Famous for its Pied Piper, the Saxon town of Hameln (Hamelin) after World War II had the honor or burden of sending off 150+ of the war criminals whose volkische enchantments had so devastated Europe. (Plus a number of others for more ordinary crimes under military jurisdiction.)
Taking over a prison where the Nazis had murdered leftists, Jews, and homosexuals, the British made it Albert Pierrepoint‘s home away from home, the gallows-clearinghouse for war crimes trials throughout the western Reich. In Hameln the suave hangman noosed many of the World War II convicts that have featured on this here site down the years, including those of
Great Britain maintained a military presence in Hameln throughout the Cold War, which it is only now winding down. However, she handed the prison back to the West German government in 1950, and German authorities responded by controversially reburying 91 hanged war criminals in a consecrated cemetery.
The prison buildings still stand today, but they’ve been since converted into a four-star hotel which doesn’t advertise the many frightful ghosts who haunt its suites.
For the next two days, we’ll resurrect a few of them from consecutive mass hangings in 1946. For more about Hameln and a thorough roster of its postwar executions, see this page on the invaluable Capital Punishment UK site.
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May 15, 1946: Ten for killing Allied POWs
May 16, 1946: The Zyklon-B manufacturers
On this day..
- 1920: Four denunciators of Laon
- 1903: Victoriano Lorenzo, cholo
- 1863: Zygmunt Padlewski, January Uprising rebel
- 1946: Ten at Hameln for killing Allied POWs
- 1815: William Sawyer, guns and roses
- 1945: George Green, Jr.
- 1702: Dick Bauf, executioner of his parents
- 1863: William Francis Corbin and Thomas Jefferson McGraw
- 2012: Majid Jamali Fashi
- 1976: Lt. Col. Bukar Dimka and six coup confederates
- 71 B.C.E.: The followers of Spartacus
- 1381: Eppelein von Gailingen
- 1916: Jesse Washington lynched after conviction