Białystok trials

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The Białystok trials are several Nazi trials that were conducted in the Federal Republic of Germany from the 1950s to the 1970s against people who, predominantly as members of the police in the Białystok district and elsewhere, had been involved in violent National Socialist crimes (NSG). In scientific discourse, they are counted among the so-called NSG processes .

The proceedings before the district courts of Bielefeld and Wuppertal are considered to be Białystok trials in the narrower sense; in the broader sense, there are a number of other criminal proceedings in other German cities.

The materials collected for the process were initially neglected as historical sources. It was not until the beginning of the 21st century, when criminal proceedings, especially in the 1960s, themselves became the subject of historical research, that their value was recognized.

The murder of the Jewish population of Białystok

Around 240,000 Jews lived in the Białystok District in 1939. At the beginning of the German-Soviet War, the city ​​of Białystok had over 100,000 inhabitants, more than half of them were Jews. This made Białystok the major city in Eastern Europe with the highest proportion of Jewish residents and an important center of Jewish life. After the German invasion of Poland , Białystok was briefly occupied by the Wehrmacht on September 19, 1939 , but handed over to the Red Army a week later . During the following 21 months, the city's Jewish population continued to grow, as numerous Jews fled the Generalgouvernement to the east from the German persecution .

With Operation Barbarossa , the German Wehrmacht began the war of aggression against the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 . A few days later, on the morning of June 27, 1941, the town of Białystok was occupied by units of the order police . The systematic murder of the Jewish population began immediately, initially through shootings. The acts were committed by members of the Einsatzkommandos 8 and 9 of Einsatzgruppe B of the Security Police and SD , the Police Battalions 309 , 316 and 322 , by units of the Security Police and the Security Service , and by the Wehrmacht.

On the afternoon of June 27, 1941, hundreds of Jews were herded into the Great Synagogue in Białystok , the exits blocked and the building set on fire. Hundreds were burned alive, and a large number of other Jews were shot. Between July and September 1941, at least 31,000 Jews from the Białystok District were murdered. The survivors were crammed into ghettos , including the Bialystok Ghetto , which was established on August 1, 1941 , and had to do forced labor in several industrial companies located there .

In February 1943 10.000 inhabitants of the ghetto into the Białystok were about Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka extermination camp deported , almost all were murdered. More than 1000 residents of the ghetto were shot in Białystok. Because of the industrial production of the ghetto, the commanders of the security police and SD in the Białystok district , Wilhelm Altenloh and his successor Herbert Zimmermann, initially campaigned for the ghetto to continue to exist. Under the influence of the SS and police leader of the Lublin district and head of Aktion Reinhardt , Odilo Globocnik , Zimmermann changed his mind. In August and September 1943 the ghetto was “cleared” and its residents were deported to various extermination and labor camps.

During the entire period of the German occupation, numerous other homicidal crimes occurred in the Białystok district, each of which killed individual or few Jews, alleged partisans or prisoners of war up to several thousand Jews.

Bielefeld Białystok Trial

First criminal proceedings against Herbert Zimmermann

Herbert Zimmermann was the commander of the Security Police and the SD (KdS) in the Białystok district from June 1943 until the withdrawal from the Red Army in July 1944 . In this capacity he was deputy chief of Einsatzgruppe B and as a commander in numerous murders of Jews and other victims of Nazi violent crimes.

Murder of the commander of the Freiburg police force

From November 1944 he was in command of the Security Police and SD Metz , and from April 1945 his office was in St. Peter (Upper Black Forest) near Freiburg im Breisgau . Zimmermann was responsible for the shooting of the commander of the Freiburg im Breisgau police force, who refused to help build a local werewolf organization and was executed on April 24, 1945 in the Mischenrieder forest near Starnberg . As early as 1954, Zimmermann and three members of the Freiburg im Breisgau security police were tried before the Munich II district court for this final phase crime. All of the defendants were acquitted on July 7, 1954 for lack of evidence. The knowledge of Zimmermann's activities in occupied Poland obtained in the course of these proceedings was not used by the Munich public prosecutor.

The murder of more than 100 prisoners in Białystok prison

A testimony during the Ulm Einsatzgruppen trial that a member of the KdS had one hundred prisoners shot in the Białystok prison without a court martial before retreating from the Red Army led to the initiation of an investigation against Zimmermann for murder. According to witness statements, a group of prisoners were loaded onto a truck in the courtyard of the Białystok prison in mid-1944 and shot down with a machine gun by a member of the security police three kilometers from the outskirts. On May 2, 1958, the Bielefeld public prosecutor's office applied for a preliminary judicial investigation, which was opened the following day. The accusation against Zimmermann was "in conscious and willful cooperation with the National Socialist rulers for low motives, insidious, cruel and with dangerous means to have ordered or tolerated the mass shooting of over 100 people held in prison, although he was obliged to prevent this" . The public prosecutor used the following months for further investigations, in particular to search for possible witnesses to the crime.

On April 3, 1959, the public prosecutor applied for an arrest warrant against Zimmermann, the issue of which was refused by the responsible criminal chamber of the Bielefeld Regional Court . After a complaint of prosecutors, the Criminal Division of the Higher Regional Court of Hamm upheld on 17 April 1959, Zimmermann was in custody taken. The indictment was brought on August 14, 1959. In the indictment, Zimmermann was accused of "deliberately killing about 100 people together with other perpetrators" on July 15, 1944. The attorney general in Hamm was of the opinion that the murder criterion of cruelty was also fulfilled. In addition, he viewed Zimmermann as the commanding perpetrator, and not just as a participant in the act. However, he decided not to change the indictment, as these aspects could be clarified in the main hearing. The prosecution assumed that the murdered were Jews, but did not classify the security police in the context of the murder of the Białystok Jews. The protective claim of numerous accused, which has meanwhile been refuted by historical research, that the main task of the security police was the fight against resistance and partisans, was not questioned.

On October 2, 1959, the IV. Criminal Chamber of the Bielefeld Regional Court decided to open the main proceedings. The first day of the trial was November 16. For the four days of the trial, neither the minutes of the testimony of witnesses and the accused, nor the pleadings of the public prosecutor's office and defense were handed down. Therefore, the course of the proceedings can only be reconstructed from press reports. The witness, whose testimony had started the preliminary investigation, died the previous year, another important witness could not travel from Poland. While the prosecution pleaded for ten years in prison and five years of loss of civil rights for manslaughter , the defense demanded acquittal . The verdict was announced on November 25, 1959, and the accused Zimmermann was acquitted.

The public prosecutor's office had not been able to prove that only Zimmermann could be considered as the person in charge of the shooting. The criminal chamber was convinced that at least 25 prisoners had actually been shot. This shooting could only have been ordered by Zimmermann had he been present. However, it could not be established with certainty that he was still in Białystok at the time of the crime. The evidence was made much more difficult by the fact that witness statements could almost exclusively be used in the proceedings. The only witness who was a prisoner in Białystok prison at the time of the crime was viewed as implausible. In the grounds of the verdict, she was referred to as "half-Jewish". Inconsistencies in her statement were not attributed to her traumatic experiences under the German occupation, but explained with her "roots in Judaism" and her "sympathy for the Poles".

