u/aid2000iscool

Early on July 5th, 1908, 45-year-old Springfield clergyman Clifton “Posey” Ballard was stabbed to death after chasing a man who had allegedly entered his home and tried to assault his 16-year-old daughter. Ballard was stabbed 11 times. Witness descriptions of the attacker were vague, but within hours, police arrested Joe James, a young Black laborer from Birmingham, Alabama.

James had spent the previous evening drinking heavily, gambling, and playing piano in a saloon before passing out drunk in a vacant lot near the Ballard home. When Ballard’s sons and several neighbors found him asleep the next morning, they dragged him through the streets while beating him with boards as crowds gathered, yelling, “Kill him!” Police intervened just before the mob could lynch him.

Newspapers immediately portrayed James as a monstrous Black predator, fueling racial hysteria across Springfield.

A month later, another accusation came. Twenty-one-year-old Mabel Hallam claimed a Black man had broken into her home, dragged her from bed, and raped her. Police arrested George Richardson, a respected Black resident whose grandfather had been Abraham Lincoln’s barber, despite testimony placing him at home with his family at the time.

As rumors spread and lynch mobs formed, authorities secretly transferred both prisoners out of Springfield for their safety. Denied their victims, white mobs instead turned on Springfield’s Black community.

Over two days in August 1908, white rioters rampaged through Black neighborhoods, murdering at least 17 people, burning homes and businesses, and driving hundreds from the city.

Among those lynched was 65-year-old barber Scott Burton, beaten by a mob until his head became “a bloody lacerated mass of flesh” before being hanged. At the same time, children danced around his mutilated body.

Another victim was 84-year-old William Donegan, a respected cobbler and acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln, targeted largely because he was married to a white woman. Despite desperate pleas for protection, Donegan, too, was brutally lynched.

The violence caused more than $150,000 in property damage, roughly $5 million today.

In the aftermath, Hallam’s story collapsed. Richardson was cleared after medical evidence contradicted her claims, and Hallam eventually admitted she had fabricated the accusation to conceal abuse from her husband after an affair with another white man. Joe James, however, was convicted and hanged.

The Springfield Race Riot shocked the nation. That such racial terror could erupt in Abraham Lincoln’s hometown helped inspire Black and white reformers to meet in New York the following year, leading directly to the founding of the NAACP in 1909.

If interested, I write about the riot and the founding of the NAACP in much greater detail here: [https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-95-brown?r=4mmzre&utm\\\_medium=ios\](https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-95-brown?r=4mmzre&utm\_medium=ios)

The effigy was displayed purportedly in protest of school integration, but obviously to threaten any student who tried to attend Mansfield in the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education.

What we call Brown v. Board of Education was actually several lawsuits combined into a single Supreme Court case, all challenging whether racial segregation in public education violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The case directly challenged the precedent established by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), in which the Court ruled segregation constitutional under the doctrine of “separate but equal.” In reality, segregation entrenched massive inequality.

On May 17th, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of Brown. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that education was “perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.” He concluded that separating children solely based on race generated “a feeling of inferiority” that undermined educational opportunity. The Court declared: “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

For many Americans, especially African Americans, the decision was monumental. But while Brown cracked open the door to desegregation, it did not blow it off its hinges.

Warren had worked carefully to secure unanimity in the decision, and as a result, the ruling did not clearly explain how or when desegregation should occur.

Southern resistance was immediate, fierce, and violent. Many segregationists saw May 17th, 1954, as a “Black Monday.” States across the Deep South launched campaigns to obstruct integration.

In Brown II (1955), the Court ruled that desegregation should proceed “with all deliberate speed,” a phrase intended to balance urgency with the reality of Southern resistance. Instead, the vague language allowed years of delay and obstruction.

Virginia launched “Massive Resistance.” Texas officials organized legal campaigns against integration. Across the South, Black students attempting to attend white schools faced intimidation, mob violence, and threats of lynching. Resistance was not confined to the South either; Northern cities also saw major backlash against integration.

Even so, Brown destroyed the constitutional legitimacy of segregation in public education and helped lay the foundation for the modern Civil Rights Movement and the landmark victories that followed in the 1960s.

If interested, I cover it in much greater detail here:
[https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-95-brown?r=4mmzre&utm\\\_medium=ios\](https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-95-brown?r=4mmzre&utm\_medium=ios)

What we call Brown v. Board was actually several lawsuits combined into a single case, all challenging whether racial segregation in public education violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The case directly challenged the precedent established by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), in which the Court ruled segregation constitutional under the doctrine of “separate but equal.” In theory, the Court argued that separating races did not imply Black Americans were inferior so long as supposedly equal facilities existed for both races.

