Herbert's course

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Herberts Cukurs (born May 17, 1900 in Liepāja , † February 24, 1965 in Montevideo ) was a Latvian aviator and Nazi collaborator .

Life

Cukurs graduated from the four-class elementary school in Liepāja, was expelled from the Latvijas Sociāldemokrātiskās Jaunatnes savienība in 1919 because of left-wing extremist acts of violence and then took part in the 1919 Latgale war of independence . Later he learned in officer courses and at the aviation school, served as a pilot and technician and made it up to first lieutenant. He caused a sensation with daring flight maneuvers. So he flew under the Karosta Bridge . In 1927 he was dismissed from the Air Force for dishonorable behavior and got by as a taxi driver.

Cukurs in Gambia (1933)

In March 1933, he took a flight from Riga to Gambia in a self-made biplane . The Latvian dictator Kārlis Ulmanis used the historical reference of the flight to the colonial activities of Duke Jacob of Courland for his historicizing propaganda and sponsored Cukurs. He became known in Latvia and made other flights to Tokyo , Turkey and Palestine . His popularity increased thanks to his experiences described in the press and culminated in the award of the three-star order . He was accepted back into the Air Force, but while studying aeronautical engineering, serious deficiencies in his general education were revealed, so that he had to take tutoring from a Jewish fellow student against whom he openly represented anti-Semitic views.

After the invasion of the Soviet Union and the invasion of the German Wehrmacht in Latvia Cukurs announced soon voluntarily by Viktors Arājs established Latvian command of Nazi collaborators. In 1943 he became its adjutant and deputy commander of this association. The Simon Wiesenthal Center holds him responsible for mass murder , executions , rape , violent expropriation and torture of hundreds of Jews from all over Europe during the Second World War . Cukurs has been accused of personally committed murders, sexual violence and other acts of violence in numerous cases by eyewitnesses. The Latvian, known as the "Nazi murderer" and the "hangman of Riga" , is said to have killed 30,000 Jews. He is said to have shot many of them "from the saddle" .

After the war, Cukurs emigrated via France to Brazil, where he built a new life by renting rafts in São Paulo . Jaakov Meidad alias "Anton Künzle" was supposed to find Cukurs in 1965, for which Meidad founded bogus companies in Vienna. With these business papers, Meidad Cukurs was able to lure to Uruguay. There Cukurs wanted to invest in a branch of the entrepreneur Künzle. When he walked into an alleged office of the bogus company in Montevideo in March 1965 struck him several Israelis his head, shot him and took a large piece of paper with the inscription on his corpse: "! Of those who never forget," It should According to a 2017 book publication, they were Mossad actions in a series of attacks against Nazis; However, documents relating to the course have not yet been released. Meidad had previously contributed to the capture and sentencing of Adolf Eichmann . The fact that there was no trial in the Cukurs case made it possible for certain circles to stylize Cukurs as a martyr and even a national hero. In 2005 an exhibition in honor of Cukurs took place in Karosta.

Musical about the "hero" course

On October 11, 2014, the world premiere of the musical Cukurs, Herberts Cukurs took place in his hometown Liepāja (composer: Jānis Ķirsis, story: Pēteris Draguns, dialogue author and producer: Juris Millers, director: Ivars Lūsis). The plant is to be on tour through many cities in Latvia. The producer Juris Millers challenges the audience to judge the guilt and innocence of the hero after Cukurs is portrayed as a passive spectator and savior of the Jews .

literature

  • Herbert's course: Mans lidojums uz Gambiju. Autora izdevums, Riga 1934 ( My flight to Gambia , written together with the writer Jūlijs Lācis, new edition 2003 with photographs, as Autora izdevums / self-published , ISBN 978-9984-49-796-9 ).
  • Andrew Ezergailis: The holocaust in Latvia 1941–1944. The missing center. Published in association with The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC. The historical institute of Latvia, Riga 1996, ISBN 9984-9054-3-8 .
  • Anton Künzle (pseudonym), Gad Schimron : The death of the hangman of Riga. Bleicher, Gerlingen 1999, ISBN 3-88350-048-8 .
  • Bernhard Press: Murder of Jews in Riga 1941–1945. Press, Berlin 1988.
  • Katrin Reichelt: Latvia under German occupation 1941–1944. The Latvian Part of the Holocaust. Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-940938-84-8 .
  • Baiba Šāberte: Ļaujiet man runāt! Herbert's course. Jumava, Riga 2010, ISBN 978-9984-38-754-3 ( Let me talk ).
  • Aivars Stranga: Ebreji Baltijā. No ienākšanas pirmsākumiem līdz holokaustam. 14. gadsimts - 1945. gads. Nodibinājums LU žurnāla “Latvijas Vēsture” fonds, Rīgā 2008, ISBN 9984-643-81-6 ( Jews in the Baltic States. From the first beginning to the Holocaust. 14th century to 1945 ).
  • Viljars Tooms (Ed.): Liepājnieku biogrāfiskā vārdnīca. Izdevniecība Biedrība “Optimistu pulks”, Liepāja 2012, ISBN 978-9984-495-48-4 ( Biographical dictionary Libau citizens. Contains a biography of Cukurs).
  • Gisela Dachs : Execution as a secret matter. How an SS murderer died in Uruguay . In: Die Zeit , No. 12/1999.

