German Criminals

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Germany may be the land of castles and cars, breads and beer and music and festivals but there is more to this country than what meets the eye. A haven for food aficionados and car enthusiasts, art lovers and adventure fanatics, this multi-cultural ethnic country has gained prominence for its deep-rooted historical background and scenic locales. Adding to its eminence have been famous German men and women who through their work have helped the country stand tall on the world map. Be it Albert Einstein or Karl Marx, Rudolf Diesel or Martin Luther or even Max Weber, Germany is famous for producing some of the greatest historical figures. But is the German land about all good and no bad. Well, there is a lesser publicised side to the country as well. Germany, like other countries of the world, is troubled by crime and criminals. Though the crime levels have been consistently dropping down, one cannot ignore the fact that Germany is not a crime-free nation. The country is reeling from crimes such as murder, drug trafficking, weapon trafficking, extortion, prostitution, money laundering and contract killing. Plus there are organized crime by crime families and organized crime syndicates. Check this segment to find out more about German criminals, their offences and their crimes that have put a black mark on the country’s status.
Rank the Most Wicked German Criminals
 1 
Josef Mengele
(German Physician Known for His Atrocities at the Auschwitz II Concentration Camp)
Josef Mengele
89
Birthdate: March 16, 1911
Sun Sign: Pisces
Birthplace: Bavaria, Germany
Died: February 7, 1979

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.

 2 
Adolf Eichmann
(German Military Official and One of the Major Organisers of the Holocaust)
Adolf Eichmann
78
Birthdate: March 19, 1906
Sun Sign: Pisces
Birthplace: Solingen, Germany
Died: June 1, 1962
Adolf Eichmann was a Nazi lieutenant colonel and one of the chief organizers of the Holocaust, that involved mass deportation and murder of Jews. In 1962, Eichmann was captured by the Mossad in Argentina and was then taken to Israel. He was eventually tried and hanged for crimes against humanity.
 3 
Irma Grese
(Nazi Concentration Camp Guard at Ravensbrück & Auschwitz Who Served as Warden of Bergen-Belsen)
Irma Grese
28
Birthdate: October 7, 1923
Sun Sign: Libra
Birthplace: Feldberger Seenlandschaft, Germany
Died: December 13, 1945

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.

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 4 
Ilse Koch
(German War Criminal Who Became One of the First Prominent Nazis Tried by the U.S. Military)
Ilse Koch
17
Birthdate: September 22, 1906
Sun Sign: Virgo
Birthplace: Dresden, Germany
Died: September 1, 1967
Ilse Koch was the wife of Karl-Otto Koch, the Nazi commandant of the Buchenwald and Majdanek concentration camps. Also known as Beast of Buchenwald, The Bitch of Buchenwald, and Butcher Widow, she was tried by the U.S. military for her sadistic abuse of war prisoners. She died of suicide.
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 5 
Oskar Dirlewanger
(War Criminal)
Oskar Dirlewanger
10
Birthdate: September 26, 1895
Sun Sign: Libra
Birthplace: Würzburg, Germany
Died: June 7, 1945
German military officer Oskar Dirlewanger established and led the Nazi SS penal unit Dirlewanger during World War II. He had also participated in World War I and the Spanish Civil War, winning the Iron Cross 2nd Class and 1st Class. He died in Allied custody at the Altshausen prison camp.
 6 
Willi Herold
(Military personnel)
Willi Herold
16
Birthdate: September 11, 1925
Sun Sign: Virgo
Birthplace: Chemnitz, Germany
Died: November 14, 1946
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 7 
Elisabeth Becker
(Guard)
Elisabeth Becker
2
Birthdate: July 20, 1923
Sun Sign: Cancer
Birthplace: Nowy Staw, Poland
Died: July 4, 1946
 8 
Alfred Jodl
(Chief of the Operations Staff of the German Armed Forces High Command (1939 - 1945))
Alfred Jodl
12
Birthdate: May 10, 1890
Sun Sign: Taurus
Birthplace: Würzburg, Germany
Died: October 16, 1946

Alfred Jodl was a German colonel-general who played an important role throughout World War II by serving as Chief of the Operations Staff of a German Armed Forces High Command called the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. After the war, Jodl was tried at the Nuremberg trials and was found guilty on charges, such as crimes against humanity and war crimes.