Segregation expanded across the South and much of the rest of the country. White schools received newer textbooks, better transportation, larger budgets, and longer school years, while Black schools were overcrowded, underfunded, and falling apart.

For decades, activists, and organizations fought back. The most important was the NAACP, whose Legal Defense Fund, led by lawyer Charles Hamilton Houston and his former student Thurgood Marshall, focused on public education as the key battleground against segregation.

Houston and Marshall secured a series of legal victories, including at the graduate school level. Still, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Fred Vinson stopped short of declaring segregation itself unconstitutional.

Then came Brown. Marshall, serving as chief counsel for the NAACP, argued not merely that Black schools were materially unequal, but that segregation itself was unconstitutional. Segregated education, he argued, stamped Black children with a badge of inferiority and denied them equal opportunity under the law.

Arguments first began in 1952, and the Court was divided. Some justices favored desegregation, others feared overturning precedent, while a few supported segregation outright. The Court ordered reargument, understanding the decision would reshape America.

Then Chief Justice Vinson suddenly died of a heart attack. President Eisenhower appointed former California governor Earl Warren as the new Chief Justice. Warren, who supported Japanese internment during World War II, strongly favored school integration and immediately pushed for a unanimous ruling overturning segregation in public education.

Warren personally persuaded hesitant justices, arguing that the Court’s legitimacy depended on overturning Plessy unanimously. Eventually, he succeeded.

On May 17th, 1954, the Court unanimously ruled in favor of Brown.

Warren wrote that education was “perhaps the most important function of state and local governments,” and concluded that separating children solely based on race generated “a feeling of inferiority” that undermined educational opportunity. Ruling that: “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

The ruling did not immediately end segregation, and the Court’s later order that desegregation proceed “with all deliberate speed” allowed years of Southern resistance, obstruction, and violence. But Brown shattered the constitutional legitimacy of segregation and became one of the civil rights movements early victories.

If interested, I cover it in much greater detail here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-95-brown?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

May 11th, 1985 was to be a coronation for Bradford City A.F.C. Before kickoff against Lincoln City, captain Peter Jackson lifted the Third Division trophy to the applause of more than 11,000 supporters packed into Valley Parade. Bradford had just secured promotion to the Second Division for the first time in nearly fifty years. Outside the ground, a large delivery of steel signaled long-overdue renovations to the aging stadium.

The club’s wooden main stand, largely unchanged since 1908, had already been flagged by inspectors as a major fire risk. A council engineer warned it should be “rectified as soon as possible,” specifically noting that “a carelessly discarded cigarette could give rise to a fire risk.”

At 3:44 p.m., during the 40th minute, smoke was noticed beneath Block G of the main stand. Years of accumulated rubbish and paper waste beneath the wooden seating had caught fire, later ruled to have been ignited by a discarded cigarette.

Fans poured drinks onto the flames. One supporter searched for a fire extinguisher but found none. Some spectators thought it was merely a smoke bomb and stayed in their seats waiting for it to be dealt with.

Then the fire exploded through the stand.

Supporters fled onto the pitch, climbing over the 8-foot concrete wall separating the stand from the field. Fathers tossed children over the barrier before climbing after them themselves. Others tried escaping uphill through the exits behind the stand, only to find several gates locked to prevent ticketless entry after kickoff. Some were smashed open by people trapped inside and by supporters outside trying to get in and help.

The blaze spread so quickly that even opened exits became impossible to reach through the smoke and heat.

Players joined rescue efforts. Forward John Hawley climbed over burning seats to pull a man from the flames. Player-coach Terry Yorath ran back into the inferno after evacuating his family and was eventually forced to leap from a window to escape.

The entire stand was consumed in just 270 seconds. By the time firefighters arrived four minutes after the alarm was raised, the structure had already burned to the ground. Some victims were later found still seated upright beneath collapsed roofing felt.

As the disaster unfolded live on television, commentator John Helm described the horror in real time:

“The whole stand is going up in flames. And that person looks to be burning. And the timbers are coming down onto the ground. And this is horrific.”

Police and firefighters worked through the night recovering bodies beneath floodlights. Fifty-six people were killed, including eleven children. More than 265 were injured, many suffering life-altering burns.

