1. Herberts Albert Cukurs was a Latvian aviator and Nazi collaborator.
24 Facts About Herberts Cukurs
1. 2.
Herberts Cukurs served as the deputy commander of the Arajs Kommando, a collaborationist unit that carried out the largest mass murders of Latvian Jews during the Holocaust.
3.
Two decades after World War II, Herberts Cukurs was identified in Brazil by a Holocaust survivor, who attempted to alert the authorities after seeing Herberts Cukurs' face on the cover of a magazine.
4.
Herberts Cukurs was awarded the Harmon Trophy for Latvia in 1933, and was considered a national hero, in analogous fashion to Charles Lindbergh.
5.
Herberts Cukurs built at least three aircraft of his own design.
6.
Herberts Cukurs designed the Herberts Cukurs C-6bis prototype dive bomber in 1940.
7.
In mid-1941, during the German occupation of Latvia, Herberts Cukurs became deputy commander of the newly formed Latvian Auxiliary Police unit, the Arajs Kommando.
8.
The Latvian murderer Herberts Cukurs got out of a car wearing a pistol in a leather holster at his side.
9.
Herberts Cukurs went to the Latvian guards to give them various instructions.
10.
Herberts Cukurs had certainly been informed in detail about the great catastrophe that awaited us.
11.
Later, Ezergailis retracted these interpretations, saying that in light of new documents, it would be wrong to claim that Herberts Cukurs had participated in the Rumbula shooting or the burning of the Riga synagogues.
12.
Multiple eyewitnesses said they saw Herberts Cukurs snatching infants from the arms of their mothers and shooting them.
13.
Herberts Cukurs retreated to Germany with German forces and after the war fled to Brazil via the ratlines.
14.
In Brazil, Herberts Cukurs established a business in Sao Paulo, flying Republic RC-3 Seabees on scenic flights.
15.
Herberts Cukurs was invited to a house in a remote suburb of the city that had just been rented by a man from Vienna.
16.
Herberts Cukurs fought back against his attackers, and bit the finger of one of the hitmen so hard it was nearly severed.
17.
Herberts Cukurs was subdued after one of the men hit him in the head with a hammer.
18.
Now helpless, Herberts Cukurs started pleading with the men to let him speak before they did anything else.
19.
Herberts Cukurs received no response and was promptly shot in the head twice with a suppressed automatic pistol, killing him instantly.
20.
One of the main motives of Herberts Cukurs's assassination was to deter West Germany from allowing the statute of limitations to expire on Nazi war crimes.
21.
The American-born Israeli historian and Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff has pointed out that the fact Herberts Cukurs was not prosecuted has allowed for, what he believes, are "attempts by right-wing nationalists and his family to totally exonerate Herberts Cukurs and by other Latvians to question or diminish his individual culpability" and "to restore him to hero status in Latvia and whitewash his massive guilt".
22.
In 2004, postal envelopes with the image of Herberts Cukurs were issued and distributed by National Power Unity, a far-right nationalist political party in Latvia.
23.
In 2020, Stephan Talty published an account of the Mossad's hunt for Herberts Cukurs, titled The Good Assassin: How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia.
24.
On 18 November 1937, Herberts Cukurs was awarded the Order of the Three Stars, IV class.