Character
Lange was said to have been a favorite student of Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler. He demanded unconditional obedience from his subordinates. Joseph Berman, a survivor of one of the concentration camps administered by Lange, described him as follows:
| “ | As far as Lange is concerned, he was the biggest murderer I have ever known. To write a book about him would definitely not be enough. As he is dead, it is no use talking about him. I would, however, mention that he was one of the most notorious anti-Semites in the twentieth century. He hated Jews so much that he could not look at them; one never wanted to pass him either in the motor pool or anywhere else. | ” |
Lange made himself one of the most feared officials among those responsible for the Riga ghetto. Lange supervised the arrival of the transports in Riga, aided by Obersturmbannführer Gerhard Maywald, whom historian Gertrude Schneider, herself a survivor of the Riga ghetto, describes as Lange's "sidekick". Lange personally shot a young man, Werner Koppel, whom he felt was not opening a rail car door fast enough. Scheider described Lange's appearance:
| “ | Even though he was somewhat smaller and darker than the blond, blue-eyed Maywald, he looked very handsome in his fur-collared uniform coat and seemed every inch an officer and a gentleman. It never occurred to the newcomers to suspect such a man of being a murderer. | ” |
Read more about this topic: Rudolf Lange
Famous quotes containing the word character:
“People without firmness of character love to make up a “fate” for themselves; that relieves them of the necessity of having their own will and of taking responsibility for themselves.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)
“The legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of youth; for the neglect of education does harm to the constitution. The citizen should be molded to suit the form of government under which he lives. For each government has a peculiar character which originally formed and which continues to preserve it. The character of democracy creates democracy, and the character of oligarchy creates oligarchy.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“Happy will that house be in which the relations are formed from character; after the highest, and not after the lowest order; the house in which character marries, and not confusion and a miscellany of unavowable motives.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)