Top 10 Notorious Nazis

Top 10 Notorious Nazis

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Top 10 Most Notorious Criminals of All Time

From 1933 to 1945 in Germany, National Socialism brought out the worst in people; the following are the worst of the worst. Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we’re counting down our picks for the top 10 notorious Nazis. For this list, we’re looking at actual historical figures who are known today as some of the most harsh, cruel, prejudiced, and bloodthirsty members of the Third Reich, regardless of gender, age, or status.

A high-ranking SS officer and director of the Reich Main Security Office, this unnervingly tall, scarred, and short-tempered Nazi was said to be feared by many, including Heinrich Himmler. Known for his conducting of secret trials that deliberately disregarded the law and respect for life, Kaltenbrunner persecuted countless political undesirables, racial minorities, and prisoners of war, executing many. For his war crimes and crimes against humanity, he became the highest-ranking SS man to be judged at the Nuremberg Trials, where he was sentenced to death – a ruling that was carried out via hanging in October of 1946.

As an SS leader in the occupied Soviet Union who headed one of the vastest paramilitary death squads of the era, Jeckeln was merciless and relentless in his tactics. Best known for his development of the Jeckeln system, an especially cruel and efficient method of killing large numbers of people also referred to as “sardine packing,” he personally conceived of the process in which multiple people would lay in trenches at a time, only to be shot and then buried under the next grouping of victims. He individually oversaw the massacre of 25,000 undesirables in Latvia, and ordered the deaths of another 75,000 over his career.

He’s been described as “the vilest individual in the vilest organization ever known” by some historians, and is remembered for his leading role in an initiative called Operation Reinhard that resulted in the deaths of over 1 million Jews. Allegedly the one who came up with the idea of the extermination camp, he was responsible for liquidating several ghettos – including those in Warsaw and Bialystok – and was known for his fondness for using gas chambers as a method of execution. A corrupt fanatic, he committed suicide in May 1945 after being captured by a British cavalry unit.

Nicknamed “The Hangman” and one of the main minds behind the Holocaust, Heydrich’s brutal actions during the regime caused Hitler himself to refer to him as “the man with the iron heart.” It was Heydrich who formed several groups, including an intelligence organization that sought to crush resistance movements and the Einsatzgruppen, the SS task forces that would hunt down and murder thousands of undesirables. Near the end of his life in 1942, as president of Interpol, he also led discussions on the Final Solution to the Jewish Question at the Wannsee Conference, which was a plan to deport and exterminate all the Jews in German territory.

The father of the Gestapo, Göring was Hitler’s second-in-command and was temporarily appointed his successor. A military leader and skilled fighter pilot, he was the Luftwaffe commander-in-chief; however, he was also a morphine addict who’s rumored to have started the Reichstag fire, which allowed Hitler to suspend many basic civil rights. In his final days, Hitler excommunicated Göring for what he felt was betrayal and treason, as Göring had sought to assume power over the Reich after hearing of Hitler’s suicide plans. As the director of slave labor programs and other oppressive initiatives, Göring was found guilty of war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials, and killed himself via cyanide while awaiting his hanging.

Known as the “Angel of Death,” this infamous SS officer and physician served in several camps – most notably, Auschwitz, where he selected who would become workers and who would go to the gas chamber. Despised for his sadistic and anti-Semitic as well as his cruel treatment of prisoners and patients; he is documented as having killed countless adults and children through fatal injections, shootings, beatings, gas chambers, and deadly, bizarre and unwarranted medical experiments. After the war, Mengele escaped to South America to elude capture and lived out the rest of his life in hiding, never showing a sign of remorse for his deeds.

This is the man who said he would “leap laughing into the grave because the feeling that he had five million people on his conscience would be for him a source of extraordinary satisfaction.” A Nazi lieutenant colonel and the man labeled “the architect of the Holocaust,” Eichmann helped launch the massive transportation of Jews to ghettos and concentration camps in German-occupied territory, most of whom were tortured, gassed, or otherwise killed. Even when ordered to halt his murderous spree, he personally made preparations to have additional victims sent to the camps. In 1962, he was hanged after being found guilty of war crimes by an Israeli court.

#3: Joseph Goebbels 1897 - 1945

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Joseph Stalin: Biography of the Communist Soviet Dictator

One of Hitler’s most intimate and loyal companions, as well as a fervent supporter of the Holocaust, this womanizing Nazi activist ended up becoming the Reich Minister of Propaganda. Despite his small stature, he loved violence, purposely inciting battles and brawls whenever possible, and he was eventually given a supervising role over every form of media, art, and culture during the regime. He used these channels to not only cater to his own violent Anti-Semitism, but also to fan the flames of hate within Germany.

A commander of the SS and one of the highest-ranking Nazi leaders, this was the man who oversaw the SS death squads as well as the concentration camps. Internationally recognized as one of the most ruthless mass murderers in history, he not only initiated but also organized and carried out the Holocaust, thus directly leading to the deaths of roughly 6 million Jews, as well as millions of Gypsies, Poles, Ukrainians, political opponents, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and many others. After the war he was captured by British forces, at which point he committed suicide via cyanide capsule. Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few dishonorable mentions: - Ilse Koch 1906 - 1967 - Paul Blobel 1894 - 1951 - Josef Kramer 1906 - 1945 - Hermann Fegelein 1906 - 1945 - Elisabeth Volkenrath 1919 - 1945

Adolf Hitler rose from humble beginnings, through difficulties at school and with his family, to become a decorated World War 1 veteran, and later a passionate and fanatical supporter of Germany. Through powerful oratory and aggressive schemes, he eventually became Chancellor and later the dictator of the country, which allowed him to put his extreme, murderous and prejudiced views and policies of racial purity into practice. He was the man directly responsible for World War II, the Holocaust, and the extermination of well over 10 million human lives, and he was by far the most notorious Nazi. Do you agree with our list? What Nazis do you think deserve the most notoriety? For more informative top 10’s published every day, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.