Willi Herold, the Emsland Executioner – Part II: THE CA… — Transcript

Explore Willi Herold's rise as a Luftwaffe Captain imposter during WWII, revealing his audacity and survival instincts in chaotic 1945 Germany.

Key Takeaways

Willi Herold's rise was driven by ambition, audacity, and opportunism during the chaos of late WWII.
His impersonation of a Luftwaffe Captain allowed him to command soldiers and manipulate military structures.
Herold's leadership combined charm, confidence, and ruthlessness, enabling him to maintain his deception.
The story exemplifies how war creates opportunities for survival artists to exploit disorder for personal gain.
Herold's youth contrasted sharply with his assumed authority, highlighting the power of appearance and confidence.

Summary

The video continues the story of Willi Herold, focusing on his transformation into an infamous figure during the final months of WWII.
Herold, a pragmatic yet cold-blooded young man, finds a Luftwaffe Captain's uniform and assumes the identity to gain power and authority.
He quickly establishes control over scattered soldiers, convincing a Major to assign him troops to rebuild his unit.
Herold's leadership style is audacious and confident, using charm and deception to navigate military checkpoints and Nazi officials.
He forms a close leader-follower relationship with Corporal Reinhard Freitag, who becomes his right-hand man.
Herold's ability to maintain his ruse is aided by his neat appearance, eloquence, and strategic behavior, such as celebrating his birthday multiple times to mask his youth.
He uses lies about having artillery support to secure resources like food, gas, and shelter for his unit.
Herold's story highlights themes of survival, ambition, and the blurred lines between authority and imposture during wartime chaos.
The video includes detailed accounts of Herold's interactions with other soldiers and officials, illustrating his manipulative and commanding nature.
It sets the stage for the darker aspects of Herold's actions that made him notorious.

Chapters

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

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Greetings, and welcome to the second part of my project. In the previous episode of our story, we have discussed Willi Herold's childhood and adolescence and saw the way in which virtue and vice blended together in his character. He was a natural-born pragmatist but very cold-blooded.

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He showed initiative and leadership but could be cruel to the people whom he saw beneath him.

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He was a clever and sometimes even charming boy who could have succeeded well if he stayed on the straight and narrow path but had no problem flaunting rules and was impatient and hungry for power and authority. Now we are going to continue

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our story and talk about what made Herold infamous in the first place. Let's set the stage for Willi Herold's life's defining moment: it's the end of March 1945, and he and his troop, combat group Gramse under the Sixth Parachutist Division, are returning,

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exhausted and hungry from the Netherlands. During the chaos of the field, he loses connection to his troop and finds himself walking alone on the long road between Gronau and Bentheim. It's a precarious position; an enemy patrol could find him if he's particularly unlucky or, if he fails

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to make contact with any legitimate Wehrmacht unit fast enough, he might be accused of desertion and executed. But in spite of the exhaustion, the hunger, the mental fatigue, and the uncertainty, Herold is an extremely resilient young man. As Major Pantcheff once wrote about him, "being

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demoralized was not in his nature. In his own way, he could very well be called a survival artist." Herold knows that the enemy is coming from the south, so he goes north, and it's on this long road, in the desolate Emsland landscape, that he makes a startling discovery: in a shot-up Wehrmacht

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vehicle lying in a ditch on the side of the road, there are some broken trunks, and in one of them, he finds the pristine, highly decorated uniform of a Luftwaffe Captain. Whoever this person was, he had been quite the warrior. He had fought in Norway in 1940 and participated in the Crete

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campaign in 1941. The opportunity is there in front of him, offered perhaps by destiny.

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And Willi Herold, ambitious, rebellious, adventurous Willi Herold, cannot resist it. How could he, when being a leader is everything he ever wanted since he was a little boy? He puts the uniform on, and it fits him quite well. Almost as if it was made for him.

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The uniform jacket is a bit too wide in the back, but nobody would pay attention to that. After all, it's war, and people lose weight in war. As he was probably searching for a bicycle with which he could rejoin his unit, Herold soon comes across a Parachutist Non-commissioned Officer and a

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Corporal. The role of a Luftwaffe officer comes very naturally to Herold, and he reprimands the two immediately for not saluting him accordingly, after which he demands to see their paybooks.

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After seeing in the paybooks that the two belong to the Sixth Parachutist Division, Herold mentions that he belongs to it as well. Before releasing them, he orders them to return to their unit as soon as possible. However, Herold also seems to realize that a captain without soldiers looks

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suspicious, and so, as the two are walking away from him, he tells them that if he sees them again, he will take them into his group to make up for his allegedly scattered soldiers. The name of the Corporal Herold met was Reinhard Freitag. He was three years older than Herold and hailed from the

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village of Lauenstein in Bavaria. Although he had a fairly impressive war record, having allegedly destroyed 16 tanks in Normandy and been wounded five times, he had not been promoted above the rank of Corporal because of his lack of intelligence and initiative. An expert would later characterize

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him during the trial as follows: The next day, on the 1st of April, Freitag and his straggler companion reach a crossroads in Ochtrup, where they now see the familiar figure of Herold talking to a Major of the armed forces patrol who had set up a checkpoint there and was checking the papers of scattered soldiers. As he's getting something to

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eat, Freitag overhears Herold telling the Major that he is, at 25, the youngest German Captain, that he fought in Crete under General Student and in Nijmegen, probably to explain his medals. But

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Herold doesn't stop there. Remarkably, he manages to convince the Major to give him a few soldiers so that his allegedly "scattered" combat unit could be rebuilt. Saying that he wanted to play an April's fool's joke, the Major orders Freitag and four other soldiers to join Herold. Their paybooks

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are adjusted accordingly with new written orders, marking them as official members of Captain Herold's combat unit. Years later, during his own trial, Freitag can recall that day very well because he and the others ended up stealing the schnapps which the Major had buried in his garden.

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It was a match made in heaven. Herold loved telling people what to do, and Freitag loved following orders. The two immediately fell into a comfortable leader-follower relationship, with the obedient Freitag turning into Herold's right-hand man. The next day, Herold and his brand new unit set

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off on foot, but he quickly procures bicycles so that they could move faster and reach the town of Lingen. Shortly before reaching the town, they come across a lost group of parachutists which are in possession of a truck which had previously served as a canteen wagon.

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Herold decides to take command of the group and is now in possession of a vehicle.

