Krakow Auschwitz Trial
The Kraków Auschwitz Trial began on November 24, 1947 in Kraków (Polish: Kraków), Poland , against 40 former SS guards at the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp complex . The proceedings before the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland (Polish: Najwyższy Trybunał Narodowy, NTN, established on January 22, 1946 to convict war crimes) were prepared by the Institute for National Memory in Katowice and ended on December 22, 1947 with 23 death sentences. Judge Alfred Eimer, who also led the Höß trial, was in the chair. This Auschwitz trial was the blueprint for numerous similar proceedings against hundreds of former SS members that took place in Poland in the first post-war years, primarily in Krakow and Wadowice . The results of these proceedings were later used by the Central Office of the State Judicial Administrations for the investigation of National Socialist crimes in the Federal Republic of Germany.
With Arthur Liebehenschel was one of the three commanders of the Auschwitz camp in these proceedings in court. Compared to his predecessor Rudolf Höss and his successor Richard Baer, he was considered a moderate leader who improved conditions in the camp and abolished punishments. The other main defendants, Maximilian Grabner , the notorious head of the Political Department, camp leader Hans Aumeier and the superintendent of the Maria Mandl women's camp, on the other hand, were considered to be the terror of the prisoners; they could be convicted of innumerable murders by their own hands.
Other prominent defendants were the head of the crematoria and gas chambers, Erich Mußfeldt , the block leaders of Death Block 11 with the Black Wall , Wilhelm Gehring and Kurt Hugo Müller, the camp and report leaders Fritz Buntrock , Ludwig Plagge and Otto Lätsch, and the guards feared because of their brutality Therese Brandl , Alice Orlowski , Luise Danz and the "bloody Brigitte", Hildegard smiles . In addition to these perpetrators known to the prisoners, there were also men in the dock who were bureaucratic in the background, such as the accounting officer Richard Schröder, the weapons master Karl Seufert and the commandant spike Detlef Nebbe.
University professor Johann Paul Kremer was sentenced to death by hanging for the selection of almost 50,000 people to be killed in the gas chambers within a few months, which he himself described in his diary, but was pardoned on the day of execution due to his age. His colleague Hans Münch had been able to evade the ramp and gas chamber service and recorded positive testimony for himself; he was the only defendant to be acquitted.
The judgments against the medical ranks (SDG) Arthur Breitwieser and Hans Koch are astonishing from today's perspective. The task of the SDG was less to provide medical care to the prisoners than to kill them. Since the beginning of the mass gassing of people in the spring of 1942, it was their task to tip the bound Zyklon B into the openings of the respective gas chambers . They were the last and deadliest link in the long chain of perpetrators of the Holocaust . Numerous witnesses identified Adolf Theuer , Josef Klehr and Hans Koch as members of the gassing squad, who bragged about their deeds and showed great joy and commitment. Nevertheless, Hans Koch was sentenced to life imprisonment because he claimed health problems during his missions. Arthur Breitwieser was initially sentenced to death, but increasing doubts about his involvement in the gassings led to a pardon. Theuer was sentenced to death and executed in another trial, while Klehr was only indicted in the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial in 1963 .
