Horst Günther
Template:Short description Horst Günther (September 23, 1920 – April 6, 1944) was a German World War II prisoner of war. An Afrika Korps Gefreiter, he was captured on May 9, 1943, in Tunisia and murdered at the Camp Aiken prisoner-of-war camp in South Carolina, by fellow prisoners.[1]
He was suspected of collaborating with the American authorities and was strangled by two fellow prisoners-of-war, Erich Gauss and Rudolf Straub, who hanged his body from a tree in order to make it seem that Günther had killed himself.[2] Gauss, 32, and Staub, 39, were hanged on July 14, 1945, at the United States Disciplinary Barracks Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. They were buried in the prison cemetery.[3] Straub is alleged to have said just before his execution: "What I did was done as a German soldier under orders. If I had not done so, I would have been punished when I returned to Germany."[4]
See also
Notes and references
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- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Newsweek; "Death and Treason", 5 February 1945.
- ↑ Fort Leavenworth Military Prison cemetery Template:Webarchive
- ↑ "Abolish" Death penalty news, 1 March 1998 Template:Webarchive
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- 1920 births
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- Events that led to courts-martial
- German Army personnel killed in World War II
- German Army soldiers of World War II
- German people murdered abroad
- German people who died in prison custody
- German prisoners of war in World War II held by the United States
- Lynching deaths in South Carolina
- Murdered prisoners of war
- People murdered in South Carolina
- Political violence in the United States
- Prisoners who died in United States military detention