Trials

Introduction

  Nürnberg Trial

  Eichmann Trial

      Jankel Wiernik

      Eliahu Rosenberg

      Avraham Lindwasser

  Belzec Trial

  Sobibor Trial

  Treblinka Trial 

  Einsatzgruppen Trial

  Trawniki Staff  

  Interrogations 

  Malagon Interrogation

  Wied Interrogation

The Holocaust on Trial

This page will focus generally on the major trials, and serve as an introduction to more detailed trial coverage.  The first trial considered is that of former members of the SS staff of the Concentration Camp KZ Lublin/ Majdanek.

KZ Lublin was an integral part of Aktion Reinhard as the clothing, shoes and other possessions were transported from the three Aktion Reinhard camps to the camp at the Old Airfield in Lublin, which came under the jurisdiction of KZ Lublin / Majdanek. In November 1944 a number of the KZ Lublin / Majdanek staff including Anton Thermes, Wilhem Gerstenmeier, Hermann Vogel , Theodor Schollen and two German Kapos, were tried before a Special Penal Court in Lublin. They were found guilty and were executed beside the camp crematorium on 3 December 1947.

A number of KZ Lublin / Majdanek personnel were also tried in the second Auschwitz trial in Cracow, the first trial being that of Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss in March 1947. Höss was tried, found guilty, and executed in the Auschwitz camp, beside the building of the former Commandant’s office on 16 April 1947.

 In the second Auschwitz trial there were 40 accused, including some former members of the SS staff at KZ Lublin: Artur Leibehenschel, Erich Muhsfeldt , Alice Orlowski, and Hildegard Lachert. The other principals tried were Hans Aumeier, Maximillian Graebner, Karl Ernst Mockel, Marie Mandl, Dr Johann Kremer, Therese Brandl and Dr Hans Munch. After a three week trial the sentences were announced on 22 December 1947; twenty three of the accused were sentenced to death, six to life imprisonment, the rest to various terms of confinement. Hans Munch was the only defendant acquitted.

The major war crimes trial was that held in Nürnberg, between 20 November 1945 and 31 August 1946, when a number of leading Nazi figures were tried for (1) the common plan, or conspiracy, (2) crimes against peace, (3) war crimes, and (4) crimes against humanity.

The names of those who stood trial at Nuremberg and their sentences were :

Karl Dönitz                        Commander of the German Navy 1943-1945  - 10 years (Prison)   

Hans Frank                       Governor of the GeneralGouvernement (Poland) – Death by hanging

Whilhelm Frick                  Minister of the Interior – Death by hanging

Hans Fritzsche                  Head of the Radio Division of the Propaganda Ministry  - Acquitted

Walter Funk                      President of the Reichsbank  – Life imprisonment

Herman Göring                  Head of the Luftwaffe - Suicide

Rudolf Hess                         Hitler’s Deputy – Life imprisonment

Alfred Jodl                            Chief of the Operations staff of the German Army – Death by hanging

Wilhelm Keitel                      Chief of the OKW – Death by hanging

Ernst Kaltenbrunner              Security Police Chief and Head of the RSHA – Death by hanging

Constantin Von Neurath        Foreign Minister & Protector of Bohemia and Moravia – 15 years imprisonment

Franz Von Papen                 German Chancellor - Acquitted

Erich Raeder                          Commander of the Navy 1928-43 – Life imprisonment

Joachim Von Ribbentrop       Foreign Minister Death by hanging

Alfred Rosenberg                  Reich Minister for occupied territories in Russia – Death by hanging

Fritz Sauckel                         Head of Forced Labour programme  - Death by hanging

Hjalmar Schacht                   Minister of Economics 1934 –37 - Acquitted

Baldur Von Schirach            Leader of the Hitler Youth – 20 years imprisonment

Artur Seiss- Inquart               Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands  - Death by hanging

Albert Speer                          Minister of Armaments and War Production – 20 years imprisonment

Julius Streicher                     Publisher of Der Sturmer – Death by hanging

Herman Göring committed suicide in his cell.

