Found Guilty! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Michel Ney

A veteran campaigner, Michel Ney was a noted tactician and strategist. His personal heroism led Napoleon to call him 'the bravest of the brave', and his men referred to Ney as a soldier's soldier. Following his arrest and conviction, he was executed by firing squad on December 7th, 1815.

At the time of his execution, he was allowed the honor of issuing the command to shoot. Micheel Ney was also the 1st Duke of Elchingen, and 1st First Prince of Moskva. Following his execution, the titles were revoked, but both were returned to the family in 1831, and stayed with the heirs until 1969, when the family lineage ended.

Answer: Mary Surratt

Mary Surratt was convicted of conspiracy, plotting a murder and treason, and was executed by hanging. Three other conspirators, David Herold, Lewis Powell and George Atzerodt, were also executed. The doctor who treated assassin John Wilkes Booth, Samuel Mudd, was sentenced to life in prison, but he was pardoned and released after serving just under four years.

The remaining conspirators, Samuel Arnold, Edmund Spangler and Michael O'Laughlen, were also imprisoned. While O'Laughlen died in prison, Arnold and Spangler were pardoned and released along with Mudd. Mary Surratt's son, John H. Surratt, Jr., was put on trial a year and a half later, but he was acquitted. Incidentally, Mary Surratt's guilt was was hotly debated at the time of trial and execution, and is still debated in modern times. And, the plot was only partially successful, as Vice President Andrew Johnson was also supposed to have been assassinated on the night of Lincoln's death.

Answer: Canada

Louis Riel was a Metis, a member of an aboriginal group in Canada which included descendants of a number of other ethnic groups. A leader in political and religious matters, Riel was determined to prevent the Canadian government from taking over, and destroying, his people's rights, culture and lands. Twice he led rebellious actions against the government, and following the first - the Red River Rebellion - a surveyor named Thomas Scott was executed.

The controversial execution of Scott, along with the desire to quell Riel's followers, resulted in Riel's exile to the US. Upon his return to Canada, he led a second rebellion known as the North-West Rebellion, which led to his arrest, trial, conviction and execution by hanging in 1885. Long after the trial, a juror, Edwin Brooks, said that while Riel was put on trial for treason, he was executed for the death of Thomas Scott. Louis Riel was elected to the Canadian House of Commons, although he never served there.

He is a folk hero in Canada, and is often called 'The Father of Manitoba'.

Answer: hanging

Shusui Kotoku was a socialist and anarchist, who opposed the political and social customs prevalent in Japan at the time. He was also a journalist, and along with Toshihiko Sakai, he founded the "Commoner's Newspaper" where his radical writings eventually led to his imprisonment for five months. Following his release in 1905, he left Japan for a while, returning in 1906 to resume his opposition, both verbally and in print, to the political system in Japan.
In 1910 a plot to assassinate the emperor was suspected to be in the works, and following mass arrests, 26 people (25 men and 1 woman) were eventually brought to trial. Kotoku and 23 others were sentenced to death, with twelve actually executed, and twelve having their death sentences commuted to life in prison.
While the plot, known as the High Treason Incident or Kotoku Incident, had a basis in fact, the evidence was circumstantial for many of those convicted. Kotoku, who had minimal involvement in the plot at the very beginning, seems to have been executed officially for treason, but actually for his dissident views and radical writings.
Also known as harakiri, seppuku was at one time a method of capital punishment. It was officially abolished in Japan in 1873, although instances of seppuku continued to occur as a form of suicide.

Answer: Munich

The Beer Hall Putsch occurred on November 8th and 9th of 1923. Organized and led by Hitler, the coup - an attempt to seize control of Bavaria - failed, and Hitler was arrested on the 11th. Charged with high treason, his trial was held during February, at the People's Court in Munich.

He was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment, but including his pre-trial confinement, he served just over a year. He was pardoned by the Bavarian Supreme Court, but while in prison he created most of "Mein Kampf; Volume One", dictating his work to Rudolf Hess. Munich, the capital of Bavaria, suffered serious damage during WWII, and underwent extensive rebuilding.

Despite the destruction, three of the original gates from the medieval city walls survived.