Even during the main hearing against Zimmermann, the Bielefeld public prosecutor's office and the Central Office of the State Judicial Administrations, which was only founded last year, initiated new investigations into murder and other crimes based on information from Poland, which were also directed against other members of the security police in the Białystok district and culminated in the Bielefeld Białystok Trial from 1966 to 1967.

Actual Bielefeld Białystok Trial

Allegations

The Bielefeld Białystok Trial was referred to as the “Zimmermann Trial” in contemporary media coverage. Herbert Zimmermann was charged with having given "knowingly help in a large number of cases of insidious, cruel or low-motivation killing of people since his arrival in Białystok in June 1943". He organized the forcible "evacuation" of the Białystok ghetto . He had sick Jews killed on the spot, those unable to work were given " special treatment ". At least 15,000 of these were killed by gas in the Treblinka extermination camp . Knowing about the fatal consequences, he had several hundred Jewish children from Białystok deported to Theresienstadt and thus contributed to their killing.

The trial is one of only about 20 trials that have been carried out in the Federal Republic and the GDR because of the deportations of the Jewish population.

Investigation and prosecution

The Central Office of the State Judicial Administration in Ludwigsburg has been investigating violent National Socialist crimes in the Białystok district since 1960. The public prosecutor's offices in Bielefeld, Hagen and Cologne were asked to investigate the later accused and almost 30 other suspects. Since all the acts were related to the activities of the commander of the security police and the SD (KdS) in the Białystok district, the Central Office repeatedly suggested that the investigative proceedings be connected against the opposition of the Cologne public prosecutor's office. In April 1961, the general public prosecutor's office in Hamm summarized the investigative proceedings because of their factual context and transferred them to the public prosecutor's office in Bielefeld.

On August 17, 1961, Herbert Zimmermann was issued an arrest warrant on the basis of the new allegations, and he was arrested again on August 25. At that time, Zimmermann had known about the new investigation for months due to a publication in the GDR magazine Tabu . Because of a heart disease that had to be treated as an inpatient, Zimmermann was initially released from prison in June 1963 .

On September 25, 1961, the Ministry of Justice of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia transferred all investigations into Białystok to the Dortmund Central Office in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia for the processing of National Socialist mass crimes . Until 1964, this central office processed almost 200 investigations against members of the KdS Białystok, of which more than 100 were closed for various reasons.

On 15 December 1964, the Central Office appealed to the district court Bielefeld charges against Herbert Zimmermann, at the material time Commander of the Security Police and Security Service (KdS) in the district of Bialystok, his predecessor William Altenloh , and members of the security police Richard Dibus, Heinz Errelis, Hermann Bloch and Lothar Heimbach . The defendants were charged with complicity in the murder of at least 16,000 people because of the deportation of Jews from the Białystok district to the Auschwitz , Treblinka and Majdanek concentration and extermination camps in 1943 . The defendants Errelis, Bloch and Dibius were charged with several acts of excess of murder. Herbert Zimmermann committed just before his arrest on December 31, 1965 suicide two days after the district court Bielefeld an arrest warrant was issued. Hermann Bloch also evaded the process by suicide.

Main hearing

The main hearing with the remaining four defendants took place from March 23, 1966 until the verdict was pronounced on April 14, 1967. The dimension of the proceedings is revealed by a comparison with the first Frankfurt Auschwitz trial from 1963 to 1965. While 356 witnesses and eight experts were heard on 134 trial days in Frankfurt within a year and a half, in Bielefeld there were 194 witnesses on 101 trial days within about a year and five appraisers or experts.

During the trial, numerous witnesses were heard who had survived the Nazi persecution as victims of persecution or who were involved in the German occupation of Poland as members of German units and offices . The witnesses also included Werner Best , SS-Obergruppenführer , NSDAP politician and, until the end of 1940, Head of Office I (Organization, Administration and Law) of the Reich Security Main Office , who had proposed the establishment of the Einsatzgruppen . Another high-ranking witness was Friedrich Brix , from January 1942 "permanent representative" of the Gauleiter of Białystok, Erich Koch , deputy head of the civil administration and at the time of the trial, the social judge in Lüneburg.

All the defendants were charged with aid sentenced to several years of hard labor for murder in tens of thousands of cases: William Altenloh eight years Richard Dibus five years, Heinz Errelis six and a half years and Lothar Heimbach nine years (Az 5 Ks 165th). The offenses contained in the indictment could not be proven to the defendants, so they were acquitted on these points. The judgments were upheld in the appeal before the Federal Court of Justice and became final on February 5, 1970.

reception

Shortly before the main hearing in the Bielefeld Białystok trial, the second Auschwitz trial came to an end. The Auschwitz trials were followed with great attention by the public because of the presence of numerous national newspapers in Frankfurt. In contrast, the Bielefeld Białystok Trial was barely noticed locally and not at all nationwide.

It looked different in the GDR. The demand that Herbert Zimmermann be brought to account for his crimes had been raised by the editors of the East German magazine Tabu against the Bielefeld public prosecutor's office. On January 27, 1960, the editor-in-chief of the magazine announced in a letter to the public prosecutor's office that an article by Polish publicist Aleksander Omiljanowicz about Zimmermann's crimes would appear in the April issue . He himself and his editorial team agreed to support any German court that was willing to prosecute Zimmermann again.

The process in contemporary history research

The trial was largely forgotten after its conclusion, and the files were inaccessible for decades due to lock-up periods . Beate and Serge Klarsfeld wanted to publish some of the Bielefeld trial files at an early stage in order to draw attention to the value of court files for research into the Shoah . In the mid-1980s, the Klarsfelds were able to publish a small part of the total of 270 volumes. This sub-collection deals almost exclusively with Nazi violent crimes in the city ​​of Grodno in the Białystok district . The publication was only possible with the support of the entrepreneur Felix Zandman , who was hidden by Poland for two years after the evacuation of the Grodno ghetto and who testified as a witness in the Bielefeld trial.

The first processing of the Bielefeld Białystok Trial by a historian was a master's thesis from 1995, the author of which examined selected testimonies from the proceedings for their use in Holocaust research. In 1999 the historian Christian Gerlach used files from the trial for his dissertation, The German Economic and Annihilation Policy in Belarus 1941–1944 .

In 2003 the Bielefelder Verlag für Regionalgeschichte published an anthology in which several authors detailed the National Socialist violent crimes in the Białystok district and the Bielefeld Białystok trial. The volume also includes a CD-ROM with historical pictures of the city of Białystok and the persecution of the Jews, as well as a series of tape recordings from the trial.