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In Lingen, Herold meets his first real challenger: a Patrol Sergeant asks him to show him his papers. Obviously, Herold doesn't have anything except his own Lance Corporal paybook, but he is very good at thinking on his feet. While his soldiers are showing the Sergeant their real, valid paybooks,

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Herold distracts him with questions about the whereabouts of the Sixth Parachutist Division. The Sergeant can't give a satisfactory answer but is sufficiently distracted and doesn't ask Herold about his own papers. Having successfully slipped through the checkpoint, Herold and his troop,

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now comprising 30 people, head over to the town of Meppen. Not for the first time in his life, he takes refuge in audacity and reports to the district leader of the Nazi party, Josef Egert, then to the town commander, a lieutenant colonel, and always brings Freitag with him, using him as an alibi soldier.

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This way, he manages to avoid attracting attention to himself. After all, an imposter wouldn't be so brazen, right? Why would an imposter be surrounded by soldiers with valid paybooks and be reporting to officials? This kind of audacious behavior would work as an excellent cover for Herold,

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and he would take several precautions to make sure that his ruse wouldn't be discovered. He always slept alone, and in the next weeks, he would celebrate his birthday several times, claiming to turn 25 each time in order to alleviate suspicions about his youthful appearance.

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To Herold's advantage was also the fact that he was well-built, well-spoken, with a speech free of any impediments or grammatical errors and was by nature neat and always well groomed.

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He wore an elegant white silk scarf around his neck. He simply did not look like a criminal, and above it all, he had the confidence which others simply couldn't fathom in an imposter.

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It was a role that he had tried to play over and over again during his childhood and adolescence, and now, when he finally had a golden opportunity, he was careful to preserve it for as long as he could. None of the officials in Meppen ask him for any identification. Herold makes his

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usual inquiry about the location of the Sixth Parachutist Division, but they do not seem to know anything about it. In order to score some food, gas, and shelter for himself and his men, Herold lies to the Lieutenant Colonel and claims that he has an entire artillery battery and a 15-centimeter

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Howitzer at his disposal, and he of

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Howitzer at his disposal and he offers to assist in defending Meppen with the imaginary arsenal.

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Worth noting is that Herold is freestyling outrageously here, as he doesn't even know if 15 cm Howitzers even exist. The Lietuenant Colonel doesn't know that either, as he buys Herold's lies and not only does he offer them food, shelter and gas but he

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also places his own unit at Herold's disposal for scouting and shock troop missions. Herold stays with his unit in Meppen for two or three days, after which he moves on to the village of Haren. As they are lodging there, a Pioneer Captain orders a unit of anti-aircraft soldiers to disarm

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and arrest Herold's men on the suspicion that they are enemy agents disguised in German uniforms.

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Herold reacts immediately and goes to see the Pioneer Captain, complaining about the treatment of his men and demanding their release. He asks several of his men to show the Captain their paybooks and the Captain relents and releases them. He doesn't know that his instinct was right

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and that there is indeed something off about this unit. Around the 6th or 7th of April, Herold calls the Lieutenant Colonel in Meppen, which was under the attack by the Allies. Afterwards, he orders two reconnaissance patrols with enemy contact to Meppen and participates personally in both of

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them. Upon returning, he orders his men to blow up a canal bridge in order to slow down the enemy.

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The missions don't seem to affect the enemy movements however, as the Allies overrun Meppen on the 8th of April. One day before that, the town of Lingen is also captured by the Allies and here I would like to show you some photos taken by the British forces that day.

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These images are stills from a short video stored in the Imperial War Museum in London. I have linked the video in the description. I always get a bit of an eerie feeling watching the video knowing that Herold and his unit were only a few kilometers away while this was being filmed.

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In Haren, Herold's unit loses their truck, which had become unusable thanks to the swampy terrain.

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Herold proves his resourcefulness once again by contacting the Nazi local representative and a nearby military unit from which he receives a three and a half ton truck for his men and a car for himself. He also convinces the Marine officer he was speaking to

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to give him a two centimeter anti-aircraft gun which would have been sunk otherwise. He orders his men to attach it to the truck on the spot. In about a week, Herold went from being on foot and alone to sitting in his own car with his own personal driver and a troop of men under his command.

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Looking at it from his perspective, things were going brilliantly. Before leaving for Lathen, a Sergeant by the name of Heinz Hoffmeister asked to join Herold's troop and his superior officer is okay with that, going even further and assigning other soldiers to

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Herold's unit, of course without ever bothering to ask for Herold's ID. Since Hoffmeister is the only one who knows how to operate the anti-aircraft gun, Herold puts him in charge of the others.

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The troop moves over to Lathen and stays there for the night. Herold and his trusty sidekick Freitag are even lodged in the same house. Herold and his unit perform scouting missions at the front in small groups and usually at night to avoid enemy air attacks. On April 8th, major fighting

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breaks out near Lathen. Herold joins the battle with his unit but orders a retreat after they suffer casualties. As they were retreating, they stumble upon a command post of a unit of Marines.

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A higher Marine officer demands that Herold and his men show proof of identification. In their book, Heinrich and Inge Peters present the following account of what followed next: While the men dutifully present their paybooks, Herold claims that he does not have his on him.

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The officer is rightfully suspicious and calls the armed forces patrol. Here, luck is once again on Herold's side because at that moment, the Lieutenant Colonel of Meppen walks in and immediately recognizes Herold and vouches for him, even though he himself had never

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seen Herold's ID either. In his statement taken on the 26th of January 1946, Herold remembers the encounter somewhat differently. He says: "Between Meppen and Lathen - if I am not mistaken - I was arrested by a military police patrol and taken to a Captain. He wished to see my papers but I

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refused to comply with his orders unless he showed me his own authority, as he had after all only the same rank as I. In the end we became very friendly after neither of us had produced his credentials, which in my case was anyway impossible as I had no documents but my Lance Corporal's paybook. We drank

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a glass of schnapps and then the captain released me." 80 people from other units are temporarily placed under Herold's command, with whom he leads an attack on the already occupied village.

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But the attack is quickly repelled by Allied tanks. When the number of casualties becomes too high, Herold calls off the action. His temporary soldiers leave his group to rejoin their unit and Herold moves on with his own men towards the north, where he takes up quarters at the splitting

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canal in Papenburg. After his experiences in Lathen, he realizes that he needs more trained soldiers and better weapons if he wants to make a real difference in the war against the enemy.

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But where to get these men? April 11th. Herold enters Papenburg, where the 21st Parachutist Division is stationed. To stay under the radar and to see what opportunites he has, Herold gets in touch with Captain Kathim, who also fails to legitimize him. Kathim probably thinks

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that surely, Herold couldn't have come so far without being vetted at the various checkpoints the Wehrmacht had set up in the region. It's remarkable that almost everybody Herold met seemed to have counted on the others to have done their job properly. Captain Kathim asks Herold to help

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him defend the canal to the south of Aschendorfermoor. Afterwards, Herold and his unit head over to the village of Surwold. There is a bunker there belonging to a member of the Nazi local leader called Budde. A command post under the leadership of a Lieutenant Colonel is sheltered there.

