Franz Strasser
{{Short description|Third Reich public official and convicted murderer}}
{{Infobox criminal
| name = Franz Strasser
| birth_date = 10 September 1899
| birth_place = Grünau im Almtal, Austria-Hungary
| death_date = 10 December 1945 (aged 46)
| death_place = Landsberg Prison, Landsberg am Lech, Allied-occupied Germany
| alias =
| conviction = War crimes
| conviction_penalty = Death
| occupation = Former NSDAP Kreisleiter and convicted war criminal
| spouse = Unknown wife
| parents =
| children = 3
| criminal_status = Executed
| death_cause = Execution by hanging
| image = Strasser_trial.jpg
| caption = Strasser (left) listens to his court-appointed interpreter, U.S. Sergeant Sessler (right), during his trial
| victims = 5 (3/4 as an accomplice)
| date = 9 December 1944
| country = Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
| trial = Dachau trials
| targets = American POWs
| apprehended = June 1945
}}
Franz Xaver Strasser (10 September 1899 – 10 December 1945) was an Austrian Nazi Party Kreisleiter (district leader) and war criminal. Strasser was the first war criminal to be judged at the Dachau trials.{{Cite web |title=Taufen - Duplikate 1899 - 106/1899 {{!}} Gruenau {{!}} Oberösterreich: Rk. Diözese Linz {{!}} Österreich {{!}} Matricula Online |url=https://data.matricula-online.eu/de/oesterreich/oberoesterreich/oberoesterreich_gruenau/106%252F1899/?pg=24 |access-date=2023-02-20 |website=data.matricula-online.eu}}{{Cite web |last=Kappeler |title=Zweiter Weltkrieg - Philipps-Universität Marburg - ICWC |url=https://www.uni-marburg.de/icwc/forschung/2weltkrieg/usadachau_only_content?order=trial_date&order_type=asc&offset=0&count=100&name=&id_trial= |access-date=2022-10-14 |website=www.uni-marburg.de |language=de |archive-date=2022-10-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221014230632/https://www.uni-marburg.de/icwc/forschung/2weltkrieg/usadachau_only_content?order=trial_date&order_type=asc&offset=0&count=100&name=&id_trial= |url-status=dead }}
Action
On 9 December 1944, in Kaplice in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (present-day Czech Republic), Franz Strasser killed two American airmen of the USAAF by shooting them with a Thompson submachine gun. They were members of a group of five airmen of the 20th Bomb Squadron who stayed with pilot Woodruff Warren when he landed their plane in a field.{{rp|299}} They had voluntarily surrendered and were taken away in a truck, accompanied by Strasser and Captain Karl Lindemeyer, the chief of police of the city. During Strasser's trial, evidence showed that Lindemeyer had killed three or four of the airmen, and the verdict suggested the murders were originally Lindemeyer's idea.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sg4JrI5_mZYC|title=Shot at and Missed: Recollections of a World War II Bombardier|first=Jack R.|last=Myers|date=1 February 2005|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|via=Google Books |page=299 |isbn=9780806136950 |quote=In the rear with the five captured Americans were Franz Strasser, a local Nazi official, and Capt. Karl Lindemeyer, the chief of police of Kaplice. The group was driving toward Kaplice and was ten miles down the road when Strasser ordered the truck stopped ... }}[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/dachautrial/fs17.pdf United States v. Franz Strasser, an Austrian national, Case No. 8-27, 14 October 1945] at Jewish Virtual Library (pdf)
- Woodruff J. Warren of Maryland
- Donald L. Hart of Massachusetts
- Frank Pinto Jr. of Texas
- George D. Mayott of New York
- Joseph Cox of Alabama
Arrest, trial, and execution
After Germany's surrender, U.S. Army officials sought four men for their involvement in the shootings: Strasser and Lindemeyer, and Hermann Nelböck and Walter Wolf, both of whom had accompanied Strasser on the drive to where the airmen were shot. Strasser was arrested in June 1945. Neither Nelböck nor Wolf were ever apprehended, albeit the court in Strasser's trial concluded they had no involvements in the actual murders. Lindemeyer could not be tried since he killed himself on 8 May 1945.{{Cite web |last=Youngs |first=Kelvin |title=Aircrew Remembered Aviation Personal Histories and Databases |url=http://aircrewremembered.com/warren-woodruff.html |access-date=2022-09-13 |website=Aircrew Remembered site |language=UK}}
On 24 August 1945, Strasser was tried by a U.S. military court in Dachau, which provided a translator for him during the trial.{{cite web|url=http://www.t3licensing.com/video/clip/49312041_033.do |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140316013006/http://www.t3licensing.com/license/clip/49312041_033.do |archive-date=2014-03-16 |title=MILITARY TRIBUNAL: STRASSER }} He was found guilty of committing war crimes and was sentenced to death by hanging. On 10 December 1945, Strasser was hanged at Landsberg Prison.
References
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Category:Austrian Nazis executed for war crimes
Category:Austrian people of German descent
Category:Dachau trials executions
Category:Executed Austrian mass murderers
Category:Nazi war crimes in Czechoslovakia
Category:Perpetrators of World War II prisoner of war massacres