Random Most Brutal War Criminals Throughout History (12 items)

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  (#6) Adolf Eichmann

  • Dec. at 56 (1906-1962)

  Adolf Eichmann, known as one of the main architects of the Holocaust, was entrusted with the task of orchestrating the mass deportation and extermination of six million European Jews. At the end of the war, Eichmann said he would "leap laughing into the grave because the feeling that he had five million people on his conscience would be for him a source of extraordinary satisfaction."

  During the Nuremberg Trials, Eichmann fled Austria for Argentina. He was captured by Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, and taken to Israel, where he was publicly hanged in 1962. His hanging was one of only two executions ever carried out in the country.
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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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  (#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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  (#7) Ratko Mladić

  • 76

  General Ratko Mladić led the Bosnian Serb Army during the Bosnian War in the '90s, leading to the massacre at Srebrenica in 1995. In one of the most brutal massacres in Europe since World War II, Mladić's troops killed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys. He also led the Siege of Sarajevo, which took place over nearly four years and led to the deaths of 10,000 people, including 1,500 children. He then went into hiding for 15 years.

  Here's where it gets political: Many have speculated that the Serbian government could've captured Mladić much sooner. However, it wasn't until the heat turned up and a the European Union offered a welcoming door to the European Union that President Boris Tadic aggressively sought him out. He was captured in May 2011, and the Serbian government likened it to the elation felt by Americans after Osama bin Laden was killed. He was immediately extradited to the Hague, where his trial before the International Court of Justice began in June 2011. Just one day after proceedings began in May 2012, the trial was postponed indefinitely due to errors made by the prosecution. Mladić is still detained.

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