 9 
Gerda Steinhoff
(Guard)
Gerda Steinhoff
2
Birthdate: January 29, 1922
Sun Sign: Aquarius
Birthplace: Wrzeszcz, Gdańsk, Poland
Died: July 4, 1946
 10 
Armin Meiwes
(German Convicted Murderer)
Armin Meiwes
15
Birthdate: December 1, 1961
Sun Sign: Sagittarius
Birthplace: Essen, Germany
Armin Meiwes, also known as "The Master Butcher," was a computer repair man who killed and ate engineer Jürgen Armando Brandes, who had voluntarily offered himself to be eaten, in response to an advertisement on an online cannibalism-oriented forum. Armin is now serving a life sentence for murder.
 11 
Dorothea Binz
(Officer)
Dorothea Binz
4
Birthdate: March 16, 1920
Sun Sign: Pisces
Birthplace: Templin, Germany
Died: May 2, 1947
 12 
Herschel Grynszpan
7
Birthdate: March 28, 1921
Sun Sign: Aries
Birthplace: Hanover
Died: May 8, 1960

Herschel Grynszpan was a German Jew best remembered for assassinating a German diplomat named Ernst vom Rath to avenge the persecuted Jews. Rath's assassination had a huge impact on the Jews as the Nazis cited his murder as justification for their planned antisemitic pogroms against the Jews in Germany. Herschel Grynszpan disappeared in 1944 and was declared dead in 1960.

 13 
Hildegard Lächert
(Nurse)
Hildegard Lächert
2
Birthdate: January 20, 1920
Sun Sign: Aquarius
Birthplace: Berlin, Germany
Died: 1995 AD
 14 
Oskar Groening
(War Criminal)
Oskar Groening
12
Birthdate: June 10, 1921
Sun Sign: Gemini
Birthplace: Nienburg, Lower Saxony, Germany
Died: March 9, 2018

Oskar Groening was a German SS Unterscharführer at the Auschwitz concentration camp. He was in charge of counting and sorting the money retrieved from the prisoners arriving at the camp. At the end of the war, he surrendered to the British and was transferred to Britain as a prisoner of war. Years later, he was named a war criminal.

 15 
Paul Blobel
(Military leader, Criminal)
Paul Blobel
1
Birthdate: August 13, 1894
Sun Sign: Leo
Birthplace: Potsdam, Germany
Died: June 7, 1951
 16 
Reinhard Heydrich
(Nazi Official)
Reinhard Heydrich
40
Birthdate: March 7, 1904
Sun Sign: Pisces
Birthplace: Halle
Died: June 4, 1942

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.

 17 
Wanda Klaff
(Camp guards)
Wanda Klaff
3
Birthdate: March 6, 1922
Sun Sign: Pisces
Birthplace: Danzig, Free City of Danzig
Died: July 4, 1946
 18 
Fritz Klein
(Military physician, War criminal)
Fritz Klein
2
Birthdate: November 24, 1888
Sun Sign: Sagittarius
Birthplace: Codlea, Romania
Died: December 13, 1945
 19 
Said Bahaji
(Alleged member of the Hamburg cell that provided money and material support to the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks)
Said Bahaji
0
Birthdate: July 15, 1975
Sun Sign: Cancer
Birthplace: Haselünne, Germany
Died: August 31, 2013
 20 
Irmgard Möller
(Terrorist)
Irmgard Möller
1
Birthdate: May 13, 1947
Sun Sign: Taurus
Birthplace: Bielefeld, Germany
 21 
Brigitte Mohnhaupt
(Criminal)
Brigitte Mohnhaupt
2
Birthdate: June 24, 1949
Sun Sign: Cancer
Birthplace: Rheinberg, Germany
 22 
Adam Worth
(art thief)
Adam Worth
1
Birthdate: 1844 AD
Birthplace: Kingdom of Prussia
Died: January 8, 1902

Adam Worth was a German-born American thief whose short stature earned him the nickname Napoleon of the criminal world. It is widely believed that he was the inspiration behind Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Professor James Moriarty. In the 1976 period comedy film Harry and Walter Go to New York, Adam Worth was portrayed by English actor Sir Michael Caine.

