Random Most Brutal War Criminals Throughout History (12 items)

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  (#11) Radovan Karadžić

  • 73

  Radovan Karadžić was the man behind the actions of General Ratko Mladić. In March 2016, he was sentenced to 40 years in jail after a United Nations tribunal found him guilty of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia," Karadžić was accused by the International Criminal Tribunal of ordering crimes against non-Serbs in his role as President of the Republika Srpska. Responsible for the deaths of 7,500 Bosniaks, as well as the facilitating of the Srebrenica Genocide, he was indicted on charges of directing Bosnian Serb forces to "create an unbearable situation of total insecurity with no hope of further survival of life" in a UN safe area.
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  (#12) Jean-Pierre Bemba

  • 56

  On June 21, 2016, Congolese businessman and politician Jean-Pierce Bemba was sentenced to 18 years in prison by the International Criminal Court. Why? In 2002, Bemba was the leader of the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo, a rebel group in the process of fighting to overthrow the government during the Second Congolese War. Ange-Félix Patassé, President of the Central African Republic, asked the MLC to help quell a military coup in his country. MLC forces were deployed; Bemba stayed behind, leading his troops from afar.

  Even though he wasn't actually present when the crimes were committed, the ICC believed that, in presiding over troops that murdered, raped, and pillaged their way through the Central African Republic, he was still responsible. He was arrested in May 2008 and charged with three counts of crimes against humanity and five counts of war crimes—which were later reduced to two counts of crimes against humanity and three counts of war crimes.
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  (#4) Henry Wirz

  • Dec. at 42 (1823-1865)

  The Civil War was the bloodiest conflict in American history, with 620,000 lives lost. But only one man was tried for war crimes related to the conflict. His name was Henry Wirz.

  Wirz was a Swiss-born Confederate officer who oversaw Camp Sumpter in Georgia, a prison which was designed to hold only 10,000 inmates, but at its peak in 1864, 32,000 prisoners lived in deplorable conditions. Union POWs were cramped in six-square-foot living spaces, surrounded by putrid walls, fed in scarcity, and given fecal matter-ridden water. There was also an abysmal sanitation system which led to thousands of cases of scurvy, dysentery, and diarrhea. More than 900 inmates died per month; 13,000 perished in total. When Wirz was tried for violating the laws of war, he said he was simply following orders. He was sentenced to death and hanged shortly after.
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  (#2) Hideki Tōjō

  • Dec. at 64 (1884-1948)

  Tôjô Hideki was single-handedly responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was the leader of the Imperial Japanese Army and the 40th Prime Minister of Japan. On September 11, 1945, US military police surrounded his house and heard a muffled pistol shot inside. They entered to see that Hideki had shot himself in the chest, aiming for his heart, but missed. As he bled, he said, "I am very sorry it is taking me so long to die. The Greater East Asia War was justified and righteous. I am very sorry for the nation and all the races of the Greater Asiatic powers. I wait for the righteous judgment of history. I wish to commit suicide but sometimes that fails."

  After an emergency operation and a shiny new set of dentures, Hideki was sentenced to death. He was found guilty of seven war crimes, five of which were for waging aggressive wars against China, United States, the British Commonwealth, the Netherlands, and France. He was executed by hanging in December 1948.
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  (#5) Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

  • Dec. at 35 (1918-1953)

  Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were an American husband-and-wife team who spied for the Soviets under Joseph Stalin. Growing up in New York City, they were ardent supporters of the Communist Party. When Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, served in the US Army, he was assigned to work on the Manhattan Project, which led to the creation of the atomic bomb. Greenglass would forward notes and sketches of classified materials to Ethel, who would then type them out and pass them to the Soviet Union high command. 

  The Rosenbergs were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage in 1951 and executed via the electric chair two years later, in 1953.
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  (#9) Hermann Göring

  • Dec. at 53 (1893-1946)

  The founder of the Gestapo, the engineer of the concentration camp system, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring was the highest-ranking Nazi to be tried at Nuremberg. On May 6, 1945, Göring surrendered to the US 36th Infantry Division, expecting leniency. However, he was charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes against peace, and conspiracy to commit those crimes. The night before Goering was sentenced to be hanged, he committed suicide by biting into a cyanide capsule, just like Heinrich Himmler.

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