The official inquiry ruled the fire accidental, but it heavily criticized Bradford City’s leadership, especially chairman Stafford Heginbotham, over the condition of the ground. In 2015, survivor Martin Fletcher, who lost four family members in the fire, published research showing Heginbotham had collected millions in insurance payouts connected to multiple fires tied to his businesses over the years, including the stadium blaze itself.

If interested, I cover the disaster in much greater detail here: \[https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-93-the-bradford?r=4mmzre&utm\\\\\\\_medium=ios\\\](https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-93-the-bradford?r=4mmzre&utm\\\_medium=ios)

May 11th, 1985 was to be a coronation for Bradford City A.F.C. Before kickoff against Lincoln City, captain Peter Jackson lifted the Third Division trophy to the applause of more than 11,000 supporters packed into Valley Parade. Bradford had just secured promotion to the Second Division for the first time in nearly fifty years. Outside the ground, a large delivery of steel signaled long-overdue renovations to the aging stadium.

The club’s wooden main stand, largely unchanged since 1908, had already been flagged by inspectors as a major fire risk. A council engineer warned it should be “rectified as soon as possible,” specifically noting that “a carelessly discarded cigarette could give rise to a fire risk.”

At 3:44 p.m., during the 40th minute, smoke was noticed beneath Block G of the main stand. Years of accumulated rubbish and paper waste beneath the wooden seating had caught fire, later ruled to have been ignited by a discarded cigarette.

Fans poured drinks onto the flames. One supporter searched for a fire extinguisher but found none. Some spectators thought it was merely a smoke bomb and stayed in their seats waiting for it to be dealt with.

Then the fire exploded through the stand.

Supporters fled onto the pitch, climbing over the 8-foot concrete wall separating the stand from the field. Fathers tossed children over the barrier before climbing after them themselves. Others tried escaping uphill through the exits behind the stand, only to find several gates locked to prevent ticketless entry after kickoff. Some were smashed open by people trapped inside and by supporters outside trying to get in and help.

The blaze spread so quickly that even opened exits became impossible to reach through the smoke and heat.

Players joined rescue efforts. Forward John Hawley climbed over burning seats to pull a man from the flames. Player-coach Terry Yorath ran back into the inferno after evacuating his family and was eventually forced to leap from a window to escape.

The entire stand was consumed in just 270 seconds. By the time firefighters arrived four minutes after the alarm was raised, the structure had already burned to the ground. Some victims were later found still seated upright beneath collapsed roofing felt.

As the disaster unfolded live on television, commentator John Helm described the horror in real time:

“The whole stand is going up in flames. And that person looks to be burning. And the timbers are coming down onto the ground. And this is horrific.”

Police and firefighters worked through the night recovering bodies beneath floodlights. Fifty-six people were killed, including eleven children. More than 265 were injured, many suffering life-altering burns.

The official inquiry ruled the fire accidental, but it heavily criticized Bradford City’s leadership, especially chairman Stafford Heginbotham, over the condition of the ground. In 2015, survivor Martin Fletcher, who lost four family members in the fire, published research showing Heginbotham had collected millions in insurance payouts connected to multiple fires tied to his businesses over the years, including the stadium blaze itself.

If interested, I cover the disaster in much greater detail here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-93-the-bradford?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

On September 1st, 1944, the small city of Mattoon looked like any other American home-front town during World War II. That night, though, something strange happened.

Aline Kearney put her three-year-old daughter to bed, her sister Martha staying with them.

Then, in her bedroom, Aline “noticed a sickening, sweet odor.” The smell quickly became overpowering.

“I began to feel a paralysis of my legs and lower body,” she said, followed by a tightness in her throat, as if her windpipe were closing.

On the verge of collapse, she called for Martha, who rushed in, dragged her out, opened the windows, and called the police.

Aline’s husband, Burt, arrived first. Outside, he saw a tall man in dark clothing and a tight-fitting cap. He gave chase, but the figure vanished into the night.

By the time police arrived, there was nothing to find. The next morning, the Daily Journal-Gazette ran a headline: “Anesthetic Prowler on Loose.”

Over the next 11 days, more reports poured in.
People across Mattoon described the same sweet, nauseating smell, followed by paralysis, dizziness, and burning throats. One woman, Beulah Cordes, found a damp pink cloth stuck in her door. When she smelled it, she said it felt “as though a charge of electricity had gone through me,” followed by paralysis. She even claimed she began bleeding from the mouth.

Another woman reported a figure in black trying to break into her bedroom window, carrying something she believed was meant to gas her. A local fortune teller claimed she encountered an “ape-like man” with long arms holding a spray gun, who gassed her and caused her to faint.

