to call for help screams and many

Perpetrators then simply try to stop this screaming by holding her mouth and nose shut or squeezing her Neck soon another two bodies turn up investigators from Berlin and Brandenburg start cooperating closely it’s the largest Manhunt since the end of the War code name operation Roland there were checkpoints in the woods where they thought a murderer would come through and they used police women as bait they had to dress as women going on hoarding trips and try and strike up conversations with suspects the investigators realize that the victim’s Apartments have been almost cleared

Out the murderer must have taken their keys from the crime scene would a rapist do That he kills woman there will be no his testimony and he can enrich himself much more than if he just steals her personal effects and so he draws the conclusion that killing his victims is much more profitable for him the murder Hunt is unsuccessful until a chance drives the murderer into

The net in the Autumn of 1948 a woman recognizes a man on the street she last saw him with her friend who later turned up dead she immediately informs the police it is indeed the suspect vly kimet the police arrest and question him he confesses to 23 rapes and four

Murders he says he sold the items he stole on the black market for cash the court condemns vly kritz to death the case shows how violent offenders are able to use the chaos of the postwar years and the dangers facing women in particular Berlin is in the middle of the Soviet zone of occupation shortly after the end of the war there are almost 1 and a half million Soviet soldiers in the East they haven’t got much time for the Germans after the invasion of the Soviet Union by the German Army and the horrible atrocities

Committed by them I like many other people dislike the Germans so I didn’t want to have any contact with German civilians partam July 1945 British prime minister Winston Churchill meets US president Harry S Truman and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin they discuss the future of Germany relations between them quickly cool the Cold War

Begins the conflict between the Soviet Union and the Western allies was unavoidable not just because of human rights violations and their contrasting approaches to Germany’s Economic Development it was a clash of World Views in June 1948 the Soviet Union closed Transit routes to West Berlin the three

Sectors had to be supplied by air civilians were still able to cross the border until construction of the wall in 1961 but the Berlin Police were faced with a dilemma it creates a host of logistical challenges West Berlin police officers were not allowed to cross into the Eastern sectors with guns

So that meant people who want to exploit that Will Berlin is an Eldorado for criminals and their gangs their members are often children a direct result of the war even before the end of the war all the old structures disappeared schools closed trainee ships were no longer available parental Authority disappeared mothers were out all day many young

People were alone because they got lost as they fled so these young people had to survive in a society that was disintegrating and where social norms were no longer valid many young people hunted both food and excitement with fatal consequences the largest Black Market is on Berlin’s Alexander plants in the Soviet

Sector people go there to exchange almost anything food for fur coats pearl necklaces for cigarettes for many the black market is a matter of survival the police carry out daily raids the black market is a paradise for thieves and con artists one of them is 15-year-old Vana gladle he tricks cigarette Hawkers into

Accepting counterfeit money the police catch him in the summer of 1947 glad spends 4 months behind bars but that doesn’t change his ways quite the opposite chronal psychologist ludia biner has studied vagad’s career in detail What kind of perspective did he have it was very unclear what was going to happen to this generation and how things would turn out he wanted to be rich he wanted a good life he envisaged himself as a gangster of the type he’d seen in the

Movies Capone was his great Idol and he believed he could become a major gangster boss who would put his stamp on the future Berlin glad gets out of jail and starts putting together a gang in their Heyday they had more than 70 members they specialize in car theft

And burglary they have covert names for each other glad himself is known as doctorin little doctor because he tells everyone he studied medicine for a few terms He was so confident and charming and he had the gift of the gab and he soon managed to put together a whole group of men not just young people but older men too and give them orders so his narcissistic personality combined with his intellect were the foundation on which he built his

Gang the boys of vain they wear tailored suits like American gangsters their trademark white ties for some time the public wonder who’s behind the robberies so does little Lotz ker he reads about the notorious white ties in the newspaper to his kids it was as exciting as a crime

Story and at the beginning the gang drew a lot of admiration Under The Motto we steal from the rich but especially because the Glad gang managed to disarm East German policemen and we said how soft can these police be to allow themselves to be disarmed Lon they managed to fool the police like

