THE NAZI WHO TERRORIZED THE NETHERLANDS: HANNS ALBIN RAUTER (FEBRUARY 4, 1895 TO MARCH 24, 1949)

            On this date, March 24, 1949, an Austrian SS Nazi War Criminal, Hanns Albin Rauter was executed by firing squad. I will post the information about him from Wikipedia.

Hanns Albin Rauter

  

Born	4 February 1895 Klagenfurt, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Austria)
Died	24 March 1949 Near Scheveningen, Netherlands
Allegiance	Nazi Germany
Service/branch	Schutzstaffel
Years of service	1914-1919, 1921, 1927-1945
Rank	SS-Obergruppenführer and General of Police
Unit	Gestapo
Commands held	Chief of the SS & Police of the Netherlands (1940-1945)
Battles/wars	World War I World War II

Johann Baptist Albin Rauter (February 4, 1895 – March 24, 1949) was a high-ranking Austrian-born Nazi war criminal. He was the highest SS and Police Leader in the occupied Netherlands and therefore the leading security and police officer there during the period of 1940-1945. He reported directly to the Nazi SS-chief, Heinrich Himmler, and in the second instance to the Nazi governor of the Netherlands, Arthur Seyss-Inquart. After World War II he was convicted in the Netherlands of crimes against humanity and executed by firing squad.

Early life and career

Born in Klagenfurt, Rauter graduated from High school in 1912 and started training as an Engineer at the Graz University of Technology. At the outbreak of World War I Rauter volunteered for service in the Austro-Hungarian Army. He served with a Gebirgsschützenregiment and was discharged in 1919, having reached the rank of Oberleutnant. Rauter took part in the Kärntner Freiheitskampf of 1919, and from May until July 1921 he fought in the Freikorps Oberland in Oberschlesien.

Rauter first met Adolf Hitler in 1929 and joined the National Socialist cause in Austria. His forays in Austria forced him to flee to Germany in 1933, where he became part of the NSDAP department for Austria. He joined the SA, and was active in planning illegal NSDAP activities in Austria. In 1935 he left the SA to become a member of the SS. Until 1940 he was the Leader of the SS Southeast department in Breslau.

Actions in the occupied Netherlands

In May 1940 he was appointed Generalkommissar für das Sicherheitswesen (State secretary for of security forces) and Höherer SS-und Polizeiführer (Highest SS and Police leader) for the occupied Netherlands. In his position as police commander and highest ranking SS leader in the Netherlands, Rauter was responsible for the deportation of 110,000 Dutch Jews to the Nazi concentration camps (6,000 survived) and the repression of the Dutch resistance. He had 300,000 Dutchmen deported to Germany for forced labour. His first victims to die were those killed during the armed break up of the February strike on February 26, 1941, accounting for 9 dead that day: he also immediately declared a state of emergency and ordered summary executions.

He was the chief promoter of terror through summary arrests and internment in the Netherlands. The SS set up a concentration camp named Herzogenbusch after the city of 's-Hertogenbosch, but located in the neighboring town of Vught that gave the camp its name: Kamp Vught. In total this camp detained 31,000 people, of whom some 735 were killed. Also, his SS manned a so-called polizeilches Durchgangslager or police transit camp near Amersfoort, known as Kamp Amersfoort, in fact also a concentration camp, where some 35,000 people were detained and maltreated and 650 people (Dutch and Russian) died. Rauter's SS also managed the Kamp Westerbork (polizeiliches durchganslager Westerbork), the place from which some 110,000 Dutch Jews were deported to Nazi concentration and extermination camps, mainly Auschwitz and Sobibor.

Under Rauter's guidance, a special block was built for 'political prisoners' (i.e. resistance workers) in the Scheveningen prison. These were often held in indefinite detention. In total 28,000 people were detained here over 4 years; many were severely mistreated, some were tried and 738 men and 21 women died here or on the nearby execution field, the Waalsdorpervlakte (now a national place of remembrance).

Rauter also instigated a system of retaliation for assaults on Nazi officials and their Dutch collaborators: one killed Nazi equalled ten Dutch victims, one killed Dutch collaborator equalled three Dutch victims. During 1944 these numbers sharply increased with the rise of resistance violence

During the Allied assault on Arnhem in Operation Market Garden, Rauter took the active field command of the Kampfgruppe Rauter during operations in the Veluwe area and near the bridges over the IJssel river. Kampfgruppe Rauter consisted of the Landstorm Nederland, Wachbataillon Nordwest and a regiment of the Ordnungspolizei. After the assault on Arnhem had been fought off by the Germans, Rauter was given the command of the Maas front as a General in the Waffen-SS.

