Willi Herold, 19-years old, lance corporal. On April 3, 1945 Herold is cut off´ from his unit after parachuting down over Emsland, an isolated region in north west Germany. To his surprise he finds an officer´s uniform lying in a military vehicle riddled with bullet holes and abandoned at the, roadside. This opens up new possibilities for him. Dressed in the uniform and commanding a group of other soldiers, also cut off from their units, he goes marauding through Muffrika (a local term for the region of Emsland) under the name of the Herold Unit, the Herold-Bodyguard or the Herold Court Martial. No one doubts that he is an officer. The group stays in close proximity to the main combat line: "enjoying the war...", with audacious shock troop ventures against the advance of the Allies, plundering raids, women in tow, alcohol in abundance. As the days go by the process intensifies to a murderous frenzy: On April 10, Herold enters the most northern of the Emsland prison camps, all but deprives the camp commandant of his power, and- for 9 days- sets up a reign of arbitrary terror to which 160 camp prisoners fall victim. As the enemy approaches Herold disappears northwards. In Leer he orders that 5 Dutch men denounced as "spies" be shot. By April 30, when he is discovered and arrested by a German navy patrol, he has had 200 people murdered. Willi Herold is arrested again at the end of May 1945, brought before a British military court, condemned to death on August 29, 1946 and guillotined shortly afterwards.
The Wikipedia says he found the uniform of a Fallschirmjäger Hauptmann in an officer's suitcase. It doesn't say anything about him "parachuting down over Emsland."
Further, it says he was hanged on 14 Nov 46; not guillotined.
Nordwest wrote:BTW...
Did You know this about W. Herold...?
A small "Episode" 1945, mostly known to the People in our Area...
Michael
Not really, so I found your post to be quite interesting. However, I do have a vague recollection of seeing a BAOR interrogation report on him. I think the Brits at first thought he was a dangerous Abwehr II agent. I read the interrogation report a long time ago, so I can't be absolutely sure it's the same guy, but the story did ring some bells for me.
Nordwest wrote:Thanks Waleed, sometimes I am a little stupid...
BTW, I did not know, that the British used the Guillotine after 1945 for Executions in Germany, this was new to me.
I always thought, they used the Rope/Hanging?
Thanks again!
Michael
Guillotine: I did, too, Nordwest, and I still do. I have no recollection of the Brits executing condemned criminals and war criminals with the guillotine. They were hanged.
As for the BAOR interrogations, these can be found in both the U.K. and the U.S. National Archives. At NARA WashDC, there are hundreds and hundreds of boxes of wartime and postwar PoW interrogations, many of which were conducted by The British Army of the Rhine. Everybody was doing interrogations 1945-48: CSDIC, OSS, BAOR, A.I.12, USAREUR G-2, OMGUS, the Nürnberg Prosecutors, and the list goes on and on. And that's just the Brits and Amis.
Nordwest wrote:Thanks again, Lorenz!
I there a Source in the Internet, to look at such Interrogation Reports, this would be very interesting?
Especially the "Willi Herold File"...
Next Question, other Photos of W. Herold, besides the one from the Cover of the Docu/Book?
Michael
Source: sadly not.....one must go to the archive and fish around for them. The U.K. archive has fewer than the U.S. archive, but in London they are better catalogued and therefore easier to locate.
Photos: sorry, I know nothing about those. I never saw any photos with the interrogation reports.
