What did Willi Herold do exactly in that fateful month of April 1945? The answer might surprise you.
By piecing together his unexpected journey through Emsland, day by day, sometimes hour by hour, I tried to uncover the reasons behind one of the darkest events in the history of the Emsland prison camps: the Aschendorfermoor massacre.
There was a fascinating geometry of misfortune at play in those events, a series of coincidences which would be considered unrealistic in a film, but (incredibly) did really happen. And at the center of it all was the charming, volatile and dangerous figure of a masterful nineteen year old imposter whose supreme confidence, audacity and almost supernatural luck fooled Nazi local leaders, Judicial Officials and Wehrmacht officers alike.
00:00 Introduction
01:15 Finding the uniform
03:23 Meeting Freitag
06:18 Heading to Lingen, slipping through the checkpoint
07:13 The charade continues in Meppen
09:42 Arrested in Haren; reconaissance missions
12:23 Battle for Lathen
14:30 Papenburg, an idea begins to form
18:21 Camp II Aschendorfermoor: a powder keg
21:38 Herold arrives in Aschendorfermoor
28:01 Removing legal obstacles to murder; preparations
39:35 The massacre
44:31 Murder and wine: Herold takes over the camp
50:42 Executing Nikolaus Spark
52:08 Death from above
53:32 Rising from the ashes
53:42 Terrorizing Leer
01:04:56 Aurich - Herold's luck runs out
The Allies in Lingen, April 1945: [ Ссылка ]
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