The Frankfurt criminal lawyer and legal philosopher Lorenz Schulz took the view in his contribution that the Bielefeld Białystok Trial is suitable as an example of the “constructive achievements” of criminal law attribution because of the low public attention it received. There is an internal connection between collective memory in a democracy and the criminal law determination of individual responsibility.

Wuppertal Białystok Trial

The Wuppertal process had peculiarities in several respects. It negotiated the first major murder operation carried out by a police unit during the Second World War . At the same time, it exposed the involvement and perpetration of supporting auxiliary troops in violent National Socialist crimes apart from the primarily involved "special units" of the SS or SD, at the same time a very high and ultimately extremely successful effort was made to investigate these crimes and punish them judicially.

Just five days after the start of the campaign of conquest and extermination against the Soviet Union, the first crimes were committed by the Cologne Police Battalion 309 on June 27, 1941 . Organizationally, they took place completely independently of the simultaneous actions of the SD and since an “ order from above ” could not be proven, it was very likely that they were on their own initiative and with the tolerance of the armed forces superiors. Around 2000 people died in these crimes.

In the Wuppertal Białystok trial, 14 defendants stood before the court from October 1967 to March 1968, all of whom had belonged to Police Battalion 309 during the German occupation of Białystok, which had been formed from Police Training Battalion A / Cologne and predominantly made up of police officers existed around the age of 32. It was part of the 2nd Security Regiment under the command of Colonel Martin Ronicke.

Crime events

The events of the crime can be reconstructed very precisely through the extensive investigative work, the trial material and the statements of around 200 witnesses (including mostly former members of the battalion, but also surviving Jews).

Before the occupation of the city, the battalion's company commanders had been informed of the objectives of the operation by their battalion commander, Major of the Schutzpolizei Ernst Weis, by issuing the order of the day from Lieutenant General Johann Pflugbeil . Pflugbeil was the commander of the 221st Security Division , to which the regiment and its battalions were subordinate.

During the reading of the order of the day, which also contained the commissar's order and the Fuehrer's decree at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa , the company commander of the 3rd Company, Lieutenant Rolf-Joachim Buchs, only read out the plain text of the order. The chief of the 1st company, Captain Hans Behrens, added his own interpretation to the order. His soldiers should be prepared to kill all Jews regardless of age or gender in the fight against Bolshevism and Judaism . If they came to Bialystok, they would kill all the Jews there.

On June 27, 1941, Białystok was occupied by the 1st and 3rd companies of the battalion almost without a fight. According to the division order, the battalion had the task of " clearing the city of Białystok from Russian troops and anti-German populations" . As soon as they entered the city on the first day, there were the first brutal attacks and acts of violence. For example, a member of the battalion drove a man of military age at gunpoint and shot him in the presence of his wife. According to statements by members of the battalion, the perpetrator was Wilhelm Schaffrath. On the morning of the same day, the fourth platoon of the 1st company of the battalion received the order to search the town for dispersed Red Army soldiers. Four soldiers were captured during the search. They were killed by Friedrich Rondholz, who happened to join them, by shooting them in the neck in rapid succession .

The Białystok Great Synagogue , the scene of the mass murder of June 27, 1941.

In the late morning, battalion commander Weis ordered the Jewish quarter around the main synagogue to be searched and all men capable of military service to be arrested. The company commanders Behrens (1st Company) and Buchs (3rd Company), for their part, now ordered raids and searches in the parts of the city center inhabited by Jews. The raids were mainly carried out by the 3rd Company under Buchs, and the synagogue forecourt was designated as the gathering point for the rounded up Jews.

The procedure was determined by extreme brutality. Orthodox Jews were kicked and rifled butt out of their homes. Some had their beards lit or cut off, others were forced to dance or shout “I am Jesus Christ” with outspread arms . Delays in opening apartment or room doors immediately led to the use of hand grenades to blow them open. Heinrich Schneider , platoon leader of the 4th platoon of 3rd Company, attracted attention because of his particular brutality. His extreme racial fanaticism was well known among his comrades. During the raids, numerous Jews, including children, were shot in their homes or on the street by platoon leader Lieutenant Heinrich Schneider himself and by members of his platoon with arbitrary volleys of guns, but also with targeted shots in the neck. His company commander Buchs was, according to the later findings, fully informed about the procedure, but did not prevent it, despite his authority.

The commander of the 1st Company, Captain Behrens, was no less brutal. As a devout National Socialist and a " warrior" officer, who was called " Papa Behrens" by his subordinates , he randomly selected Jews from the crowd on the synagogue forecourt, whom he had shot off the square, on the outskirts and in the park of the government building. At that time, however, the staff of Security Division 221 was quartered in the government building, whereupon Lieutenant General Pflugbeil promptly complained to Captain Behrens about the shootings. The reason for the complaint was by no means the fact of the executions themselves, but the "disturbing" proximity to the division headquarters.

The atrocities accumulated into a gruesome climax that afternoon. On the same day at least 500 to 700 Jews, including women and children, were herded into the Great Synagogue of Białystok and locked up by members of Police Battalion 309 . Heinrich Schneider arranged for the synagogue, into which petrol cans and barrels had previously been brought, to be set on fire with hand grenades and tracer ammunition. The numerous people present - perpetrators, assistants, collaborators and spectators - initially heard a chorale-like chant from inside the synagogue, which turned into a polyphonic shouting for help. People who tried to escape from the synagogue were shot dead by machine gunmen from the police battalion. Others who tried to escape from windows on the upper floors by shooting with pistols and rifles.

Lieutenant Buchs, who was present all the time, did not stop the fire until there was no longer any sign of life. Following the murder, the battalion commander and his adjutant inspected the scene. The corpses from the synagogue, which were still recognizable as such, as well as other dead from the surrounding Jewish quarter were now recovered by members of the battalion and buried in mass graves . The staff of Security Division 221 tried to determine the cause of the fire, but since the battalion officers covered each other, their comrades and their subordinates, these investigations were officially inconclusive. Major Weis stated in a combat report that an anti-tank cannon had set the synagogue on fire. Among other things, Behrens, Buchs and Schneider received the Iron Cross 2nd Class for their "service" in the occupation of Białystok on July 11, 1941 by Lieutenant General Pflugbeil.

The actions of the police battalion received high praise. In a battalion order from July 18, 1941 , Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski , senior SS and Police Leader Russia-Center and “ Himmler's man for all cases” , expressly congratulated battalion commander Weis for the bravery of the excellent members of Battalion 309 and professed himself to be proud “ that these brave officers and men belong to the German police” .

In the period from September 17 to October 3, 1941, the 3rd Company of Police Battalion 309 was stationed in Dobryanka . During this time there was an operation in which a village in the region was searched. After Wilhelm Schaffrath faked ammunition found on the instructions of Hans Schneider, at least 25 male Jews, including a 14-year-old boy, were shot.

