After the Second World War, the nuremberg trials were held which aimed to bring the
main aggressors of the conflict to justice.
The remaining members of Hitler’s Nazi Government and inner circle were brought in front of
a judge, with prominent figures such as Rudolf Hess and Hermann Goring amongst the defendants.
After the proceedings had come to an end, a number of those on trial found themselves
being sentenced to death, and were executed by infamous US executioner John C Woods.
One of those men condemned to die for his crimes was Arthur Seyss Inquart, a man who
was served Hitler in a number of different positions.
So join us today as we look at the justified execution of Arthur Seyss-Inquart.
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Arthur Seyss-Inquart was born in 1892 inside of a German speaking Czech town.
Within this city there was rivalry between the Czechs and the Germans, and his parents
were well respected in the local area with his father being a local school principal.
His father was Czech and his mother was German, but in 1907 the family moved to Vienna.
It was here where Seyss-Inquart studied law, and then as the First World War broke out,
he enlisted inside of the Austrian Army and saw service in a number of countries.
He served in the war and was a decorated soldier, but following the end of the conflict he pursued
a career in law.
HE set up his own practice in 1921 and remained inside of Vienna, however he became involved
in the Fatherland Front, a right wing nationalist group within Austria.
Because of his talents as a lawyer, he was invited to join the cabinet of the then chancellor
of Austria Engelbert Dolfuss, but the following year in 1934 Dolfuss was murdered, and he
then became a councillor under Kurt Schuschnigg.
However whilst being involved in government, Seyss-Inquart began to study the racial politics
and politics of Heinrich Himmler’s ideology, and he began to become obsessed in the ideas
of aryan races and theories.
He knew that the politics in Austria were becoming more right wing, but in February
1938 he became the Minister of the Interior.
He was given this position, after Chancellor Schuschnigg was being threatened by Hitler
who was warning him of a German invasion.
However Schuschnigg later resigned, and Seyss-Inquart was given the position as the Chancellor of
Austria.
But the day after this, German soldiers crossed into Austria after Seyss-Inquart practically
invited them to do so.
Hitler then famously rode into Vienna to joyous celebrations, and Hitler absorbed Austria
into his Third Reich, beginning a full Anschluss or Annexation of the country.
Seyss-Inquart later did join the Nazis, but he remained in favour becoming Hitler’s
personal representative in Austria.
Alongside other high ranking Nazis he worked for Hitler and he served as an honour SS member,
and then became part of Hitler’s cabinet.
He became a Reichsminister without Portfolio, and after this he ordered Jews to be sent
to concentration camps, and began to organise this in Austria as well as seizing Jewish
property.
He later also became the Deputy to Governor General of Poland Hans Frank, and he was fully
behind the persecution of the Jews that occurred inside of the country, and also backed the
murder of members of the Polish society.
Seyss-Inquart must have been seen at the time as reliable in Hitler’s eyes, as he then
became the Reichkommissar for the occupied Netherlands in May 1940.
Following the invasion, he was involved in creating close ties with Germany and the Netherlands,
and using the resources of the conquered nation to help the German war effort.
He was mocked by the Dutch, but backed the Dutch NSB allowing them to make a police force,
but as time went on political parties were banned inside of the country, and Seyss-Inquart
was the real power within the Netherlands, with a direct line to Hitler.
He was involved in suppressing the population and also preventing resistance, and he sanctioned
around 1200 executions of political prisoners, and dutch people who were rising up against
the occupiers.
Seyss-Inquart was also involved in overseeing the three concentration camps within the Netherlands,
and in these over half a million Dutch people were forced to work for the Germans, and were
forced to help the German war effort.
His devotion to the Nazis and his anti-semitic attitude meant that as soon as he arrived
within the Netherlands, he began to organise deportations of Jews to transit camps, and
also took measures to force them to wear stars and be persecuted in public.
Within the Netherlands, there were a number of Jews sent to camps such as Mauthausen and
Auschwitz, where many were sent into the gas chambers.
140,000 Jews were registered in the country, and only 30,000 dutch jews lived out the war.
But as the Second World War turned against the Germans following the Normandy landings
and the failings at Stalingrad, the Netherlands found itself involved in some of the fiercest
fighting during there allied advancements.
