110 degrees magazine - Index

110 degrees magazine - 110° Magazine - July 2007 - Through the gates of Hell - Index

Almost every step was taken while under fire or
under the threat of fire.
After the war in Europe ended we were all gathered
together as a unit and told that we had to go back to
training and then would be shipped out to the Pacific
Theater. I felt dismayed by a strong feeling that I had been
living on luck for too long. If you’ve flipped a coin and
gotten “heads” five times in a row when “tails” would
have meant death, you want to lay that coin down.
Then came a wonderful announcement: “We need
people who know how to type.” Typewriters weren’t
as common in 1946 as they later became and I was one
of only three in my unit to raise my hand. I was sent
to Waldmunchen, Germany where I was assigned to
the transitional military government that was ruling
Germany following the fall of the Third Reich.
I was given the task of typing the reports for a
military tribunal that was interviewing and questioning
Nazi leaders. I felt particularly blessed to be
working at a typewriter in a nice office in Europe
rather than shooting a rifle on some steaming
island in the South Pacific.
NUREMBURG AND BEYOND
After six months in Waldmunchen I was transferred to
Nuremburg for the famous War Trials. The first
Nuremburg trial lasted for eight months. We wore
headphones in the courtroom, each with a dial that
would supply a translation of the proceedings in
English, French, Russian, or German.
Twenty Nazis faced justice in those trials, twelve of
them were condemned to be hung, six sentenced to
life imprisonment, and two were acquitted.
The condemned included Rudolph Hess and the
notorious and unrepentant Hermann Gohring, who
was second in command to Hitler. He requested
execution by a firing squad, but the court handed
down a sentence of death by hanging.
Gohring made a public announcement, “You’ll
never hang me; I’m going to end my life on my own
terms.” He was as good as his word and successfully
cheated the hangman. Two hours before his death he
extracted a cyanide pill that had been sewn beneath
his skin and poisoned himself.
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