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Budde sets a table for his visitors and after some chit chat about gas and the situation on the battlefield, he mentions the many former Wehrmacht inmates languishing away in Aschendorfermoor uselessly. Hearing about thousands of able-bodied men just sitting nearby and waiting

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for the war to end, the clever Herold immediately sniffs out a solution to his lack of manpower.

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During the meal, Budde also keeps having to get up to answer the telephone. The callers are locals who are asking him to do something about the escaped prisoners.

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But what prisoners? During a forced and ultimately futile march from Camp I towards Collinghorst quite a number of prisoners had escaped and were now annoying the locals by stealing or begging.

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What had happened was that one of the luminaries in charge ordered the prisoners from one camp to head over to another but didn't actually inform the officials of the destination camp about it like a normal person would, so when the exhausted, sick and demoralized men show up at the gates

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of the destination camp, the officials there are perplexed and refuse to let them in because they have no room for them whatsoever. The camp is already overpopulated so the prisoners are forced to go back the way they came. But on the way back quite a few take advantage of

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the fog and the inattentiveness of the guards and escape, scattering throughout the region. They are desperate for food and shelter and some do resort to stealing from the villagers and there are some minor unpleasant exchanges between them but not much else. But according to Budde, these starving

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and desperate men are hardened, merciless criminals who plunder and rape with abandon, the scum of the earth, something about which he's all too happy to rant to Herold, who listens attentively.

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At this point, Willi Herold has received two important pieces of information: That thousands of able-bodied men are available in the prison camp men that he could use to stop the Allied advance and that there is a problem with a small group of escaped prisoners who are terrorizing the

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region and need to be recaptured immediately so as to not affect the villagers' morale.

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The second fact is not exactly accurate since the men are not terrorizing the region but Herold doesn't know that, as he trusts Budde's words. Budde offers him to take him to the Aschendorfermoor prison camp as he has business there anyway and Herold happily accepts. At this point, we

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need to talk a bit about Aschendorfermoor, to give you an idea about the kind of powder keg Herold is about to sit on. Aschendorfermoor was a prison camp built in 1935 and was designed to house 1000 prisoners. In April 1937 its capacity is expanded to 1500 prisoners and comprises of 14 barracks, each

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housing between 100 or 120 men. Like all the camps in Emsland, the prisoners there are mostly German prisoners. There are a few Poles there but most of the inmates are German soldiers who ended up there for various offences ranging from sabotage, desertion, refusal to follow orders, thought crimes, theft, rape

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homosexual tendencies, so a fairly wide range of crimes. The men were used for hard labor and one of their main goals was to transform the swampy terrain of the Emsland into an agriculturally usable land. The conditions in the camp were miserable and abuses and humiliations were

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depressingly common. Because the line of the front is getting dangerously close in April 1945 the leaders of several other nearby prisoner camps such as Brual-Rede and Walchum decide to take the men and bring them over to Aschendorfermoor. As a result, the camp is severely overpopulated -

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- about 3500 people. Starting on April 9th, judicial officer Friedrich Hansen receives numerous calls from the surrounding area about a mass escape of prisoners due to the unauthorized transfer march from Camp I which we mentioned before. The villagers of Emsland are complaining about the

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escaped prisoners and because their morale is very important to Hansen, he sends out troops to capture the fugitives immediately. And some of them are indeed recaptured by the troops. Paul Meyer explains the legal quagmire which follows: "He (meaning Hansen) preferred to put the recaptured prisoners

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into custody and secretly let the matter rest until the imminent handover of the camp to the Allies.

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At worst, he could have used the camp's internal punishment methods (for example dark detention) to punish them. The head of the Central Administration of the prison camps and the responsible Nazi district leader Dr. Richard Thiel and Gerhard Buscher, respectively,

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agreed that an example had to be made behind the front lines. Only a civilian court martial was appropriate under these circumstances. Such a court could either impose the death penalty or acquittal.

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A referral to the ordinary courts, which is also stipulated, becomes practically impossible under wartime conditions. And so the recaptured prisoners are kept in limbo." Noteworthy at this point is a list created by Dr. Ewald Öttinger, the Head of Administration and representative of Dr. Thiel

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who was the commissioner of the Reich Justice Minister for the Emsland prisoner camps, containing the names of 400 prisoners which were considered particularly dangerous because they were political and ideological enemies of the state. These men had to be kept out of the enemy's

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hands at any cost, as the Nazis believe they are more likely to aid or even join the enemy in the fight against Germany. Herold and Budde arrive at the camp at about 11:30 and Budde askes to speak to his good friend Karl Schütte, the supervisor of the camp. He brings Herold to Schütte's office

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and leaves to attend his business. Schütte had been waiting for someone to come and judge these prisoners and sees in this young Captain standing before him the solution to all his problems.

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He sends a guard to inform Hansen about Herold's arrival and plays host to the newcomers. As Schütte, Herold, Freitag and the other soldiers are walking around the exterior of the camp, Schütte explains to Herold that the prisoners from all the other camps had to be brought over to Aschendorfermoor

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and confirms that most of them are former Wehrmacht soldiers. He also mentions a group of about 30 prisoners who had been recaptured and who needed someone with the right authority to punish them.

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Schütte thinks that the best thing to do would be to have the men killed. Only a legal technicality stands between these men and the bloodthirsty Karl Schütte, who is itching to get rid of them.

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And how does Herold react? Remember how I said in the first part of this video series that in the Hitler Youth doctrine, a man was supposed to be tough and decisive? Well, Willi Herold wants to be exactly that. He wants to rise to the occasion, and, submerged in the end of the world atmosphere

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floating over Emsland in those dark April days, he makes a decision. As Herold utters these fateful words, they had already finished a tour of the outside of the prison camp and have arrived at the entrance to the barbed wire portion of the camp.

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Feeling that Herold is, with every passing minute, the answer to his murderous prayers Schütte opens up the gate without bothering to get the necessary permission. He orders the 30 recaptured prisoners to leave the arrest barracks and present themselves in front of Herold.

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Still interested in the possibility of using these men to fight, Herold asks out loud: "Who wants to fight for their country again?" All the men raise their hands. Schütte is outraged at this non-murderous course of action and guarantees to Herold that these useless creatures would desert

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at the first opportunity. Paul Meyer writes: "Suddenly, Herold seems to realize that the only way he can get to his military recruits is by solving the camp's internal problem of order. A break that is at first quiet, then radical. Until now, one could be amused by his acrobatics of deception,

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compare him to the harmless Wilhelm Voigt from Zuckmayer's "Captain of Köpenick" or marvel at how the successful con man manages to perform an entire profession, in this case the military.