In the night of 7 to 8 March 1945 he was severely wounded by an attack staged by the Dutch resistance at "Woeste Hoeve" on the Veluwe, a little village between Arnhem and Apeldoorn. As a reprisal the Germans executed 117 political prisoners at the location of the attack as well as 50 prisoners in Kamp Amersfoort and 40 prisoners each in The Hague and Rotterdam. This attack had not been planned; the resistance merely wanted to hijack a truck and use it to drive to a farmer who had butchered cows for the German army. Instead of the truck, Rauter's BMW motorcar was stopped by members of the resistance dressed in German uniforms. However, Rauter had just two weeks earlier issued a directive stating that German patrols should not stop any German military vehicles outside towns or villages, and a firefight broke out. His fellow passengers were all killed, but Rauter feigned death and survived. He was found by a German military patrol and transferred to a hospital where he remained until his arrest by British Military Police after the end of hostilities.

Leider Anton Mussert giving a speech to NSB volunteers in Den Haag, October 1941. To the rear are Rijkscommissaris Hendrik Seyffardt and SS Obergruppenführer Hanns Albin Rauter

After the war

Rauter was handed over to the Dutch government by the British and was tried by a special court in The Hague. Rauter denied committing war crimes but the court found him guilty and sentenced him to death. A film record was made of the trial.

The death sentence was confirmed by a higher court on 12 January 1949 and he was executed by firing squad near Scheveningen on 24 March 1949. The location of his grave remains a state secret.

PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/d/death_by_firing_squad.asp

WHY I AM AGAINST WAR IN SYRIA

I chose this article as the Soldiers’ Article of the month, as on this date, March 15, 2011 was the beginning of the Syria Civil War. Please see a similar Blog post by going here.

NOTICE: The following article is written by the author itself and not by me, I am not trying to violate their copyright. I will give some information on them.

PAGE TITLE: http://www.glennbeck.com/

ARTICLE TITLE: Why I Am Against War in Syria

DATE: Tuesday November 20, 2012

AUTHOR: Glenn Beck

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Glenn Edward Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative, television network producer, media personality, radio host, author, entrepreneur, and political commentator. He hosts the Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. He formerly hosted the Glenn Beck television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN and from January 2009 to June 2011 on the Fox News Channel. Beck has authored six New York Times-bestselling books. Beck is the founder and CEO of Mercury Radio Arts, a multimedia production company through which he produces content for radio, television, publishing, the stage, and the Internet. It was announced on April 6, 2011, that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News later in the year but would team with Fox to "produce a slate of projects for Fox News Channel and Fox News' digital properties". Beck's last daily show on the network was June 30, 2011. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter named Beck on its Digital Power Fifty list. Beck's supporters praise him as a constitutional stalwart defending traditional American values while his critics contend he promotes conspiracy theories and employs incendiary rhetoric for ratings.

URL: http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/why-i-am-against-war-in-syria/

The anti-war Glenn Beck?

I’ll admit it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. After all, I used to be guy on the sidelines cheering the ‘freedom on the march’ argument every time a president wanted to lob missiles or put boots on the ground somewhere.

But that all changed for me several years ago when I began to realize this democracy building mentality was a progressive mentality. Discovering the progressive strain of politics existed was a major pivot point in my life. I’m really big on pivot points – if you have a major change on an issue it should be accompanied by something so memorable you remember ever detail in the room when you discovered it. I remember being our Radio City studios when I heard Hillary Clinton explain she didn’t like to be called liberal but preferred being called an early 20^th century progressive.  I started researching and my eyes were opened to the fact that progressives were marching forward while regular liberals and conservatives were simply being used. That’s my pivot point and the main reason why I’m against war in Syria today.

I want to address everyone making the opposite argument today than they did 10 years ago:

Why have you switched?

Are you doing it merely because of politics or because of loyalty to Obama? Have you had an honest pivot point?

Too much is at stake to not know or admit the honest answer to this question. You may disagree with me on almost everything I say – that’s fine — but I defy you to look at the facts of Syria and come away concluding this is something America should be engaging in.

War with Syria is suicidal and here are just a few reasons why.

China’s Foreign Minister said American should ‘think thrice’ before acting and exercise ‘extreme caution’ in what is a clear declaration of support for Assad’s regime. Russia has unabashedly come to the aid of Assad by sending a steady stream of weapons and recently they bolstered their naval presence near the Syrian coast with a missile cruiser and a destroyer among other ships. Iran, of course, has vowed to support Syria ‘to the end’ in the face of possibly military strikes from the United States.

