, Courland Governorate

Courland Governorate

Courland Governorate, also known as the Province of Courland, Governorate of Kurland , and Government of Courland , was one of the Baltic governorates of the Russian Empire, that is now part of the Republic of Latvia....

, Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 – February 23, 1965, in Montevideo

Montevideo

Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...

, Uruguay

Uruguay

Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...

) was a Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

n aviator

Aviator

An aviator is a person who flies an aircraft. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887, as a variation of 'aviation', from the Latin avis , coined in 1863 by G. de la Landelle in Aviation Ou Navigation Aérienne...

. He was a member of the notorious Arajs Kommando and was involved in murders of Latvian Jews as part of the Holocaust

The Holocaust

The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

 but he never stood trial. There are eyewitness accounts linking Cukurs to war crimes. He was assassinated by Mossad

Mossad

The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....

 agents in 1965.

As a result of actions during the occupation of Latvia from 1941 to 1944, Cukurs became known as the "Butcher of Riga".

Aviation pioneer

As a pioneering long-distance pilot, he won national acclaim for his international solo flights in the 1930s (Latvia-Gambia and Riga

Riga

Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

-Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

). He was awarded the Harmon Trophy

Harmon Trophy

The Harmon Trophy is a set of three international trophies, to be awarded annually to the world's outstanding aviator, aviatrix , and aeronaut...

 for Latvia in 1933.

Cukurs built at least 3 planes of his own design. In 1937 he made a 45000 km (24,298.1 nmi; 27,961.8 mi) tour visiting Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, Indochina

Indochina

The Indochinese peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly southwest of China, and east of India. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "China" and "India", and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and Russia, flying the C 6 wooden monoplane

Monoplane

A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with one main set of wing surfaces, in contrast to a biplane or triplane. Since the late 1930s it has been the most common form for a fixed wing aircraft.-Types of monoplane:...

 "Trīs zvaigznes" (callsign YL-ABA) of his own creation. The plane was powered by an 135 hp

Horsepower

Horsepower is the name of several units of measurement of power. The most common definitions equal between 735.5 and 750 watts.Horsepower was originally defined to compare the output of steam engines with the power of draft horses in continuous operation. The unit was widely adopted to measure the...

 de Havilland Gipsy

De Havilland Gipsy

The de Havilland Gipsy is a British air-cooled 4-cylinder in-line aircraft engine designed by Frank Halford in 1927 to replace the ADC Cirrus in the de Havilland D.H.60 Moth light biplane....

 engine.

Holocaust perpetrator

During the occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany

Occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany

The occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany was completed on July 10, 1941 by Germany's armed forces. Latvia became a part of Nazi Germany's Reichskommissariat Ostland — the Province General of Latvia...

 in the summer of 1941, Cukurs became a member the notorious Arajs Kommando, responsible for many of the crimes of the Holocaust in Latvia.

Historian Andrew Ezergailis

Andrew Ezergailis

Andrew Ezergailis is a retired Professor of History, Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York, USA, known for his research into the 20th-century history of Latvia, particularly of the 1917 Revolution and the Holocaust in Latvia....

 said in his book The Holocaust in Latvia, 1941-1945 that Cukurs played a leading role in the atrocities committed in the Riga ghetto

Riga Ghetto

The Riga Ghetto was a small area in Maskavas Forštate, neighborhood of Riga, Latvia, designated by the Nazis where Jews from Latvia, and later from Germany, were forced to live during World War II. On October 25, 1941, the Nazis relocated all Jews from Riga and the vicinity to the ghetto while the...

 in conjunction with the Rumbula massacre

Rumbula massacre

The Rumbula massacre was the two-day killing of about 25,000 Jews in and on the way to Rumbula forest near Riga, Latvia, during the Holocaust. Save only the Babi Yar massacre in Ukraine, this was the biggest two-day Holocaust atrocity until the operation of the death camps...

 on 30 November 1941. After the war, surviving witnesses reported that Cukurs had been present during the ghetto clearance and fired into the mass of Jewish civilians.

