Edward Roschmann
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Edward Roschman (25 August 1908 - 10 August 1977) was an SS Hauptsturmführer and Nazi War Criminal known as 'The Butcher of Riga'.
Born on 25th of August 1908 in Graz, he later became SS Hauptsturmführer #152681 and the SS Commandant of the Riga concentration camp which held German Jews during World War II. Roshchmann is known to have committed unspeakable crimes during his tenure as SS commandant. He was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent Jews within the camp. It is reported that Roschmann had many women, children and elderly exterminated on their arrival to the camp claiming them to be more valuable dead. The dead's clothes, hair and teeth were treated as a cash asset.
The Riga Camp inmates laboured eighteen hours a day at the camp workshops, with their suffering exacerbated by hunger and cold. Roschmann would strip prisoners of their clothes and huddle them together before execution. He also liked watching dogs feed on them while they were still breathing.
After the war Roschmann slipped away from authorities by wearing the uniform of an army corporal. He fled to South America, living in Argentina. He moved from there to Paraguay in 1977 after West Germany requested his extradition, but died of a heart attack in that same year.
There is some speculation that Roschmann was head of the ODESSA network, which smuggled Nazis to Latin America. He was featured as a major character in the 1974 film The Odessa File.
