Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski

Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, SS-Obergruppenführer, born March 1, 1899 in Lauenburg (Pomerania), Higher SS and Police Leader Southeast, Higher SS and Police Leader Central Russia, chief of anti-partisan forces in the East, suppressor of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, commander 14th SS Corps, winner of the Iron Cross 1st Class and wounded in action twice in World War I, winner of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, sentenced at Nürnberg to ten years, released 1951, sentenced by a German court in 1962 to life imprisonment, died on March 8, 1972 in a prison hospital in Munich-Harlaching.  In testimony after the war, he explained how the Nazis could have committed so many mass killings: “I am of the opinion. when for years, for decades, the doctrine is preached that the Slavic race is an inferior race, and Jews are not even human, then such an explosion [mass killing] was inevitable.”  (2,000 Quotes From Hitler’s 1,000-Year Reich)

**********

Sunday, March 8, 1874 (Alkali Creek): sunrise occurred at 6:40 a.m.  The expedition traveled about 8.5 miles east-southeast, passing near several unique sandstone formations, and made camp near the mouth of Alkali Creek and the Yellowstone River.  About this point in the expedition, J. L. Vernon made his escape along with James Rockfellow, not far from the “Place of Skulls,” also known as “Skull Bluff,” which derived its name from the massive Crow burials there (after smallpox epidemics killed four of every five members of their population in the 1840s.)  Sunset was at 6:11 p.m.  Oliver Hanna picked up the action and the ephemeral Vernon.

“Mr. Vernon disappeared at this point and we never heard of him afterward.  We had become suspicious of him and he knew it.  We were nearing the Porcupine stream where he had told us he found the gold and he knew, if he failed to make good on his promises, a rope would soon encircle his neck.  So he made his get-away.”  (Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Gold and Guns: The 1874 Yellowstone Wagon Road and Prospecting Expedition and the Battle of Lodge Grass Creek)