Ten Worst Nazis in History (Apart From Adolf Hitler)
The female Nazis were particularly scary
If you were asked to make a list of the worst dictators of all time, Adolf Hitler is probably the first name you’d write down.
This is understandable given Hitler’s pivotal role as the leader of the Nazi Party. However, it’s also important to remember Nazi Germany was more than a dictatorship.
There was a multitude of individuals who contributed to the horrors of the Third Reich, and some of the villains discussed in this article — despite having less power than Hitler — were even more terrifying than he was.
1. Dorothea Binz
From the Nazis’ perspective, Dorothea Binz was the perfect woman, for she was a beautiful young lady with blonde hair and blue eyes. But beneath this attractive exterior, Binz was a sadistic brute.
After working in the kitchens of Ravensbruck (an all-female concentration camp), Binz took on a more serious role and became one of the most terrifying guards in the camp.
As well as beating up prisoners with her bare hands, Binz was known for whipping her victims in the face. When she didn’t feel like doing the dirty work herself, she would order her German Shepherd to attack prisoners at random.
There was also a sexual dynamic to Binz’s crimes. She frequently engaged in heavy petting with male colleagues whilst prisoners were being tortured. She even forced some of the prisoners to carry out sexual favors for her.
When the Red Army overran Ravensbruck in April 1945, it captured Binz. However, she was eventually tried in a British court. She was sentenced to death by hanging and executed in May 1947.
2. Paul Blobel
After Germany’s defeat in the First World War, Paul Blobel worked as an architect. But after losing his job and struggling to find employment, he found a renewed sense of purpose by joining the Nazi Party in October 1931.
He rose through the ranks quickly and became a commanding officer in Ukraine during the Second World War. As the leader of his unit, Blobel organized and carried out the Babi Yar Massacre in the capital city of Kyiv in September 1941, murdering more than 30,000 Jews. His unit continued their massacre at Drobytsky Yar several months later, adding another 20,000 Jews to their body count.
In the fall of 1943, Blobel also oversaw the cremation of Jews from the mass graves in the German-occupied parts of the Soviet Union. These tasks were carried out by other Jews, who were promptly killed when their job was complete.
Blobel was arrested when the war ended and sentenced to death. He was hanged at Landsberg Prison in June 1951.
3. Juana Bormann
Unlike the aforementioned female Nazi on this list, Juana Bormann wasn’t beautiful or young. Having previously worked as a guard in an insane asylum, she joined the Nazi Party in the hope of earning more money.
Bormann worked as a guard at several concentration camps and soon developed a terrifying reputation due to the violent behavior of her dogs. These vicious beasts would attack prisoners for the smallest mistake, and sometimes, they would even rip off an entire limb.
Those who survived the dog attacks were left with horrible wounds that were prone to infection. Bormann also enjoyed beating and whipping inmates, knocking out their teeth, and forcing them to exercise for hours without stopping.
The British Army captured Bormann in April 1945, and her trial took place several months later. She was sentenced to death by hanging and executed at the end of the year.
4. Oskar Dirlewanger
After reaching the rank of lieutenant and earning an Iron Cross for his role in the First World War, Oskar Dirlewanger gained a degree in political science and decided to join the Nazi Party.
Having supported the fascists during the Spanish Civil War, he returned to Germany and put together a special detachment of convicted criminals, murderers, and incendiaries. Before long, this villainous group developed a brutal reputation.
They looted and murdered their victims, playing a prominent part in both the Warsaw Uprising and the Slovak Uprising in 1944. Dirlewanger even injected strychnine into Jewish prisoners and watched them convulse to death for his own entertainment.
In May 1945, Dirlewanger and his men were arrested in Altshausen, Germany. He died in a French prison in June 1945.
5. Joseph Goebbels
With his small stature and deformed foot, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels wasn’t physically intimidating. However, he did have a sharp mind, and he used this gift to spread Nazi ideology throughout Germany.
Goebbels was in charge of the propaganda machine, presenting the Nazis as an exciting, forward-thinking party that could rescue Germany from its economic woes. He did this by combining traditional propaganda methods, such as leaflets and posters, with modern techniques, like radio broadcasts and films.
The latter proved to be particularly popular with young people in Germany, who were seduced by the revolutionary spirit of the Nazi Party. Goebbels even gave a speech during the book burnings in March 1933, an event that was organized by the German Student Association.
Before long, every aspect of German culture was being monitored by Goebbels. He manipulated the film industry, theatrical performances, publishing houses, and art exhibitions, censoring the distribution of anything that contradicted the principles of National Socialism.
Nazi propaganda also made scapegoats out of Jews and encouraged people to boycott Jewish-owned businesses. These ideas led to the Night of Broken Glass in November 1938, where Jewish synagogues, cemeteries, and businesses were destroyed.
When Hitler committed suicide in April 1945, Goebbels became the new Chancellor of Germany. However, Goebbels committed suicide soon after. When he died, Goebbels’ wife and children committed suicide along with him in Hitler’s bunker. They didn’t want to live in a post-Nazi Germany. Hence, Goebbels destroyed his own family for the cause.