Within two weeks, at least 20 attacks were reported. The events became major news, most notably covered by Times Magazine.

Authorities were completely stumped. No lingering chemicals were found. Cloth samples came back clean. Descriptions of the attacker were vague or contradictory. Meanwhile, armed groups began patrolling the streets, and the town edged toward panic.

Then, on September 12th, under heavy criticism, the police chief abruptly reversed course: there was no Mad Gasser. The entire thing was mass hysteria.

And almost immediately… the reports stopped.

With one exception, a resident claimed to see a woman dressed as a man near her window. Investigators found what appeared to be women’s footprints at the scene.

That’s the thing: despite the “mass hysteria” explanation, one which undoubtedly took hold of the town, there were physical details, footprints, cut window screens, that never got explained, Mad Gasser or no.

If you want the full story, I did a deeper dive here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-92-the-mad?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

After decades of authoritarian rule under General Antonio López de Santa Anna, Mexican liberals overthrew him and launched La Reforma, an effort to modernize the country. Its leading figure was Benito Juárez, a Zapotec who rose from poverty to the presidency in 1858. His reforms provoked fierce resistance from Mexico’s traditional elites, plunging the country into civil war.

At the same time, Mexican conservative exiles found support at the court of Napoleon III. France intervened in Mexico aiming to install a friendly regime.

In 1862, a French force marched inland and was unexpectedly defeated by smaller Mexican forces at Puebla on May 5. The victory became Cinco de Mayo, but it was only a pause. The following year, a much larger French army captured Puebla and Mexico City. Juárez fled, and with French backing, conservatives established a monarchy, inviting Archduke Maximilian of Austria and his wife, Charlotte of Belgium, to rule.

Charlotte, now Empress Carlota, was not a passive figure. Intelligent, deeply ambitious, and intensely idealistic, she believed in the imperial project with a conviction that often exceeded her husband’s. While Maximilian tried to balance liberal reform with political reality, Carlota threw herself into governance, acting as regent in his absence and pushing tirelessly to stabilize the regime.

But the empire was built on fragile ground: foreign guns, divided at home, and a determined republican resistance under Juárez. As French support wavered, especially after the American Civil War ended, Carlota took it upon herself to save the throne. In 1866, she sailed to Europe, personally appealing to Napoleon III and the Pope for aid.

She was refused at every turn.

What followed was a psychological collapse as dramatic as the empire’s fall. Increasingly paranoid and convinced she was being poisoned, Carlota unraveled in public, pleading, ranting, and refusing to eat or drink. She never returned to Mexico.

After Maximilian was captured and executed in 1867, Carlota lived on, but in isolation. For nearly sixty years, she remained in seclusion in Belgium, her mind fractured. Visitors described long silences punctuated by frantic, disjointed conversations with unseen interlocutors, slipping between languages and fragments of memory. At times she was calm, even lucid; at others, consumed by agitation, destroying objects, lashing out, or reliving the past in obsessive loops.

She died in 1927 at the age of 86,

If you’re interested the story of the Second Mexican Empire, I cover it here: \\\[https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-91-cinco?r=4mmzre&utm\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\_medium=ios\\\\\\\](https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-91-cinco?r=4mmzre&utm\\\\\\\_medium=ios)

After decades of authoritarian rule under General Antonio López de Santa Anna, Mexican liberals overthrew him and launched La Reforma, an effort to modernize the country. Its leading figure was Benito Juárez, a Zapotec who rose from poverty to the presidency in 1858. His rise, and liberal reforms, sparked a civil war, as traditional elites pushed back.

Across the Atlantic, exiled Mexican monarchists lobbied France for intervention. Napoleon III hesitated at first, wary of the United States, but Juárez’s suspension of foreign debt payments, combined with the distraction of the American Civil War, gave him an opening. France, alongside Spain and Britain, intervened under the pretext of debt collection. Spain and Britain negotiated and withdrew; France stayed, aiming to install a friendly regime.

In 1862, about 6,500 French troops marched inland toward Mexico City, opposed by smaller Mexican forces under General Ignacio Zaragoza and a young Porfirio Díaz. On May 5, near Puebla, the outnumbered Mexicans repelled repeated French assaults on the forts of Loreto and Guadalupe. By day’s end, the French retreated, a shocking and symbolic victory.

Juárez declared May 5 a national holiday: Cinco de Mayo. Today, it’s commemorated in Puebla and widely celebrated in the U.S., especially among Mexican Americans, though often reduced to a commercialized “Mexico day.”

