On May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered and World War II officially ended in Europe. The Nazis were defeated, and millions of people were freed from oppression. However, 1945 did not mark the true end of the Nazi legacy. The notorious leaders of the Third Reich left another mark on the globe: their children.
Monika Hertwig, formerly Monika Goeth, was the daughter of Amon Goeth. She was born on November 7, 1945, and was never privy to the realities of life during World War II. She never saw the atrocities her father committed. In fact, she was only a year old when her father was convicted of mass murder and sentenced to death by hanging.
Growing up, Monika was told stories about her father, mostly by her mother, who painted him as a good family man and a war hero. The reality, however, could not have been further from the truth. Amon Goeth was not just a member of the Nazi party. He was the commander of the Krakow-Plaszow Concentration Camp from February 11, 1943, to September 13, 1944.
During those years, approximately 30,000 Jewish people were imprisoned and subjected to inhumane living conditions. Of those 30,000, almost 5,000 Jews were killed at the camp. Amon Goeth was personally responsible for between 30 and 90 of those deaths.
Monika did not learn of these truths until she was a young adult. It took her years to grapple with the realities of her heritage. After coming to terms with the actions of her father, Monika has since tried to right the wrongs of the Goeth name. She helped create the film "Inheritance," a documentary depicting her struggles to accept her father's legacy and her attempt to rectify her family's wrongs.
During the creation of this documentary, Monika met with a woman named Helen Jonas, who as a child was forced to work as Amon Goeth's personal maid. She learned firsthand the type of man her father was. Ultimately, Monika Hertwig has managed to live a fulfilling and generous life despite being the daughter of a man as violent as Amon Goeth.
The story of the six Goebbels children is not so bittersweet. Joseph Goebbels, born in 1897, was as important to the rise of the Nazis as Hitler himself. He served as the district leader of Berlin before assuming the role of Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in 1933.
Under this position, Goebbels did all he could to promote the ideology of the Nazi regime. He burned the works of Jewish authors, promoted the segregation of Jewish people on the radio, and praised Hitler in the media. His mastery over propaganda put the people of Germany on the Nazis' side, cementing their political dominance.
Goebbels was also Hitler's most loyal servant and would stay by him through anything. Even when Nazi defeat was inevitable, Goebbels remained by Hitler's side, choosing to stay hidden in Hitler's bunker with his family during the Soviet invasion of Berlin in April 1945.
Eventually, when Soviet troops broke through the gates and marched through Berlin, Goebbels took matters into his own hands. He turned to each of his children and then to his wife, fatally poisoning each one of them before taking his own life. Most sources suggest that he handed each family member a cyanide pill. Thus, none of the Goebbels children lived to see the end of World War II.
Klaus von Schirach, born in 1935, was just old enough to truly digest the events of World War II. During his childhood, he became a witness to the sheer power of the Nazi propaganda machine. Klaus's father was Baldur von Schirach, who served as the head of the Hitler Youth between 1931 and 1940.
This organization had the sole purpose of brainwashing Germany's youngest generation by indoctrinating them into Nazi ideology and teaching them how to fight in war. By the start of World War II, this organization had essentially created a production line of Nazi soldiers and dramatically increased the Nazis' military power.
Deemed responsible for the power of this movement, Baldur von Schirach was found guilty of crimes against humanity in 1946 and sentenced to 20 years in Spandau prison in Berlin. Because of his father's incarceration, Klaus von Schirach grew into adolescence without a father figure.
It seems that Klaus had no desire to remain in contact with his father upon release. Instead, he opted for a life of relative normality. He chose to go to university to study law and has also branched into journalism. Little else is known about his personal life.
Horst von Wächter, the son of Otto von Wächter, was born in 1939. Like others on this list, he was not old enough to comprehend the violence and complexity of the Second World War. However, unlike the other children discussed, Horst von Wächter has only ever supported the actions of his father.
He has even gone as far as to suggest that his father was forced into his actions and was just another cog in the Nazi regime. However, when you look at the actions Otto von Wächter committed as a member of the Nazi party, it is difficult to comprehend Horst's arguments.
Otto von Wächter was not just a mere member of the Nazi party. He assumed the role of governor of the District of Krakow after German forces took control of Poland in 1939. Upon assuming the role, he quickly ordered the removal of over 60,000 resident Jews before building a ghetto which housed a further 15,000.
He tortured, killed, and discriminated. He believed in the Nazi ideology down to his core and seemed to enjoy ruining tens of thousands of lives. Yet these facts have been disputed by Horst, who to this day mistakenly believes that his father was forced to commit these actions.
Otto von Wächter was able to evade retribution from Allied Forces from 1945 to 1949 before finding refuge in Vatican City. However, he died just a few months later from a kidney disease. This too has been questioned by Horst, who believes that his father's death may have been the work of something more sinister.
It is easy to judge Horst from afar and judge his support for his father as twisted or even delusional. However, in his eyes, all he has ever done is love his father as every son does. He has and will continue to be bound by such allegiance and will never fully comprehend the true impact of his father's actions.
Niklas Frank, born the son of the infamous Nazi Hans Frank, has like Monika Hertwig spent his life tackling the realities of being a living memory of the brutality of the Nazis. His father, once dubbed "The Butcher of Poland," held perhaps one of the most powerful positions in the Nazi regime as Governor General of Poland.
Through his position, Hans Frank diminished the lives of Polish Jews, segregating them via ghettos and eventually murdering them after subjecting them to countless hours of labor. When he was eventually captured by Allied Forces, he was shown no mercy. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed in 1946.
Born in 1939, Niklas Frank was just 7 years old when he witnessed the death of his father. Though he was not old enough to remember the events of World War II, he has devoted his life to denouncing the actions of his father, whom he has openly expressed a deep hatred for.
Such efforts have led to Niklas releasing an array of books, almost all of which seek to destroy his father's legacy. In 1991, he released "In the Shadow of the Reich," a book which labeled his father as a "slimy hole of a Hitler fanatic." Niklas has also devoted much of his time to raising awareness about the realities of the Holocaust.
Rolf Mengele, born in 1944, was the son of a particularly evil Nazi nicknamed the "Angel of Death," Josef Mengele. Josef Mengele was one of the Nazi party's highest-ranking physicians. Throughout the World War II era, he performed countless genetic experiments upon innocent concentration camp prisoners.
His mind was so twisted that he even personally administered lethal gas in Auschwitz's notorious killing chambers. Thankfully, Rolf Mengele was raised away from Auschwitz and did not see his father's experiments firsthand. However, as a youth, he was fed misinformation about his father, who was portrayed to him as a war hero and a good, honest man.
It was not until much later in his life that he would learn the truth. Upon the Nazis being defeated by the Allies, Josef Mengele was able to flee to South America, effectively escaping certain execution. Catching wind of this, Rolf traveled to see his father in 1977.
When they met, Rolf realized the true extent of his father's evil nature. Josef had no remorse for the pain that he had inflicted on thousands. Witnessing such evil firsthand led Rolf to cut all ties with his father.
Though he didn't turn his father into the authorities, Rolf Mengele also couldn't live attached to the name of such a twisted man. After returning to Europe, he changed his identity and has since disappeared from the public light to try and live a normal life. Reports suggest that he now has a family and is living a relatively pedestrian life in Germany.