Following the Second World War, there were a number of war crimes trials held to bring
the perpetrators of crimes against humanity and atrocities to justice.
The most high profile trials were the nuremberg trials, held to bring those remaining members
of the Nazi government and hierarchy to justice.
The most senior figures were Hermann Goring, Rudolf Hess and Joachim von Ribbentrop, but
amongst them were those members of Hitler’s inner circle and friends who were key to the
war effort and also the Nazi regime.
One of those who was not there was a man who had been indicted of crimes, and who was supposed
to be at the trials, sitting amongst Goring and Hess as a war criminal.
But Robert Ley would never get to trial.
But his crimes were huge, he was accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes, but
his death sentence would be a missing one.
So join us today as we look at the missing execution of Robert Ley.
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Robert Ley was the head of the German Labour Front from 1933 to the end of the Second World
War, and it was for his involvement in this group that he would be it was hoped brought
to trial.
But who was he?
He was born the 7th of 11 children, and was a soldier during the First World War.
He served as a voluntary soldier, and spent two years involved in artillery training,
and also as an aerial artillery spotter.
His job was to be in the skies spotting artillery for the Germans to then target, but during
one flight in July 1917 his aircraft was shot down over France and he was taken as a Prisoner
of War.
It is considered that he suffered a brain injury in the crash, as he then spoke afterwards
with a serious stammer and also was prone to erratic behaviour, made worse through his
drinking.
But he then returned to Germany after the war and studied at university, before he joined
the Nazi Party after reading Hitler’s speech after the Beer Hall Putsch.
Hitler’s ideas appealed to Ley, and he became incredibly devoted to him.
Hitler also enjoyed speaking with Ley, and Hitler put up with his drinking, arrogance
and also incompetence at time but Ley always sided with Hitler in disputes with other Nazis.
He attracted a reputation for being a terrible drunk, but after the Party was refunded after
being outlawed, he was named the deputy Gaulieter of the Southern Rhineland, before becoming
the Gauleiter.
He then was also involved in the editing of the anti-semitic newspaper Der Westdeutscher
Beobachter in Cologne, which produced anti-semitic images and slander against Jews, peddling
the policies and beliefs of the Nazis.
He continued as a Gauleiter, and remained in the favour of Hitler.
On the 2nd June 1933 he became elevated to the Reichsleiter, the second highest political
rank inside the Nazi Party, but Hitler would have other plans for him.
Hitler decided to take over the trade union movement to bring them under the power of
his party, and on the 10th May 1933, Ley was appointed as the head of the newly founded
German Labour Front, known as the DAF, or the Deutsche Arbeitsfront.
The DAF assumed power over the trae unions, and Ley was seen as a poor leader as he had
no previous experience in this field.
Purges secured Ley’s position, and as the Head of the Labour Front he was involved in
the actions of the organisation.
Hitler insisted that wages of German workers should remain low, and that hours should remain
the same and to composenate this, the DAF worked to provide workers with leisure and
entertainment opportunities.
Ley and the DAF established the Strength Through Joy program, which was aimed to suppress the
risk of the working class discontent.
This was to provide workers with a range of benefits and opportunities such as subsidised
holidays across Germany and in countries deemed safe, or allies of the Nazis.
Here workers would go on holiday, in a sense as a perk of working.
There were other opportunities such as trips to the opera or to visit concerts as well
as free education and coaching in sports teams.
All of this was paid for by the DAF costing around 29 reichsmarks a year, but it was one
of the most popular programs of the Nazi regime, and helped to win over the working classes.
They also created the people’s car, the Volkswagen, and the German car industry failed
to meet the demand set by Hitler for the Volkswagen car to be sold at 1000 reichsmarks or less.
Because of this it was taken over the project was by the DAF, and now working for the DAF
Porsche built a new factory, and the cars were sold to German workers based on instalment
plans.
The DAF had a huge number of employees working for them, but as the Second World War broke
out, Ley’s importance did decline.
The most important thing for workers now was to engage with the state of total war, and
that everything made would go towards winning the war.
The militarisation of the workforce led to the importance of the DAF and the Strength
Through Joy programs declining.
During this time of war too, Ley’s drunk behaviour was less tolerated and he was in
a sense superseded in his power by Fritz Todt and Albert Speer, the men who headed up the
German Workforce of Organisation Todt.
German workers were conscripted into the war, and foreign workers were brought in to replace
them, but Ley was deeply involved in the mistreatment and use of foreign slave workers.