But that was only the beginning. If you’re interested the story of Cinco de Mayo, I cover it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-91-cinco?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

After decades of authoritarian rule under General Antonio López de Santa Anna, Mexican liberals overthrew him and launched La Reforma, an effort to modernize the country. Its most important figure was Benito Juárez, a Zapotec indigenous man who rose from poverty to become president in 1858. Mexico’s traditional elites resisted, and civil war followed.

Meanwhile, Mexican l exiles, working with Napoleon III’s court, pushed for European intervention. France, Britain, and Spain initially invaded to force repayment of Mexican debts, but while Britain and Spain negotiated and withdrew, France stayed. Napoleon III aimed to install a friendly regime.

In 1862, about 6,500 French troops marched inland. They were met near Puebla on May 5 by smaller Mexican forces under Generals Ignacio Zaragoza and Porfirio Díaz. The Mexicans repelled repeated assaults and forced a French retreat. Juárez declared Cinco de Mayo a national holiday in honor of the victory.

But that wasn’t the end. France sent a much larger army, captured Puebla, and took Mexico City. Juárez fled, and with French backing, Mexican conservatives established a monarchy, inviting Archduke Maximilian of Austria to rule.

Maximilian, a liberal, tried to govern as a reformer, guaranteeing equality before the law, protecting workers, and supporting indigenous rights. But this alienated his conservative supporters while failing to defeat Juárez’s forces. After the American Civil War, U.S. support for Juárez surged, and pressure forced France to withdraw.

As the situation collapsed, Maximilian issued the “Black Decree,” ordering the execution of captured rebels, a move that further eroded his support. By 1867, he was surrounded, captured, and sentenced to death. Despite international pleas for clemency, Juárez refused, determined to send a message against foreign intervention.

Offered a chance to escape, Maximilian refused unless his generals could go free as well. On June 19, 1867, at Cerro de las Campanas, he faced a firing squad. He gave each executioner a gold coin and declared:

“I forgive everyone, and I ask everyone to forgive me. May my blood, which is about to be spilled, end the bloodshed which has been experienced in my new motherland. Long live Mexico! Long live its independence!”

At 6:40 a.m., Maximilian and his generals were executed. His embalmed body was displayed in Mexico City before being returned to Austria in 1868.

If you’re interested the story of Cinco de Mayo and Maximilian I of Mexico, I cover it here: [https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-91-cinco?r=4mmzre&utm\_medium=ios](https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-91-cinco?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios)

After decades of authoritarian rule under General Antonio López de Santa Anna, Mexican liberals overthrew him and launched La Reforma, an effort to modernize the country. Its most important figure was Benito Juárez, a Zapotec indigenous man who rose from poverty to become president in 1858. Mexico’s traditional elites resisted, and civil war followed.

Meanwhile, Mexican l exiles, working with Napoleon III’s court, pushed for European intervention. France, Britain, and Spain initially invaded to force repayment of Mexican debts, but while Britain and Spain negotiated and withdrew, France stayed. Napoleon III aimed to install a friendly regime.

In 1862, about 6,500 French troops marched inland. They were met near Puebla on May 5 by smaller Mexican forces under Generals Ignacio Zaragoza and Porfirio Díaz. The Mexicans repelled repeated assaults and forced a French retreat. Juárez declared Cinco de Mayo a national holiday in honor of the victory.

But that wasn’t the end. France sent a much larger army, captured Puebla, and took Mexico City. Juárez fled, and with French backing, Mexican conservatives established a monarchy, inviting Archduke Maximilian of Austria to rule.

Maximilian, a liberal, tried to govern as a reformer, guaranteeing equality before the law, protecting workers, and supporting indigenous rights. But this alienated his conservative supporters while failing to defeat Juárez’s forces. After the American Civil War, U.S. support for Juárez surged, and pressure forced France to withdraw.

As the situation collapsed, Maximilian issued the “Black Decree,” ordering the execution of captured rebels, a move that further eroded his support. By 1867, he was surrounded, captured, and sentenced to death. Despite international pleas for clemency, Juárez refused, determined to send a message against foreign intervention.

Offered a chance to escape, Maximilian refused unless his generals could go free as well. On June 19, 1867, at Cerro de las Campanas, he faced a firing squad. He gave each executioner a gold coin and declared:

“I forgive everyone, and I ask everyone to forgive me. May my blood, which is about to be spilled, end the bloodshed which has been experienced in my new motherland. Long live Mexico! Long live its independence!”

At 6:40 a.m., Maximilian and his generals were executed. His embalmed body was displayed in Mexico City before being returned to Austria in 1868.

