Milk process

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The Nuremberg Milk Trial took place from January 2 to April 17, 1947 before the American Military Court in Nuremberg against the former Field Marshal Erhard Milch . It was the second of the twelve Nuremberg follow-up trials . It was tried before the US military tribunal in the Palace of Justice (Nuremberg) and ended with Milk sentenced to life imprisonment.

Defendant

Speer, Milch and Messerschmitt visit the armaments factory, May 1944

Milch was State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Aviation (1933–44), Inspector General of the Air Force (1940–45) and, as Field Marshal, the highest-ranking soldier in the Air Force after Hermann Göring , board member (1928–42) and chairman of the supervisory board (1942–46) of Luft Hansa . He was one of the leaders in the "central planning" of armaments projects and was in charge of it during Speer's illness-related absence. From statements made by Fritz Sauckel , Speer and Göring, who were convicted of forced labor in the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals , it could be inferred that Milch was responsible for recruiting workers for the aircraft industry until the Jägerstab was founded in March 1944.

Charges

Prosecutor's Bank 1947

The November 13, 1946 indictment charged Milch with war crimes and crimes against humanity .

Three charges were made:

  1. War crimes such as murder, slave labor, the deportation of civilians from the occupied countries, cruel and inhuman treatment of these forced laborers, use of prisoners of war in operations that were directly related to acts of war and thus violated the Hague Convention and customary war law.
  2. War crimes including murder in human experiments in Dachau concentration camp . There, torturous or fatal air pressure and hypothermia experiments were carried out on prisoners under duress for the air force.
  3. Crimes against humanity (like counts 1 + 2 but with German victims and victims of other nationalities with whom Germany was not at war and who therefore did not constitute war crimes.)

Due to inadequate preparation, milk was not viewed as an actor, but always as an accomplice in the highest position. As soon as he was proven to be complicit in the crimes involved in the recruitment of workers in occupied Europe, he would be just as guilty as the main war criminals Sauckel and Speer. The prosecution, for example, focused on the well-documented use of slave labor in connection with underground relocation and hunting staff . Existing documents about agreements between Heinrich Himmler and Milch on the use of forced labor for concentration camp prisoners were not presented, and the Heinkel aircraft factory in Budzyn , which was based on an arrangement by Heinkel, Milch and Himmler, was not addressed. Instead, former concentration camp prisoners reported in general about the conditions in aircraft production.

The investigation and indictment did not do justice to the gravity of the guilt or the historical significance of milk.

Judge

Erhard Milch (left) in conversation with his defense lawyer and brother Werner Milch in Nuremberg

The bank was manned by the following US judges:

negotiation

The duration of the negotiation was comparatively short. This is not solely due to the fact that a single defendant was on trial here. Rather, Milch had previously admitted several incriminating facts to Göring , Speer and Sauckel in response to documents.

Milch's defense attorney Friedrich Bergold and his assistant Werner Milch (a brother of the defendant) failed with their defense strategy of portraying the defendant as an apolitical military man who was under the pressure of orders and had no personal responsibility.

Using his paperback calendar, Milch was able to reconstruct how he had tried to come to an understanding with France, Belgium and Great Britain before the start of the war. In 1943 he tried to persuade Hitler to hold an armistice talks in private talks. The image of a patriot and enemy of the war was painted by the defense.

judgment

In the judgment on April 17, 1947, individual judges gave separate reasons for the judgment, but they differed only in the detail and depth of the arguments.

The judges considered evidence of milk to be guilty of the medicine trials as unsuccessful and acquitted him on this point.

In the case of forced labor, the judges accused the accused of having been involved in the deportation and the forced deployment of civilians of different nationalities and of being responsible for the use of prisoners of war in military operations (loading bombers, operating anti-aircraft guns) contrary to Article 31 of the Geneva Convention . Judge Phillips gave a detailed individual opinion on the circumstances under which deportations would be criminal. This opinion had a significant influence on the judgments of the Tribunal III in the cases of Krupp , Juristen , Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS and High Command of the Wehrmacht .

Imprisonment and parole

In the course of Western integration and Korean War demands won by pardon and amnesty numerous prominent advocate. On the recommendation of the Advisory Committee, which met in 1950 and comprised the Americans David W. Peck , Frederick A. Moran and General Conrad E. Snow , the US High Commissioner for Germany, John J. McCloy , set the sentence for Erhard Milch in 1951 , who was incarcerated in the Landsberg correctional facility , reduced to 15 years in prison. The advisory committee officially appealed to the pardon on the imbalance of Milch's temperament, which was due to an increased overstimulation of the nerves by a head injury. Finally, in 1954, Milch was released early. He later found work as an industrial consultant and died in 1972.

criticism

Due to the inadequate and missed investigation of forced labor in aviation armaments, the involvement of industry in forced labor was not taken into account until the 1980s. Journalism developed about the Luftwaffe and its aircraft, fueled by the autobiographies of Adolf Galland and Ernst Heinkel, telling the story of the technical superiority of German aircraft construction and missed opportunities, culminating in a milk biography by David Irving . More recent research struggled to remedy this imbalance, and Heinkel's forced laborers from the Oranienburg concentration camp had to sue for compensation for a long time and through several instances.

literature

  • Lutz Budraß: Lawyers are not historians - the trial against Erhard Milch . In: NMT - The Nuremberg Military Tribunals between History, Justice and Righteousness . Ed .: Priemel and Stiller, Hamburger Edition 2013, ISBN 978-3-86854-577-7 , p. 194 ff.
  • Kevin Jon Heller : The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal Law. Oxford University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-955431-7 .
  • Friedhelm Kröll : The trial against Erhard Milch. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (Hrsg.): National Socialism in front of a court. The allied trials of war criminals and soldiers 1943–1952 (= Fischer pocket books. The time of National Socialism 13589). Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-596-13589-3 , pp. 86-98.

Web links

Commons : Milk process  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lutz Budraß: Lawyers are not historians - the trial against Erhard Milch . P. 220
  2. ↑ Lutz Budraß: Lawyers are not historians - the trial against Erhard Milch . P. 210
  3. ↑ Lutz Budraß: Lawyers are not historians - the trial against Erhard Milch . P. 220
  4. ^ Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Miltitary Tribunals . Volume II, p. 773.
  5. ↑ Lutz Budraß: Lawyers are not historians - the trial against Erhard Milch . P. 222
  6. ↑ Lutz Budraß: Lawyers are not historians - the trial against Erhard Milch . P. 224 f.
  7. ↑ Lutz Budraß: Lawyers are not historians - the trial against Erhard Milch . P. 220.
  8. ↑ Lutz Budraß: Lawyers are not historians - the trial against Erhard Milch . P. 226 f.
  9. ↑ Lutz Budraß: Lawyers are not historians - the trial against Erhard Milch . P. 223.
  10. ^ Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Miltitary Tribunals . Volume II, p. 773 ff.
  11. ^ Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Miltitary Tribunals . Volume II, p. 781 ff.
  12. ↑ Kevin Jon Heller: The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal Law. P. 219.
  13. ↑ Lutz Budraß: Lawyers are not historians - the trial against Erhard Milch . P. 229.