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But now a different, deadlier side of the masquerade becomes apparent. The prisoners look at this young man, standing proud and commanding in his impressive, highly decorated uniform and don't suspect the grisly fate which awaits them. The guard who had been in charge of informing Hansen

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about Herold's arrival returns without having found the man and Schütte leaves to find him.

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He finds Hansen in the middle of his afternoon nap, wakes him up and tells him that a Captain has arrived to see the prisoners. Hansen, who is far less impulsive and more by-the-book than Schütte, asks if this captain possesses the proper credentials and authority.

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Schütte, despite not having seen anything resembling an ID or written orders from Herold, confirms and claims that Herold was invested with the highest powers by the Führer himself.

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Of course, Herold was the father of this particular outrageous lie and Schütte is all too willing to believe him. It could be that even if Schütte had any suspicions, he didn't care if Herold had the proper authority or not as long as he fulfilled his wish and killed those men.

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Schütte doesn't give a damn about going by the book - he just wants those people to die.

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Curious, Hansen leaves his office together with Schütte and heads over to the arrest barracks to meet this newly arrived Captain. In the meantime, Herold asks which prisoners are from Saxony. A few raised their hands, hoping to be pardoned but Herold has other things on his mind.

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Since he himself is a Saxon, he expects his fellow Saxons to have an exemplary behavior and feels that it's his duty to purge his home state of such unworthy men. He orders Freitag to beat the defenseless prisoners and throws insults at them. He doesn't know what crimes these men have

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committed; he simply believes in the justice of the Nazi system. According to his logic, if they were innocent, they wouldn't be there in the first place. After this ritual humiliation, Herold orders Freitag to "settle" the prisoners. It's one of Herold's favorite expressions and it's vague

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enough that the prisoners don't immediately understand what he means. But Freitag does, and he takes the prisoners one by one behind the barracks and shoots them. As Hansen approaches the barracks he sees some of the prisoners squatting at their knees in front of Herold.

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As one of them loses his balance in this uncomfortable position and stumbles forward Herold suddenly shouts: "Freitag, this man is attacking me!" and winks at his right hand man.

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The short and weedy Freitag understands the signal and takes his next victim to the south of the barracks, where he shoots him. Hansen explodes and descends upon Herold, asking him if he has lost his mind. Herold is not intimidated at all and responds with: "I have full powers from the Führer himself."

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Hansen tells Herold that executing people like this goes against every sense of justice but quickly calms down and politely asks Herold to stop the executions until Hansen made contact with his superiors in Papenburg. The situation is defused and Herold agrees to stop, equally polite.

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However, he does give Hansen an ultimatum, as he promises to continue with the executions if there are no new orders by five o'clock in the evening. It's one o'clock in the afternoon and Hansen is in a race against time. In the presence of Herold and Schütte, Hansen tries to reach Dr. Thiel in

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Papenburg but he's difficult to find. Eventually, at about two o'clock, Thiel calls back and forbids Herold to continue with his executions, announcing that he will visit the camp as soon as possible.

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But Herold is a man of action and sitting around and waiting goes against his nature.

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And time is a luxury that he doesn't have - the Allies are gaining more ground by the hour.

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So he orders his driver to take him, Freitag and Hoffmeister to Papenburg to speak with Dr. Thiel himself. In the meantime, Dr. Thiel is trying to figure out the proper legal process when it comes to executing prisoners who had tried to flee. He discussed it at length with

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a colleague of his, who is of the opinion that Herold cannot be allowed to continue like this.

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Dr. Thiel would give the following statement later at the trial: It's about three o'clock when Dr. Thiel, who is getting ready to leave for Aschendorfermoor, sees Herold's car pull up in front of his office. Dr. Thiel orders his secretary to pull out the copy of the directive

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regarding summary court martials which was issued on the 2nd of February 1945 (you can see a copy of it here) and goes to meet the newcomers together with Dr. Öttinger, his representative.

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Right from the start, Dr. Thiel informs Herold that he has absolutely no right to meddle in the prison camp's business and that he also has no right to execute prisoners, as the prison camp does not fall under the authority of the Wehrmacht. Then he asks Herold the reason for his visit to the camp

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and for the executions he ordered, to which Herold responds: "When the enemy is only two kilometers away from the town it is not necessary to have a special authorization for this type of situations.

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The Division expects me to follow the steps which are required for this kind of special situation." Dr. Thiel however, is stubbornly claiming that the decision regarding the fate of these prisoners belongs to the court. At that moment, Schütte, apparently filled with anxiety at the thought

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of not being able to kill the men, suggests to Herold that they should just go to see the district leader but Dr. Thiel expressly forbids him to do that and tells him to keep his mouth shut.

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Eventually Herold concedes that he will postpone the executions until the next day, giving him his word as an officer of the Wehrmacht. He shakes hands with Dr. Thiel and they leave.

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Naturally, Schütte is not about to give up on his mass murder plans so he urges Herold to drive to Aschendorf and see the district leader Buscher. But Dr. Thiel was not born yesterday and so, suspecting insubordination, he calls Buscher ahead and explains the situation to him, assuring him

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that he will create a summary martial court the next day. Herold is a master at adapting himself to every new situation he comes across so when he and his companions reach the office of Buscher he introduces himself as "Captain Herold, Commander of the summary court martial Sonderkommando."

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He tells Buscher point blank that he intends to have the escaped prisoners shot but that he couldn't reach an agreement with Dr. Thiel. Buscher admits that he can't give Herold the authority for his plan, but is more than willing to contact the regional administration in Oldenburg to support

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Herold's intentions. It's bone chilling to see the extensive, tireless support Herold got at almost every single step in his dark journey, from men twice or three times his age who should have shown restraint or a crumb of humanity or even basic professionalism but instead eagerly removed all

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obstacles standing between this young man and his grisly plan, encouraging him in his unhinged course of action. The response Buscher gets from Oldenburg is inconclusive and he's promised a return call the next day. In Oldenburg, the colleague whom Dr. Thiel had asked about Hitler's directive

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and the judge with which Buscher had spoken put their heads together and tried to reach a decision before Herold's ultimatum, which would expire the following morning. Together the men contact the senior public prosecutor in Oldenburg, who rejects the idea of creating a summary court martial

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because there is not enough time and the officials couldn't reach Papenburg because of the front.

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Dr. Thiel's contact goes one step above and contacts the Reich Defense Commissar but the results of his efforts were never made clear. It's six o'clock in the evening when Dr. Thiel receives the telephone call informing him that the summary court martial team cannot be formed.

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Dr. Thiel charges his representative Dr. Öttinger with spreading the word to the Gestapo in Emden.

