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Assassinated Gestapo Chief in Poland Supervised Mass-killing of Jews, Poles Report

May 13, 1943
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Polish circles today ridiculed the denial issued from Berlin that General Wilhelm Krueger, Gestapo chief in Poland, has not been assassinated. They insisted that Krueger, who was notorious for the reign of terror he instituted against the Jews in the ghettos, was killed by Polish patriots and called the assassination “a masterpiece of audacity.”

Krueger supervised the liquidation of the ghettos in Warsaw, Cracow and Lublin, the Polish press here reports. He accelerated the annihilation of Jews by introducing such instruments of mass execution as mobile gas chambers and freight cars filled with sufficient chloride of lime to asphyxiate their occupants. Krueger also initiated the custom of having the Nazi executioners blacken their faces so that they could not be recognized and thus might avoid future vengeance.

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