The 40 judgments in detail
| Defendant | function | judgment |
|---|---|---|
| Arthur Liebehenschel | Camp commandant in the main camp of Auschwitz | Death sentence , executed |
| Maria Mandl | Superintendent | Death sentence, executed |
| Hans Aumeier | Protective custody camp leader | Death sentence, executed |
| August Bogusch | Block leader | Death sentence, executed |
| Therese Brandl | Overseer | Death sentence, executed |
| Fritz Buntrock | Report leader | Death sentence, executed |
| Wilhelm Gehring | Block leader in Block 11 | Death sentence, executed |
| Paul Gotze | Block leader | Death sentence, executed |
| Maximilian Grabner | Head of the Political Department | Death sentence, executed |
| Heinrich Josten | Commander of the guards | Death sentence, executed |
| Hermann Kirschner | Block leader | Death sentence, executed |
| Josef Kollmer | Commander of the guards | Death sentence, executed |
| Franz Kraus | Administrative manager | Death sentence, executed |
| Otto Lätsch | Camp leader Gleiwitz IV | Death sentence, executed |
| Herbert Ludwig | Block leader | Death sentence, executed |
| Karl Möckel | Head of Site Administration | Death sentence, executed |
| Kurt Hugo Müller | Block leader in Block 11 | Death sentence, executed |
| Erich Mußfeldt | Head of the crematoria | Death sentence, executed |
| Ludwig Plagge | Report leader | Death sentence, executed |
| Hans Schumacher | Member of the site administration | Death sentence, executed |
| Paul Szczurek | Blockführer and Kommandofführer | Death sentence, executed |
| Arthur Breitwieser | SS medical grade (SDG) | Death sentence, pardoned to life imprisonment, released January 18, 1959 |
| Johann Paul Kremer | Camp doctor | Death sentence, pardoned to life imprisonment, released January 9, 1958 |
| Luise Danz | Overseer | Life sentence , released August 20, 1957 |
| Hans Koch | Leader of the disinfection and gassing command | Life sentence, died in prison July 14, 1955 |
| Anton Lechner | Member of the site administration | Life sentence, released in 1957 |
| Adolf Medefind | Deputy head of the catering magazine | Life sentence, died in prison August 8, 1948 |
| Detlef Nebbe | Spit of the headquarters | Life sentence, released October 24, 1956 |
| Karl Seufert | Head of the Arms and Equipment Department | Life sentence, released November 2, 1957 |
| Alexander Bulow | Block leader | 15 years imprisonment , released in 1956 |
| Hans Hoffmann | Member of the Political Department | 15 years imprisonment, released July 28, 1956 |
| Hildegard smiles | Overseer | 15 years imprisonment, released in 1956 |
| Eduard Lorenz | Deputy Head of Driver Service | 15 years imprisonment, released December 8, 1955 |
| Alice Orlowski | Overseer | 15 years imprisonment, released December 19, 1956 |
| Franz Romeikat | Member of the site administration | 15 years imprisonment, released June 25, 1956 |
| Johannes Weber | Head of inmate kitchens | 15 years imprisonment, died in custody October 11, 1949 |
| Richard Schröder | Accountant of the site administration | 10 years imprisonment, released in 1953 |
| Erich Dinges | Member of the driving team | Five years in prison, died in prison April 23, 1953 |
| Karl Jeschke | Security guard | 3 years imprisonment, released April 18, 1950 |
| Hans Münch | Camp doctor | acquittal |
Enforcements
21 executions were carried out by hanging on January 24, 1948 in Kraków's Montelupich prison . All 18 SS men sentenced or pardoned were released in 1959 at the latest and deported to Germany, where they were sometimes prosecuted again. Four detainees are likely to have died of tuberculosis while in prison .
Witnesses (selection)
See also
- The 13 Nuremberg Trials at the International Military Tribunal from November 1945 to 1948
- The first Bergen-Belsen trial before a British military court in Lüneburg against the leaders of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp from September 17 to November 17, 1945. Since some of the defendants previously worked in Auschwitz, the indictment was next to the The trial of the crimes in Bergen-Belsen was extended to include the crimes in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Therefore, this process can also be called a first Auschwitz trial.
- The Höss Trial (March 11-29, 1947 in Warsaw, Poland); against the former SS commander Rudolf Höß also before the National Supreme Court (pl.NTN)
- Six German Auschwitz Trials in Frankfurt (1963/1965 the 1st and 1965/1966 the 2nd Auschwitz Trial as well as 4 successor trials in the 1970s)
literature
- Ernst Klee : Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-039333-3 . (Short biographies of the defendants)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Sybille Steinbacher: Auschwitz: History and Post-History . CH Beck, 2015, ISBN 978-3-406-67628-4 ( google.de [accessed on July 10, 2020]).
- ^ Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons. 1st edition. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-039333-3 , pp. 213 .
- ^ Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons. 1st edition. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-039333-3 , pp. 236 .
- ^ Tape recording of the 1st Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial. Retrieved July 10, 2020 .
- ^ Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons. 1st edition. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-039333-3 , pp. 93, 224, 273 .