Hitler and the Nazi government tried to adopt a scorched earth policy, or a Nero decree
where docks and harbours and other infrastructure were destroyed to prevent it falling into
allied hands.
Seyss Inquart did not see the point in this and saw the destruction as a waste of time
and resources, but the people in the Netherlands began to suffer greatly.
Within the country, there was a significant food shortage which left much of the population
starving.
Because of this, Seyss-Inquart had to negotiate with the Allies to allow them to drop food
to people inside of the country from aircraft to save many civilians.
But he did not want to surrender and give over the country.
As the Soviets advanced into Berlin, Hitler took his own life and following this his successor
Karl Donitz took the position of President.
In this new government, the Flemsburg government, Seyss-Inquart replaced Joachim von Ribbentrop
as the Foreign Minister, and this was outlined by Hitler to happen.
Hitler respected his Austrian friend, and saw him as a valuable asset to liaise with
other countries in the months following his death.
He stayed in this job until he was arrested on the Elbe Bridge in Hamburg.
But after this he was taken in for interrogation by the British, and was then later transferred
across to Nuremberg Prison to be placed on trial in the Nuremberg Trials.
Alongside defendants such as Hans Frank, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rudolf Hess and Hermann Goring,
Seyss-Inquart was charged with four crimes.
These were conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, planing, initiating and waging wars
of aggression, war crimes and also crimes against humanity.
In his trial, he stated how he did not know anything about the war crimes he was accused
of, which included the deportations of jews and shootings of prisoners and hostages.
He claimed that he objected to the deportations of jews, and that mass evacuations were forced.
He denied anything and the fact he was a criminal saying his conscience was untroubled, and
he claimed that he made things better for the dutch people.
This was of course not true with deportations, executions and the fact the country were starving
heavily towards the end of the war.
He even accused the Allies of deporting people and resettling Germans after the war, and
he stated that, ‘My last word is the principle which I have always acted and to which I will
adhere to in my last breathe.
I believe in Germany.’
But Seyss-Inquart was acquitted and found not guilty of one crime, and that was the
conspiracy charge.
However he was found guilty of the other three and because of this was sentenced to death
for his involvement in the Second World War and the Nazi policies that caused such suffering.
It was his brutal suppression of resistors and opponents to the Nazi regime, along with
the deportations and atrocities against the Jews in the lands which he was involved in
that sent him to the gallows.
It was particular felt that in the Netherlands his actions warranted him being sentenced
to death.
When he heard the death sentence, he stated that ‘Death by hanging, well in my view
of the whole situation, I never expected anything different, it’s all right.’
Inside the gymnasium of Nuremberg Prison, a gallows had been created by US Army soldiers.
It was infamous executioner John C Woods who carried out the executions that morning on
the 16th October 1946, and he was known for botching a number of them.
The trapdoor was too small it was said and a number of the Nazis hit their heads on it
as they fell through, and some of the executions took up to 28 minutes to be completed and
for one of the defendants to be certified dead.
Arthur Seyss-Inquart was the final defendant of the Nuremberg Trials to go to his execution.
Shortly after Alfred Jodl was pronounced dead, Seyss-Inquart was brought into the execution
chamber, and his identity was confirmed before he was led up to the scaffold.
He was led up the steps before he was handed over to John C Woods.
His final words were recorded as, ‘I hope that this execution is the last act of tragedy
of the Second World War and that the lesson taken from this world war will be that peace
and understanding should exist between peoples.
I believe in Germany.’
He was then shuffled over the trapdoor before a hood was placed over his head, followed
by the noose.
Quickly, Woods then pulled the lever and Arthur Seyess Inquart plunged to his death, and his
time of death was recorded at 2:59 am, 9 minutes after the previous execution.
This leads us to believe that his execution went smoothly compared to some of the other
condemned defendants.
Arthur Seyss Inquart inflicted a significant degree of suffering in his time serving within
Hitler’s Third Reich and government.
He was trusted by the dictator of Germany with regards to his work towards other countries
such as Austria and Netherlands.
But within these countries he caused chaos and sent thousands to their deaths for their
defiance against the Nazi occupation.
He was also complicit in the Holocaust, and he was deeply involved in the mass murders
of dozens of thousands sending them to their deaths inside of the concentration camps.
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