Forgotten Heroes

Forgotten Her es Capturing Nazis

Brig. Gen. Henry Plitt

By Avi Heiligman

Henry Plitt after capturing Nazi criminal Julius Streicher, left

May 1945 saw the final collapse of Nazi Europe as the Allied armies charged in from the west and the Russian Army came from the east. Nazi war criminals tried blending in with civilians but many were rounded up in the weeks and months proceeding and following the German surrender. Pictures and descriptions of high profile Nazi war criminals were distributed throughout the Allied ranks. Through an incredible encounter, a Jewish American officer captured one of the most notorious Nazi criminals: Julius Streicher.

Henry Plitt was a Jewish soldier from New York City and was born in 1918. After graduating high school in a military academy in Virginia, he went to Syracuse University joined the ROTC in college. After graduating from law school at St. Lawrence University, he wanted to join the actual military to fight the Nazis. A few months after obtaining his degree, he joined the Army Air Corps. However, he was given a desk job and requested to join the paratroopers to get “into the action.” After a long training period, Plitt was sent to Europe and prepared for the largest amphibious assault in history. He was with 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (the Screaming Eagles) at the time.

Not all Allied troops fighting on Normandy on June 6, 1944 (otherwise known as D-Day) came ashore by boats. Thousands of paratroopers from three divisions were dropped by transport aircraft and gliders in the hours preceding the invasion from the English Channel. Leading the way were troopers known as Pathfinders whose mission was to come in a half hour before the other planes and set up a series of lights to guide in the arriving planes.

The day before the jump, there was a command change as the colonel in charge was unhappy with the officer who was going to lead the three Pathfinder planes. Plitt was told to lead the contingent of 54 men who would be the first Allied troops to land in France for an invasion since the failed invasion of Dieppe in 1942.

Plitt was one of the first men to drop into France but there was a problem. They dropped miles away from the drop zone, so they were not able to guide the incoming planes. Therefore, in the predawn hours, he gathered up over hundred men as other paratroopers had dropped into France at this point. Soldiers from the main drop were scattered all over Normandy, and Plitt’s ad hoc group knocked out a key gun position.

American paratroopers made another airborne drop in the fall – this time it was into Arnhem, Holland. The mission was a failure as the objectives in the British-led attack were not captured. Plitt was also with the 101st Division for this attack and was wounded five times during the operation. Late in 1944, he returned to the States and toured as a war hero for the sale of war bonds. Plitt subsequently returned to the 101st Airborne Division and was stationed in Germany. He was with the division when they liberated Dachau.

After V-E Day, May 8, 1945, there were Nazi officers all over Germany and Austria as well as in other areas. Plitt received a tip that the Nazi Minister of Labor Robert Ley was living in a building in Bavaria. Major Plitt and his men caught him in bed. Ley started reaching for a pill (most likely a cyanide pill) during the incident. Plitt didn’t know that it was Ley but when Plitt saw that another captured officer gave Ley a salute, Plitt knew that this was his wanted man. Ley was sent to headquarters and put on trial at Nuremberg. Three days after his indictment, Ley committed suicide in his prison cell.

The leading Nazi propagandist and one of the most anti-Semitic Nazis in Germany, Julius Streicher, tried to blend in the local population after the war. Plitt received a tip that an officer – again he wasn’t told who the officer was – was posing as an artist living in Austria. Along with two other American soldiers, they went up to the house and began interrogating the artist. Plitt at first thought he had the wrong guy as the artist had a believable cover story.

Suddenly, Plitt asked in middle of a discussion about the Nazi, “What about Julius Streicher?” The man was startled as he wasn’t expecting the question and answered in the affirmative, “That’s who I am.”

Plitt arrested Streicher and brought him to division headquarters after getting more identifying information from his prisoner on the car ride. Reporters swarmed the area, and when they realized that Plitt was Jewish it became a sensation: A Jewish officer had captured an arch anti-Semite.

Streicher formed the German Socialist Party which was taken over by Hitler’s Nazi Party in 1922. Streicher remained a member of the Nazi Party until its collapse in 1945 and founded the anti-Semitic newspaper Der Sturmer. He had a part in the destruction of a shul in Nuremberg during Kristallnacht. For his part during the Holocaust, he was found guilty of crimes against humanity during the Nuremberg Trials.

There was an American eyewitness to the executions. Kingsbury Smith of the International News Service gave his account on how the seventh of the ten Nazis executed at Nuremburg was killed. “Julius Streicher made his melodramatic appearance at 2:12 a.m.… As the guards stopped him at the bottom of the steps for identification formality, he uttered his piercing scream: ‘Heil Hitler!’… He was pushed the last two steps to the mortal spot beneath the hangman’s rope. The rope was being held back against a wooden rail by the hangman. Streicher was swung suddenly to face the witness-

Along with two other American soldiers, they went up to the house and began interrogating the artist.

es and glared at them. Suddenly he screamed, ‘Purim Fest 1946.’… At that instant, the trap opened with a loud bang. He went down kicking. When the rope snapped taut with the body swinging wildly, groans could be heard from within the concealed interior of the scaffold.” The Nazi suffered in death, just as he made millions of other people suffer.

Other Nazi officers were captured by Plitt in the months following the end of the war. For his actions in Europe, he was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, four Purple Hearts, and decorations from the French and Dutch.

Plitt returned to the States and became a successful businessman. He was a big supporter of Israel and was awarded an honorary degree from Bar Ilan University. Henry Plitt passed away in 1993 at the age of 74. His exploits are not well known today, but his heroics are to be remembered.

Avi Heiligman is a weekly contributor to The Jewish Home. He welcomes your comments and suggestions for future columns and can be reached at aviheiligman@gmail.com.

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