NEXT PAGE TIMEBASE CATALOG SEARCH PEOPLE WORDS MAPS REFS HOME	SELECTED BIOGRAPHIES - A A \| B \| C \| D \| E \| F \| G \| H \| I \| J \| K \| L \| M \| N \| O \| P \| Q \| R \| S \| T \| U \| V \| W \| X \| Y \| Z ABETZ, OTTO (1903-1958) German Ambassador to Vichy France from November 1940 until France's liberation in 1944. Abetz regarded antisemitism as a necessary means of undermining the grip of the army and Church in Vichy and suggested the expulsion of all emigrants and stateless Jews to the Free Zone. In July 1949, he was sentenced to twenty years' hard labor by a Paris military tribunal, as a war criminal. Released in 1954, he was burned to death in an automobile "accident" on the Cologne-Ruhr autobahn in 1958 when something went wrong with the steering wheel of his car. It is suspected that his death may have been a revenge killing for his role in sending French Jews to the gas chambers. ADENAUER, KONRAD (1876-1967) Lord Mayor of Cologne from 1917 to 1933 when he was dismissed because of his long-time opposition to Hitler and the National Socialists. Arrested in 1934 by the Gestapo for continued resistance to the Nazis. Arrested again in 1944 and sent to Brauweiler prison. After the war, Adenauer cofounded the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) in 1949 and was elected Chancellor of the German Federal Republic (West Germany), a position he maintained until his retirement in 1963. In a declaration before the Bundestag on September 27, 1951, he officially acknowledged Germany's crimes against the Jews and its obligation to make "moral and material" amends. AMANN, MAX (1891-1957) Hitler's company sergeant and one of his closest comrades during and after the First World War. Hitler even wrote to him while away on leave. Amann joined the NSDAP in 1921 and later that same year became the Party's first business manager. He became publications manager of the Franz Eher Publishing House, the Party publishing house, in 1922. After November 1933, Amann served as President of the Reich Press Chamber and was largely responsible for developing the Party's giant newspaper trust by plundering non-Nazi newspaper chains, gradually eliminating all independent publishing. Amann was sentenced to two and one-half years in prison by a Munich court on September 8, 1948, and two months later the Central-de-Nazification Court imposed ten years' labor camp on him as a "Major Offender." His property and holdings were expropriated in 1949 and he is said to have died in poverty in Munich. AMBROS, OTTO Senior executive of I.G. Farben and former schoolmate of Heinrich Himmler. In 1941, it was Ambros who selected Auschwitz as the site for a new plant to produce synthetic rubber (buna), primarily because of its location outside the range of Allied bombers. (Architect) ARCO-VALLY, COUNT ANTON (1897-19??) Thule Society member who in 1919 assassinated Bavarian Prime Minister Kurt Eisner and triggered the events leading up to the soviet republic. Sentenced to life imprisonment, pardoned in 1925. AXMANN, ARTUR (born 1913) Reich Youth Leader who in 1928 founded the first Hitler Youth group in Westphalia. After serving on the western front, he was appointed to succeed Baldur von Schirach as Reich Youth Leader of the Nazi Party in August 1940. In 1941, he was severely wounded on the eastern front and lost an arm. Axmann was among those present in the Fuehrerbunkerand later testified that he had heard the shot with which Hitler committed suicide. He also claimed to have seen the body of Martin Bormann lying on a bridge in Berlin while making his escape in April 1945. He was arrested in December 1945 when a Nazi underground he had been organizing was uncovered. A Nuremberg de-Nazification court sentenced him to a prison sentence of three years and three months as a "Major Offender." In August 1958, a West Berlin de-Nazification court fined him 35,000 marks and found him guilty of indoctrinating German youth with National Socialism. He was found not guilty of having committed any crimes during the Nazi era; the court concluded that he had been a Nazi from "inner conviction rather than base motives." A \| B \| C \| D \| E \| F \| G \| H \| I \| J \| K \| L \| M \| N \| O \| P \| Q \| R \| S \| T \| U \| V \| W \| X \| Y \| Z Copyright © 1997 R.H. Perez de Cruet All Rights reserved.

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ABETZ, OTTO (1903-1958) German Ambassador to Vichy France from November 1940 until France's liberation in 1944. Abetz regarded antisemitism as a necessary means of undermining the grip of the army and Church in Vichy and suggested the expulsion of all emigrants and stateless Jews to the Free Zone. In July 1949, he was sentenced to twenty years' hard labor by a Paris military tribunal, as a war criminal. Released in 1954, he was burned to death in an automobile "accident" on the Cologne-Ruhr autobahn in 1958 when something went wrong with the steering wheel of his car. It is suspected that his death may have been a revenge killing for his role in sending French Jews to the gas chambers.

ADENAUER, KONRAD (1876-1967) Lord Mayor of Cologne from 1917 to 1933 when he was dismissed because of his long-time opposition to Hitler and the National Socialists. Arrested in 1934 by the Gestapo for continued resistance to the Nazis. Arrested again in 1944 and sent to Brauweiler prison. After the war, Adenauer cofounded the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) in 1949 and was elected Chancellor of the German Federal Republic (West Germany), a position he maintained until his retirement in 1963. In a declaration before the Bundestag on September 27, 1951, he officially acknowledged Germany's crimes against the Jews and its obligation to make "moral and material" amends.

AMANN, MAX (1891-1957) Hitler's company sergeant and one of his closest comrades during and after the First World War. Hitler even wrote to him while away on leave. Amann joined the NSDAP in 1921 and later that same year became the Party's first business manager. He became publications manager of the Franz Eher Publishing House, the Party publishing house, in 1922. After November 1933, Amann served as President of the Reich Press Chamber and was largely responsible for developing the Party's giant newspaper trust by plundering non-Nazi newspaper chains, gradually eliminating all independent publishing. Amann was sentenced to two and one-half years in prison by a Munich court on September 8, 1948, and two months later the Central-de-Nazification Court imposed ten years' labor camp on him as a "Major Offender." His property and holdings were expropriated in 1949 and he is said to have died in poverty in Munich.

AMBROS, OTTO Senior executive of I.G. Farben and former schoolmate of Heinrich Himmler. In 1941, it was Ambros who selected Auschwitz as the site for a new plant to produce synthetic rubber (buna), primarily because of its location outside the range of Allied bombers. (Architect)

ARCO-VALLY, COUNT ANTON (1897-19??) Thule Society member who in 1919 assassinated Bavarian Prime Minister Kurt Eisner and triggered the events leading up to the soviet republic. Sentenced to life imprisonment, pardoned in 1925.

AXMANN, ARTUR (born 1913) Reich Youth Leader who in 1928 founded the first Hitler Youth group in Westphalia. After serving on the western front, he was appointed to succeed Baldur von Schirach as Reich Youth Leader of the Nazi Party in August 1940. In 1941, he was severely wounded on the eastern front and lost an arm. Axmann was among those present in the Fuehrerbunkerand later testified that he had heard the shot with which Hitler committed suicide. He also claimed to have seen the body of Martin Bormann lying on a bridge in Berlin while making his escape in April 1945. He was arrested in December 1945 when a Nazi underground he had been organizing was uncovered. A Nuremberg de-Nazification court sentenced him to a prison sentence of three years and three months as a "Major Offender." In August 1958, a West Berlin de-Nazification court fined him 35,000 marks and found him guilty of indoctrinating German youth with National Socialism. He was found not guilty of having committed any crimes during the Nazi era; the court concluded that he had been a Nazi from "inner conviction rather than base motives."

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