Eck process
The Eck trial was the war crimes trial named after the main defendant, Kapitänleutnant Heinz-Wilhelm Eck , in which the incident occurred after the sinking of the Greek cargo ship Peleus by the German submarine U 852 , commanded by Eck, on the night of March 13th to March 14th. March 1944 was worked up. The four-day trial, in which, in addition to Eck, the second officer, the on-board doctor, the chief engineer and a seaman from U 852 were indicted, took place from October 17 to 21, 1945 in the Curiohaus in British-occupied Hamburg . It was the only war crimes trial led by the Allies against members of German submarine crews after the Second World War .
The main defendant
Born on March 27, 1916 in Hamburg, Eck joined the Reichsmarine in 1934 and became an officer in 1937. He was first used on minesweepers and was in command of a minesweeper from 1939 to 1942. In 1942 he volunteered for the submarine weapon and from autumn 1942 to spring 1943 drove as a commanding student on U 124 to prepare for his own command. In 1943 he was given command of the newly commissioned U 852 ( Type IX D2-boat ), which after testing and crew training on 18 January 1944 by Kiel from his only patrol expired. The boat was supposed to join the monsoon boats in the Far East. After the Peleus, Eck sank the British freighter Dahomian ; then he beached U 852 on May 3, 1944 on the coast of Somalia and was captured by British soldiers.
The Peleus Incident
Before U 852 left Eck was instructed by two experienced submarine commanders, Adalbert Schnee and Günter Hessler . Schnee pointed out to Eck that U 852 was an easy target for aircraft because of its size and slow diving speed and that Eck should avoid being discovered by the Allied air surveillance in the Atlantic. Snow pointed out to Eck in particular that a field of rubble left behind by the sinking of a ship could be seen by Allied pilots for days. Schnee underlined this warning and pointed out that the four boats U 199 , U 848 , U 849 and U 850, identical in construction to U 852 , had all been lost in the South Atlantic.
Hessler, Chief of Staff in the Operations Department of the Commander in Chief of the Submarines (BdU) , also repeated the warning and recommended that Eck avoid anything in the Atlantic that might attract the attention of the enemy. Eck received further instructions from Korvettenkapitän Karl-Heinz Moehle , an experienced submarine commander and commander of the Kiel submarine base. Moehle discussed the Laconia incident with Eck . The Laconia order issued as a result of this incident was included in all operational orders for German submarines at that time.
On March 13, 1944, U 852 sighted the Greek freighter Peleus in the South Atlantic , a ship built in England in 1928 with a crew of 35, which sailed under ballast from Freetown to South America under charter from the British Ministry of Transport . Eck brought U 852 into attack position in front of the Peleus and torpedoed her with two surface shots after dark. Both torpedoes hit and the Peleus sank very quickly. How many members of the freighter crew were able to leave the sinking ship is not known; it is believed that there were not many. The first officer was thrown from the bridge into the water; some crew members on deck jumped into the Atlantic. The survivors clung to wreckage, and the Peleus also had life rafts stored on deck, which came to the surface when the ship sank.
U 852 drove slowly through the rubble; Eck, his first officer on watch, Lieutenant z. S. Gerhard Colditz and two sailors. While driving through the rubble field, the on-board doctor from U 852 , Senior Staff Doctor Walter Weispfennig, came to the bridge. Since Eck's orders also included asking survivors of sunk ships about the ship's name, cargo and similar information, Eck also had his English-speaking chief engineer Hans Lenz called on deck. The second officer on watch, August Hoffmann, who was actually not on duty, also came on deck with Lenz. These two officers went to the bow while Eck maneuvered the submarine next to a life raft on which there were four survivors, including the third officer of the Peleus , who was brought on board the submarine and questioned. In addition to the ship's name, course and load, this informed Lenz and Hoffmann that another, slower freighter was following the Peleus on the same course. After that, the officer was put back on the liferaft.
