Lynching - Europe

Europe

In Britain, a series of race riots broke out in several cities in 1919 between whites and black sailors. In Liverpool, after a black sailor had been stabbed by two whites in a pub, his friends attacked the pub in revenge. In response, the police raided lodging houses with black occupants, accompanied by an "enraged lynch mob". Charles Wootton, a young black seaman who had not been involved in the attacks, was chased into the river Mersey and drowned after being pelted with missiles thrown by the mob, who chanted "Let him drown!" The Charles Wootton College in Liverpool was named in his memory.

In 1944, Wolfgang Rosterg, a German prisoner of war known to be unsympathetic to the Nazi regime, was lynched by Nazis in POW Camp 21 in Comrie, Scotland. After the end of World War II five of the perpetrators were hanged at Pentonville Prison – the largest multiple execution in 20th century Britain. There are also approximately 150 confirmed cases of surviving crew members of crashed allied aircraft (esp. bombers) being lynched by German civilians, soldiers, policemen or paramilitaries in revenge for what Nazi propagandists termed "Allied terror bombing" (Alliierter Bombenterror). This was further promoted by Nazi officials through secret orders that prohibited policemen and soldiers from interfering in favor of the enemy in conflicts between civilians and allies forces, or prosecuting civilians who engaged in such acts.