FROM DASHING AVIATOR TO NAZI MONSTER: Herberts Cukurs – The “Butcher of Riga” Hunted Down and Executed by Israeli Agents for Murdering 30,000 Jews, Despite 20 Years in Hiding _us504

VERY SENSITIVE HISTORICAL CONTENT WARNING

This post discusses genocide during the Holocaust in Latvia and the post-war fate of one of the perpetrators. Shared strictly for educational and remembrance purposes.

Herberts Cukurs – Deputy Commander of the Arajs Kommando and His Death in 1965

Herberts Cukurs (1900–1965) was once Latvia’s most famous aviator in the 1930s, celebrated as the “Latvian Lindbergh” for his long-distance flights.

After German forces occupied Latvia in July 1941, he voluntarily joined the Arajs Kommando – the notorious Latvian Auxiliary Police unit under Viktors Arājs that became one of the most effective killing squads in the Baltic states during the Holocaust.

As Arājs’s deputy, Cukurs was directly involved in:

The destruction and liquidation of the Riga GhettoThe Rumbula Massacre (30 November & 8 December 1941) – approximately 25,000 Jews shot in Rumbula ForestNumerous other executions in the Bikernieki Forest and around Riga

After the war, Cukurs fled to Brazil in 1946 under a false identity, lived openly in São Paulo, and ran a small boat-tour business for almost twenty years without facing trial.

On 23 February 1965, he was lured to Montevideo, Uruguay, by Mossad agents led by Mieer “Mike” Harari. After his identity was confirmed and he was given a chance to speak (but refused to acknowledge his crimes), he was executed on the spot. His body was later found in a trunk bearing a note in German and Hebrew: “Herberts Cukurs has been tried and executed for his crimes against the Jewish people.”

Israel has never officially acknowledged the operation, but declassified documents and participant testimonies confirm it as one of Mossad’s early actions against Nazi war criminals.

The case remains controversial: some view it as historical justice, others as extrajudicial execution.

In modern Latvia, far-right groups occasionally attempt to rehabilitate Cukurs’s image, but the vast majority of historians and the Jewish community regard him as one of the worst perpetrators of the Holocaust in Latvia.

Reliable sources:

Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Center

Museum “Jews in Latvia” & Riga Ghetto and Holocaust Museum

Book “The Perfect Nazi” – Martin Cüppers & Andrew Ehrhardt

Documentary “Here I Am – Herberts Cukurs” (Latvia, 2021 – presents both sides)