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Dr. Öttinger dutifully telephones there and explains the situation in detail to Dr. Struve the man in charge. Dr. Struve immediately grants Herold the necessary authority to judge the escaped prisoners and if then necessary, to have them executed.

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Dr. Öttinger informs Dr. Thiel and then calls Hansen back at the camp and gives him the message.

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There is nothing standing in Herold's way now. As he returns to the camp and is notified about this, Herold decides that the executions will continue the next day. Afterwards, Herold undertakes a mission about 15 kilometers to the south around Wippingen. He will stick to this schedule for

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the next week: during the day, executions in the prison camp. During the night, military missions.

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Herold aims to be productive. The next day, Herold and his band show up to Buscher's office in Aschendorf at 10 in the morning, just as Buscher receives a call informing him that he needs to get in touch with the Gestapo in Emden, who wants to know how many prisoners are on the kill list,

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and then decide that the Gestapo presence is not required. Everybody is visibly pleased, and Buscher sends Herold off with the words: As they are heading over to the prison camp, Schütte eggs Herold on about expanding his kill list. He is aware of the list of 400 names of political prisoners which had to be

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kept out of the enemy's hands at any cost and tries to convince Herold to kill them as well.

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Schütte is a Iago-like character, always pushing Herold further and further across the line, showing a clear disregard for due process and a chilling bloodlust. The two men are quite similar from this point of view and their mirrored vices will prove a fatal combination. There's one thing to kill 30

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people but 400 is a challenging number and Herold, the born pragmatist, begins to consider ways to do this efficiently. Once back in the camp, Herold advises Schütte to strengthen the number of guards and orders to have a large hole dug. His men are roaming around the camp, announcing that it has

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been taken over by the Wehrmacht and threatening the prisoners with death unless they stay in their barracks and avoid looking outside. The mood must have been ghastly. Herold skips lunch and sits down together with Schütte and possibly Hansen and together they put together a plan to kill

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not only the 30 prisoners for which they have authority over, but also the 400 from Dr. Thiel's list. Shortly afterwards, Herold gathers his men and informs them in his usual loud, commanding voice about the impending executions, threatening to have them shot unless they participated. Afterwards,

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the SA leader from the camp gives him a company of men from the Volkssturm to bolster his own troops.

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Every prisoner in the Prison Camp II Aschendorfermoor is ordered to get out and stand at attention.

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The main street is overflowing with men. Hansen informs the prisoners that Captain Herold from the Wehrmacht has taken over the camp and that a new wind will blow from now on. Herold interrupts him to shout: "None of you should ever dream of getting away! All of you will be killed!" He asks who

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is from Thuringia and a naive man raises his hand. Herold orders him immediately thrown into the pond.

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He asks another prisoner about his hometown as the man answers Blauen (Baden-Württemberg) Herold orders him to fetch a bucket of water and do 20 squats and promises that if he succeeds he'd be free. The man does as he's told, but Herold instead pulls out his pistol and shoots him dead.

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One can imagine the utter terror in the hearts of the prisoners. They have nothing to defend themselves with from this terribly young looking, terribly angry young man in the Captain uniform.

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Hansen pulls out the list of 400 names from his pocket. He and Schütte have selected 96 names from it and begin calling out numbers. The men are sent over to the arrest barracks where they join the 30 recaptured prisoners. Hansen asks Herold to at least take a look at the files of the men who are

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about to be executed but Herold refuses. At about two o'clock in the afternoon, the Roman Catholic Chaplain Lüning arrives at the camp, having come over all the way from Papenburg on his bicycle.

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He is responsible with caring for the souls of the men about to be executed and with offering them comfort and consolation in their final hours. He has heard that executions are about to take place and has come to fulfill his duty. He is refused access on the grounds that there is a special

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action about to take place, but after insisting to talk to Herold, he is allowed inside the camp.

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Schütte receives him with the words: "It doesn't matter if the guys pray or not, they'll be killed anyway!" Lüning turns to Herold and reminds him that in military tradition, the men sentenced to death must be informed about it two hours before the execution and be offered the opportunity to talk

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to a priest. Herold hesitates for the first time. Could it be, that even in his murderous megalomania there is a line that not even he is willing to cross? Unfortunately, Schütte has no such scruples about that and happily somersaults over the line. He forbids the priest from seeing the prisoners.

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Herold asks Lüning to stay but afterwards the priest is left to his own devices and he leaves at about five o'clock. The condemned lose what little chance at spiritual comfort they had.

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In the meantime, Freitag feels emboldened by his captain's violence and prowls the barracks looking for victims from his own state, which he beats viciously. At six o'clock the large grave ordered by Herold has been completed. One hour later, the men are taken out of the arrest barracks.

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One prisoner begs one of the guards not to shoot him as the guard had written a request for clemency for him eight weeks before. The guard tells Herold that shooting that man would be unjust as he's surely innocent. Herold's answer is to grab his baton and

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smack the guard on his shoulder saying: "I'll deal with you later!" On the way to the pit one of the other prisoners asks a different guard for help and the guard asks Herold for clemency.

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Herold reprimands the guard and threatens to have him shot together with the prisoners if he does it again. The 20 centimeter anti-aircraft gun is brought about 20 or 25 meters before the grave.

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In rows of five, the men have to stand in front of the gaping hole.

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Now, being an executioner was a real job back then. It was a skilled job and not everybody could do it.

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The role of the executioner was not to simply kill the condemned but to do it fast and painlessly.

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The victims shouldn't suffer - this was one of the essential tenets of an executioner of the Third Reich. However, Herold is clearly an amateur and it is painfully obvious from the start that the way in which he has positioned the men is highly inefficient. Perhaps thanks

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to his inexperience, Herold thinks that the anti-aircraft gun would be able to go through the entire line of men. Many around him, even those who agree with the idea of executing the men are disgusted by the use of the anti-aircraft gun. But Herold won't tolerate insubordination.

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Before the massacre can begin however, something draws Herold's attention. The incident is described as such in Heinrich and Inge Peters' "Pattjackenblut": When a prisoner from the other guarded group standing a little apart from the pit taps his hand, Herold orders him to jump over one or two meter

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wide drainage ditch that runs parallel to the camp at a distance of about 55 meters. The prisoner falls into the ditch. Herold orders Freitag to let him crawl through the ditch completely underwater.

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When the prisoners reappears holding a piece of wood in his hand, Herold orders him to bite into it, which he does. Herold's cruelty is escalating at a terrifying pace. The frightened men standing in front of the open grave are begging him for their lives. They're saying that they would rather fight

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on the battlefield, anything but this, but Herold remains unmoved by the pleas, saying only: "It's too late for that now, you should have thought about it earlier." He orders the prisoners to shout "Long live the Führer!" In their terror, some of the men do as commanded. And then Herold gives Hoffmeister the

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signal to fire the anti-aircraft gun. Men fall to pieces, others are grievously wounded but many survive unharmed and rush into the hole trying to shield themselves from the shots.

