These 20 most evil Nazis ever are responsible for a large part of 60 million dead and the untold number of wounded in World War 2.
When the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime started to surface, a lot of people found them hard to believe at first. And, admittedly, you can’t really blame them. The sheer scope of industrial-level genocide performed by one of the most modern countries in the world is hard to comprehend even today, when we know all the facts, let alone in the 1940s. As more and more death camps were being liberated by the Allied and Soviet forces and Holocaust was revealed in its entirety, even the staunchest critics of the Nazi regime were overwhelmed by its evil. It was quickly realized that this couldn’t be committed by any small group, but instead was a result of a state-wide deliberate effort that took years to plan and execute.
In case you are having a second thought about going through this article, but still want to read something a little bit scary, we have something completely different for you – 10 Most Evil Scariest Names for Male and Female Babies. No, don’t laugh, some of those parents must be relatives of the Nazis on our list when they can be so cruel to their own children. Just check it out!
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Back to our main topic – it is important to note that some of them would remain unpunished for their crimes if it weren’t for people like Simon Wiesenthal and others like him, who dedicated their lives to locating runaway Nazis and bringing them to justice. Even so, there are few that have remained at large and died as free men, a fate they definitely didn’t deserve.
Picking 20 most evil Nazis ever proved to be a difficult task, simply because there are too many candidates for those 20 spots. In the end, we decided to listen to the experts, both historical and legal. A part of the list was created from articles found on Military History Now and War History Online. The remaining spots were filled with Nurnberg Trials convictions. Out of 24 top Nazi criminals tried at Nurnberg, 9 were sentenced to death and among them, we found the worst Nazis ever. We handpicked the worst of the worst based on the scope of their crimes against humanity.
20. Paul Blobel
SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel was responsible for killing 3,000 Jews in Zhytomyr ghetto and was heavily involved in Babi Yar massacre. Later in the war, he was in charge of covering the evidence of Nazi atrocities across Eastern Europe, by digging up mass graves and burning the victims’ remains. He was sentenced to death and hanged in 1951.
19. Oskar Dirlewanger
The 36th Waffen-Grenadier Division of the SS, AKA Dirlewanger Brigade, was formed to fight Polish partisans. The unit was composed of criminals who were offered a choice to exchange their prison sentences for a tour of duty on front lines. The founder and CO of the unit was Oskar Dirlewanger, often described as “the most evil man in SS”. Apparently, his atrocities against civilians were so inhuman that even his fellow SS officers called for his removal and disbanding of his unit.
18. Friedrich Jeckeln
We are continuing our list of most evil Nazis ever with Friedrich Jeckeln that was one of the most notorious Einsatzgruppen commanders, responsible for Rumbula massacre, Babi Yar, and Kamianets-Podilskyi massacre, and personally responsible for killing some 100,000 civilians deemed undesirable by the Third Reich during the Holocaust. He was sentenced to death and executed by the Soviets in 1946.
17. Odilo Globocnik
One of the closest Eichmann’s associates, Odilo Globocnik, the next one on the list of most evil Nazis ever was instrumental in the eradication of Polish Jews in Nazi death camps of Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor, and Majdanek. An Austrian by birth, Globocnik’s Nazi career didn’t start well, as he was caught in foreign currency speculations in 1939 and sent to Waffen-SS as a corporal. Himmler’s sympathies ensured him a second chance to prove himself and after the fall of Poland, he proved his devotion to the Nazi cause by liquidating Warsaw and Bialystok ghettos. He committed suicide after being captured by the British in 1945.
16. Fritz Sauckel
As General Plenipotentiary for Labor Deployment Fritz Sauckel was responsible for the organization of foreign labor that worked in German mines and factories during the war. Officially, volunteers, foreign workers were in effect slave workforce, pressganged by German occupation from their home countries. Poorly fed and working in abysmal conditions, many of the foreign workers never saw their homes again.
15. Josef Kramer
The infamous Commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Josef Kramer was given the nickname “The Beast of Belsen” by camp inmates. He had previously proven himself as the Lagerführer in Auschwitz. As the Third Reich collapsed, he refused to run away and met British soldiers at the gates of Bergen-Belsen, even giving them the tour of the camp, proudly showing the piles of rotting corpses infested with rats. He was sentenced to death and hanged in 1945.
14. Hans Frank
Hans Frank was a Nazi Party lawyer who got promoted to the post of Chief of Administration in occupied Poland. His terror of the domestic population and a role in the extermination of the Jews earned him a death penalty at the Nurnberg trials. Hans Frank holds a dubious distinction of being one of only two Nurnberg convicts who showed remorse for his crimes.
12. Franz Stangl
The former commander of Sobibór and Treblinka death camps almost managed to avoid justice for his monstrous crimes. After the war, he was arrested but managed to escape using ratlines with the help of Bishop Alois Hudal, first to Syria and later to Brazil. Despite the fact that he never changed his name, he managed to remain at large, until Simon Wiesenthal tracked him down in 1967. After that, he was extradited and charged with the murder of 900,000 prisoners in Sobibór and Treblinka. Stangl was sentenced to life in prison but died six months into his sentence.
