Euthanasia processes
The euthanasia trials include trials against the main culprits and accomplices of the euthanasia murders during the Nazi era .
Wiesbaden trial
In the Wiesbaden trial before an American military court from October 8 to 15, 1945, the murder of 476 Russian and Polish forced laborers by Leon Jaworski was charged. Alfons Klein and the nurses Heinrich Ruoff and Karl Willig were sentenced to death, the doctor Adolf Wahlmann to life imprisonment due to his old age. Two administrative employees received prison sentences of 35 years and 30 years and the only female defendant Irmgard Huber received 25 years. The death sentences were carried out on March 14, 1946. An indictment of the murder of around 15,000 other people was not possible under current martial law.
Grafeneck trials
The first Grafeneck trial began as early as 1947 before the Freiburg jury court. The accused were Ludwig Sprauer , the chief medical officer in the Karlsruhe Ministry of the Interior, and Arthur Schreck , director of the Rastatt, Illenau and Wiesloch nursing homes , for crimes against humanity and aiding and abetting murder of prison inmates. On November 16, 1948, the court found the two defendants guilty and sentenced them to life in prison.
After years of preparation, the Tübingen Grafeneck Trial began in the summer of 1949 at Hohentübingen Castle . Eight people were charged for being involved in the murder of 10,654 patients at the Grafeneck Castle killing center .
The eight defendants in court were: Otto Mauthe , Max Eyrich (former rural youth doctor), Alfons Stegmann (former doctor at the Zwiefalten sanatorium ), Martha Fauser (then senior doctor in Zwiefalten), Jakob Wöger and Hermann Holzschuh (civil servant), Heinrich Unverhau (former male nurse) and nurse Maria Appinger.
Nuremberg medical trial
From December 9, 1946 to August 20, 1947, the Nuremberg medical trial took place in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice before an American military court . In addition to 20 concentration camp doctors was, among other things euthanasia representative and personal physician of Hitler , Karl Brandt , accused. He received the death penalty and was executed on June 2, 1948.
Frankfurt process
Between 1946 and 1948 there were a total of four trials before the Frankfurt Regional Court that served to convict those involved in Nazi euthanasia . Among the 44 accused were doctors, nurses and orderlies from the Hadamar , Eichberg and Kalmenhof institutions who were involved in the murder of patients. Six death sentences were passed and 19 prison terms were imposed. Ultimately, the death sentences were not carried out and only two convicts were not pardoned.
Dresden trial
On June 16, 1947, the trial was opened against Paul Nitsche and others by the President of the Regional Court, Martin Fischer, the Regional Court Director Rudolf Fischer and the Local Court Councilor Elfriede Thaler . Between June 16 and June 25, the defendants and the witnesses were questioned at a public hearing.
The process received a lot of public attention through the media. The Sächsische Zeitung reported daily on the course of the process. It ended with several death sentences or imprisonment - individual suspects, including the main defendant Alfred Schulz and the head of the children's department Arthur Mittag , had previously suicided or. Attempted suicide, as a result of which they died.
Düsseldorf trial
In a trial before the Düsseldorf Regional Court in 1948, the psychiatrist Hermann Wesse , head of the “ children's department ” Waldniel , who was sentenced to death in 25 cases of murder in the Kalmenhof trial in 1947 by the Frankfurt Regional Court , was sentenced to life imprisonment for child murder .
Hartheim trial
accused
In the main Hartheim trial, 61 people were investigated, including the medical directors Georg Renno and Rudolf Lonauer . The table shows the accused by function and gender:
| male | Female | total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| doctors | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| Nursing staff | 15th | 8th | 23 |
| Administrative staff | 9 | 7th | 16 |
| Drivers | 4th | 0 | 4th |
| "Heater" | 6th | 0 | 6th |
| Unknown | 6th | 3 | 9 |
| total | 43 | 18th | 61 |
Procedure
The proceedings of 13 suspects were discontinued, with 22 suspects it was broken off because the perpetrator could not be found. The case was dropped for seven people who had already died, and two were sentenced to prison. 13 of the accused's proceedings have been separated into another, and the outcome of the remaining three is still unknown.
The judgment
The verdict was announced on July 7, 1947. The prosecution requested the death penalty eleven times, but it was only pronounced four times. In the case of the nurses in particular, the verdicts were mostly lower than required. In March 1948 the death sentences were carried out in Dresden. The long prison sentences were waived in 1956 as part of an amnesty.
Klagenfurter Trial
The Austrian psychiatrist and primary physician Franz Niedermoser was indicted in the Klagenfurt euthanasia trial before the Klagenfurt external senate of the Graz People's Court . He was found guilty of ordering the killing of patients in at least 400 cases. In addition, there was the mistreatment of patients, which proceeded without any consideration of human dignity and often led to the death of the victims. Niedermoser was sentenced to death by hanging on April 4, 1946 and his property was expropriated. On October 24, 1946, the judgment was carried out in the Klagenfurt Regional Court. The head nurse Eduard Brandstätter, the head nurse Antonie Pachner and the head nurse Otillie Schellander, who were counted as co-defendants, were also sentenced to death by hanging. Brandstätter committed suicide on the day his verdict was pronounced. Pachner and Schellander were finally pardoned to long prison terms. Antonie Pachner died in prison on April 8, 1951, and Schellander was conditionally released from prison on April 1, 1955 as part of a new pardon. The nurses Paula Tomasch, Julie Wolf, Ilse Printschler and Maria Cholawa as well as a head nurse, all of whom can be shown to have been involved in the torture, were sentenced to long prison terms, sometimes in combination with financial collapse.
literature
- Joachim S. Hohmann : The "euthanasia" trial of Dresden 1947. A contemporary historical documentation . Lang, Frankfurt a. M. 1993.
- Matthias Meusch: The criminal prosecution of the Hadamar "euthanasia" murders . In: Hadamar. Sanatorium - killing facility - therapy center , Marburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-89445-378-7 , p. 305 ff.
Web links
- Traveling exhibition - The trial before the Dresden Regional Court in 1947
- Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg - Grafeneck process
Individual evidence
- ^ The Hadamar Trial. In: encyclopedia.ushmm.org. Holocaust Encyclopadia, USHMM , accessed March 12, 2019 .
- ↑ Should be transferred to Hadamar . Catalog for the memorial exhibition in Hadamar, Mabuse-Verlag 1989, ISBN 3-925499-39-3 , p. 108 ff.
- ^ Legal processing after 1945: Insight into the "Grafeneck Trial". Baden-Württemberg State Archives, accessed on August 28, 2020 .
- ↑ http://www.stsg.de/cms/sites/default/files/u5/Tafel%2005.pdf
- ↑ http://www.stsg.de/cms/sites/default/files/u5/Tafel%2012.pdf
- ↑ Thomas Roth, NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne : Conference report March 21, 2014: After '45: Denazification, reparation, prosecution . Retrieved May 4, 2015.
- ^ LG Düsseldorf, February 7, 1953 . In: Justice and Nazi crimes . Collection of German criminal judgments for Nazi homicidal crimes 1945–1966, Vol. X, edited by Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann, HH Fuchs, CF Rüter . Amsterdam: University Press, 1973, No. 339 pp. 337–346 Participation in the 'euthanasia program' through the killing of Reich Committee children by Luminal ( Memento of the original from March 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked . Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Acquittal of the nurse W.
- ↑ http://www.nachkriegsjustiz.at/service/archiv/Rb8.pdf
- ↑ http://www.stsg.de/cms/sites/default/files/u5/Tafel%2013.pdf