This several times but their misdemeanors are anything but childish pranks Berlin PRL beg in the Soviet seor in April 1949 glad Robs a jewelry store here the salesman take up Pursuit glad shoots and kills one of the men it’s his first murder he escapes without being recognized the gang boss is now almost

18 years old why is he so at ease with violence Glad witnessed the Battle for Berlin in 1945 and even took part in it to a certain extent the boys were given weapons and told to defend Berlin you might say he learned to kill attacks robberies Grievous bodily harm glad and his gang operated across the whole of Berlin and between sector

Borders as well after a successful Heist the boys go to ground in a different sector the police are powerless until one robbery changes things completely in May 1949 vanag glad tries to steal an escape car he’s got his eyes on a limousine glad tries to force the

Chauffeur out of the car at gunpoint when the man resists he pulls the trigger the 44-year-old dies on the way to hospital later glad claims he never wanted to kill the chauffeur that sounds unlikely to pathologist cast in baban 9M they found a 9mm projectile

That’s a lot of power if I shoot at a body at close range even just the upper arm then the bullet goes through the upper arm and enters the rib cage and that’s what happened in this case the chauffeur bled to death as a result of Bleeding from internal injuries caused by the

Shot the petty Thief has become a coldblooded killer I think vanag glad was so stuck in the dream he’d seen in film from the US that he really couldn’t see the consequences of his actions or that he had repeatedly been a danger to people’s lives he thought of the whole thing as an

Adventure after the crime glad and his gang mates flee but the police are hot on their Heels they find the getaway car later in Berlin’s mugal Lake in the East a ballistic analysis shows the projectile found at the scene of the crime is the same as that used in the jury Heist the police begin to hunt for the gang it’s a success Witnesses come forward accomplices

Testify 3 weeks later the police pull up in front of gl’s apartment the press report a wild shootout and vena’s mother plays an active role in It I can remember the police shooting through the door and he shot through the doors from the flat and because he’d been surprised by the police raid he didn’t have his trousers on his mother helped him to get into his trousers in the midst of all the

Shooting glad is shot in danger of bleeding to death he Surrenders the vauen Sha news program in the Soviet occupied Zone covered his arrest ver gl’s apartment the police captured him after a 1-hour firefight the Glad gang commits at least 127 serious crimes including 19 robberies two murders and 15 attempted murders their boss has handed the death sentence three times

Over GL played it cool he told the judge yes well you can cut my head off once but three times that’s desecration GL was cheeky and he had a big moue to the very end that’s also because he believed he would be pardoned I don’t think anybody really expected

Him to be put to Death glad and his gang were part of a generation that knew nothing but the Nazi regime and War but for the judges that’s no reason for clemency on the 10th of November 1950 vag glad dies under the guillotine the past has left its scars not just on children and young people

More than 8 million former soldiers of the verat the German Army return home from prisoner of war camps up until the 1950s many of them are physically injured and traumatized and they’ve committed and experienced violent acts but the violence and death will continue how far will people go in such extreme

Circumstances one of the most brutal criminal cases of the postwar era unfolded in Dresden in the Soviet occupied Zone in 1946 there’s still a lot of rubble to clear away in Dresden a week before Christmas Eve a woman collecting wood makes a horrible Discovery someone’s lower leg wrapped in a piece of newspaper ash blonde hairs stick to the edge of the severed limbs the newspaper has Flex of green ink on it The police face a riddle whose legs are they pathologist Caren babian identifies the extremities as belonging to an adult Female the cut was made in the gap of the knee joint that is where it is easiest to cut off a lower leg the edges of the cut look very smooth which means that a knife Us next to the lower legs lie the bones of two thighs particularly shocking the flesh has been cut off in the crime scene report investigators speculate that the Flesh of the Dead may have been sold on the market are they hunting a cannibal Dresden faces a winter of famine in 194

