| abstract | - Ferdinand Koenig (d. 1945) was Jake Featherston's second in command of the Freedom Party. As Attorney General of the Confederate States between 1934-1944, Koenig built up and headed a fearsome secret police apparatus designed to oversee the wholesale mass murder of blacks and in the brutal suppression of whites who opposed Freedom Party rule. Koenig was one of the first members of the Freedom Party, which organized after the C.S. lost the Great War, eventually attaining the office of Secretary. However, Koenig and other Party members soon turned their loyalty to Jake Featherston, another early member who demonstrated great charisma and aptitude for making speeches against the United States and Confederate blacks. When Featherston sought to remake the Party in his own image, Koenig backed Featherston's power play against Party founder and Chairman, Anthony Dresser by voting Dresser out of the Party. Later, in the years of harsh reparations imposed by the victorious U.S., Featherston's appeal grew in the C.S. Featherston repaid Koenig's loyalty by including him as Vice President on the Freedom Party ticket in 1921. The ticket came in third behind Whig Wade Hampton V and Radical Liberal Ainsworth Layne. Ironically, Hampton would subsequently be assassinated by Freedom Party member Grady Calkins. A second run in 1927 was also a failure; the U.S. had ended the reparations it had imposed after the Great War, and the population still viewed the Freedom Party with hatred for the death of Hampton. However, with the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing global economic depression, the C.S. was ready to listen to Featherston and the Freedom Party again. In 1933, Featherston chose to run with Willy Knight, a would-be rival. Koenig originally reacted with extreme anger, uttering foul threats and physically assaulting Featherston with his fists. However, Featherston eventually succeeded in assuring Koenig that the Vice President had no real power of his own, and that he had a more important position in mind for Koenig, though under the modest title of "Attorney General" (even though Koenig was not an attorney). In this position, Koenig became the de facto second-in-command of the Freedom Party and the Confederate States, as Knight was increasingly marginalized. Under Koenig's direction, the Confederate States Justice Department Freedomized the CSA, including abolishing the Supreme Court. He also gradually but continuously, implemented Featherston's plan for the extermination of the black race in North America, first establishing concentration camps, and then filling the camps with a constant stream of black prisoners. When camp commandant Jefferson Pinkard objected to the overflow, Koenig encouraged Pinkard's ideas for murdering large numbers of people. This systematic murder of Confederate blacks came to be known to history as the "Population Reductions." When Willy Knight failed in his attempt to murder Featherston, Koenig personally ordered the former VP imprisoned at Camp Dependable. He subsequently ordered Knight's death, which was carried out by Pinkard. Koenig supported Featherston's foreign policy efforts to force a war with the United States. Even as the initial success of Operation Blackbeard gave way to the failure of the Battle of Pittsburgh, Koenig remained completely loyal to Featherston. Before the Freedom Party attained power, Koenig had been physically strong and fit, reminding those who met him of a boxer. However, in a decade of office-bound work, spending all day in supervising the murder machine he headed and having little time for exercise, left Koenig overweight, wheezing whenever he had to walk any distance. After the fall of Richmond, Koenig fled with most senior Freedom Party officials by airplane, eventually crashing in Georgia where Jake Featherston was killed by black guerrilla Cassius. Koenig was quickly captured by US troops and put on trial for crimes against humanity. In the winter of 1945, along with Saul Goldman and Jefferson Pinkard, Koenig was executed by hanging by the United States government for his part in engineering the Population Reduction.
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