20th Century War Criminals

Known as Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele was the chief doctor of Auschwitz concentration camp and was responsible for killing thousands of Jews as well as torturing the prisoners mercilessly and conducting inhuman experiments on them. These included injecting them with chemicals and stitching twin children together. Despite his horrible crimes, the infamous Nazi doctor could never be captured.

Reinhard Heydrich was a Nazi police officer and a high-ranking SS. Heydrich is widely regarded as one of the main architects of the Holocaust, a World War II genocide that killed some six million Jews. Described by Adolf Hitler as the man with the iron heart, Heydrich is regarded as the darkest figure of the Nazi era by many historians.

Hideki Tojo headed the Imperial Japanese Army and was the Japanese minister of war, apart from being Japan’s prime minister from 1941 to 1944. His tenure witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor. After Japan surrendered to the Allied Powers, Tojo was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death.

Klaus Barbie was a Gestapo and SS official during the Nazi era. Dubbed the Butcher of Lyon, Barbie was known for having tortured prisoners of the Gestapo while stationed in Lyon, France. It is also believed that he played a major role in the execution of Che Guevara. Barbie's life and work inspired the 2007 documentary film My Enemy's Enemy.

Martin Bormann was a Nazi Party official. Bormann headed the Nazi Party Chancellery, and gained immense power after he was accepted into Adolf Hitler's inner circle. In 1935, he became Hitler's personal secretary and served as the minister of the Nazi Party after Hitler's suicide in 1945.

Slobodan Milosević was a Serbian political leader who served as the President of Serbia from 1989 to 1997 and of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000. He pursued Serbian nationalist policies, which resulted in the breakup of the socialist Yugoslav federation. Milosevic was charged with war crimes in connection to the Bosnian War, the Croatian War, and the Kosovo War, and died in custody.

Regarded by Hitler as a potential rival, Röhm was murdered at the Führer’s order. Ernst Röhm was a prominent German military officer and an early member of the Nazi Party. He was wounded thrice in World War I and was briefly imprisoned for his part in the Beer Hall Putsch. 

Rudolf Höss was a German SS officer who was convicted of war crimes after the defeat of Nazi Germany. The longest-serving commandant of the Auschwitz extermination camp, Höss implemented means to accelerate the Final Solution, a Nazi plan for the genocide of Jews. Upon his order, pesticide Zyklon B was used in gas chambers, killing millions of people.

Mutsuhiro Watanabe was an Imperial Japanese Army soldier in World War II. Following Japan’s defeat, he was classified a war criminal for his mistreatment of prisoners of war (POWs) by the US Occupation authorities. However, the US authorities could not capture him. In his later years, he became an insurance salesman and grew wealthy.

Charles Taylor is a former Liberian politician who served as the 22nd President of Liberia. As a young man, he was the head of a Libyan-backed rebel group, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, and played a key role in initiating the First Liberian Civil War. He was elected the president after the war in 1997. He resigned in 2003.

Irma Grese, or the Hyena of Auschwitz, served as an SS guard at the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Ravensbrück. She was also the warden of the ladies’ section of the Bergen-Belsen camp and ended up being convicted of torture and murder of prisoners. She was executed at 22.

Franz von Papen was a German politician, Prussian nobleman, diplomat, and General Staff officer. From 1933 to 1934, he served under Adolf Hitler as the Vice-Chancellor of Germany. After World War II, Franz von Papen was indicted alongside other war criminals in the Nuremberg trials. However, he was later acquitted of all charges.

Ernst Kaltenbrunner was an SS official who played a major role in the Holocaust during the Nazi era. From 1943 to 1945, Kaltenbrunner served as chief of the Reich Main Security Office, which housed the offices of SD, Kripo, and Gestapo. His most influential period as an SS official coincided with the period during which the genocide of Jews intensified.

American-born fascist politician William Joyce was a Nazi propaganda broadcaster to UK during World War II. He later became a German citizen. As a young man, he joined the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and rose through the ranks to become the BUF's Director of Propaganda. Following the end of World War II, he was arrested for treason and executed.

Hitler’s legal advisor Hans Frank was made the governor-general of Poland after World War II broke out. Known as the Butcher of Poland for his atrocities against the Jews, he was hanged at the end of the Nuremberg Trials. He penned his autobiography while awaiting his execution.

Arthur Seyss-Inquart was an Austrian politician who was part of the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I. A Nazi propagandist, Seyss-Inquart was convicted of crimes against humanity and war crimes at the Nuremberg trials and sentenced to death. He was executed on 16 October 1946 in Nuremberg Prison.

Karl Brandt was a German physician. He served as a Schutzstaffel (SS) officer in Nazi Germany and became Adolf Hitler's personal doctor. He organized and administered the Aktion T4 euthanasia program, in which between 275,000 and 300,000 people were killed in psychiatric hospitals. He was later executed for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

Jean-Pierre Bemba is a politician in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  He served as one of the four vice-presidents in the transitional government of the nation from 2003 to 2006. He also leads the rebel group turned political party Movement for the Liberation of the Congo (MLC). He was arrested and convicted on charges of crimes against humanity.