6 as everywhere in Germany people die of malnourishment and cold did someone eat the Flesh of the Victim a few days after the body parts are found the Dresden police get their first lead the police department are alerted to a possible crime ker and her seven-year-old son hint have been missing since the 11th of December do the severed legs belong to this woman and what happened to the

Child he left the flat together with his mother at about 400 p.m. nobody has seen them since police suspect they’re dealing with a capital crime murder but who could be the perpetrator the majority of homicides are carried out by people in the victim’s direct vicinity the probability of being killed by Partners relatives

And acquaintances is relatively High very rarely are the perpetrator and victim unknown to each other that’s the logic the police use they start at the place where Kila Works a company producing light bulbs the investigators know notice green ink being used at her workplace is it the same kind as that

Found on newspaper the body parts were wrapped in ker Steeler’s colleagues say they often saw the missing woman with a co-worker 34-year-old Freda Layman is she connected to The Disappearance of mother and child her address puts her Under Suspicion her flat is just a few hundred meters

From where the body parts were found in talasa Freeda Leman lives here alone her husband has been missing since the War the police find a bag and gloves both belong to the missing Woman a calendar entry also grabed s their attention an s written in green ink does the letter stand for the name stiler in the living room and kitchen the police find traces of dry blood they’re certain something terrible happened here they arrest Freda Layman at d and police headquarters she

Tangles herself up in lies at first she maintains that a stranger killed Kila and the child then she says it was her brother eventually she confesses to the crime her statement says that she put a knife to the throat of her victim and pulled it back hard in the direction of her

Neck she stole the weapon at of bushes the police are skeptical is a woman really capable of committing such a brutal act alone cast and baban compares her statement with the pathology report the incision was in the neck and penetrated through to the spinal column so six seven or 8 cm through

Flesh the pathologist believes a woman could be behind it because she used the knife swiftly giv giving her victim no time to defend herself Kila sits shocked in the kitchen after the knife attack she manages to get up but collapses in the living room Casten baban has an explanation for

The amount of blood in the flat when an artery is cut open the blood spouts out like a fountain so we find traces of blood one even 2 m away on the floor on the walls on the furniture that kind of blood loss alone can result in death generally the victim

Suffocate on their own blood before that breathing it in via the open Airways but until that happens minutes can pass during which the victim can still act Freda lean then kills the seven-year-old after the crime she breaks into their apartment and steals clothes and other items she’s motivated by greed and

Envy but that’s not all the murderer chops up both bodies and spreads them around Dresden first they find the legs then investigators find the heads and the Bodies what kind of person is capable of such a barbaric Act ludia bica studies Freda leman’s childhood her father was a violent alcoholic she says that’s a pretty good indication she’s someone who never learned what empathy really is or human connection so she is clearly emotionally numbed by all her experiences and this numbness is the foundation of her

Ability to commit an act like this later on ludia bica believes Freda lemman cut up both of her victims for pragmatic reasons because of their weight she wouldn’t have been able to get rid of the bodies if they were whole but why do somebody Parts never turn up at

All during the trial words like cannibalism and human flesh eating are used at first the accused claims she burned several pieces of Flesh in the oven and then she says she gave them to her neighbors they confirm that and detail the exact amounts they thought it was horse meat is that

Credible that’s what is meat anyway muscle tissue looks the same in humans as it does in animals after their slaugh so I believe it’s possible that the neighbors didn’t realize it was human flesh what motivates the killer to distribute her neighbor’s flesh to her neighbors maybe she wanted to show off a

Bit and show them look I have something great here and I can give you some to boost her image a bit because she gave away some of the item she stole Freda Leman is condemned to death under the Guillotine and taken to the prison complex on munchner plats today the building is a

Memorial it’s run by big at Zach here you can see the container that catches the head this is a guillotine from Berlin which was out on loan to Dresden because the authorities in Dresden didn’t have their own Guillotine the ex was also brought in with his assistant and They carried out the execution today a concrete block marks

The spot where the guillotine stood Freda leman’s death sentence is carried out in July 1947 her brutal Act is a symbol of society’s breakdown and of an age of extremes in which Sur survivors of the war were looking for a moral framework and a new order for the Allied Powers the