On the bridge of the boat, Eck expressed his concerns about the size and location of the debris field. He feared that the aerial surveillance by aircraft launched from Freetown would detect the sinking point, which would reveal the presence of a German submarine. This would trigger an extensive submarine hunt, in which U 852, like the previous boats, would have little chance.
Eck's options were limited: if he had continued to travel at maximum surface speed, the boat would have covered around 200 nautical miles by morning and would still have been in the air surveillance area. In addition, the boat would have used a lot of its limited fuel. Eck therefore decided that all traces of the Peleus had to be destroyed and ordered two machine guns to be brought onto the bridge. Colditz and Lenz protested against this decision, but were rejected by Eck with the argument that the trace destruction was necessary to protect the boat. Lenz then left the bridge. The machine guns were brought on deck.
The following incident could not be fully clarified even in the later war crimes trial. Apparently Eck announced to the other officers that he wanted to sink the life rafts. No direct order was given to shoot survivors in the water or to target survivors on rafts. It was clear, however, that sinking the rafts would completely destroy the survivors' chances of being saved. Eck assumed that the rafts were hollow and would sink, perforated by machine gun fire, but in fact the Peleus' life rafts were made of buoyant material.
It was now eight o'clock in the evening and dark; the life rafts could be seen as dark outlines on the water. Eck probably ordered Weispfennig, who was standing near the machine gun attached to the starboard, to shoot at the debris, whereupon the latter fired a few rounds of bullets at a life raft about thirty meters away until the machine gun jammed . The second officer Hoffmann took over the weapon, cleared the jam and continued the fire. Weispfennig stayed on the bridge without taking part in the bombardment. The boat moved slowly through the rubble and shot at the liferafts at intervals, Hoffmann always using the machine gun. However, due to their design, the life rafts could not be sunk. Hoffmann suggested the use of the 37 mm anti-aircraft gun, which fired explosive ammunition. This as well as the use of the 105 mm deck gun was rejected by Eck, who instead ordered the 20 mm twin anti-aircraft guns to be tried out.
These larger-caliber weapons were also unsuitable for sinking the life rafts, so someone suggested the use of explosive charges. Eck rejected this suggestion because he did not want a member of his crew to leave the boat. Eck ordered hand grenades to be brought onto the bridge and maneuvered the boat closer to a raft. Hoffmann threw several hand grenades on at least two rafts, which also withstood this attempt at sinking.
Eck assumed that all survivors had left the rafts when the bombardment began. He was aware that these could be hit by the fire and that the destruction of the rafts would reduce their chances of survival. Eck's assumption was wrong: at the beginning of the bombardment, the Peleus' officer on watch lay down on the bottom of a life raft and watched another sailor on the same raft being killed by machine gun fire. The officer on watch was wounded by the hand grenades thrown later. The third officer of the Peleus watched on his raft as two Greek sailors were killed; he himself was badly injured. Another sailor dived behind a raft and saw some sinking survivors floating in the water being hit by machine gun fire.
The crew of U 852 below deck, with the exception of Lenz, were not informed about the events, but could imagine what was happening from the slow maneuvering and the orders to bring machine guns and hand grenades onto the bridge. The attempts to sink the debris had taken some time. When the changing of the watch was due, Hoffmann, who had been on the bridge the entire time, took over the watch from Colditz, who went below deck. Eck gave the order to one of the sailors who had come to the bridge to relieve the guard to fire the machine gun, which the latter did. This seaman, Wolfgang Schwender, gave off a burst of fire, then the machine gun jammed. When Schwender had removed the jam, Chief Engineer Lenz came back to the bridge, pushed Schwender aside and shot at the raft. According to Lenz's statements in the later trial, he did so because he assumed that the third officer of the Peleus was on this raft and Lenz did not want him to be killed as an officer by a "bad soldier".
After all attempts to remove traces of the Peleus had failed from eight in the evening to one in the morning , Eck decided to break off the attempts in order to be as far away as possible at daybreak and let the boat run at maximum speed. Four survivors remained, three of whom were rescued 35 days later by a Portuguese steamer. The third officer of the Peleus had died of gangrene and yellow fever 25 days after the sinking .