According to other sources Cukurs was the most recognizable Latvian SD man at the scene of Rumbula massacre

Rumbula massacre

The Rumbula massacre was the two-day killing of about 25,000 Jews in and on the way to Rumbula forest near Riga, Latvia, during the Holocaust. Save only the Babi Yar massacre in Ukraine, this was the biggest two-day Holocaust atrocity until the operation of the death camps...

. Ezergailis states that "although Arajs' men were not the only ones on the ghetto end of the operation, to the degree they participated in the atrocities there the chief responsibility rests on Herberts Cukurs' shoulders.". Cukurs was described as follows:
According to other account Cukurs also participated in Burning of the Riga synagogues

Burning of the Riga synagogues

The burning of the Riga synagogues occurred in the first days of the German occupation of the city of Riga, the capital and largest city in the country of Latvia...

. According to Bernard Press, Cukurs burned the synagogue on Stabu Street, but only after dragging Jews out of the neighboring houses and locking them inside

Time magazine reported at the time of his death in 1965 that his crimes included the Riga synagogue fire, the drowning of 1,200 Jews in a lake, and participating in the November 30, 1941 murder of 10,600 people in a forest near Riga.

Postwar flight and assassination

Curkurs was mentioned several times in the Nuremberg Trials

Nuremberg Trials

The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....

 as a vicious Nazi executioner, but his whereabouts were unknown and he was never formally charged. He fled to Germany with retreating German troops.

After the war, Cukurs emigrated to Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 via France. There, he established a business in São Paulo

São Paulo

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

, flying Republic RC-7 Seabees on panoramic flights. While living in South America he neither hid nor tried to hide his identity.

He is now known to have been assassinated by Mossad

Mossad

The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....

 agents, who persuaded him to travel to Uruguay

Uruguay

Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...

 under the fake pretense of starting an aviation business, after it was found out that he would not stand trial for his participation in the Holocaust. An acquaintance named "Anton Künzle" cabled Cukurs from Montevideo. He was invited to a house in a remote suburb of the city that had just been rented by a man from Vienna. He was shot in the head two times with a suppressed

Suppressor

A suppressor, sound suppressor, sound moderator, or silencer, is a device attached to or part of the barrel of a firearm which reduces the amount of noise and flash generated by firing the weapon....

 automatic pistol after a short but violent struggle that was not heard by neighbors.

Media outlets in South America and Germany were sent a note saying as follows:

Taking into consideration the gravity of the charge leveled against the accused, namely that he personally supervised the killing of more than 30,000 men, women and children, and considering the extreme display of cruelty which the subject showed when carrying out his tasks, the accused Herberts Cukurs is hereby sentenced to death. Accused was executed by those who can never forget on the 23rd of February, 1965. His body can be found at Casa Cubertini Calle Colombia, Séptima Sección del Departamento de Canelones, Montevideo, Uruguay.

The note was initially dismissed as the work of a crank, but then police were notified and the body was discovered.

Attempts at rehabilitation

Since the fall of Communism, there have been efforts in Latvia to rehabilitate Cukurs. For example, an exhibition was held in Riga in honour of the 'national hero' Herberts Cukurs, in which his work in the Arajs Commando was portrayed as having been harmless.

The Latvian Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks condemned the issuance of postal envelopes dedicated to Cukurs in 2004. In a statement, Pabriks said that "those who produced such envelopes in Latvia evidently do not understand the tragic history of World War II in Latvia or in Europe." The foreign ministry stated that Cukurs was "guilty of war crimes," and that he "took part in the activities of the notorious Arajs Commando, which participated in the Holocaust and was responsible for the killing of innocent civilians. The General Prosecutor's Office of Latvia has twice rejected the exoneration of Herberts Cukurs."

External links

• Herberts Cukurs - The most famous Latvian
• Herbert Cukurs' flight to Gambia, 1933-1934, historical information and images.
• Herbert Cukurs' flight to Tokyo, 1936-1937, historical information and images.
• Herberts Cukurs and his airplanes in Brazil
• Collection of photos related to Herberts Cukurs
• Kidon. Los Verdugos del Mossad related to killing of Herberts Cukurs