During the Second World War, there were many executions carried out by different armies
and forces.
The Germans rampaged throughout different lands in Europe, and brutally struck fear
into the hearts of the populations once under occupation by ordering large scale executions
and killings of civilians.
Czechoslovakia was occupied and in 1939 Hitler announced the Protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia, which left the country powerless to German invasion.
It was considered the Arsenal of the Reich as the land would produce huge amounts of
weapons used by the German army including 400 tanks, and billions of rounds of ammunition.
Brought in to strike terror into the Czechs was Reinhard Heydrich who instigated a regime
that was violent to keep the country productive for the German war effort.
But quickly in the land the Gestapo, SS and other feared Nazi organisations operated.
There was one woman who was executed in September 1946 for collaborating with the Gestapo, and
for also brutally ordering executions of Czech civilians.
Join us today as we look at the execution of Herta Kasparova, and remember to support
our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Herta Kasparova was born on the 21st June 1923 in Trest, and her father was a worker
on the railway.
But from birth, Herta had a deformity with her legs and she walked with a limp of her
right leg.
She attended school but was bullied and called names because of this deformity, but her family
spoke Czech and also German.
Because of this, her family were seen as opportunistic especially with regards to the politics of
the 1930s, as Hitler seized control of the Sudetenland following the Munich agreement.
The family then moved to the German Empire, but following the establishment of the Protectorate
of Bohemia and Moravia, Herta gained Reich citizenship because of her German origins.
So with this she was dual nationality, Czech and also she was now part of the Nazi Empire.
She allegedly even changed her surname to Kasper to sound more German to distance herself
from her Czech links.
As her brother was well connected, Herta Kasparova in 1940 began a new job and she worked at
the office of the German criminal place in Jihlava as a recorder and also as an interpreter.
She worked for the Gestapo, and as she had a fluent command of German and also Czech,
she willingly took part in interrogations of Czech resistance fighters, and many of
these with the answers they gave were then sentenced to death and were executed.
So Herta’s work in the interrogations led to the deaths of a number of Czech citizens
and civilians.
Those who worked with the gestapo and other elements of the German occupation were often
looked down on with disgust in lands such as Czecholslovakia.
She continued to work with the Gestapo and as more soldiers were captured she was given
more work translating.
She also worked on documents and reported on other possible dissenters of resisters
in her town.
But as the war turned against the Germans and the Red Army were advancing towards the
lands, she left her job quickly and then returned to live with her parents in Treste in Spring
1945.
Following the outbreak of the Prague Uprising and the news of liberation of certain areas
of Czecholslovakia, resistance developed in Trest too against the German occupiers.
On the 7th May 1945, insurgents took control of the city and formed the National Committee.
As part of revenge against the German population, a group of 20 armed men broke into the Kasparova
apartment and looted it and also demolished it.
All of the German residents of the town were rounded up and imprisoned in the town hall,
and a number were lynched and hanged in public, and were beaten and subject to physical violence
and attacks.
The uprising in Treste was reported in other lands still under Nazi occupation, and two
Wehrmacht units arrived to free the imprisoned German population.
Herta Kasparova noticed a number in the group of imprisoned people through her job, and
she was asked to identity the men and boys who had broken into her home and had stolen
items.
She chose 11 people and from these, all of those 11 people Herta claimed had broken into
her house were executed by a firing squad in the courtyard of the town hall, along with
other captured rebels.
It’s believed that a number of these men executed could have been even those who bullied
her at school, and that Herta was enacting her own personal revenge against those.
She was freed by the Germans from her brief imprisonment along with the towns other Germans,
and she fled to Austria where she worked as a servant and a laundress and Alsop a cook.
She even worked in the kitchens for the Red Army who had arrived, but on the 2nd February
1946 she was recognised and then was taken back to Czecholslovakia.
In September 1946 a number of trials of war criminals and collaborators took place in
Czechoslovakia, and Herta was placed on trial for her work alongside the Gestapo, and alongside
the German units who executed the men at her command.
She claimed at her trial that, ‘I know that I caused the death of several people.
I acted out of revenge.’
She defended herself and did claim that she didn’t know the men would be executed, but
the court did not hesitate.
They sentenced Herta Kasparova to death for collaborating with the Nazis and for crimes
against the Czech people.
She was to be executed by hanging in public, and she asked for an extension of 3 hours
so that she could meet with her brother, and the court allowed this brief reprieve.
On the day that she was sentenced to death, Herta Kasparova was also executed that evening.
She was brought to a meadow outside of Treste near to the Town’s castle.
The day before the head of the Nazi Party offices in the town was executed there in
the same way.
She was brought to the site of her execution and a large crowd had gathered.
She was executed using a pole hanging which was common in Czecholslovakia, and the device
measured 3 metres in length, 60 centimetres in width and 5 cos in thickness.
When Herta saw the pole that would take her life, she was so terrified that her knees
gave way and she fell onto the floor and had to be lifted to her feet by the guards who
accompanied her.
She was wearing a short decorated dress in her final hours.
She was wincing and crying as the was life up onto the pole.
She was secured by a leather strap around her waist which held her into position, and
also further rope was added around her legs to secure her and to keep them still so she
would not wriggle as life slipped away.
Her arms were also tied together to ensure she could not escape.
The hangman made his final checks that she could not fall from the pole, and as she was
lifted off the air, he secured the noose around her neck.
The hangman then placed his gloved hands on her face and the assistant released the drop,
and Herta Kasparova the collaborator with the Nazis was executed.
She continued to violently twitch and move her head side to side.
Doctors then approached her body and confirmed that she had died from hanging, and her body
was then placed into a coffin that had been brought.
Inside of her coffin someone had placed flours before she was cut down and the placed inside
of the wooden rudimentary box.
She was then buried in the Central cemetery in Jihlava, where she was buried with other
Germans who died during and after the war.
Her execution was attended by thousands of people from the surrounding towns, and there
were even tickets sold to see her hang.
The execution of Herta Kasparova was significant in Czecholslovakia as it was one of the last
public executions carried out inside the lands.
She was a woman who actively collaborated with the Germans and the NAzis in her work,
and despite being German Czech she definitely identified herself as more German.
She was involved in the interrogations of a number of members of the Czech resistance,
however because of her actions many people from her land were executed.
Also she actively informed on those members of the Czech resistance who looted her house,
and these were then killed because of her information.
It is claimed she got revenge on those who had been cruel to her at school, which is
shocking to consider.
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