Random Most Brutal War Criminals Throughout History (12 items)

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  (#1) Amon Goeth

  • Dec. at 38 (1908-1946)

  If you've ever seen Schindler's List, you might've felt a chilling sensation in your bones watching Ralph Fiennes portray Nazi psychopath Amon Göth. He was Hitler's No. 1 hitman, personally responsible for the murder of an untold number of Jews. Göth was the first person ever to be convicted of homicide as a war crime. During his time as the commandant of the Krakow-Plaszow concentration camp in German-occupied Poland, he made his living "personally killing, maiming and torturing a substantial, albeit unidentified, number of people."

  Steven Spielberg wasn't exaggerating, either, in his depiction of Göth. He had two dogs, Rolf and Ralf, whom he trained to tear inmates apart. He once shot a Jewish cook because he made his soup too hot. On dozens - if not hundreds - of occasions, Göth would perch quietly in his office and shoot workers from his window if they rested or appeared slow. In 1946, he was tried by the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland and sentenced to a hanging. His last words atop the gallows were "Heil Hitler."
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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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  (#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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  (#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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  (#8) Charles Taylor

  • 71

  In 1997, Charles Taylor began his reign as President of Liberia. He brought his nation to the brink during the Sierra Leone Civil War, which transitioned to the Second Liberian Civil War from 1999-2003. In April 2012, the Special Court in The Hague found him guilty of 11 war crimes and crimes against humanity, which included murder, slavery, and the recruitment of child soldiers. He was sentenced to 50 years in a British prison, where he'll spend the rest of his days reflecting on his life as a madman of the highest order.
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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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