Landing of U 852 and capture of the accused
Eck's fear that the sinking of the Peleus could be discovered by the enemy aerial surveillance did not apply. Through a radio message sent by Eck on March 15, which was picked up by the enemy radio direction finding, the British learned that a submarine was operating northwest of Cape Town . On April 1, Eck sank the British freighter Dahomian . After this sinking, Eck made no attempt to interview the survivors who were rescued the next day by South African minesweepers. The sinking of the ship triggered strong anti-submarine measures that were unsuccessful. On April 3, Eck sent a long radio message to the BdU. This was intercepted by the British and enabled them to determine Eck's position. U 852 stayed in the waters around Cape Town for two more weeks, looking for targets; then Eck decided to continue the journey to Penang . In the meantime the survivors of the Peleus had been rescued, which made these events known.
The waters on the east coast of Africa were already well monitored at the time. A hunter-killer group around two escort aircraft carriers was stationed there, as well as allied air force bases on the Addu Atoll and the island of Diego Garcia . On April 30, the British radio reconnaissance located U 852 off the coast of Somalia , whereupon a search operation was started from the British base in Aden . On May 2, shortly after sunrise, six Wellingtons of RAF U 852 discovered on the surface. They attacked immediately from the sun and surprised the boat. Six depth charges around the boat shook it, and one of the bombs also destroyed the 37 mm anti-aircraft gun. Hoffmann, the officer on watch, immediately ordered an emergency diving maneuver. Although it was possible to dive before the aircraft could fly a second attack, U 852 had suffered several water ingresses. In addition, some of the battery cells were torn, causing lethal chlorine gas to form in the boat . After a quarter of an hour, the boat had to surface again, with further battery cells leaking due to the steep angle of the surface. After surfacing, the crew manned the anti-aircraft guns while the planes made another approach. Colditz was killed in this. Eck realized that the boat, which could no longer dive due to the damage, could no longer be saved, and decided to put it on the Somali coast to rescue his crew. Despite further approaches by the Wellingtons, the submarine reached the coast and ran aground there as planned. When the crew left the boat, the Wellingtons continued the fire, killing seven Germans; the remaining 59 crew members were captured by British forces. The explosive charges with which the crew wanted to destroy U 852 only partially detonated. Contrary to orders, the submarine's war diary was not destroyed; it proved that U 852 had sunk the Peleus .
The war crimes trial
The preparations
Confronted with the war diary, Chief Engineer Lenz signed a sworn statement about the Peleus incident. The British naval intelligence service received further sworn statements from the chief helmsman and a sailor, who had been on the bridge as a lookout until the changing of the watch . In addition, the British had the sworn statements of the three survivors of the Peleus . Eck, the second officer Hoffmann, the on-board doctor Weispfennig, Lenz and the sailor Schwender, who had fired a burst from a machine gun on a raft, were brought to Great Britain. It was decided to allow the trial to take place in defeated Germany after the end of the war.
After the war ended in 1945, the five suspects were transferred to the prison in Hamburg-Altona and formally charged on October 6, 1945. The charges were twofold. The first was that the sinking of the Peleus had violated the rules and laws of war, by which was meant that the sinking had violated the award law as set out in the London Submarine Protocol and the 1908 Sea War Convention . The second charge was that they were involved in the killing of the Peleus crew .
The five defendants chose Albrecht Wegner, an expert on international law, as a joint adviser for the defense lawyers. Eck's defense attorney was the Hamburg attorney Todsen. Hoffmann was represented by the lawyers Max Pabst and Gerd-Otto Wolff, Pabst also represented the sailor Schwender. Lenz selected Major Lermon, an attorney from the British Eighth Army Headquarters, as defense attorney. The defense attorneys received the mandate on October 13; the start of the trial was scheduled for October 17th.