Investigations

The first investigations into Police Battalion 309 began as early as the end of 1959. The Central Office of the Judicial Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg, founded in December 1958, played a key role in the investigation of National Socialist acts of injustice and was very successful in investigating Nazi perpetrators who, due to the impunity laws of 1949 and 1954 in the Federal Republic of Germany and the As far as possible, the Allied clean-up measures were no longer exposed to persecution. Since the extremely successful Central Office - 400 preliminary investigations were initiated in the first year - was not a prosecution, it forwarded its investigation results to the responsible public prosecutor's offices at the place of residence of the accused.

The police battalion 309 came into focus as part of the investigation against Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski. At first it was suspected that the 322 Police Battalion was responsible for the events in Białystok, which were only vaguely apparent. The investigation into Police Battalion 322 finally revealed the evidence that Police Battalion 309 was involved. Around 30 former members of Police Battalion 322 were questioned as witnesses and accused, including a police chief security officer from Wuppertal whose detailed interrogation in November 1959 gave the first evidence of Battalion 309. He also mentioned a related "Police Major Weis" without being able to name his exact troop membership. However, this statement was sufficient for the Central Office to locate the retired former battalion commander living in Mönchen-Gladbach at the beginning of 1960. In an initial questioning, Weis admitted with his battalion that he had been stationed with his unit in Białystok on June 27, 1941, but he could not remember any raids or a synagogue fire. He only heard " rumors " about the shooting of Jews, but these were carried out by SD and the 322 Police Battalion.

Despite this false statement, the central office was able to draft an interim report in April 1960, which already sketched a fairly accurate picture of the events. The sole responsibility of Police Battalion 309 was also certain for the investigators. All battalion members could be considered as perpetrators, but in the spring of 1960 only eleven people were identified as such - including Buchs and Schneider. It was initially unclear whether the deeds were carried out on orders from a higher authority or on their own initiative. Therefore, initially “only” the offense “ aiding and abetting murder ” was determined, but further investigations aimed at proving the offense “ murder ”. The central office came under great pressure of time, since aid offenses, " bodily harm resulting in death " and " manslaughter " would have been statute barred on May 8, 1960 according to the applicable laws. All correspondence from the Central Office on this matter was marked with the express note “It's very urgent! Limitation threatens on May 8, 1960 ” .

Concerned by the investigation, Weis contacted his former company commander Buchs and Heinrich Schneider to coordinate further statements. At that time, Buch was chief inspector and teacher at the " Erich Klausener " state police school in Düsseldorf, Schneider worked as a manager in the Wuppertal textile company Villbrandt & Zehnder AG . The contact to Schneider was made through a postcard greeting in which Weis wrote, among other things: “ It is about a time 19 years ago. When and where do we meet, with me, with you or maybe in Düsseldorf? We mustn't wait too long ”.

The findings of the Central Office on Weis and other members of the battalion were so extensive that a public prosecutor's investigation could be opened before the statute of limitations expired, which now interrupted them. The further investigations were carried out on behalf of public prosecutor Schaplow by the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia (LKA) in Düsseldorf, as most of the accused had their residence here. The lead judicial authority was now the central office in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for the processing of criminal proceedings due to National Socialist mass crimes . Schaplow was supported by the LKA officer Kriminalhauptmeister Ernst Woywod from Dortmund. Together as a well-rehearsed team, both achieved very effective results during the interrogation of the 100 suspects.

Resistance to the investigation from the ranks of the police

While large parts of the population were already showing a defensive reaction against the legal processing of the National Socialist crimes in the sense of a final line debate, the resistance among the police to investigations against former or active colleagues was again considerably greater. The investigations of Schaplow and Woywod were partially sabotaged by police circles and only what was absolutely necessary was done to support them. A climate of hostility met them. They hardly expected collegial benevolence and little courtesy, but instead an extremely unfriendly treatment from police circles. Woywod had to be held up against, among other things, by his own Dortmund colleagues " Here are the persecutors of Christians" .

Schaplow and Woywod suspected that remaining personnel files for Police Battalion 309 were still in the archive of the Cologne Police Headquarters. This assumption also corresponded to the facts, but the police leadership in Cologne withheld these files and so the two investigators were forced to identify the names and addresses of other former battalion members through questioning and research in telephone books.

It also revealed that one of the main activists against the two investigators in the ranks of the Cologne Police Headquarters had served in 1st Company of Battalion 309 and was also present at the synagogue fire. Other senior police officers took part in the delegimitation of the investigation, so that Shapov considered filing a complaint with the police chief.

Since the two received hardly any further support, either personally or in terms of material, the investigations could not be concluded until the spring of 1967. Not surprisingly, the investigators found clear indications of collusion among the suspects, who all had enough time to coordinate their statements. At that time, however, there was no direct evidence of central coordination of the statements or targeted advice. The current state of research shows, however, that a network of "comrade aid" existed among the former members of the regulatory police and can also name its activities and key actors, including the retired Essen police major Willy Papenkort .

This informal group of former police officers was founded in 1964 to advise colleagues who were questioned as witnesses or accused in NSG proceedings and to develop appropriate exonerating and defense strategies in view of the mostly poor evidence. In the course of the investigation, these strategies became increasingly noticeable in the interrogations, and the proceedings against Papenkort due to illegal legal advice in the spring of 1967, which among other things had also been advising Heinrich Schneider since the spring of 1964, was unable to resolve these structures.

Investigations against Heinrich Schneider

Schneider was questioned 16 times from January 1963 to 1967. In the course of the interrogations, Schneider first tried to downplay and relativize his contribution to the crime, to portray himself as a mere recipient of orders. At the beginning he confessed to having both attended and held training courses on the subject of “ Judaism and Bolshevism ” in Radom . He referred to the “ Guidelines for the Treatment of Political Commissaires and Civilians” published at the beginning of the war , which for him undoubtedly also defined Jews as opponents of the war. Although there were no fundamental written instructions for extermination measures against the local population and especially against Jews, the troops had been pushed in this direction. He stated that his only major fault was that he had only been an inactive bystander during the synagogue fire. Quite quickly, these statements turned out to be protective claims, the "admission" of his passivity as a brazen lie.

Apparently under great psychological pressure, the defense strategy broke quickly despite the background advice from Papenkort. When asked how Schneider could continue to act unimpaired in the face of the shootings and the pleadings of women and children, Schneider, torn between self-pity and a lack of conscience, replied that due to his ideological orientation there was no room for " such emotions ". The suspicion of intentional murder for racist motives quickly solidified and Schneider was taken into custody in May 1963. He stayed there until the beginning of 1966.