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ Press (1988), page 61: H. Cukurs was an aviation officer in the Latvian army. In Latvia before the war he became a celebrity when he dared a flight in a primitive airplane from Latvia to the West African Gambia in 1933/34, where there was once a colony of Duke Jacob of Courland. The flight, supported by Jewish money, took place in short stages because engine damage kept interrupting it. Cukur's accounts of his flight appeared in the daily press almost daily. Little did we know at the time that the same man whose sportsmanship we admired would earn the name of a "butcher of Riga" just a few years later for murdering countless Jews.
  2. ↑ Press (1988), page 121: Dr. Weinreich ran the hospital in the Liepāja ghetto. One of his horrifying memories from that time was the visit that the notorious murderer H. Cukurs paid to the hospital one day. Cukurs, eager to find working men and women hiding in the hospital, had also broken into the women's ward, where he discovered a newborn baby. Births were forbidden in the ghetto. Cukurs yanked the baby out of its mother's bed by the feet, smashed its head against the wall so that the skull burst, and threw the lifeless body on the floor.
  3. ↑ Reichelt (2011), p. 128: Among the people who were active under Arājs, one person - the former aviator and active member of the "Pērkonkrust" , Herberts Cukurs - has acquired a special and notorious degree of popularity. Along with Arājs and his right hand, Cukurs was one of the main perpetrators of the commando, as personified brutality that radiated the entire command. Jewish survivors remember him as one of the "executioners of Riga" for his arbitrary and unpredictable outbursts of cruelty. He was particularly active in interrogations, selections and mistreatment of arrested Jewish women and sometimes determined which of the victims were left alive. This self-authorized disposition over the life and death of people suggests a pathological perpetrator profile with “low motives”. Cukurs commanded firing units on various operations in the province or in Riga and was present at numerous executions. According to Arājs, Cukurs was considered the man with the most responsible position in command, which he appropriately exploited.
  4. ↑ Reichelt (2011), page 335: There is no evidence of the mistreatment of Jewish victims by Arājs personally, even if he was personally present during a large part of the shooting, especially in the forest of Biķernieki, and always carried his Walther service pistol with him. In contrast to the case of his confidante Herberts Cukurs, who obviously took pleasure in torturing and torturing people, Arājs stayed in the background as an authority and commander.
  5. ↑ Ezergailis (1996), page 186: In 1941, Arājs already had at least two captains serving him: infantry Capt. Arnolds Laukers and aviation Capt. Herbert's course.
  6. ↑ Ezergailis (1996), p. 192: Although Arājs 'men were not the only ones on the ghetto end of this operation, to the degree that they participated in the atrocities there the chief responsibility rest on Herbert Cukurs' shoulders.
  7. ↑ Ezergailis (1996), page 250: On November 30 [1941] there were two massacres: one in the ghetto, the other in Rumbula. Who did the killing in the ghetto is unclear. Due to the scale of killing, it is likely that everybody with weapons participated, which includes Cukurs and the Arājs men.
  8. ↑ Stranga (2008), page 531 on the Rumbula massacre on November 30, 1941: ... tieši šajā noziegumā droši vien ir piedalījies Herberts Cukurs ... ( one of them certainly took part in this crime : Herberts Cukurs)
  9. ↑ Efraim Zuroff: “Herberts Cukurs: Certainly Guilty” (English, originally Latvian in Diena , July 7, 2005)
  10. ↑ a b c focus.de
  11. ↑ focus.de
  12. ^ Yossi Melman, Dan Raviv: Why the Mossad failed to capture or kill so many fugitive Nazis. washingtonpost.com, September 22, 2017
  13. ↑ Herberts Cukurs - "the most famous Latvian"
  14. ↑ Kārkls (2012), page 68: The politician Ilmārs Latkovskis writes at the opening of the exhibition: “Viņa slava pēc karai ir nomākta ar apsūdzībām par cietsirdīgām ebreju masveida slepkavībām. Nav šaubu, ka Cukura biogrāfijā ir tumšākas lappuses, kas saistās ar Arāja komandu un Rīgas ebreju geto. Taču tiesa viņa vainu nekad nav pierādījusi. ”(His fame declined after the war due to accusations of hard-hearted mass murder of Jews. Cukurs' biography undoubtedly has darker sides that connect him to the Arājs command and the Riga Jewish ghetto the jurisdiction never proved a guilt).
  15. ↑ Lorenz Hemicker: SS henchman becomes musical star . FAZ.net, October 9, 2014.
  16. ↑ Sarmīte Pujēna: Provokācijas un aizkustinājums: "Cukurs, Herberts Cukurs"
  17. ↑ Mike Collier: Review: Cukurs, Herberts Cukurs
  18. ^ Tooms (2012): Biography of Herbert Cukurs .
  19. ↑ Sintija Ambote: To celebrate the new edition of the book “Mans lidojuns uz Gambiju” in the War Museum, Riga.
personal data
SURNAME Cukurs, Herberts
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Latvian pilot and Nazi collaborator
DATE OF BIRTH 17th May 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Liepāja
DATE OF DEATH February 24, 1965
Place of death Montevideo