Between 1947 and 1949 further trials were held at Nürnberg, covering the WVHA, IG Farben, Einsatzgruppen Doctors and others.  The principal war criminals executed were Paul Blobel (Einsatzgruppen), Rudolf Brandt (Himmler’s adjutant), Erich Nauman, and Otto Ohlendorf ( both Einsatzgruppen) and Oswald Pohl (Head of WVHA).

Various trials were held in the 1950’s for lesser known functionaries, but following his capture and abduction to Israel from Argentina, the trial of Adolf Eichmann was a major event. He was condemned to death in December 1961, following his trial in Jerusalem and was executed on 31 May 1962.

In terms of Aktion Reinhard, the systematic murder of Polish Jewry, the wheels of justice turned very slowly indeed. Some individuals were tried, such as Sepp Hirtreiter from Treblinka, who on the 3 March 1951 was found guilty of war crimes, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Erich Bauer and Hubert Gomerski from the death camp at Sobibor were both tried and found guilty in 1950; both were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Nine former guards at the Belzec death camp were brought to trial in München in 1963; eight were acquitted, and one, Josef Oberhauser, was found guilty and sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment.

The next Aktion Reinhard trial was held in Dusseldorf in 1964/65. Those charged were personnel who had served in the Treblinka death camp. Fritz Kuttner died before the trial commenced but other former camp guards took the stand, and were given various sentences, from life to a few years in prison. Kurt Franz, Artur Matthes, Willy Mentz, August Miete, received life imprisonment , whilst Otto Horn was released.

In September 1965 the Sobibor death camp trial started in Hagen. Twelve former members of the camp garrison  stood trial. Karl Frenzel received life imprisonment, four others were given custodial sentences, six were acquitted, and Kurt Bolender committed suicide in his prison cell.

In 1965 there was another trial of Auschwitz personnel held in Frankfurt/Maine. Twenty former camp staff, including Willhem Boger, Robert Mulka, Perry Broad, Franz Hofman, Oswald Kaduk, Josef Klehr, Dr Victor Capesius, Stefan Baretzki and others appeared before the court. Baretzki, Boger, Hofmann, Kaduk and Klehr received life sentences, whilst the others were sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment.

Returning to Aktion Reinhard , the only living death camp commander, Franz Paul Stangl , was arrested in Brazil on 28 February 1967, and extradited to the then West Germany.

The Second Treblinka trial commenced on 13 May 1967 in Dusseldorf  and on 22 July 1970 Stangl was sentenced to life imprisonment for the co-responsibility in the murder of 900,000 people during the time he was Commandant of the Treblinka death camp. Stangl died in Dusseldorf prison on 28 June 1971 whilst awaiting the outcome of his appeal against the sentence. The trial against Ernst Lerch in 1972, Globocnik’s adjutant whilst Globocnik was SSPF Lublin, demonstrated that trials some thirty years after the event were fraught with danger; the proceedings were abandoned.

The last major Holocaust related trial was that between the State of Israel and John Demanjuk in 1987. Demanjuk was accused of being “Ivan the Terrible”, the gas chamber operative at the Treblinka death camp. He was found guilty on 18 April 1988, and was sentenced to death on 25 April 1988. Following a successful appeal he was released, as the death camp guard at Treblinka, was one Ivan Marchenko. However, it should be duly noted that there was conclusive proof that Demanjuk had been a guard in the Sobibor death camp.

Sources:

Alexander Donat . The Death Camp Treblinka.  Holocaust Library New York 1979.

Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution, South Brunswick, New York, Thomas Yoseloff 1961

Bernd Naumann , Auschwitz , Pall Mall Press, London,1966

Interpress , Auschwitz, Interpress Publishers Warsaw 1985

Jozef Marszalek, Majdanek, Interpress Warsaw 1986

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