Investigations against Rolf-Joachim Buchs

Schneider's former company commander Rolf-Joachim Buchs proved to be incomparably more resilient during the interrogations. As a result of the “131” law passed in 1951, he was back in the police force as chief inspector, hundred commander in the Wuppertal riot police and specialist teacher at the state police school in Düsseldorf. An upcoming promotion to the Police Council was barely prevented by the investigation at the end of 1962, but the suspension of service did not take place until March 1966. He too initially defended himself with the strategy of informing his subordinates in relation to the upcoming “ fight against Bolshevism and internationalism Judaism ”had taken place on higher instructions. Orders to “ shoot on the spot ” civilians and especially Jews were not given.

Buchs tried to refute the allegations and to relativize his personal responsibility as a commander by misleading times and sequences of action. He stated that he had only arrived in Białystok on the afternoon of June 27, 1941; at a time when the synagogue fire had already taken place. Confronted with the statements of other accused, this construction of lies gradually crumbled and Buchs was forced to make corrections to his statements. The seven interrogations revealed the following facts: Buchs was fully involved in the murders, but without having initiated them directly. But he did nothing to prevent the crimes of Schneider and others and afterwards showed no interest in clarifying the crimes and prosecuting the perpetrators.

Schaplow and Woywod came to the impression that Buchs was less influenced by racist or ideological motives than by the need to be noticed neither by superiors nor by subordinates or to show some kind of weakness. Nevertheless, for them the fundamental agreement of Buch with the ideological objectives of the war of annihilation was not in doubt. Remorse or awareness of injustice could not be recognized. For them, Buchs, although fundamentally approving of the Nazi ideology, in contrast to Schneider, was not an ideologically fanatical perpetrator of conviction who abused his abundance of power, but a careerist and opportunist who strove to gain recognition from his subordinates and superiors. His contribution to the escalation of murder and violence lay, in particular, in allowing his subordinates to do their thing - an assessment that was clearly incorporated into the two following judgments and their justifications.

accusation

After the preliminary investigations had been completed, the head of the Dortmund central office in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for the processing of National Socialist mass crimes against Rolf-Joachim Buchs, Hans Behrens and two other former battalion members issued an application for an arrest warrant, which Buchs only carried out five months later has been. Buchs was released in early 1966, as was Heinrich Schneider, who had been in custody since May 1963. At the same time, the investigation files were handed over to the responsible examining magistrate, including the interrogation protocols and 225 photographs from Białystok and the members of the police battalion 309 that were relevant to evidence. Some of the pictures also showed the burning synagogue. In April 1967 the Central Office reduced the number of suspects from 23 to 14 and recommended that the indictment be brought. The investigations into another 162 former battalion members were concluded without charge, including the one against battalion commander Ernst Weis, who had died in 1964.

The indictment consisted of 168 pages and was directed against the 14 accused. All of the accused were former members of Police Battalion 309 , including the three company commanders Hans Behrens, Johann Höhl and Rolf-Joachim Buchs. Several of the accused were back in active police service, some in higher positions; Others worked outside the police force or lived as pensioners. In addition to the curriculum vitae, it included an overview of the evidence and a list of names of all 200 witnesses heard - mostly battalion members, but also surviving Jewish residents of Białystok. A report by the expert Professor Hans Buchheim , who also worked in this capacity at the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial , supplemented the document.

The charges included murder , aiding and abetting murder, and particularly serious arson , although not all defendants were charged with involvement in all of the individual acts:

  • Murder of a civilian while marching into Białystok on June 27, 1941: Wilhelm Schaffrath;
  • Murder of four Soviet prisoners on the day of the occupation of Białystok: Friedrich Rondholz;
  • Murder of a Jewish man while searching downtown Białystok: Heinrich Schneider; Aid to this: Sergeant Rudolf Hermann Ihrig;
  • Murder of three old Jewish men during this search: Heinrich Schneider;
  • Another Jewish man was murdered during this search: Heinrich Schneider;
  • Murder of at least 10 people while rounding up the Jews on June 27, 1941: Wilhelm Schaffrath;
  • Murder of at least 13 men while rounding up the Jews on June 27, 1941: Hans Behrens, Friedrich Rondholz;
  • Attempt to murder a Jewish man near the synagogue in Białystok on June 27, 1941: Friedrich Rondholz;
  • Murder of a large number of Jews that can no longer be determined by shooting in the government park of Białystok, on the afternoon of June 27, 1941: Hans Behrens;
  • Murder of 150 to 200 Jews by shooting in a gravel pit on the outskirts of Białystok, on the afternoon of June 27, 1941: Hans Behrens;
  • Murder of at least 700 people in unity with particularly serious arson, when the Great Synagogue of Białystok burned down on June 27, 1941: Rolf-Joachim Buchs, Konrad Eberhard, Friedrich Fuchs, Josef Herweg, Rudolf Hermann Ihrig, Wilhelm Leinemann, Wilhelm P. , Karl Schütte and Wilhelm T .;
  • Murder of at least 25 people in a village in the Dobryanka region in July or August 1941: Karl M., Wilhelm Schaffrath, Heinrich Schneider.

First main hearing

Due to the large number of defendants and their defense counsel, the trial did not take place in the jury court room of the responsible regional court in Wuppertal , but in the former ballroom (room 300) of the Wuppertal police headquarters . As the former topography of terror, the provisional court location was not free from previous pollution - the building, which was opened for use in 1939, was the regional headquarters of all Nazi prosecution authorities until 1945.

The trial began on October 10, 1967 under the chairmanship of District Court Director Dr. Norbert Simgen and lasted 41 days of negotiation between October 1967 and March 1968. On the first day of the hearing, the proceedings against Hans Behrens were separated because they were unable to be questioned and tried; it was later discontinued. The start of the process was accompanied by intensive media across the region from the start. Three local daily newspapers reported with remarkable commitment and detail on each day of the trial. The supraregional media interest quickly shifted to the trial against the sadistic child killer Jürgen Bartsch, which was also taking place at the Wuppertal district court .

Heinrich Schneider was arrested again on the second day of the trial because of an incriminating testimony from a former comrade in the courtroom and hanged himself a few days later on October 14, 1967 in his cell in the remand prison. In addition to Schneider, several other parties involved in the process, both witnesses and defendants, were arrested in the courtroom.

The testimony of six Jewish survivors from Białystok made a special impression. Some of them had come from Israel and their personal descriptions reinforced the impression of the descriptions of the facts already made many times over.

The first main hearing before the regional court ended on March 12, 1968 with the convictions of Rolf-Joachim Buchs, Wilhelm Schaffrath and Friedrich Rondholz to life imprisonment , Rondholz also received a sentence of four years imprisonment, to which the served custody was credited (Az . 12 Ks 167). The reasons for the verdict lasted three hours and made a lasting impression on many observers.