Answer: Lord Haw-Haw

William Joyce was an ardent Fascist, and a propaganda writer and broadcaster. Born in America in 1906, he was raised in Ireland, and moved to England at the age of 15. In England, he joined the BUF (British Union of Fascists) where he rose to the rank of Deputy Leader before being fired in 1937. In 1939 he moved to Germany, where he became a naturalized citizen, and was recruited as a writer and broadcaster for Germany's propaganda organization. His broadcasts to the United Kingdom ended in April of 1945, but at the height of his popularity, he felt confident or brash enough to reveal his name.
Following his capture by British forces, Joyce was charged with three counts of treason, but due to his numerous citizenships, he was convicted of just one charge. On January 3rd, 1946, Joyce was hanged at Wandsworth Prison in London.

Joyce was not the first propaganda broadcaster to be called 'Lord Haw-Haw'. Before he came by the nickname, it was given to either Wolf Mittler or Norman Baillie-Stewart. Both men were also broadcasters, and Baillie-Stewart was also accused of high treason, although he was eventually tried for the crime of committing an act likely to assist the enemy. Found guilty, he served a five-year prison sentence.

Answer: False

Mildred Gillars was born in America in 1900, moved to France in 1929, and then to Germany in 1934. Over the years she had taken various classes and jobs in her search for a place in the field of dramatic arts, but found little success. In Germany she was employed by German State Radio as an announcer, and following the onset of WWII, she began broadcasting Nazi propaganda.

Her main program "Home Sweet Home" aired from 1942 to 1945, but she also voiced other programs and specials, including the play "Vision Of Invasion" in 1944. Following her arrest in 1946, she was transferred to the US for trial.

There, she was tried on eight counts of treason, and in 1949 she was convicted of just one count - for the broadcasting of the 1944 play. She was fined $10,000, sentenced to 10-30 years imprisonment, and released in 1961. Gillars had several nicknames besides Axis Sally, including Berlin Babe and Berlin Bitch.

There was also another broadcaster, in Rome, with the nickname of Axis Sally, but while many supposed they might both have been Gillars, the other was actually an Italian-American named Rita Zucca.

While Zucca could not be tried in America because she had given up her American citizenship, she was tried in Italy, and ended up serving 9 months for collaboration. She died in 1988, and was buried in an unmarked grave in Ohio.

Answer: True

Footballer Sandor Szucs was a defender for Ujpest FC from 1944 until 1951, and he was considered one of the best defenders in Europe. But, following the Communist takeover of Hungary at the end of WWII, the country was subjected to crackdowns and scrutiny of every facet of the citizens' lives. One method of controlling the populace was a series of planned trials, with fictitious or contrived evidence.

The trials were planned ahead of time, and carried out at designated times in order to display the regime's determination in subjugating and controlling the populace. One such instance was that of Szucs' trial.

He was tricked by the Hungarian State Police State Protection Department into defecting, and subsequently tried, found guilty, and executed for treason.

It was a thinly veiled warning to other players, and kept from the public until 1989 when the Communist regime was overthrown.

Answer: Werner Teske

A member of the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) of East Germany, Werner Teske went to work for the government straight out of school. Working within the General Reconnaissance Administration, he was responsible for intelligence on foreign economics.

In the 1970s, he considered defecting, and planned on using information obtained through espionage to barter his way into West Germany. When his unaccomplished plan was discovered, he was tried for 'planned treason', sentenced to death and executed.

The execution was kept secret, and his wife did not learn of his death until 1990. In 1993, Teske's death sentence was judged to be excessive in view of the fact that he had not actually attempted to defect, nor had any information been disseminated to West Germany.

As a result of that judgement, his sentence was overturned.

Answer: England

Pascal Lissouba worked his way up through the government to become the first democratically elected president. Before he achieved that success, however, during the turbulent politics of the 1970s, he was accused of being involved in the assassination of President Marien Ngouabi. Found guilty in 1977 and sentenced to life imprisonment, Lissouba was released in 1979 and exiled to France. Following his return in 1991, he was elected to the presidency, and led his country for almost 5 years, with tensions high between sporadic outbreaks of violence. Following the 1997 conflict between his militia and former President Denis Sassou Nguesso's forces, Lissouba was forced to flee the country, exiling himself to London, England.

While he had intended to return in 2002 and run for the presidency again, in 2001 he was tried and convicted on the charges of corruption and treason.