It was said during one conference where they were discussing foreign workers, ‘The key
item on the agenda was the question of 'how to treat the Russians.'...
Robert Ley, as usual, was drunk.
And when Ley got drunk he was prone to speak his mind.
With so much at stake, there was no room for compassion or civility.
No degree of coercion was too much, and Ley expected the mine managers to back up their
foremen in meting out the necessary discipline.
As Ley put it: 'When a Russian pig has to be beaten, it would be the ordinary German
worker who would have to do it.’
Ley remained loyal to Hitler, and he was a prominent figure in the inner circle.
He was virulently anti semitic, and through a number of speeches and writings, he helped
to communicate the need for the holocaust, and he outright encouraged it.
These public speeches encouraged the attacks against the Jews and, he was also involved
in meetings with Hitler, Albert Speer, Martin Bormann and Wilhelm Keitel in which Hitler
outlined that he wished for the Jews to disappear by any means.
Because of this Ley declared outright anti-semitic vitriol and he was incredibly outspoken against
the Jews.
In one speech in December 1939, he said that if the British won the war then, ‘the German
people, man, woman, and child would be exterminated [ausgerottet].
. . . The Jew would be wading in blood.
Funeral pyres would be built on which the Jews would burn us... we want to prevent this.
Hence it should be rather the Jews who fry, rather they who should burn, they who should
starve, they who should be exterminated.’
Ley’s bizarre behaviour also resulted in him becoming determined to help create a death
ray, and he became obsessed that this idea would change the war for the Germans.
But as the war turned against the Germans, he was by Hitler’s side and he last saw
Hitler at his infamous final birthday on the 20th April 1945 in the fuhrerbunker in Berlin.
Ley then left for Bavaria and expected to see Hitler again as he believed he would take
up a final stand inside the National Redoubt or the infamous alpine fortress.
But Hitler did not leave Berlin, and Ley was at a loose end but he was later captured by
the 101st Airbourne Division whilst he was hiding inside a shoemakers house.
He was later identified, and was then placed on trial.
He was then transferred later to Nuremberg Prison to await his trial in the nuremberg
trials, and he was indicted on Waging aggressive wars in violation of international law, war
crimes including the mistreatment of prisoners of war or civilian populations, and also crimes
against humanity, which included the murder, extermination, enslavement of civilian populations
and persecution.’
Robert Ley was outraged at the accusation of being a war criminal, and he told a psychologist
who saw him in prison that, ‘Stand us against a wall and shoot us, well and good you are
victors.
But why should I be brought before a tribunal like a criminal.’
His stammer even prevented him saying the word criminal, however he was served his indictment
on the 21st October.
But Robert Ley had no intention of ever setting foot inside of the courtroom at Nuremberg.
The prison at Nuremberg was staffed by US Army officers and guards, and each day there
would be constant guards checking the prison rooms to ensure that the prisoners had not
taken their own lives.
Inside the prison were scores of war criminals including high ranking Nazis such as Hermann
Goring, but also ex concentration camp guards.
The peepholes of the cells were checked a number of times each hour, but Robert Ley
managed to take his own life.
In his cell was a toilet connected with a pipe to a cistern, a bed and a table.
On the 24th October, guards rushed into the cell to find Ley strangled fastened to the
toilet pipe.
He had made a noose by tying a tower into strips, fastened it to the toilet pipe and
then taken his own life.
He was one man along with Martin Bormann who despite being indicted at the Nuremberg trials
would never face the judges, as the trials began the following month.
But what would have happened to him if he had infact gone to trial and faced the judges?
It was clear that Robert Ley was involved in the use of slave labour, and also that
he forced POWs to conduct hard labour, despite during war time not being the prominent driving
force behind it.
Albert Speer was seen in this light, but he offered an apology and its unlikely that Ley
would have done this, remaining indignant and devoted to Hitler.
By suppressing the working classes and exploiting them to work for cheap was also an example
of Ley taking advantage of the German civilian and working population.
But one area that is not up for debate is the fact he was virulently anti-semitic and
through his number of speeches, it was clear that he encouraging attacks against the Jewish
population and was advocating the final solution.
It was also clear that he knew of the final solution and what was occurring inside of
the concentration camps, and for this its hard to look past the fact he was willingly
complicit in this.
Because of this, it’s fair to see that Ley would probably have been sentenced to death
at the Nuremberg Trials should he have ever arrived there, making his death sentence the
missing one of nuremberg.
He truly was a dispicable man who was devoted to Hitler until the very end, but he avoided
justice by never appearing at the Nuremberg trials, and deciding to end his own life.
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