For six of the defendants, the verdict found that they were guilty of complicity in murder with particularly serious arson because of the murders committed when the Great Synagogue in Białystok was burned down. A penalty was waived according to Section 47 of the Military Criminal Code applicable to the German Reich at the time of the offense :

"Military
Criminal Code , Section 47 I. If a criminal law is violated by the execution of an order in official matters, the superior who issued the order is solely responsible for this. However, the participant's subordinate will be punished
1. if he has exceeded the order given, or
2. if he knew that the order of the superior concerned an act which was intended to be a general or military crime or misdemeanor.
II. If the guilt of the subordinate is minor, his punishment can be waived . "

- Military Criminal Code and Special War Criminal Law Ordinance. Explained by Erich Schwinge . 6th edition, Berlin Junker and Dünnhaupt Verlag, 1944, p. 100.

In an article in the daily newspaper Die Welt , Chairman Simgen explained his reasons for the impunity:

« The difficulties in finding justice should not prevent us from doing everything we can to bring those who are really guilty to justice. Their unenviable task would be made much easier for the courts if they could concentrate on this. It would be an act of not only grace to let the little ones go, but wisdom and relative justice as well. If more or less reluctant fellow travelers were to be relieved of their fear of their own punishment, they would certainly be more inclined to reveal their knowledge of terrible crimes. One should therefore seriously consider issuing a partial amnesty [..]. The fear that such a measure could lead to political repercussions abroad does not seem to me to be justified. Or is it more beneficial to our reputation when endless processes that are carried out with enormous effort lead to unsatisfactory results? »

In the case of the defendant Rolf-Joachim Buchs, the sentence went far beyond the prosecution's request. If this also demanded 10 years imprisonment in his case for complicity in murder and particularly serious arson, the jury at Buchs found complicity in the murder of the Jews in the synagogue, since he could have prevented or stopped the execution of the crime at any time by virtue of his authority. He was characterized in the verdict as " vain, deliberate, cool, aloof and arrogant, harsh to subordinates and indulgent to superiors " and, in the opinion of Chairman Simgen, the assessors and the jury, acted calculatingly and " for low motives" . In accordance with the attitude of the government at the time, which considered Jews to be “ worthless, contemptible, hateful subhumans” , he saw an intervention against the deeds mainly disadvantages “ for his personal reputation and advancement” and also did not expect to be criminally responsible to become.

Three defendants were acquitted.

Revision

The verdict was followed by appeals by four defendants and the public prosecutor's office before the Federal Court of Justice , which overturned the verdict on May 13, 1971 for those defendants who had appealed. The reasons were the finding that one of the jury members of the first trial had been declared inconsistent and therefore incapable of standing many years earlier, and the statute of limitations on the charge of complicity in murder against the third accused, Friedrich Rondholz (Az. 3 StR 337 / 68).

Second main hearing

The renewed main hearing against two of the accused took place from March 1973 before the Regional Court of Wuppertal and ended on May 24 with convictions for aiding and abetting murder to imprisonment of four years for Rolf-Joachim Buchs and six years for Wilhelm Schaffrath (Az. 812 Ks 1 / 67 (14/71 S)).

One reason for the significantly reduced sentence was the introductory law to the law on administrative offenses (EGOWiG) that has since been passed. This secondary norm for simple administrative offenses, which the judiciary today assessed as a statute of limitations scandal, developed by the former Nazi judicial member Eduard Dreher as part of his work in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, was largely unnoticed and partially tolerated by the specialist colleagues and the Bundestag, which passed the law on May 10 Adopted in 1968, introduced a statute of limitations for most Nazi murders through the back door and presumably also with the full intent of the author. According to the current legal situation, a conviction for murder was no longer possible at this point in time, since the law stipulated in Article 1 (6) (Section 50 (2) StGB, old version): "If there are no special personal characteristics, circumstances or circumstances (special personal characteristics) which justify the criminal liability of the perpetrator, his sentence is to be mitigated according to the regulations on the punishment of the attempt ”.

These special personal characteristics could not be proven by the defendants, so a conviction for murder could not be made due to the statute of limitations, but only for crimes that were not yet statute-barred. What was not already compensated for in custody in pre-trial detention was also suspended on probation. The process-accompanying NRZ on the Rhine and Ruhr commented sarcastically: " Guilty, but free!" . Regardless of the irritatingly small street size, the court made it clear that it had dealt intensively with the incidents and personal involvement in the crime. The reasoning for the judgment was carefully and visibly tried to ensure its appropriateness, but it could not avoid the new legal situation, so that obviously bizarre evaluations were included. According to this, Buchs had not acted as a perpetrator, but only with the inner attitude of an assistant, " since he did not want to carry out the murder of the Jews as an act of his own but only wanted to support it" . His motives were therefore not low motives, especially racial hatred, but - analogous to the first judgment - a " weakness of character in order not to suffer any disadvantages" .

This judgment became legally binding on January 29, 1975 by decision of the Federal Court of Justice (Az. 30 StR 193/74). The proceedings against Friedrich Rondholz, who was only accused of participating in the shooting of Soviet prisoners of war on the invasion of Białystok, were discontinued by the Darmstadt Regional Court on February 25, 1977 because of permanent incapacity to stand trial (Az. 2 Ks 1/75).

Conclusion and consequences

The refutation of the protective claims of the murderers that they acted on "orders from above" is considered to be an important result of the Wuppertal Białystok Trial. The first trial revealed that the convicted perpetrators in no way limited themselves to obeying orders given. They showed a great deal of initiative and often went beyond what was required in their actions.

In the preliminary proceedings against the defendants and in the Wuppertal Białystok trial, it turned out that not only the units of the security police and security service of the Reichsführer SS had committed mass murders . The role of the Wehrmacht, to which the Police Battalion 309 was subordinate during its time in the Białystok district, remained unresolved.

Although the Wuppertal trial ended disappointingly in terms of the sentence, it was absolutely exemplary in many ways. The public prosecutor's investigations and the first trial of 1967/68 can subsequently be viewed as a largely successful attempt to investigate and prosecute violent crimes of the Nazis by judicial means. The trial anticipated much of the controversies and debates that three decades later initiated the process of recognition in society that the murder of the Jews was not an act of a few individual perpetrators, but could only have taken place with the participation and involvement of large sections of the population. However, society in the 1960s was neither genuinely willing nor inwardly prepared to use the procedure as an opportunity for critical self-assessment.

District Court Munich I, 1961

Five leaders and members of Einsatzkommando 8 of Einsatzgruppe B had to answer for thousands of executions, especially of Jews, during the first six months of the German-Soviet War in 1941 before the Munich I Regional Court . The allegations included two shootings of male Jews between the ages of 18 and 65 in the Białystok District, which took place in early July 1941. The exact number of those murdered is not known; there were at least 800 in the first shooting and at least 100 in the second. The verdicts were pronounced on July 21, 1961. The leader of Einsatzgruppe 8, Otto Bradfisch , was sentenced to ten years imprisonment in 15,000 cases for complicity in joint murder. Wilhelm Schulz received 7 years and Oskar Winkler 3 ½ years imprisonment, two other defendants were acquitted (Az. 22 Ks 1/61).