6. Irma Grese
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Irma Grese grew up in a Christian household but rebelled against her parents' wishes by joining a Nazi youth group. The ideology of the Third Reich bewitched Grese, and she was later initiated as a concentration camp supervisor in Ravensbruck before moving to Auschwitz.
Using her whip, Grese would gash open the breasts of female prisoners for her own amusement. She also enjoyed mentally torturing inmates by lying about their selection for the gas chambers.
Yet the most disturbing part of Grese’s crimes involved her beloved hounds. She deliberately starved these beasts to make them more aggressive and trained them to attack any prisoner who displeased her. As the hounds pinned their victim to the ground, Grese would beat them to death. Sometimes, the hounds ripped the prisoners apart without any help from their mistress.
Grese was later transferred to a concentration camp called Bergen-Belsen before she was arrested by the British Army in April 1945. She was sentenced to death and hanged at the end of the year. At the time of her execution, Grese was just twenty-two years old.
7. Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler was born just outside Munich. He joined the Nazi Party during the interwar period, dabbling in politics while running a chicken farm.
Soon, Himmler became obsessed with Hitler, comparing him to other great leaders from history, such as Genghis Khan. He believed the Führer would be the one to cleanse Europe of inferior races and refurbish the gene pool with healthy Aryans.
Known for his efficiency and productivity, Himmler was made head of the paramilitary organization known as the SS and later became head of the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police.
Once the Second World War began, Himmler controlled the military branch of the SS (known as the Waffen-SS), which was responsible for the implementation of the Final Solution. In total, six million European Jews were killed under this scheme.
When the war ended, Himmler was stopped at a British Army checkpoint and taken in for questioning. He then killed himself by biting into a poison capsule.
8. Josef Kramer
The year before the Nazis came to power, Josef Kramer volunteered for the SS and quickly ascended the ranks by carrying out his orders without complaint.
During the Second World War, he worked at several concentration camps, garnering a reputation as a strict disciplinarian. But Kramer wasn’t just strict. He was also a bestial sadist.
Towards the end of 1944, Kramer was put in charge of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. There were no gas chambers at Bergen-Belsen, but it was still a horrific place to be. In addition to the beatings, Kramer also ordered prisoners to be suspended by their arms from large hooks for hours at a time.
Worse still, the conditions inside the camp deteriorated within months of Kramer’s arrival. The supply of food in the camp was limited to raw, uncooked roots, and the quality of the water was also inadequate. Soon, a typhus epidemic broke out.
The conditions became so awful the prisoners started to go mad. Skeletal figures moaned around the camp whilst the corpses continued to mount. When British troops entered the camp, they were horrified by what they found.
British troops then captured Kramer and put him on trial. He was hanged in November 1945 along with eleven other SS guards.
9. Josef Mengele
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The name Josef Mengele sends a chill down the spine of anyone who’s studied the Nazis. But for those who are unfamiliar with this man, you’re about to discover the crimes of one of the most twisted individuals who ever lived.
After studying philosophy in Munich, Mengele completed a medical degree at the University of Frankfurt. He joined the Nazi Party in 1934 and became a staff member at the Institute of Hereditary Biology.
During the Second World War, he served as a medical officer in France and Russia before accepting a role as the chief doctor at Auschwitz. Under Mengele’s instructions, any person who arrived at the camp with a physical deformity, such as a dwarf or a hunchback, was instantly shot. The bodies were then taken to a dissection ward where Mengele performed his autopsies.
This twisted doctor was also interested in twins. He would transfer blood samples from one twin to another, inject dyes into their eyes, and remove organs without using an anesthetic. He justified these sick experiments in the name of science, claiming he wanted to discover a way of making a race of blue-eyed Aryans.
After the war, Mengele managed to escape justice by fleeing to South America. He reportedly died during a swimming accident in Brazil in February 1979.
10. Herta Oberheuser
Mengele is certainly the most infamous Nazi doctor, but there were plenty of others who also performed horrific acts of evil.
Herta Oberheuser went to medical school in Bonn to become a doctor. She joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and performed experiments at Ravensbruck concentration camp.
Oberheuser’s experiments involved freezing, boiling, breaking bones, amputating limbs, and injecting prisoners with poisons and toxic agents.
Yet the most unsettling aspect of Oberheuser’s work was her sulphanilamide procedures. These experiments involved infecting wounds with bacteria and purposefully preventing blood circulation from getting to the infected area.
Mercifully, this sick woman was arrested in May 1945 and charged with committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Oberheuser was sentenced to twenty years in prison but was released after serving only a quarter of her sentence.
Sources
Rescue and Resistance: Portraits of the Holocaust (1999) edited by Israel Gutman
The Mammoth Book of Killer Women (1993) by Richard Glyn Jones
Hitler’s Henchmen: The Nazis Who Shaped the Third Reich (2005) by Louis L. Snyder
The Waffen SS: Hitler’s Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945 (1984) by George H. Stein