If you’re interested the story of Cinco de Mayo and Maximilian I of Mexico, I cover it here: [https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-91-cinco?r=4mmzre&utm\_medium=ios](https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-91-cinco?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios)

SS Lieutenant General Oswald Pohl started out as a paymaster in the Imperial German Navy during World War I, smart, organized, and good with money. After the war, like many veterans, he bought into the Dolchstoßlegende (the “stab-in-the-back” myth), blaming Germany’s defeat on politicians and Jews. He joined the Nazi Party and, in 1933, came under the influence of Heinrich Himmler.

Pohl’s administrative talent made him a key architect of the concentration camp system. In 1942, he became head of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (WVHA), putting him in charge of camp organization, forced labor, and SS economic operations. That same year, he oversaw the conversion of Castle Itter into a subcamp of Dachau Concentration Camp. Prisoners from Dachau, many already starved and brutalized, were forced to rebuild the castle into a functioning prison.

The system Pohl ran was anything but ordinary. Under his leadership, camps were integrated into a vast forced-labor economy built on what the Nazis called “extermination through labor.” Prisoners were quite literally treated as assets on a balance sheet.

Pohl’s office created calculations estimating the “value” of each prisoner: labor output minus the cost of food and clothing, plus the value of confiscated belongings, watches, cash, clothing, and even what could be recovered from their remains after death. The average inmate was given a life expectancy of about nine months and assigned a monetary value of roughly 1,630 Reichsmarks. Gold fillings, hair, clothing, and personal items, especially from Jewish victims, were systematically collected, cataloged, and sold.

By late 1944, hundreds of thousands of prisoners were being exploited as slave labor: over 250,000 in private industry, 170,000 in underground factories, and tens of thousands more clearing rubble from Allied bombing.

After the war, Pohl went into hiding as a farmhand near Bremen but was captured in 1946. He was tried in the fourth of the subsequent Nuremberg Trials. While not denying knowledge of mass murder, he portrayed himself as a bureaucrat simply following orders and accused the prosecution of acting out of revenge.

In prison, he supposedly returned to Catholicism and even published a book, with permission from the Carholic Church, Credo: My Way to God. He appealed his sentence multiple times, unsuccessfully. His final statement reflected the same defense he had relied on throughout: that he had simply carried out orders.

On June 7, 1951, Oswald Pohl was executed by hanging at Landsberg Prison, the same prison where Adolf Hitler had once been held and wrote Mein Kampf.

If you’re interested the story of Pohl and the prison he created, I cover it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-90-the-battle?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

On May 5, 1945, less than a week after Adolf Hitler’s suicide and just three days before Germany’s unconditional surrender, one of the strangest battles of World War II took place at Castle Itter.

The castle had been converted into a high-security SS prison for prominent French prisoners, including former prime ministers Édouard Daladier and Paul Reynaud, senior military leaders, Charles de Gaulle’s sister, and tennis champion Jean Borotra.

As Germany collapsed, the guards fled, but the surrounding Austrian countryside was filled with groups of roaming SS and soldiers looting, and killing civilians. Fearing for their lives, the prisoners sent out messengers for help.

One reached the nearby town of Wörgl and connected with the Austrian resistance, who introduced him to Major Josef Gangl. A decorated soldier, ordered to fight to the last man, Gangl turned against the Nazi cause and he and his men had taken up arms to protect civilians. When he heard about the prisoners, he agreed to help.

On May 4, Gangl and his men linked up with U.S. forces from the 23rd Tank Battalion. Lieutenant John C. Lee Jr. didn’t need much convincing. With a small force, just a handful of soldiers and a single tank, they headed to the castle, arriving that evening.

Hours later, a far larger SS force attacked.

What followed was an almost implausible stand: American soldiers, Wehrmacht troops, Austrian resistance fighters, and the French prisoners fighting side by side. Despite being told to stay out of it by Lee, the prisoners grabbed weapons and joined the defense.

During the battle, Gangl was killed while pulling Reynaud to safety, the only defender to die. The group held out through the night, but by morning, they were low on ammunition. In a desperate move, Borotra volunteered to vault the castle walls and seek reinforcements.

He made it. Just as the SS prepared to bring anti-tank guns to bear on the castle, American reinforcements arrived, routing the attackers and capturing around 100 SS troops.

One of the two in the war where U.S. and German soldiers fought side by side, and one of the last battles in the European theater.

If you’re interested in the full story, I cover it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-90-the-battle?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios