Births of Nuremberg Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hans Frank

Hans Michael Frank was born on May 30, 1900 to Karl and Magdaleina Frank. He had an older brother, Karl Jr., and a younger sister, Elisabeth. He was one of the earliest Party members, having previously joined a 'Freikorps' in 1919. During the war, he vehemently protested having his portion of Poland, the General Government, used as a "dumping ground" for Jews.

Answer: Alfred Rosenberg

Rosenberg entered the world on January 12, 1893. Some of the buildings he designed are still standing in his birthplace - Tallin, Estonia or Reval as it was then (and often still is) called by the Germans. Although he never set foot on German soil until he was into his 20's, he was one of the earliest members of the German Workers' Party, as well as a member of the Thule Society, an occultist group centered in Munich.

He was the only defendant at the Nuremberg trial to go to the gallows without saying any final words.

Answer: Fritz Sauckel

Ernst Friedrich Christoph "Fritz" Sauckel was born October 27, 1894, to a postman and a seamstress. He joined the merchant marines of Norway and Sweden when he was 15. Although an only child, he would go on to father ten children with his wife Elisabeth.

At one point during the war, he desperately attempted to flee by smuggling himself into a torpedo hold on a U-Boat, but was reported to Karl Doenitz.

Answer: Karl Doenitz

Born on September 16, 1891, Doenitz had one older brother, Friedrich. His parents were Emil and Anna Beyer Doenitz. He joined the Imperial Navy in 1910, and had been a sailor ever since. He lost his two sons during the war. He was the last German officer to ever hold the rank of Grand Admiral, and many former servicemen came to pay their respects at his funeral on January 6, 1981.

Answer: Albert Speer

Berthold Konrad Hermann Albrecht Speer was born to Albert and Lina Speer on March 19, 1905. He was the middle of three sons. He admitted to one of his biographers, Gitta Sereny, that as the middle child, he never fitted in. His younger brother was his father's favorite, while his older brother was doted on by his mother.

His only source of warmth was the family's Jewish nanny, Mlle. Blum.

Answer: Artur Seyss-Inquart

Born July 22, 1892 to Emil and Auguste Zajtich, Artur Zajtich was the last of six children. His older siblings were Hedwig, Richard, Irene, Henriette, and Robert. After moving to Vienna in 1907, the family changed its Slavic name to the more German sounding Seyss-Inquart. An avid rock climber in his younger years, he broke his own leg to free his foot after it had become wedged in a crevice, causing a pronounced limp for the rest of his life.

Answer: Erich Raeder

Erich Johann Albert Raeder was born April 24, 1876 into a middle-class family. His father was a headmaster. He joined the Imperial Navy in 1894. After a series of setbacks in his own campaigns during the war, and the success of the techniques Karl Doenitz was using, he was demoted in 1942.

The following year, he issued his resignation and retired from the German Navy. Sentenced to life in prison, he actually petitioned the court to be shot instead.

Answer: Joachim von Ribbentrop

Born to Richard and Johanne Ribbentrop on April 30, 1893, Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim Ribbentrop was fluent in French and English, and spent a good amount of time in Canada, working first for Molson's Bank, then for National Transcontinental Railway.

He even competed for the famous Minto ice-skating team, but he returned to Germany as World War I was breaking out, feeling he couldn't stay in a country that was part of an empire his homeland was now at war with.

Answer: Julius Streicher

One of nine children born to Friedrich and Anna Streicher, the rabidly anti-Semitic Julius Streicher entered the world on February 12, 1885. He and first his wife Kunigunde would have two sons, Lothar and Elmar. His pornographic paper, Der Stürmer, was put out of circulation twice during Hitler's reign. Once as part of Germany's "clean up" act during the 1936 Olympics, and again when he ridiculed Emmy Goering for doing her shopping at Jewish-owned businesses.

Answer: Wilhelm Keitel

Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel was born to Carl and Apollonia Keitel on September 22, 1882. Some of his family members who moved to the United States after the war changed the spelling of their last name to "Keetle", so as not to be associated with him. Many of his descendants still go by this spelling today. By the time the war was over, he had lost one daughter to tuberculosis, one son was dead, and two others were missing in action.

Answer: Ernst Kaltenbrunner

On October 4, 1903 Ernst was born to Hugo and Theresia Kaltenbrunner. One of his childhood friends was Adolf Eichmann, another was Otto Skorzeny, the man who rescued Mussolini from captivity. He claimed the huge scar that marred his face was from his dueling days in school; others say it was a reminder of a drunken night of revelry, in which his face met with his car windshield while driving home.

