There were a huge number of war crimes committed during the Second World War by the German
army.
A number of those who had worked inside of the concentration camps as SS guards, or members
of the Wehrmacht were sentenced to death and were executed for their crimes at the end
of the deadliest conflict in history.
One man who became the first war criminal to be executed by the United States Army following
the wa was Curt Bruns who went to his death on the firing range on the 15th June 1945.
He was tied to a post, and was condemned by a firing squad who shot straight that day.
Curt Bruns was also one of only 2 men to be executed by firing squad by the Americans,
but what is his story?
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Curt Bruns was born in 1915, and during his early life he worked as a grocery clerk inside
the German city of Stuttgart.
But then in 1936 as Hitler was expanding his army illegally, Bruns joined the Wehrmacht,
and then three years later he became an officers.
He served during the Second World War in a number of capacities, and during a number
of important battles, and he rose to the rank of Hauptmann in September 1943.
He was a man who was married and he had a child, however during the latter part of the
Second World War he would commit a number of war crimes, especially as the war was turning
against the Germans.
Between December 16th and December20th 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, the Americans
captured around 30 Wehrmacht soldiers including a Corporal Heinrich Katter.
Kauter during his interrogation were spoken to by two fluent German speaking German soldiers.
But then on the 20th December around 300 American soldiers including those who were interrogating
were captured by the German 2nd Battalion, the 293rd Volksgrenadier Regiment, 18th Volksgrenadier
Division.
These Germans were led in their attacks and assaults by Curt Bruns, who was operating
in the Schoenberg area.
The American prisoners of war were then under armed guard marched to a customs house, and
Corporal Heinrich Kauter then went ahead of the Prisoners of war as he escaped.
Bruns was in the street in front of the Custom House when the prisoners arrived.
But following this, two of the recently freed Germans then told Curt Bruns that two of the
American prisoners of war spoke fluent German.
These were Kurt Jacobs a 35 year old Staff Sergant, and Murray Zapper a 20 year old soldier.
Bruns then told his men to retrieve these two German speaking Americans, and they were
then lined up against the wall of the house by one of Brun’s men, Sergeant Werner Hoffman.
Bruns then had all of the other Americans marched towards Bleialf, and then he asked
Jacobs and Zappler if they had interrogated his men in Germans.
The Americans replied yes, and they were then asked more questions, and the men said that
they were in fact German Jews who had gone to serve with the American army.
Bruns then told these men, ‘The jews have no right to live in Germany,’ and after
this, Curt Bruns organised a firing squad made up of 5 or 6 non commissioned officers
to get together.
These men then marched the men down the road, and then quickly on a makeshift firing range,
the American interrogators were executed in brutal and ruthless fashion upon the orders
of Curt Bruns.
This crime was then later told by Corporal Kauter, who was a communist who had been sent
to a concentration camp, but he was then conscripted into the war as the Wehrmacht were suffering
greatly from heavy losses.
This man had no loyalty to the Nazis, and he said that he had witnessed the murders
of two American prisoners of war who were executed for saying that they were Jews from
Berlin.
With this, Curt Bruns was then wanted for war crimes.
Further information about the executions came to light, and Kauter said that the men were
standing at attention with their backs to the firing squad, and that they were then
shot in the back.’
But it would not be long until Captain Curt Bruns was arrested, as he was captured during
the on-going Second World War.
He was arrested on the 7th February 1945 and was then identified.
He admitted to speaking to the American POWs during the incident, but he said he did not
organise their executions and had no role in this.
He said that he had been informed of their deaths, which were carried out after he received
orders from his superior, a man named Witty.
But the interrogators did not believe the German, and officials also used another man
in his prison cell to try and get a confession from him.
But on the 13th February 1945, American soldiers from the 12th Infantry Regiment found the
executied bodies of Jacobs and Zappler.
They were discovered shoved in a small hole around 100 yards from the road.
Bruns had been previously seized inside of a bunker, and despite the fact the war was
still ongoing, he was brought to a war crimes trial for illegally executing the two men.
The trial was allowed to take place even considering that Bruns was considered a threat to the
Americans, but the trial would only last one day, and throughout this he maintained his
innocence.
The trial took place on the 7th April 1945 inside of Duren, but many witnesses came forward
and testified about the executions and what they saw.
One witness said that he had heard Bruns state that, ‘regardless of whether Germany will
win this war or not, I will devote my life to the destruction of the Jews.’
He was also rather arrogant, and he did not care for the witnesses and what they said,
and the courtroom heard that the men wanted to surrender, but instead were shot dead.
He was also accused of murdering more men before his capture, with prisoners of war
being machine gunned by Bruns himself.
When the remains of the Americans were found, the two were found lying face up in a shallow
grave with them missing their boots, with them presumably been stolen by a German soldier.
Another witness testified that she heard another German reporting on the executions of two
jews, and that they were shot because the captured German prisoners identified them
as the two who questioned them.’
Bruns was then condemned to death, and he was sentenced to death by firing squad.
Following the short trial, the death sentence was removed, and the evidence against Bruns
was considered circumstantial.
There were different inconsistencies with the testimony of the witnesses, but the officials
did recommend that the death sentence should go ahead.
It was said that, ‘With the exception of his denial on the stand that he actually heard
the accused order, Sgt Hoffmann, to have the prisoners shot, Kauter has been entirely consistent
during each of the many pre-trial examinations to which he was subjected.
The history of the case discloses that he was captured and had given his statement before
the bodies were recovered or Capt Bruns was apprehended.
In fact, it was the testimony of Kauter which instigated the search for the accused."
"The accused corroborated the testimony of Kauter in every substantial particular except
in his denial of responsibility and in his statement of where the execution occurred."
The death sentence of Curt Bruns was confirmed by Colonel Ernest Brannon on the 8th May 1945.
It was around 6 weeks later that the German captain was then executed.
On the 15th June 1945, he was taken from his prison cell to Denstorf and specifically a
gravel quarry where a firing range was created.
He would be the first Axis war criminal to be executed by the Americans during and after
World War 2.
Around this time, the American military usually executed German war criminals by hanging,
and at the time the firing squad was considered a honourable way to die, and an execution
method which was reserved for soldiers.
After the war the Americans would hang most war criminals, but the firing squad remained
in place for Bruns as he was condemned during the war, and before the war had ended.
Burns was allowed to wear his German uniform to face his death, however it was stripped
of its insignia.
He was then secured to a post in the firing range and quarry, and he was then given a
black blindfold which was tied around his eyes.
The firing squad were then readied and they were told to take aim.
Suddenly the firing squad shot straight into Curt Bruns, and with this he was the first
German war criminal executed by the Americans.
That same day, six other Germans were shot by the US military in Denstorf.
The other men were four SS soldiers and one Wehrmacht soldier who were all executed for
espionage.
Captain Curt Bruns was only one of two nazi war criminals executed by the Americans using
a firing squad following World War 2.
Almost 300 others were executed by on the gallows instead, but he was the first war
criminal executed by the US Army also.
He was 30 when he was shot dead, and he was a man who was considered an ardent Nazi who
wished to execute those two Jewish men as he wanted to follow Hitler’s ideas on exterminating
the Jews.
Despite his trial being today probably unfair and based on circumstantial evidence, he was
convicted for his crimes and there’s little doubt that his actions resulted in the executions
of two men during the final months of the war.
It’s believed that Curt Bruns may have committed more crimes during the Second World War, and
that he may have had many more victims than those two which he was brought to trial for,
and that the men under his command could also have committed many more war crimes.
But tied to a stake with a blindfold wrapped around his eyes, he was executed in a quarry
by the Americans.
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