11. Ilse Koch
The Witch of Buchenwald, as Ilse Koch was known among the prisoners in Buchenwald, was a wife of the camp commander Karl-Otto Koch. While Karlo-Otto was remembered as just another run of the mill Nazi monster, Ilse did her best to make her stay in Buchenwald a memorable one, by forcing prisoners to participate in experiments conducted by her friend, Dr. Erich Wagner. She was sentenced to a life in prison. Ilse Koch committed suicide in 1967.
10. Arthur Seyss-Inquart
Arthur Seyss-Inquart, that ranks 10th on our list of most evil Nazis ever will go down in history as the Austrian chancellor who signed over his country to Germany. While that may be considered a crime in itself, his most vicious deeds came after that, when he started his service in the Nazi government, first as a minister and then as Reichskommissar for the Occupied Netherlands. Forced labor, summarily court-martials, and executions were the hallmarks of Seyss-Inquart’s administration. He was also very successful at sending Dutch Jews to Auschwitz. Out of 140,000 Jews in the Netherlands, only some 30,000 survived the war, thanks to his efforts. He was sentenced to death and hanged in 1946.
9. Ernst Kaltenbrunner
The notoriously cruel Director of the Reich Main Security Office, Ernst Kaltenbrunner started his career in the SS in 1931, one year after he joined the Nazi Party. He quickly rose through the ranks, until becoming the Director and one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich. Standing at 6’4’’, with gruesome facial scars (earned during his dueling days as a student) and extremely violent temper, Kaltenbrunner was a very intimidating figure. It was said that even Himmler was afraid of him. He was hanged in 1946.
8. Alois Brunner
We are continuing our list of most evil Nazis ever with Alois Brunner that was one of the Adolf Eichmann’s closest associates during the Holocaust and described by him as his best man. Whenever there was a delay in Eichman’s elaborate plans of gathering Jews in Europe, Brunner was dispatched to see things get back on schedule. Jews in France, Greece, Slovakia and Austria were among those he rounded up and sent to death camps. He managed to escape justice and lived out his life in Syria, where he reportedly died in 2001. The last ten years of his life were spent in a basement under guard, living in squalor.
8. Hermann Goering
The Great Was ace pilot and the last commander of the legendary Flying Circus, Baron von Richthofen’s Jagdgeschwader 1, Hermann Goering was one of the earliest Hitler’s supporters. In 1932, after the landslide Nazi victory in parliamentary elections, he was elected President of the Reichstag. Goering was considered number two man in Nazi organization and Hitler even named him his successor in his will, a fact Goering tried to use and usurp power just before the end of the war. He was sentenced to death but committed suicide before the sentence could be carried out.
7. Martin Bormann
As one of the top Nazi officials, Martin Bormannm the number 7 on the list of most evil Nazis ever followed his firer into death by killing himself few days after Hitler. His body was identified in 1972. He was sentenced to death in absentia at Nurnberg.
6. Joseph Mengele
Few names in the world have done as much to bring shame to the entire profession as did Joseph Mengele, the next one on the list of most evil Nazis ever. Even today, Joseph Mengele’s name is synonymous with inhuman experiments he performed on prisoners in Auschwitz. He managed to escape justice and died in Brazil in 1979.
5. Adolf Eichmann
For a while, it seemed that Adolf Eichmann, one of the most evil Nazis ever, will manage to evade justice for his atrocities committed during the war as one of the main organizers of the Holocaust. The notorious Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer escaped from the prison in 1945. After spending some time hiding in Germany, he relocated to Argentina in 1950. Mossad caught up with him in 1960 and grabbed him from Buenos Aires. He was tried and sentenced to death in Israel.
4. Reinhard Heydrich
Up next on our list of most evil Nazis ever is Reinhard Heydrich that was the brain behind the Holocaust. He was often described as the darkest figure in the Third Reich, and that is saying a lot, considering the competition he was facing for that title. Even after his assassination by the Czech resistance in 1942, he managed to strike at the Czech people. Lidice massacre, ordered by Hitler himself as a retaliation, saw some 1,300 people killed and the towns razed to the ground.
3. Joseph Goebbels
The propaganda master of the Third Reich, Joseph Goebbels was the mastermind behind all marketing campaigns Nazi Party conducted before and during its reign.
2. Heinrich Himmler
Often described as the evil genius of the Third Reich, Heinrich Himmler, that ranks second on the list of most evil Nazis ever was thought to be the mastermind behind some of the most monstrous ideas Nazis put to practice. If nothing else, his position as the leader of the SS ensures his place on this list.
1. Adolf Hitler
Although some would argue that when it comes to the most evil Nazi ever Adolph Hitler should be at the top spot, in our humble opinion that is unavoidable. After all, if it weren’t for him, this list wouldn’t exist and all the monsters on it wouldn’t be in a position to bring such misery to the world. That is why he is our top pick for the most evil Nazi ever. A failed artist and a corporal in the Great War, Hitler came to prominence in Germany torn and divided by the consequences of that conflict. His rise to the top was meteoric, thanks to his flammable rhetoric, which he used to fuel hate in millions of desperate Germans, searching for a way out in a country that was falling apart. Millions all over the world had to die before the monsters he unleashed were finally put down.