Dentification of Germany is one of their biggest challenges how do you rebuild a society that is not only physically broken but also morally deeply corrupted in the post-war era the Allies vigorously pursue leading Nazis starting with the nurburg trials which began in November 1945 and during which top Nazis like Herman ging were

Brought to justice for the war of aggression crimes towards the civilian population and the Holocaust after the big trial held by the international military Court in nurburg against the key war criminals there were a host of subsequent trials that continued until 1948 and 1949 war criminals and top Nazis were

Still being executed in 1948 the nurburg judges senten 36 Nazis to death 22 of those sentences are carried out they’re not the last ones before the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany jary 1948 a country road in Southwestern Germany in the French Zone a truck driver picks up a hitchhiker

Shortly afterwards the driver is murdered shot with this Army pistol a premeditated act after the grizzly murder The Hitchhiker pulls his victim out of the truck and hides him in a ditch under a tarping that same night a police patrol comes across the body a Forester finds the truck the wheels are

Missing that’s how they get the killer the police catch him trying to sell the wheels just 3 days after the murder the perpetrator is 27-year-old Rishad Shu a former soldier in the German Army did the violence he experienced in the war turn him into a killer the judge said that on the one

Hand a person is more likely to use weapons when they already know how to use one and also know what it feels like to kill a person on the other hand the judge also said quite correctly that many people fought in the War but very few would commit such a crime and that

It’s not a sufficient explanation for such an act the court in tubigan condemns rishu to death for murder and aggravated robbery he scheduled to be executed in the following year February 1949 at the same time the Parliamentary council is meeting in Bon it’s members are tasked with drafting a new

Constitution for West Germany and heralding a new beginning politically the death sentence is also up for discussion because the Nazis used it to execute more than 30,000 people politicians like Conrad ardau who would later become Chancellor want to retain the death penalty many Germans support him the whole issue of the death penalty

Shows that not much had changed in people’s heads after 1945 a majority of Germans still supported it and if there had been a referendum on the death penalty in 1948 it would have been kept in place Leu isn’t privy to these political debates he spending the last few weeks

Remaining to him in a Cell in July 1948 his family enter a plea for Mercy he is supported by the prison Warden he says Shu has acknowledged the severity and moral depravity of his crime and displays genuine and bitter remorse the death of his mother contributed to his change of character

Says the warden she drowned herself after his sentence was announced Shu seeks help with the final hour it’s a Race Against Time but the court rejects his family’s plea for Mercy even with debate about abolishing the death sentence in full swing help seems to be coming too late for

Ruu had ofu clearly hoped to the very end that he would not be executed and when he found out that he really was going to be executed the next day at 6:00 a.m. he was genuinely shocked and scared became very emotional full of remorse he pens letters Desperately Seeking to explain

His crime but in vain the execution is set for the 18th of February 1949 the Executioner installs the guillotine in the inner Courtyard of tubing and prison it has to be brought in especially for the execution then it’s Time in tubigan journalist Hans yahim Lang has studied the case it was 6:00 in the morning 12 Witnesses were present from the town rard Shu was brought in the priest recited a short prayer with him and the chief prosecutor said to the Executioner I give you Rickard Shu for

You to make him pass from life to death they say he was quite calm in those last few seconds lishu dies aged 28 the execution bell rings out at tuban City Hall it’s the last death sentence carried out on the orders of a West German court with the introduction of Germany’s

Constitution its basic law the death penalty is Abolished This legal text is the foundation of the new federal republic founded on the 23rd of May 1949 under the eyes of the whole world its first Chancellor is CDU politician Conrad artau just 5 months later on the 7th of October 1949 the head of the Communist

SED declares the creation of the German Democratic Republic unlike West Germany East Germany holds on to the death penalty until the 1980s the creation of the two German nations in 1949 marked a turning point and the crimes of the post-war era illustrate the challenges faced by

Germany and its people in the wake of national socialism and War