Some rough B-17 justice
On the morning of 3 February 1945, Freisler was conducting a Saturday session of the People's Court when United States Army Air Forces bombers attacked Berlin, led by the B-17 of the highly decorated USAAF Lt. Colonel Robert Rosenthal. Government and Nazi Party buildings were hit, including the Reich Chancellery, the Gestapo headquarters, the Party Chancellery and the People's Court. Hearing the air-raid sirens, Freisler hastily adjourned the court and ordered that the prisoners before him be taken to an air-raid shelter, but stayed behind to gather files before leaving. A sudden direct hit on the court-building at 11:08 caused a partial internal collapse, with Freisler being crushed by a masonry column and killed while still in the courtroom...
A foreign correspondent reported, "Apparently nobody regretted his death."
(link)
Lt. Colonel Rosenthal's entry in the Jewish-American Hall of Fame is here.
posted by The Other Front at 9:13 PM
2 Comments:
I often drawn to critical moments in the bombing campaign; not the action, the turns of meaning. I pulled this story randomly from a library. I forgot the title.
In 1943, a former journalist turned B-17 Pilot described the day they got the orders for the first time to bomb civilian targets. He thought:
"This either accomplishes justice, or its just mass murder."
(Arnold Schwarzenegger voice) "Court's adjourned."
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