This Date in History: December 10

 

British aircraft killed Generalmajor Max Sümmermann, the commander of the 90th Light Division, on December 10, 1941, about 7:00 p.m., near Mamali, Libya.  (Quiet Flows the Rhine, German General Officer Casualties in World War II)

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On December 10, 1945, Johann Reichhart, who had been employed by the American occupation authorities in November 1945 to help execute Nazi war criminals at Landsberg am Lech, Bavaria,  hanged Franz Strasser, a former Nazi Party district leader in Bohemia, who had killed two downed American airmen outside the town of Kaplice in December 1944.  (American Hangman: MSgt. John C. Woods, The United States Army’s Notorious Executioner in World War II and Nürnberg.)