 23 
Franz von Papen
(Former Vice-Chancellor of Germany)
Franz von Papen
11
Birthdate: October 29, 1879
Sun Sign: Scorpio
Birthplace: Werl, Westphalia, Prussia, Germany
Died: May 2, 1969

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.

 24 
Martin Gottfried Weiss
(Military personnel)
Martin Gottfried Weiss
1
Birthdate: June 3, 1905
Sun Sign: Gemini
Birthplace: Weiden, Germany
Died: May 29, 1946
 25 
Ludolf von Alvensleben
(SS functionary and Police Leader)
Ludolf von Alvensleben
2
Birthdate: March 17, 1901
Sun Sign: Pisces
Birthplace: Halle, Germany
Died: April 1, 1970
 26 
Curveball
(Defense Intelligence Agency cryptonym)
Curveball
0
Birthdate: 1968 AD
Birthplace: Iraq
 27 
Ludwig Fischer
(Politician, War Criminal)
Ludwig Fischer
1
Birthdate: April 16, 1905
Sun Sign: Aries
Birthplace: Kaiserslautern, Germany
Died: March 8, 1947
 28 
Peter Kürten
(Serial killer)
Peter Kürten
8
Birthdate: May 26, 1883
Sun Sign: Gemini
Birthplace: Cologne, Germany
Died: July 2, 1931
 29 
Alice Schwarzer
(Journalist)
Alice Schwarzer
0
Birthdate: December 3, 1942
Sun Sign: Sagittarius
Birthplace: Wuppertal, Germany
 30 
Martin Bormann
(Private Secretary of Adolf Hitler)
Martin Bormann
30
Birthdate: June 17, 1900
Sun Sign: Gemini
Birthplace: Wegeleben, Germany
Died: May 2, 1945

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.

 31 
Klaus Barbie
(Nazi Leader)
Klaus Barbie
19
Birthdate: October 25, 1913
Sun Sign: Scorpio
Birthplace: Bad Godesberg
Died: 1991 AD

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.

 32 
Christine Schürrer
(Criminal)
Christine Schürrer
0
Birthdate: June 30, 1976
Sun Sign: Cancer
Birthplace: Hanover, Lower Saxony, Germany
 33 
Greta Bösel
(Nurse)
Greta Bösel
1
Birthdate: May 9, 1908
Sun Sign: Taurus
Birthplace: Wuppertal, Germany
Died: May 3, 1947
 34 
Rudolf Höss
(German Nazi Commandant and Longest-Serving Commandant of Auschwitz Concentration and Extermination Camp)
Rudolf Höss
20
Birthdate: November 25, 1901
Sun Sign: Sagittarius
Birthplace: Baden-Baden, Germany
Died: April 16, 1947

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.

 35 
Niels Högel
(Nurse)
Niels Högel
10
Birthdate: December 30, 1976
Sun Sign: Capricorn
Birthplace: Wilhelmshaven, Germany
 36 
Rudolf Brandt
(Lawyer)
Rudolf Brandt
1
Birthdate: June 2, 1909
Sun Sign: Gemini
Birthplace: Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany
Died: June 2, 1948
 37 
Jenny-Wanda Barkmann
(Guard)
Jenny-Wanda Barkmann
4
Birthdate: May 30, 1922
Sun Sign: Gemini
Birthplace: Hamburg, Germany
Died: July 4, 1946
 38 
Ernst Röhm
(Nazi War Criminal)
Ernst Röhm
22
Birthdate: November 28, 1887
Sun Sign: Sagittarius
Birthplace: Munich, Germany
Died: July 1, 1934

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. 