District Court Freiburg, 1963

In criminal proceedings before the Freiburg Regional Court , three accused members of Police Battalion 322 were charged with numerous homicides. The acts included mass shootings of Jews in Białystok, Minsk and Mogilew , carried out in the summer of 1941. The defendants, the battalion adjutant Josef Uhl, the company commander of the 3rd Company, Gerhard Riebel, and the platoon leader of the second platoon of the 1st Company, Heinz Gerd Hülsemann, were acquitted on July 12, 1963. The revision of the public prosecutor's office regarding the acquittals of Riebel and Hülsemann was rejected by a decision of the Federal Court of Justice of January 14, 1964.

With express reference to the Freiburg acquittals and their confirmation by the Federal Court of Justice, the Darmstadt Regional Court decided on February 2, 1972, the criminal proceedings against nineteen members of Police Battalion 322 and a member of the staff of the Higher SS and Police Leader Central Russia and on February 2, 1972 . In October 1972 the proceedings against two other members of the police battalion were discontinued. The appeal to the command emergency or putative emergency , which was granted to the unit leaders, must also apply to the team ranks (Az. 2 Js 37665).

District Court of Kiel, 1964

Announcement of the verdict against Graalfs in Kiel 1964

Hans Graalfs, who as leader of the Waffen-SS platoon at Einsatzkommando 8 of Einsatzgruppen B, was involved in thousands of shootings during the first three months of the German-Soviet War in the early summer of 1941, was heard before the district court in Kiel . He was charged with shooting Jews in the Białystok District. Graalfs was sentenced on April 8, 1964 for aiding and abetting community murder in 760 cases to three years in prison (Az. 2 Ks 164). The judgment became final through a decision of the Federal Court of Justice of February 16, 1965 (Az. 5 StR 425/64).

District Court Bochum, 1968

In 1968, the Bochum Regional Court tried against the company commanders of the 2nd Company, Hermann Kraiker, and the 3rd Company, Otto Petersen, as well as against eight other members of the 316 Police Battalion for several homicide crimes, including the mass shooting of Jews in the Białystok district in July 1941 The proceedings ended on June 5, 1968 with acquittals, because the defendants could not refute the alleged imperative to order (Az. 15 Ks 1/66).

Regional Court of Cologne, 1964

The Cologne Regional Court conducted criminal proceedings against Werner Schönemann who was accused of being a member of a sub-command of Einsatzkommando 8 of Einsatzgruppen B in the shooting of hundreds of Jews, men, women and children, and Soviet prisoners of war during the first three months of the German-Soviet War Communist functionaries to have been involved. Some of the alleged acts were committed in the Białystok District. On May 12, 1964, Schönemann was sentenced to six years in prison for aiding and abetting community murder in 12 cases of 2,170 people (Az. 24 Ks 1/63).

Regional Court of Cologne, 1968

The criminal case against Heinz Errelis and Kurt Wiese, the head and a member of the Grodno branch of the commander of the security police and the SD in the Białystok district, also took place before the Cologne Regional Court. Wiese was sentenced to life imprisonment plus ten years for murder on June 27, 1968 , Errelis was acquitted (Az. 24 Ks 1/67 (Z)). The judgment against Wiese was confirmed by the Federal Court of Justice on August 6, 1969 (Az. 2 StR 210/69). Wiese was released from prison on March 24, 1986.

Hamburg Regional Court, 1975

Before the Hamburg Regional Court itself had to Georg Michalsen and Otto Hantke, two members of staff of the SS and Police Chief responsible Lublin. They were charged with the deportation of at least 300,000 Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp and other crimes. Among the deportees were at least 15,000 Jews who were deported to the Auschwitz and Treblinka extermination camps or to forced labor camps in the Lublin district on the occasion of the “evacuation” of the Bialystok ghetto in August 1943 . With the judgment of July 25, 1975 Michalsen received a prison sentence of 12 years, Hantke was sentenced to life imprisonment (Az. (50) 23/73).