Answer: Hermann Goering

Hermann Wilhelm Goering entered the world on January 12, 1893. His father Ernst had been the very first Governor-General of the German Protectorate of South Africa (present-day Namibia). Almost as soon as he was born, his mother rushed off to join his father back in Africa.

His very first memory of her came from when he was three years old. She had returned home and opened her arms to embrace him; he ran at her and beat her angrily with his tiny fists.

Answer: Hans Fritzsche

Hans George Fritzche was born April 21, 1900. As a child he suffered from heart problems brought on, as he said, by the fact that he went through a tremendous growth spurt at a late age. He joined the NSDAP in 1933 and worked under Joseph Goebbels in the radio division. He and his wife Hildegarde both died the same year, 1953, leaving behind a daughter.

Answer: Baldur von Schirach

On May 9, 1907, Baldur Benedikt von Schirach was born to Rittmeister Carl Benno von Schirach and Emma Middleton Lynah Tillou von Schirach. Through his mother's lineage, he is related to two signers of the Declaration of Independence, and English was in fact his first language. Several descendants of other DOI signers actually wrote to the IMT asking for clemency on his behalf.

While his family was being held in detention after the war, as was the case with many families of the higher-ranking Nazis, his wife Henriette was woken in the middle of the night by an American soldier who said "Come, I am taking you to Baldur." The stunned Henriette found out that the soldier was a relative of Baldur's on his mother's side of the family.

Answer: Alfred Jodl

Alfred Josef Ferdinand Baumgärtler was born to Alfred Jodl and Therese Baumgärtler on May 10, 1890. He was given the last name of Jodl after his parents married. His first marriage, to Irma Gräfin von Bullion, was unhappy by all accounts. She was sick for a long time in the later years of their marriage, and died shortly after a delicate operation.

He married his mistress and former secretary, Luise Katharina von Benda, exactly one month before he signed the German surrender.

Answer: Hjalmar Schacht

January 22, 1877 saw the birth of Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht to William Schacht and his Danish countess wife, Constanze. His parents, who had spent years in the United States, wanted to name him simply Horace Greeley, in honor of the American journalist of the same name. His maternal grandmother overruled them, stating his first name should be of Danish origin.

Answer: Franz von Papen

A wealthy Roman Catholic family welcomed Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen on October 28, 1879. Entering the diplomatic service as a military attache in 1913, he bore witness to the Mexican Revolution, and was in Washington D.C. when World War I erupted in 1914.

In 1916, he acted as an intermediary between the German government and the Irish Rebels with regards to weapons that were to be supplied for their use against the British in the 1916 Easter Uprising.

Answer: Walther Funk

Walther and Sophie Funk welcomed their son Walther Emanuel Funk on August 18, 1890. He studied economics, philosophy, and law at the University of Berlin, and was introduced to Hitler through Gregor Strasser, one of the earliest Party members and a victim of the Night of the Long Knives.

Answer: Constantin von Neurath

The son of minor Swabian nobility, Constantin Freiherr von Neurath was born on February 2, 1873. A diplomat almost all his life, he resigned as Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia in 1943 after a serious dispute with Hitler over his handling of the position.

He had two children, Konstantin and Winifred, with his wife Marie, and was the oldest man on trial, at age 72.

Answer: Wilhelm Frick

March 12, 1877 saw the birth of Wilhelm and Henriette Frick's final of their four children, a son whom they decided to name after his father. His first marriage, which produced three children, ended in an ugly divorce in 1934. His second lasted until his death. At the time of his participation in the failed Beer Hall Putsch, he was head of the Munich Kriminalpolizei (Kripo). He lost this position on his arrest.

Of the other Nuremberg defendants, Rudolf Walther Richard Hess was born April 26, 1894 in Alexandria Egypt, to Fritz Hess and his Greek-descendant wife.

Martin Bormann was born June 17, 1900 in Halberstadt to postal employee Theodor Bormann and his second wife Antonie.

Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was born August 7, 1870 near The Hague, the son of a German diplomat. He married his wife, Bertha Krupp, after Kaiser Wilhelm himself led the search for a suitable husband for her after her father died, considering it "horrible" that a woman should head up such an important German business empire.

Dr. Robert Ley was born one of 11 children to a poor family of farmers in Niederbreidenbach on February 15, 1890. His wife Inge preceded him in death, also choosing suicide.

All information for this quiz was gathered from Wikipedia, Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth by Gitta Sereny, The Nuremberg Interviews by Leon Goldensohn, and Nuremberg: Infamy On Trial by Joseph Persico.