The HORRORS Of The Public Edelweiss Pirate Executions JJ

There were resistance groups in World War II, who tried their best to defy and oppose the Third Reich. But often, if someone was found to have been subverting the regime, or was caught attempting to get people to think that other ideas may be better than what the Nazis were serving up, they could lose their head at the sharp blade of the metal fall vile, the Nazi compact guillotine, or they could even be shot by firing squads.

But the Nazis also carried out public executions inside of their country, in scenes reminiscent of the medieval periods. On gallows, many people at once were executed at the same time, and people were invited to see enemies of the Reich being put to death. But many of these people who were executed were actually very young.

And inside of Cologne, on the 10th of November, 1944, there were a group of 13 resistance members, specifically members of the Edelweiss Pirates, who were helped onto a colossal gallows. They were stood underneath the crossbeam, as German officials and SS men secured the noose around their necks. They were all executed at the same time, and some of the victims were even teenagers.

But what happened with the executions of the Edelweiss Pirates of Cologne was truly horrific, and also incredibly disturbing. The Edelweiss Pirates were a youth group who opposed the Nazis and how they were forcing young people into specific youth groups, such as the Hitler Youth or the League of German Maidens.

They intensely disliked the strict regimes imposed upon young people, and they fought back in ways that they could. The Edelweiss Pirates, the group, got their name based upon the Edelweiss flower that grows wild in the Alps mountain range. And their enemies in particular were specifically the Hitler Youth. Many members avoided compulsory Hitler Youth membership, and they evaded the group by leaving school, and they also tried to avoid military conscription.

Now, the Hitler Youth was being used by Hitler to build up his army of the future. Boys were forced into the group, and they participated in military drills, and were taught how to fire weapons, and also throw grenades. And the whole idea around this was that wartime came around, Hitler would have even more skilled soldiers at his disposal.

The Edelweiss Pirates wanted to be free to express what they thought, and they wanted to spend their time however they saw fit, rather than being forced to participate in military drills. They also opposed the indoctrination and brainwashing of younger people, and wanted to do whatever leisure activities they simply wanted to do.

The Edelweiss Pirates were all about greater freedoms. Young boys and girls joined, and they were a group for all, and were not segregated by gender. It was mostly young men who joined the group, though, but some girls were there, and most were between the ages of 14 and 18. They would have grown up for some years experiencing the Nazi forms of education which were introduced, and in rebellion some even left school.

When the older boys received their call-up conscription papers to join the army or military, they left school and then just went AWOL. However, within larger cities, there were other youth groups which were emerging in protest to Hitler, including the White Rose. But what sorts of activities did their members get up to? Well, they often organized camping trips and went hiking in the mountains and hills.

And while they were away, the members would listen to music which was actually banned by the Nazis, such as American jazz, and they also sang songs which were anti-Nazi. The songs sung specifically were anti-Hitler, and one had the lyrics of, I quote, “The force of Hitler makes us small. We still lie in chains, but one day we will break free again.

We are about to break those chains.” The Nazis would have considered their behavior to have been, let’s face it, degenerate. And the meetings eventually got larger as different Edelweiss Pirates based in other cities would all meet up together. The aim of these meetings was to escape the stresses that living under the Nazi leadership and dominance was causing.

But the Edelweiss Pirates were also somewhat rather antagonistic. Their resistance wasn’t very passive at times, and they hung out on street corners and would bait and goad the Hitler Youth who were dressed in their uniforms. Sometimes large groups of Edelweiss Pirates even beat up young Hitler Youth boys, and they had large fights.

It was claimed about this that, I quote, “It was said, every child knows who the Kittelbach Pirates are. They are everywhere. There are more of them than there are the Hitler Youth. They beat up the patrols. They never take no for an answer.” The higher-up members of the Nazi Party genuinely regarded the Pirates as somewhat of a nuisance.

And they saw them as annoying, and they weren’t viewed as a serious threat to bringing down the Reich or regime. However, as the Second World War continued on, and specifically as the German war effort turned against the Nazis, they decided to take a much harder line on the nuisance groups within Germany. Many of them were actually hunted down by the Gestapo, and they were given specific punishments such as having their heads shaved in public to show that these boys and girls were outsiders to society within the Reich.

But it was specifically the head of the SS, Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, who decided to launch a crackdown on the Edelweiss Pirates. Following the July 20th bomb plot of 1944, in which Hitler’s Wolfsschanze was targeted by resistance inside the military, the Nazis became incredibly suspicious of anyone who dissented.