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After four shots, the anti-aircraft gun jams. Herold shouts at Hoffmeister to get the weapon back in working order but it cannot be repaired. Trying to control the ensuing chaos, Herold orders his men to use their firearms and to shoot the men cowering into the open pit. Schütte orders his guards to

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join in and 10 of them obey. Freitag empties three guns into the screaming, defenseless men.

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They are sobbing in pain, crying for their mothers. Herold and someone else throw hand grenades into the pit.

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About this time, two First Lieutenants from combat unit Gericke show up in the camp and witness the grenades being thrown and chlorinated lime being thrown over the bodies. One of them, by the name of Hans Dahler-Kaufmann, goes to Herold and tells him point-blank:

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Herold points to his car, on which to sign summary court martial hangs and threatens to put him together in front of the pit with the next group of prisoners. The First Lieutenant doesn't answer but photographs the massacre as he had coincidentally brought a camera with him

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and leaves. Unfortunately, he will be taken prisoner by the Russians and lose the footage.

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The 50 prisoners who had been guarded to the side have to witness this bungled orgy of violence knowing that they will be next. Herold orders for ammunition to be brought over from the warehouse.

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By the end end of the evening, about 110 prisoners have been gruesomely murdered. Only one man doesn't shoot, in spite of the orders and the threats: a guard by the name of Anwander. When asked later during the trial for the reason behind his inaction, he simply responds

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The next day, Herold can finally get to the men he wanted in the first place. He separates the Aschendorfermoor men into three categories: 300 men with so-called good behavior he intends to release and send over to join the Wehrmacht back in Leer. The selection criteria seem to have been

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determined by their physical strength and not much else. The men with lesser good behavior he assigns to special work missions, although at that time there wasn't anything to do thanks to war.

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And the last category consists of men with so-called bad behavior which she sends over to the arrest barracks and plans to execute. The men are forced to dig their own graves and Herold, who is trying to refine his killing method, forces them to stand in the pit. A desperate prisoner tries to

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run away but Freitag shoots him in the leg, after which he is dragged back and thrown into the pit.

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The men are all killed by handguns on Herold's orders. Around 11AM, Schütte orders his men Meyer Peller and Euler to go out and see if they can find any other prisoners to recapture.

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The group decides to meet at six o'clock in the evening at the Cordes Inn in Burlage.

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At the allotted time, the group shows up with the results of their hunt: eight prisoners have been recaptured. Meyer calls Schütte's office and informs Herold of the situation. Herold uses his favorite phrase and tells Meyer to "settle them" but Meyer doesn't quite understand what he means, so Herold

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explains that he should shoot the men on the spot. He also threatens that if he doesn't do it, he'll come and do the job himself. The innkeeper refuses to have the men die on his land and therefore the

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execution commando has to find somewhere else to do their killing, so they go to a small wooded area about 1.5 or 2 kilometers away from the inn. The prisoners must also take off their shoes outside the inn and walk only in their socks on the cold, wet ground to their final destination.

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The men are forced to dig their own grave and are executed and buried by their killers.

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Meyer goes back to the inn with his men and telephones Herold. The young man is very pleased with the news that the men had been, as he's so fond of saying, "settled." Herold informs the local commander in Leer that he will send several hundred pardoned men for the Wehrmacht. Afterwards, he holds a lofty and

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pretentious speech to the men, telling them that by fighting for their country, their previous offenses will be washed away. Just after he finishes with his grandiose speech, a farmer brings over three chained prisoners into the camp. Herold is quick to descend upon them and hit them

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after which he orders Freitag to kill them. The obedient Freitag does as he is told and shoots the first two men but the third one claims that he was pardoned. The chief of the guards Euler who was present at the scene, confirms it. It would have cost Herold nothing to let the man

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live, but in an act of unimaginable cruelty he orders Freitag to kill the man anyway.

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That night, Herold asks shutter to organize a social evening. It seems to be that Herold believes some partying will help his troops relax after all the shootings they did. In his official statement, Herold recalls that Freitag came to him after the first massacre was finished and

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told him that he couldn't go on because he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Herold told him that he was of course free to go back to the front but Freitag wasn't too keen on doing that either.

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Herold understands that "shootings get on people's nerves" as he would lightly put it during his trial and hopes that a fun evening would offer some relief. The wives and girlfriends of the camp staff, guards and even those of his own men take part in the celebrations. The alcohol flows freely but

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much like a teenager taken to task by his father, Herold later claims to Major Pantcheff that he did not get drunk. The next day, 14th of april, only four prisoners are recaptured and are executed much the same way as the others. Afterwards, Herold and his band completely take over every aspect of the camp.

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They use the laundry service to have freshly cleaned clothes almost daily they use the tailor workshop to have their uniforms mended, adjusted or even have completely new uniforms made.

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Herold himself has his uniform jacket adjusted. They also help themselves to extra food from the kitchen.

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The problem here is that all of this is meant for the inmates. If they overload the laundry service then the inmates can't get clean clothes. To give you an idea, inmates usually got clean underwear every two weeks and that under normal conditions, not when the camp has double the population it

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was designed to house. Interfering with that schedule means that the inmates lack access to clean clothes. The extra food that Herold's band consumes is also meant for the prisoners who are already undernourished to begin with. Herold's men also continue to execute

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prisoners. One cannot even begin to imagine the constant terror the prisoners are living under.

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One morning, Herold decides that it's five o'clock somewhere in the world and downs two whole bottles of French red wine in which he had poured sugar. As it turns out, Herold is an angry drunk, as he tears everything in the camp barber workshop to pieces, after which he passes out. Hansen complains to

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Dr. Thiel about the fact that the order in the camp has been turned upside down. He doesn't complain about the executions and the violence and the inhumanity of Herold and his band of brutes. He complains that his job as a paper pusher and administrator is now extremely difficult. Dutifully,

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Dr. Thiel sends over his representative Dr. Öttinger, who politely asks Herold to behave. Herold promises and tells him moreover that his mission is nearing its end, but the situation doesn't really change in the next five days. Prisoners are being abused and shot. Herold and his troop reign supreme.

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One day, Herold's old acquaintance Captain Kathim comes to visit Aschendorfermoor with his team and Herold leads the men around the camp as if he owned the place. As amusement, he orders Freitag to make a prisoner wade through the camp pond. The officers somehow find this very amusing. Captain Kathim, who

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is also a local judge, asks Herold to take over the execution of a local farmer whom he had arrested, Nicolaus Spark. His crime? Hanging a white flag in anticipation of the arrival of the Allies.

