A side effect of traveling by bus and train is the many hours I have at my disposal on the way from A to B. While browsing Facebook and X, I found out about two violent deaths that both occurred on May 11. One 1945 in Germany, the other 2022 in Jenin.
Death 1: Flensburg, Germany, May 11, 1945
The Second World War ended three days ago
“The old man can start the engine on his own, he has nothing more to say here.” This was how sailor Johann Süß commented on the order to fire up the ship. For this he was executed by a German naval firing squad on May 11, 1945 - the war was already over.
Süß also said that he “only wanted to go home” now that the German Reich had surrendered. He finally carried out the order after all, but the court martial, which was held shortly afterwards on board the ship Gazelle, sentenced him to death for “undermining the discipline of men” and assaulting superiors.
Süß sent a request for clemency to Vice Admiral Bernhard Rogge, pointing out that two of his brothers had already died for Germany and that his wife was expecting a child. Rogge refused the pardon on May 10, 1945 (two days after the total capitulation).
20 years later, preliminary proceedings were initiated against Rogge, but were quickly dropped. By this time, Rogge was a rear admiral in the German Navy. In 1962, he received the “Grand Cross of Merit” of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Süß was executed in Flensburg 80 years ago today, in the early morning of May 11, 1945. His body was buried anonymously at the Twedter Feld shooting range. His wife and parents only found out how he had died in 1952. The body was exhumed and buried on the Friedenshügel in Flensburg.
The photo shows Bernhard Rogge. I am not aware of a photo of Johann Süß, one of the last soldiers to be executed by the Wehrmacht justice system. He was 21 years old when he died. R.I.P.
Source @NieMehrKrieg
Posted on Facebook by Gerhard Smole
Death 2: Jenin, West Bank, May 11, 2022
The blue press vest no longer protects
Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is shot dead by a soldier of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) while conducting research. The documentary “Who Killed Shireen?” now reveals who the soldier was and how the then US administration under President Joe Biden failed to demand clarification from the Israeli government.
Shireen Abu Akleh, born in Jerusalem in 1971, belonged to the Arab-Christian minority. She was 51 years old when she was shot. Since her death, more than two hundred Palestinian journalists have been killed by the Israeli military, mainly in the aftermath of the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023. Israel claims that many of them were in fact supporters or members of Hamas and terrorists.
This story was first published in German on my website.