literature

  • Freia Anders (Ed.): Białystok in Bielefeld National Socialist crimes before the Bielefeld Regional Court from 1958 to 1967 . Publishing house for regional history, Bielefeld 2003, ISBN 3-89534-458-3 . In this:
    • Freia Anders: Introduction , pp. 9-17.
    • Freia Anders, Hauke-Hendrik Kutscher and Katrin Stoll: The Bialystok Trial before the Bielefeld Regional Court 1965–1967 , pp. 76–133.
    • Lorenz Schulz: Collective Remembrance by Establishing Criminal Responsibility , pp. 18–53.
    • Katrin Stoll: "... for lack of evidence". The proceedings against Dr. Herbert Zimmermann before the Bielefeld Regional Court 1958–1959 , pp. 54–75.
  • Christoph Bitterberg: The Bielefeld trial as a source for German Jewish policy in the Bialystok district . Master's thesis, Hamburg 1995.
  • Wolfgang Curilla : The murder of Jews in Poland and the German order police 1939–1945 . Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77043-1 .
  • Wolfgang Curilla: The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and Belarus 1941–1944. 2nd, revised edition . Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2006, ISBN 3-506-71787-1 .
  • Serge Klarsfeld (ed.): Documents concerning the destruction of the Jews of Grodno 1941 - 1944 . 6 volumes. Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, New York, NY 1985-1992.
  • Michael Okroy : “You want our Batl. what to do ... “The Wuppertal Bialystok Trial 1967/68 and the investigations against members of the Police Battalion 309 . In: Alfons Kenkmann (ed.): In order. Police, administration and responsibility. Accompanying volume to the permanent exhibition of the same name in the memorial, research and historical-political educational institution Villa ten Hompel . Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2001, pp. 301-317, ISBN 3-88474-970-6 .
  • Michael Okroy: 'After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers' - The judicial processing of Nazi crimes by the police using the example of the Wuppertal Bialystok trial. In: Jan Erik Schulte (ed.): The SS, Himmler and the Wewelsburg . Paderborn et al. 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76374-7 , p. 449-469 .
  • Christiaan F. Rüter and Dick W. de Mildt (eds.): Justice and Nazi crimes. Collection of German convictions for Nazi homicide crimes, 1945–2012 . 49 volumes. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 1968–2012.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Freia Anders: Introduction , pp. 9-10.
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla: Der Judenmord in Polen , pp. 244–255, here p. 241.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla: Baltikum und Weissrussland , pp. 508–526, here p. 511.
  4. ↑ Lorenz Schulz: Collective memory through ascertaining criminal responsibility , p. 19.
  5. ↑ a b c d Freia Anders, Hauke-Hendrik Kutscher and Katrin Stoll: The Bialystok process , pp. 79–89.
  6. ↑ a b c d Lorenz Schulz: Collective remembrance by establishing criminal responsibility , p. 21.
  7. ↑ a b c d e Procedure Ser. No. 664 . In: Justiz und NS-Verbrechen , Volume XXVII, 2003, pp. 175–252, ISBN 3-598-23818-5 .
  8. ↑ a b Procedure Ser. No. 487 . In: Justiz und NS-Verbrechen , Volume XVI, 1976, pp. 251-274, ISBN 90-6042-016-0 .
  9. ↑ a b c Wolfgang Curilla: Baltikum und Weissrussland , pp. 426–460, here p. 427.
  10. ↑ Procedure Ser. No. 402 . In: Justiz und NS-Verbrechen , Volume XII, 1974, pp. 543-572, ISBN 90-6042-012-8 .
  11. ↑ Katrin Stoll: "... for lack of evidence" , p. 57.
  12. ↑ Katrin Stoll: “… for lack of evidence” , pp. 58–59.
  13. ↑ Katrin Stoll: “… for lack of evidence” , pp. 64–65.
  14. ↑ Katrin Stoll: “… for lack of evidence” , pp. 67–68.
  15. ↑ Katrin Stoll: “… for lack of evidence” , pp. 68–70.
  16. ↑ a b Katrin Stoll: “… for lack of evidence” , pp. 70–72.
  17. ↑ a b Katrin Stoll: “… for lack of evidence” , pp. 72–73.
  18. ↑ a b c Freia Anders, Hauke-Hendrik Kutscher and Katrin Stoll: The Bialystok Process , p. 78.
  19. ↑ a b Freia Anders, Hauke-Hendrik Kutscher and Katrin Stoll: The Bialystok process , pp. 89–90.
  20. ↑ a b Katrin Stoll: “… for lack of evidence” , pp. 73–74.
  21. ↑ Lorenz Schulz: Collective memory through ascertaining criminal responsibility , p. 22.
  22. ↑ a b c Freia Anders, Hauke-Hendrik Kutscher and Katrin Stoll: The Bialystok process , pp. 76-77.
  23. ↑ Procedure Ser. No. 648 . In: Justiz und NS-Verbrechen , Volume XXVI, 2001, pp. 1–146, ISBN 3-598-23817-7 .
  24. ↑ Lorenz Schulz: Collective memory through ascertaining criminal responsibility , p. 20.
  25. ^ Christian Gerlach: Calculated murders. The German economic and extermination policy in Belarus from 1941 to 1944 . Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-930908-54-9 .
  26. ↑ Freia Anders (Ed.): Białystok in Bielefeld National Socialist crimes before the Bielefeld Regional Court from 1958 to 1967 . Publishing house for regional history, Bielefeld 2003, ISBN 3-89534-458-3 .
  27. ↑ Lorenz Schulz: Collective remembrance by establishing criminal responsibility , pp. 52–53.
  28. ↑ a b c d Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 451.
  29. ↑ a b c d Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 452.
  30. ↑ a b c d e f Michael Okroy: “You want our Batl. what to do ... ” , pp. 302–303.
  31. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla: Der Judenmord in Polen , pp. 244–255, here p. 245.
  32. ^ Wolfgang Curilla: Baltikum und Weissrussland , pp. 508-526, here p. 510.
  33. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 453.
  34. ↑ a b c d e Michael Okroy: “You want our Batl. what to do ... ” , pp. 301–302.
  35. ↑ a b c Wolfgang Curilla: Der Judenmord in Polen , pp. 244–255, here p. 247.
  36. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 454.
  37. ↑ a b c Wolfgang Curilla: Der Judenmord in Polen , pp. 244–255, here pp. 251–254.
  38. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla: Baltikum und Weissrussland , pp. 508-526, here pp. 520-521.
  39. ↑ a b c Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 455.
  40. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 456.
  41. ↑ a b c d e f g h Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 457.
  42. ↑ a b Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 458.
  43. ↑ a b c d Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 459.
  44. ↑ Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 460.
  45. ↑ Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 458.
  46. ↑ a b c Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 461.
  47. ↑ a b c d e f Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 462.
  48. ↑ a b c d e Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 463.
  49. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 464.
  50. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 465.
  51. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla: Baltic States and Belarus , pp. 508-526, here pp. 508-509.
  52. ↑ a b Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 449.
  53. ↑ Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 450.
  54. ↑ a b c d e f Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 466.
  55. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla: Der Judenmord in Polen , pp. 853–874, here p. 870.
  56. ↑ a b Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 467.
  57. ↑ Military Criminal Code, Section 47 - The Auschwitz Trial - Retrieved June 4, 2019
  58. ↑ Norbert Simgen: "'' The guilt remains ... But how long must the Nazi trials be?" "In: Die Welt , June 22, 1968
  59. ↑ a b c d e f g h Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 467.
  60. ↑ Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 468.
  61. ↑ Procedure Ser. No. 792 . In: Justiz und NS-Verbrechen , Volume XXXVIII, 2008, pp. 783–826, ISBN 978-3-598-23829-1 .
  62. ↑ Procedure Ser. No. 840 . In: Justiz und NS-Verbrechen , Volume XLII, 2010, pp. 281-294, ISBN 978-3-598-24601-2 .
  63. ↑ Michael Okroy: After 26 years now a mammoth trial against police officers , p. 469.
  64. ↑ Procedure Ser. No. 519 . In: Justiz und NS-Verbrechen , Volume XVII, 1977, pp. 657-708, ISBN 90-6042-017-9 .
  65. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla: Baltikum und Weissrussland , pp. 426–460, here p. 428.
  66. ↑ Procedure Ser. No. 555 . In: Justiz und NS-Verbrechen , Volume XIX, 1978, pp. 409–472, ISBN 90-6042-019-5 .
  67. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla: Baltikum und Weissrussland , pp. 545–568, here p. 545.
  68. ↑ Procedure Ser. No. 567 . In: Justiz und NS-Verbrechen , Volume XIX, 1978, pp. 773-814, ISBN 90-6042-019-5 .
  69. ↑ Procedure Ser. No. 678 . In: Justiz und NS-Verbrechen , Volume XXIX, 2003, pp. 31–408, ISBN 3-598-23820-7 .
  70. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla: Baltikum und Weissrussland , pp. 527-544, here p. 527.
  71. ↑ Procedure Ser. No. 573 . In: Justiz und NS-Verbrechen , Volume XX, 1979, pp. 163-184, ISBN 90-6042-020-9 .
  72. ↑ Procedure Ser. No. 684 . In: Justiz und NS-Verbrechen , Volume XXIX, 2003, pp. 633ff, ISBN 3-598-23820-7 .
  73. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla: Baltikum und Weissrussland , pp. 866–871, here pp. 866–867.
  74. ↑ Procedure Ser. No. 812 . In: Justice and Nazi Crimes , Volume XXXIX, 2008, pp. 803ff, ISBN 978-3-598-23830-7 .
  75. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla: Baltikum und Weissrussland , pp. 686–692, here p. 687.