Jürgen Stroop
|
| “ | What a marvelous sight it was. A fantastic piece of theater. My staff and I stood at a distance. I held the electrical device which would detonate all the charges simultaneously. Jesuiter called for silence. I glanced over at my brave officers and men, tired and dirty, silhouetted against the glow of the burning buildings. After prolonging the suspense for a moment, I shouted: Heil Hitler and pressed the button. With a thunderous, deafening bang and a rainbow burst of colors, the fiery explosion soared toward the clouds, an unforgettable tribute to our triumph over the Jews. The Warsaw Ghetto was no more. The will of Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler had been done. | „ |
| ~ Stroop's description of the destruction of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw. |
Jürgen Stroop (26th September 1895 - 6th March 1952) was a German official and Schutzstaffel officer during World War II.
Biography edit
Jürgen Stroop was born in the Principality of Lippe in 1895. Growing up, Stroop was subjected to abuse by his mother Katherine Stroop and raised to obey and worship Prince Leopold IV of Lippe. He enlisted in the Prussian army in World War I, during which he was wounded in action while fighting on the Western Front. After returning from war, he married Katherine B, much to his mother's outrage.
In the early 1920s, Stroop fell under the influence of Erich Ludendorff's Germanic neo-paganism religion, causing him to reject all other forms of religion, calling Catholicism "a catch-all of religions, infected with Judaism", and claiming Christianity as a whole was created by Jews to weaken and debase mankind through guilt. Stroop eventually joined the Nazi Party in 1932, and was made leader of the State Auxiliary Police. In 1934, Bishop Clemens von Galen began to attack the Nazi Party's ideology as published by Alfred Rosenberg, resulting in Stoop being sent to pressure him into renouncing his beliefs and embracing the Nazi ideology. However, bishop Galen not only refused to embrace the Nazis, but also denounced Stroop and the Nazis for supporting Germanic neo-paganism, shocking Stroop.
After World War 2 started in 1939, Stroop served as SS commander in Gnesen, and was later sent to supress the Warsaw Uprising by Heinrich Himmler. He proceeded to order the systematic destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and had all the survivors either executed without trial or deported to Concentration Camps. He then blew up Warsaw's Great Synagogue as a deterrent to Warsaw's Jews.
Following the 20th July Plot of 1944, Stroop was put in charge of conspirator Günther von Kluge, who he offered the choice between suicide and a trial before Roland Freisler. Stroop proceeded to shoot Kluge in the head, although he was recorded as committing suicide. He also ordered the execution of nine American POWs on the grounds that American flyers were terrorists and murderers.
After World War 2, Stroop went on the run, before eventually surrendering to the Americans in 1945. He had a cyanide capsule, but refused to use it to commit suicide as he was afraid. He was convicted in America for the murder of the American POWs, and sentenced to death. He was then extradited to Poland, where he was sentenced to death once again for his actions in Warsaw, and executed by hanging in 1952.