Heinrich Himmler was a leading force in this crackdown, and he would order the ruthless arrest and treatment of the Edelweiss Pirates members. Himmler’s opinion had shifted following the July 20th plots. He wanted them to be sent to concentration camps to be given a form of re-education through rough treatment to begin with, but then he eventually turned to execution for the Edelweiss Pirates.

Himmler once stated that regarding the group, I quote, “Whilst at the concentration camps, the youth should be first given thrashings and then be put through the severest drill and set to work. It must be made clear that they would never be allowed to go back to their studies. We must investigate how much encouragement they’ve had from their parents.

If they encouraged them, then they should also be put in a concentration camp and have their property confiscated.” These were German citizens at the end of the day and were being viewed like those who were being persecuted. But Himmler then ordered his SS officers to brutally intervene to stop further dissent spreading. But one specific branch of the Edelweiss Pirates would be decimated by Heinrich Himmler’s orders.

The Ehrenfeld or Steinbrück Pirates, as they were known, originated inside the German city of Cologne. There were around 100 members of the group. Their leader was Hans Steinbrück, who had actually escaped from concentration camps after being locked up for resistance. But Steinbrück went further than just singing songs and going camping.

He began to stockpile weapons and arms and other goods which were locked up inside of a cellar. He also handled stolen goods and sheltered persecuted people who were being rounded up for deportation and eventual execution and death inside the city of Cologne. After linking up with the Edelweiss Pirates in the city, the group became much more militant and they started also selling black market goods.

They even robbed the shop and stole butter, of which was sold for 12,000 Reichmarks on the black market, a huge amount of money at the time in the war when people were struggling. At the time, a worker earned roughly 50 reichsmarks a week. So, the Edelweiss Pirates were rolling in it. They continued to steal and repeat the process, and they became very rich.

However, someone betrayed the group, and they were then arrested by the Gestapo. But, Steinbruck, being more militant, took a stand. Using the stockpiled arms, he went on a rampage hunting Nazi guards and SS personnel, and he shot a guard and also killed a member of the Nazi group and another civilian. The Edelweiss Pirates of Cologne also ambushed a Hitler Youth member by a railway track, and they attempted to steal explosives for one huge attack.

But, after their betrayal, 63 people were arrested, and 19 of them were in their teenage years. However, the Edelweiss Pirates were then given death sentences. Specifically, on the 10th of November, 1944, 13 German men and boys were condemned to die, and they would be executed in a huge public execution in front of the Ehrenfeld train station in Cologne.

Many of the group were battered and broken, and they were tortured for information as the Gestapo tried to extract further names and intel from them. They eventually found out that this group had planned to blow up the Gestapo headquarters in Cologne, the very building they were being tortured inside of. But, on the day of their execution, a huge public gallows had been constructed outside of the Ehrenfeld train station.

The gallows was massive, and it was large enough to allow all 13 Edelweiss Pirates to be executed at exactly the same time. A crowd had even gathered to see the proceedings after their death notice had been published within the city. The 13 men were all led out to the gallows, and they were helped onto a step.

There were six teenagers who were executed that day, including Günther Schwarz, Johann Müller, and Barthel Schink, who were all just 16 years old. As they were stood on the wooden beam, the executioners in their German uniforms began to secure the nooses around the necks of the condemned. They all had the noose wrapped around their necks at the same time, and when this had been done, the executioner lowered the wooden beam or step, and the nooses snapped taut around the necks of the eight of us pirates. All 13 of them

struggled and kicked as they had the life choked out of them. And they were executed by slow strangulation, and it took them many minutes to go limp and then die as the huge crowd looked on. The executions of the Edelweiss Pirates of Cologne were ruthlessly brutal, and they were so public to ensure that defiance and resistance to Hitler was stamped out.

The aim was for the everyday German citizen within Cologne to fall in line by seeing the Edelweiss Pirates suffer a terrible death. But the Edelweiss Pirates did not enjoy life inside of the Third Reich, and they despised the fact that the Nazis had restricted their lives and had forced Nazi youth groups upon them.

However, their defiance eventually met the brutality of the Nazi regime, and inside of Cologne, in front of a popular train station, 13 young men were executed on a massive gallows. Thanks for watching. If you found this video interesting, maybe click subscribe. Once again, thank you so much for giving your time to watch one of these videos.