Tab Article

Synopsis:

On 5 February 1948, General Johannes Blaskowitz died under mysterious circumstances while awaiting trial as a war criminal in Nurnberg. Was it suicide or murder at the hands of the other prisoners?

What was there about Blaskowitz's career that diehard Nazis among the prisoners would want to kill him? Dr Giziowski uses the enigma of General Blaskowitz's last days as a starting point to examine one of the most remarkable military careers of the Third Reich. At the end of the war Blaskowitz was in command of German forces cut off in the Netherlands by the advancing Allies, probably written off by the more realistic German leaders. Given his record, it is ironic that Blaskowitz was under indictment for war crimes at the time of his still-unexplained death.