 39 
Wilhelm Keitel
(Chief of the German Armed Forces High Command (1938 - 1945))
Wilhelm Keitel
10
Birthdate: September 22, 1882
Sun Sign: Virgo
Birthplace: Helmscherode, Bad Gandersheim, Germany
Died: October 16, 1946

Wilhelm Keitel was a German field marshal. As the chief of the Armed Forces High Command, Keitel was Nazi Germany Armed Forces' highest-ranking officer during World War II. Wilhelm Keitel was responsible for the loss of many lives as he signed several criminal orders. After the war, he was indicted as one of the war criminals and sentenced to death.

 40 
Herta Bothe
(Concentration camp guard during World War II)
Herta Bothe
9
Birthdate: January 3, 1921
Sun Sign: Capricorn
Birthplace: Teterow, Germany
Died: March 16, 2000
 41 
Helmut Oberlander
(War criminals)
Helmut Oberlander
3
Birthdate: February 15, 1924
Sun Sign: Aquarius
Birthplace: Molotschna, Ukraine
 42 
Anton Thernes
(Military leader)
Anton Thernes
1
Birthdate: February 8, 1892
Sun Sign: Aquarius
Birthplace: Germany
Died: December 3, 1944
 43 
Fritz Haarmann
(Serial killer)
Fritz Haarmann
11
Birthdate: October 25, 1879
Sun Sign: Scorpio
Birthplace: Hanover, Germany
Died: April 15, 1925
 44 
August Schmidhuber
(Military officer, Criminal)
August Schmidhuber
0
Birthdate: May 8, 1901
Sun Sign: Taurus
Birthplace: Augsburg, Germany
Died: February 19, 1947
 45 
Friedrich Entress
(Surgeon, Criminal)
Friedrich Entress
2
Birthdate: December 8, 1914
Sun Sign: Sagittarius
Birthplace: Poznań, Poland
Died: May 28, 1947
 46 
Mounir el-Motassadeq
(Member of al-Qaeda and of assisting some of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks)
Mounir el-Motassadeq
0
Birthdate: April 3, 1974
Sun Sign: Aries
Birthplace: Marrakesh, Morocco
 47 
Albert Kesselring
(War Criminal)
Albert Kesselring
12
Birthdate: November 30, 1885
Sun Sign: Sagittarius
Birthplace: Marktsteft, Kingdom of Bavaria, Germany
Died: July 16, 1960
One of Hitler’s most reliable strategists during World War II, Albert Kesselring was a loyal Luftwaffe general. His exploits include operations in Poland, France, and Britain. Following the Nuremberg trials, he was sentenced to death, but the sentence was later commuted. He was released after being diagnosed with throat cancer. 
 48 
Paul Schäfer
(Nazi, Child Rapist, and the Founder & Leader of a Sect Called 'Colonia Dignidad')
Paul Schäfer
6
Birthdate: December 4, 1921
Sun Sign: Sagittarius
Birthplace: Troisdorf, Germany
Died: April 24, 2010

Paul Schäfer Schneide was a Nazi era German colonel, who at the end of WWII founded an orphanage in West Germany. Charged with child molestation, he fled to Chile, where he established an isolated colony. But charged with child abuse, he had to flee once more before being arrested and convicted on twenty-five counts. He died while serving his term.

 49 
Erich Naumann
(War crimal, Police officer)
Erich Naumann
2
Birthdate: April 29, 1905
Sun Sign: Taurus
Birthplace: Meissen, Germany
Died: June 7, 1951
 50 
Gudrun Ensslin
(Far-left terrorist and founder of the West German far-left militant group Red Army Faction)
Gudrun Ensslin
2
Birthdate: August 15, 1940
Sun Sign: Leo
Birthplace: Bartholomä, Germany
Died: October 18, 1977