On the 24th of October 1946, Kurt Daluege, a very powerful and notorious chief of police who had brought a huge amount of suffering to occupied lands during World War II, was brought out to the execution pole. Daluege was sentenced to death for his crimes that took place inside of Czechoslovakia, and for this he paid the price of a pole hanging, a specific execution method used inside of Czech lands and Hungary.
It was a method that executioners claimed was relatively efficient and effective. However, often it went very wrong, and it took much longer than it was planned to bring someone’s life to an end. Daluege was led out in front of a crowd of thousands, and he was very much executed in public despite the fact the execution occurred within the walls of the prison.
Many people who witnessed the execution that day would never forget the day that Kurt Daluege lost his life before their eyes, and it was much worse than they ever imagined. Kurt Daluege was an experienced World War I soldier, and shortly after the end of the conflict, he turned towards very extreme politics.
He joined the Nazi Party very early on in 1922, and he then became a member of the SA, Hitler’s Brownshirts, inside of the German capital of Berlin. He was a very well-respected member of the early group, but in 1930 he then shifted across to become a member of the SS, Himmler’s paramilitaries, and he even became a deputy inside of the German parliament, the Reichstag.
In 1933, he became a member of the Prussian Interior Ministry and was given the power by Hermann Göring to oversee the Prussian police force. In this role, he was instrumental in carrying out the purge of the Brownshirts, the SA, and which led to the slaughter of many leaders of the Brownshirts, including even Adolf Hitler’s close friend Ernst Röhm.
But over time, Daluege quickly gained more power, and a couple of years later, Heinrich Himmler made him the chief of the Orpo, the Order Police. He had previously been involved in spying on possible enemies within the Reich, but he was a ruthless and barbaric man who would even dispatch his closest friends to get himself even more power.
Daluege eventually had authority over all uniformed police forces within Germany, and he reorganized the police force to see fit. And at his disposal, he had around 120,000 active and loyal Nazi police officers who would do his bidding. He regularly rubbed shoulders with Hitler and his close ally Heinrich Himmler.
But as the Second World War erupted, Hitler brought Daluege directly into the conflict, and he was overseeing large groups of police within occupied lands and territories. Inside of Poland, he ordered the hanging of members of the Polish resistance, and ordered his officers to ensure they were strung up from lamp posts so that everyone could see.
He wanted to strike fear into the hearts of anyone, and personally went to the front lines of the Eastern Front, where he witnessed the mass executions of thousands of people himself who were all rounded up by police battalions. He saw further mass slaughter, and personally signed deportation orders to deport further persecuted people to concentration and extermination camps.
And he also attended a conference led by Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, which debated the expansion of the killing operations under Operation Reinhard, which was also known as the final solution. But following the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Deputy Protector of Bohemia and Moravia in Czech lands, Daluege replaced Heydrich, and he was seen as a ruthless SS officer who would not hesitate but to bring terrible reprisals to the Czech people.
Daluege was the man who ordered the raising to the ground of the villages of Lidice and Ležáky in reprisal for Heydrich’s death. In these attacks, all of the men of the village were shot. The women were sent to concentration camps, and most of the children were gassed inside of Chelmno extermination camp. The village was wiped off the face of the earth, and the action showed the terror that the Nazis brought to occupied lands.
He worked closely with Karl Hermann Frank, another prominent Nazi administrator, who at the end of the war would also be executed by pole hanging. He continued to bring suffering to the Czech people, but in May 1943, Kurt Daluege had a huge heart attack that almost killed him. He was months later relieved of all of his duties.
He kept his rank, but was pretty much pensioned off to recover on a large property, which Hitler gave him in Western Pomerania. He remained there until the end of the Second World War, but in May 1945, Kurt Daluege was seized by the British, who realized that he was one of the major war criminals that they were hunting. The nature of his arrest isn’t well known, but after being locked up inside of a prison camp, he was transferred to Nuremberg and was charged as a major war criminal.
However, instead of being charged within the Nuremberg trials, he was extradited in September 1946 to Czechoslovakia to stand trial inside the country where he committed so many crimes. He was accused of crimes against humanity and also war crimes, and throughout his trial, Daluege showed absolutely no sympathy or empathy for his victims or his actions, and he remained an unrepentant Nazi.
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He was sentenced to death on the 23rd of October 1946, and did not need to wait long for his execution, as it happened the very next day. The method of execution for Daluege was pole hanging, a method traditionally used inside the lands which fell formerly under the influence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This method was said to have been effective, and executioners claimed it was quicker than even using a gallows, which was much more trusted.
It utilized a 3-m pole or post, and the method was aimed to bring shame and humiliation, as well as death in front of a large crowd. There was, inside of Pankrác Prison in Prague, a crowd of thousands gathered within its confines. Inside of the courtyard stood the execution post, and next to it was a small set of steps.
Daluege was led out in front of the crowds, and stood opposite him were the public. Many people who had lost loved ones and neighbors to the German occupation, and who had lived under the terror. To them, Daluege was the worst enemy they had personally encountered, as he lived in their midst, and his actions caused them such suffering.
The executioners planned for the pole hanging to be quick. The plan was for the assistant executioner to aid in the process. The executioner secured Daluege onto the wooden post, and he was held in place with a chest sling around the middle. The assistant executioner passed a system of ropes around the feet on Daluege, and a noose was then made at the top of the post, and this was wrapped around his neck.
Now, when the final checks were performed, many in the crowd looked on as the death sentence was read loudly. After this, the executioner and his assistant worked together to bring the death of Kurt Daluege quickly. The assistant let Daluege fall a short distance on the post, and the executioner who was stood behind on the post tried to shove Daluege’s head to the side to dislocate his neck.
It was written about the execution that, I quote, Daluege’s last words before he was hanged were, “I will die like a hero, like thousands of other Germans.” Which would have greatly angered the crowd. Now, the execution of Kurt Daluege was much worse than many people imagined when they went to Pankrác Prison to spectate that day.
The method of death was not a quick one, and it was incredibly visual. Seeing Daluege’s slumped body strung from the large post was rather terrifying. The crowd saw him slump very quickly onto the post after the drop was released and his head fell down staring at the floor and the crowd then saw the life choked out of him.
The executioner who was wearing white gloves threw them down at the feet of Deluga when he was hanging in what was known as an act of disgrace. It appears that the execution was actually rather quick as seconds after the drop was released Deluga went limp and still. As he remained on the post, his body was left up for some time and the crowd just stood and watched for many minutes as his life slipped away and then doctors finally confirmed the death had indeed taken place.
His body still lay on the execution post as the crowd then began to disperse and he was then cut down and packed away inside of a coffin ready for burial. When the crowd went to Pankrac prison to witness the execution of Kurt Deluga on the 24th of October 1946, they may have expected to see a brutal scene in which one of their evil overlords during World War II would finally pay the ultimate price.
But they saw a man whose final moments were incredibly controlled. There was no escape and his body slumped on the post very quickly. He was also executed high above the ground so everyone who was there that day could get a clear view of the proceedings. It was a brutal end for one of the worst Nazis of World War II.
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