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Herold readily agrees and heads over to Papenburg on the 17th of April. One man interviewed decades later for Paul Meyer's documentary could still clearly recall seeing Herold in Papenburg in his captain's uniform, surrounded by his soldiers and the image of Herold playing with

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a knife hanging from his waistband never left him. Nicolaus Spark is hanged in the middle of Papenbug in the presence of all local Nazi party officials. The witness who recalled Herold playing with his knife also remembers the nightmarish scene of children playfully dangling from the hanged man's feet.

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Afterwards, on the 18th of April, the camp is hit by Polish artillery, causing many victims.

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Herold doesn't think the end is here yet and drives to Papenburg to procure bandages for the wounded. That same night, he lies and claims that it's his 25th birthday and organizes celebration in the camp canteen. The purpose of this is, as we mentioned in the

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beginning of the video, to alleviate suspicions about his age. It's perhaps easy to forget at this point but he is a baby-faced 19-year-old and he is perhaps anxious that at one point someone will finally notice this glaring fact. 19th of April. The next day, Allied planes attack the

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artillery positions close to the camp and several bombs accidentally hit Aschendorfermoor. The kitchen goes up in flames and several starving prisoners run towards it trying to save some of the precious food. Herold's soldiers discover them and shoot them on the spot. The barracks begin to

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burn. The smoke is choking everybody. The prisoners have nowhere to run as they are trapped within the barbed wire enclosure of the camp. Finally, Hansen finds a crumb of backbone somewhere in his body and opens the camp gates. He does this against the orders of Herold, who is drunk and threatening him

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with his pistol. Prisoners pour out of the burning camp but the traumatized men return afterwards out of fear of being recaptured and executed. Herold's men shoot an unknown number of them anyway. Herold orders a prisoner by the name of Sommer who had some medical training

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to inject the prisoners who had been severely wounded during the bombing with morphine and then has the sleeping men shot. The entire camp burns down and with it, all the personal files of the inmates and other valuable documentation. We will never know the names of all of Herold's victims.

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Hansen sees an opportunity and quickly organinizes the remaining prisoners in two groups and takes them to Papenburg, away from Herold and his band of savages.

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Herold selects 15 or 20 men from the 45 remaining guardsmen and creates a core team. He spends half a day playing Captain and drilling them like soldiers. On the 21st of April, Herold's so-called combat troop arrives in Leer. After speaking with the mayor Drescher, the town commander Frey and

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Nazi district leader Steckert in order to deflect possible suspicions as usual, Herold brings his men over to the Schützengarten Inn. At the time, the inn was run by Karl Poppen but only his wife Thalea and his married daughter Annelise Thiemann were present. Herold introduces himself and tells the

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women that he has received permission from the mayor and the local Nazi party to lodge his men there. Annelise, who was 21 years old at the time, and her mother don't really have anything to say in this and head over to their kitchen, where they discovered two Wehrmacht deserters

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who had wandered in looking for food. Mrs. Poppen gives them something to eat and the two men converse pleasantly with them when suddenly, Herold enters the kitchen. Like a bloodhound sniffing up an opportunity for murder, Herold immediately asked the men to identify themselves.

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After looking over their paybooks and realizing they were deserters, Herold condemns them to death and heads outside to tell his men they should carry out the executions. But Anneliese has a spark of courage and bolts after the Captain, taking him by the arm and pleading with him to let the men

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live. Herold brushes her off and tells her: "Girl, you don't know what it means, being away from the front without permission, we can't allow this!" which is the absolute pinnacle of hypocrisy coming from him but Anneliese bravely persists, stops him again and employs her charm. "Please don't kill them

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Captain sir, for my sake please let these ones live." Herold looks at her and one can almost hear the wheels spinning in his head. Pompously he says: "Very well, for your sake. I can't resist this look. Will you party with me tonight?" Herold has turned the encounter into a transaction.

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Anneliese is scared but comforts herself with the idea that her mother will also be in the house.

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She knows that the lives of the two men depend on her and so she agrees.

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Herold heads back into the kitchen and tells the two men that the girl has saved their lives and that they should scram immediately and that night, as he visits his men at the inn Herold comes to collect Anneliese in the kitchen. "Now you must party with me," he says.

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Charming. The men are the guests from hell. They spend their evenings getting drunk on beer and schnapps, singing and playing the piano loud enough to be heard from the outside. They laugh over the cruelties which they have committed. Anneliese has to listen to that and put on a brave face.

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She is among wolves. Herold doesn't lodge in the inn but in the lavish Prinz von Oranien Hotel.

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Somehow, perhaps during one of his bar hopping expeditions, he has had time to find himself the ultimate luxury in a war: a lover, a Dutch woman by the name of Betty who moves in with him and is charged with taking care of him day and night. In his film "The Captain," Robert Schwentke posits that

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Betty was a prostitute. Major Pantcheff on the other hand, thinks that perhaps Herold put his charm to good use and that Betty might have thought she could do worse than shack up with a young, clever and good-looking Captain. It might be difficult to envision him as anything close to normal but

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Herold could be very friendly and cheerful when he wanted. He was intelligent, had a very pronounced sense of humor and boundless energy. Attractive qualities, if one doesn't look too deep beneath the surface. While in Leer, Herold (because he hasn't committed enough stolen valor) goes to a fur store

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and searches for a Knight's Cross, claiming that it had been bestowed upon him by the Führer directly but due to the situation on the battlefront he hadn't gotten a chance to receive it.

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At this point I imagine him looking a bit like one of those North Korean generals. Several other women joined his band but they all claimed they were more or less forced to. It's difficult to determine the truth but I am inclined to believe them. In any case they do not make

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themselves guilty of any crimes. Herold and his men spend their first two nights bar hopping in Leer coming back with armfuls of alcohol bottles and other delicacies for themselves and the girls.

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But things go awfully wrong on their second day in the town. In the morning, Herold arrives at the Schützengarten Inn and orders two of his men, Sommer and Schramek to step forward. If you recall Sommer was the former Wehrmacht medic whom Herold had ordered to inject the terribly

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wounded Aschendorfermoor prisoners with morphine and shoot them. Herold accuses the two of having drugged a woman with morphine so they could rape her. He organizes a kangaroo court and condemns the two to death. They are taken behind the Schützengarten Inn and beaten with carpet

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beaters and leather straps by who else? Freitag, together with another non-commissioned officer. Since they couldn't well execute them and bury them in the inn garden they decided to find a different burial site for the next victims. Anneliese witnesses all of this.

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She is invited to come and see the execution, which the young woman understandably immediately refuses.

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The fact that they would invite a woman to the execution as if it was the theatre or the cinema speaks volumes about the way in which such events had been normalized for Herold's group. Freitag accuses Anneliese of being a coward and she, scared by the sudden hostility, agrees to come with them.