Since the Arab Spring the Middle East has come unraveled – something that didn’t seem possible given its already volatile nature. Egypt is on the verge of civil war, Libya is suffering in lawless ruin, and Syria is mired in a deadly civil war that’s killed hundreds of thousands of people. The Assad regime, the radical terrorists fighting against Assad, and the Obama administration itself all admit a limited and measured strike from the United States will neither end the civil war nor change regimes.

So why bother doing it? What is this really all about?  Here are a few of the keys:

-Assad saw what happened in Egypt and Libya and he’s making sure he does not suffer the same fate. He’s a dictator desperately trying to hold onto his power through any means possible.

-Iran doesn’t have many allies around the world, but Syria is one of them. Iran depends on Syria to funnel weapons to terrorist organization Hezbollah, whose main base of operation is in Lebanon. Hezbollah views any threat to the Assad regime as a threat to Palestinians and Lebanon.

-Syria hosts a Russian naval base on the Mediterranean and Russia needs the access to warm water ports or else they are either land locked or ice locked.

-Another major factor is oil & natural gas. Syria is one of the most strategic places for pipelines to flow into Europe. Qatar proposed a massive pipeline that would weave through Syria, but Assad turned that down in 2009 and instead partnered up with Russia and Iran to get the pipeline, which is due to open in 2016.

When questioned about the high cost of the war, Secretary of State John Kerry assured Americans by saying Arab nations have agreed to fund the entire cost of the war. Certainly this isn’t out of the kindness of their hearts or because they enjoy the United States getting militarily involved in Middle Eastern affairs – it’s because there’s a boat load of money at stake. If you want to figure out which side of the Syria conflict a particular nation is on, just figure out if they benefit or are harmed by the ‘Islamic pipeline’ and you’ll likely have your answer.

But there is another factor at play: Destabilization.

I’ve talked a lot about the Archduke Ferdinand moment. When Archduke Ferdinand (of Austria-Hungary) was assassinated in Bosnia in 1914 it triggered a chain reaction that ultimately led to World War I.

Here’s what happened:

Ferdinand was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist who was protesting Austria-Hungary’s control over Bosnia. Serbia at the time was trying to gain control over Bosnia.

Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.

Russia mobilized to give military aid to Serbia, an ally.

Germany then declared war on Russia.

When a Tunisian fruit cart vendor set himself on fire in protest and died, the President likened his actions to that of Rosa Parks. High praise considering Parks helped spark one of the most important civil rights movements in history. I didn’t see it that way –I saw it as 1914 all over again and another chance for extremists to attempt to redraw the map through war.

I believe I was right.

We all know the powerful images and the message of peaceful protest that came out of the civil rights movement. What has come from the Tunisian fruit cart vendor?

We have not seen peaceful marches – we’ve seen the violent overthrow of governments in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen. We’ve seen devastating civil war in Syria for over two and a half years and hundreds of thousands of people dead. We’ve seen radical Islamists murdering Christians and eating the hearts out of their sworn enemy on videotape. We’ve seen American journalists raped in the streets, Priests beheaded, scores of civilians brutally executed in the streets. We’ve seen Russia, Iran, China, the United States preparing and posturing for war on a global scale.

I’m having a really hard time finding Rosa Parks anywhere near this colossal mess.

It isn’t some political game for us to get involved in so those who have made threats can save a little face. ‘Limited’ and ‘measured’ means nothing to the family whose home was just obliterated by a stray bomb. It means nothing to the Christians, the moderate Muslims, the homosexuals, the atheists, or anyone else who won’t submit to the will of a dictator nor the dictates of Sharia Law under radical Islamic rule. Try this – put yourself in the shoes of the typical woman in Syria. Are they excited about the prospect of United States military strikes? What is the best possible outcome for them?

First they have to survive the bombings. If they manage to accomplish that, they’ll face one of two scenarios. Either Assad remains in power and they have to live in fear of government crackdowns OR Assad is ousted and the people are forced to live under radical Islamic rule and the harsh conditions of Sharia Law.

The cost of getting involved is far too high and it’s the people of Syria are the ones who will pay the price. It will eventually cost all citizens of the globe as it will put us another step closer to World War III.

And for what? America to save face? To Secure pipelines?

The time for politics and party loyalty is over. Do your own homework. If you just take the administration’s word for it (or John McCain or John Boehner or Lindsey Graham’s for that matter) that it’s ‘slam dunk’ case, I believe you are part of the problem. Likewise, if you are against it just because I said so but you really don’t know why – you are part of the problem too. You are stopping, dare I say it – progress.

If we continue to allow others to dictate our thinking then we deserve what we reap.

But the innocent people who will suffer in the Middle East do not.

Featured image credit: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images.