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The two men are forced to dig their own graves and then shot dead. The same day, back at the inn Anneliese and her mother are talking to three members of Herold's group, who innocently tell them that they used to be former inmates who had been pardoned by the Captain. From their

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perspective, the men are doing nothing wrong. As far as they know, Herold possesses legitimate authority.

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But when Herold finds out that they had spoken about this, he loses it and explodes in an angry outburst threatening to have them shot. He is of course aware that his authority is not real and doesn't want people knowing of his deeds. The three men are saved only by the intervention of the others and

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Herold resumes himself to a volley of shouted insults. Like a bloodhound, Herold roams around Leer looking for opportunities to put his particular skill set to use. When he visits the prison in Leer, he finds the master baker Wilhelm Janße, who is languishing there for undermining the military

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forces. Herold agrees to release him on bail and goes with him to the bank where Janße withdraws 10,000 Reichmarks and gives them to Herold. It was a colossal sum for that time.

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Ten brand new cars could have been purchased with that money. Herold attempts to give the money to Köhler, head surgeon at the Leer Reservist Hospital but Köhler, uncertain of the provenance of such a huge sum of money, wisely refuses the donation. It was at this point in my initial research that I

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realized what Herold thought he had been trying to do all this time: in a horrible, deeply misguided way, Herold thought he was helping. He was trying to help, believing that the end justified the means, especially in the context of a war that seemed to spell the end for Germany. As we saw

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many of the prisoners he had executed were part of a list of 400 names of political prisoners.

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This meant ideological enemies of the state and by extension of the German people. It was made clear by Dr. Thiel that those 400 prisoners were to be kept out of the enemy's hands at any cost for fear that they would give away valuable information or outright join the enemy in

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the fight against Germany. Herold did not see these men as human beings with thoughts, feelings, dignity and rights - he saw them as resources. And you do not leave your resources in the hands of the enemy.

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This cold-blooded pragmatism turned monstrous when combined with his venomous hatred of deserters. He singles out this particular group of men to bear the brunt of his anger. And Willi Herold underneath his smooth facade of confidence and calm is a very angry, volatile young man.

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At nineteen, his body is covered in the scars he has acquired in battle. In Wolfenbüttel, one can still see the medical examination file detailing Herold's scars: head, back, hand, upper arm, foot.

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He was a soldier who fought to the best of his ability and like many soldiers, he can't stand those who ran and hid while he and his fellow soldiers were getting shot. But there are rules even in war and Willi Herold judges these men and ends their lives without truly seeming to reflect

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on his own offences. He thinks in black and white, like many teenagers. Nuance is a foreign concept to him. Is this hypocrisy and myopia due to his age? His selfishness? Did the war unhinge something in him which perhaps was a bit loose from the beginning? I don't know.

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Not even after all this research, I don't know what made Willi Herold jump with both feet into this wave of murder. And I'm not sure if he himself knew it, either. On the 25th of April, Sergeant Hoffmeister informs Herold that five Dutchmen are being held in the prison in Leer under charges of

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spying. The men were caught with weapons and Dutch currency on the German side of the border and it does seem like they were involved in resistance activities. In the afternoon, Herold and his men take the men out of prison, collecting even their personal belongings. Herold sets up one of his

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usual kangaroo courts and writes a death sentence on a piece of paper. He doesn't speak to the men who don't even know German. Herold forces his lover Betty to translate the death sentence into Dutch and read it aloud to the men. She begins to cry as she's doing so and when she leaves the room

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tears streaming down her face, she tells one of the young women from Herold's band: "My countrymen are going to be shot." The men are taken to the place where Sommer and Schramek had been executed.

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The air-raid sirens begin to howl. The youngest Dutchman is crying. The same sad procedure is repeated: the men are shot and buried. But in their disgustingly amateur manner, Herold's men failed to properly kill one of the victims and he suffocates to death, buried alive. The same day

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a Marine deserter by the name of Emil Pausch is brought in chains before Herold at the gate of the prison in Leer and suffers the same fate as his other victims. Herold's tireless and shockingly long list of crimes is soon coming to an end. His last victim would be Carl-Heinz Schulz, nicknamed

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Witte, a mentally ill man. Erica Brahmann recalls how Herold accuses Schulz of sabotaging his Opel Blitz which had been parked in front of the Oranien Hotel where Herold was lodging. He has the man lay down on the ground and shoots him personally. The poor man bleeds to death in his own nearby home.

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On the 28th of April, the Allies are coming closer and Herold and his men move north and reach Aurich.

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He has about 20 men with him. Some, like Freitag and Hoffmeister, are from his original group. Others are prisoners he had pardoned. Herold doesn't seem to bother with military missions anymore and his group is so incredibly obnoxious that the population is beginning to complain and

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they attract the unwanted attention which Herold had been so careful to avoid over the past month.

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On the 30th of April, the day Adolf Hitler commits suicide, Herold and his group are arrested in the Schwarzer Bär Hotel at 11:45PM. Freitag is with Herold when they get apprehended. When he hears that Herold is not a real Captain, he weeps like a child. Herold is stripped of his Captain's uniform

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and turns back into Willi Herold, Lance Corporal, chimney sweep from Lunzenau... and now war criminal.

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The man who ordered the arrest and who personally interrogated Herold was Lieutenant Commander Otto Hübner. Herold buries himself in contradictory statements but then finally confesses to his crimes. His version of the story portrays him as a tough and decisive man who showed initiative and

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courage and who tried to defend his country to the best of his ability. But Hübner was not born yesterday and decides to put Herold on ice before his trial. And here is where we leave Willi Herold for today: in a Gestapo cell, waiting for his trial. In the final part of my project

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we will discuss Herold's trials, his imprisonment and his execution. Until then, take care.

Topics:Willi HeroldEmsland ExecutionerWWII impostorLuftwaffe CaptainSixth Parachutist DivisionGerman military historywartime survivalNazi Germanymilitary deceptionhistorical documentary

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Willi Herold before he assumed the Luftwaffe Captain identity?

Willi Herold was a pragmatic, cold-blooded young man with leadership qualities and ambition, but also impatience and a hunger for power. His childhood and adolescence showed a blend of virtue and vice.

How did Herold manage to convince soldiers and officers to follow him?

Herold used the found Luftwaffe Captain uniform to impersonate an officer, combined with confident behavior, quick thinking, and fabricated stories about his combat record and unit strength to gain trust and command.

What role did Corporal Reinhard Freitag play in Herold's story?

Reinhard Freitag became Herold's right-hand man after Herold recruited him and other soldiers. Freitag was obedient and loyal, complementing Herold's leadership and helping to legitimize his authority.

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