Composition of the court
The chairman of the court was Crown Attorney A. Melford Stevenson, a British major. The jury consisted of three officers from the British Army, two from the British Navy and two officers from the Royal Greek Navy. The prosecutor was Colonel Halse, also from the British Army. The trial took place under English criminal procedural law and in English, with interpreters assisting the defendants.
The first day of the trial
Immediately after the trial opened on October 17, Major Lermon requested that the defense attorneys be deferred because four days of preparation did not guarantee adequate criminal defense. In particular, German lawyers would need time to familiarize themselves with procedural law, which they are unfamiliar with. In addition, witnesses important for the defense had not yet arrived. This motion was denied by the court, which asked the prosecutors to present the case.
On the first count (violation of prize law ), Lermon dismissed the indictment on behalf of all of the defendants on the grounds that the legal interpretation of the prize law on which the indictment was based was flawed. This charge was actually dropped by the court with the prosecution's approval.
The prosecution introduced the three affidavits by the survivors of the Peleus at the beginning of the taking of evidence . The defense tried to reject the use of the sworn testimony of the survivors, as the use was only permitted if the witnesses were not available. In fact, the survivors of the British Admiralty would be available. By using the written testimony, the witnesses would not be available for cross-examination . This procedural objection was also rejected by the court.
The prosecution then called five U 852 crew members to the stand. Questioning them did not substantiate the charge that survivors were targeted.
Finally, the prosecution presented documents to prove that the Peleus had been sailing under British charter and that the three survivors were in fact crew members.
At the beginning of the evidence, the defense again requested a one-week break in preparation, as witnesses and documents were still missing. The court made it clear that it did not want the trial to be extended; it allowed a break until the next afternoon.
The second day of the trial
The defense began their argument by saying that what actually happened was not denied by any of the accused. The destruction of the life rafts was an operational necessity due to the presence of anti-submarine units in the South Atlantic. It was inevitable that this had minimized the chances of rescue for the survivors; the killing of survivors was not the aim of the actions of the accused.
Wegner, the specialist in international law, then stated that the rules of warfare on which the prosecution was based were imprecise and vague, as no specific norm or international agreement was named. The principle nulla poena sine lege is also violated. Most recently, Wegner pointed out that war crimes require the legal intent to commit a crime.
After Wegner's more academic remarks, Eck's defender Todsen spoke again, referring to the fact that both sides had attacked lifeboats, and even survivors in the water, under certain conditions during the First World War . Todsen alluded to two incidents in which a British Q-ship attacked survivors of sunk German submarines. The prosecution replied that if the defense provided evidence of such incidents, they would request a stay in preparation for a rebuttal. The court indicated that it would comply with such a request.
Due to the lack of preparation time for the defense, Todsen had no evidence and relied on the argument that these events were common knowledge and therefore had to be taken into account by the court. It is not known why Todsen gave up after the prosecution announced they would request a stay, even though the defense themselves had requested a week's stay the day before.
The defense next called Eck himself to the stand. Eck was not a useful witness for the defense because he answered the questions briefly and brusquely and did not explain his reasons for having been so worried about Allied aircraft in an understandable way. Eck stated that his only reason for destroying the life rafts was because he was concerned that they might be spotted from the air the next morning; he was also concerned that the rafts were equipped with radio. Eck emphasized that it had never been his intention to kill the survivors, even if they would certainly have died due to the destruction of the rescue equipment. Eck also explained why he had ordered the use of machine guns and, after these were unsuccessful, hand grenades, and that he had assumed that the life rafts had been abandoned when the first machine gun fire occurred; however, he was aware that he could have made this assumption wrong. Eck also underlined that he had orders not to support survivors in any way whatsoever. Eck concluded his statement by explaining why he had communicated his decision to his crew.
During the interrogation, Eck and his defense lawyer acted unhappy. At first they did not succeed in avoiding the impression that Eck had wanted to order the destruction of all traces of the Peleus , which also included the survivors. Todsen then asked how Eck believed his enemies would have behaved in the same situation. With this question he made it possible for Eck to report on the Laconia incident, in which an American bomber attacked U 156 , which had towed Laconia lifeboats under a red cross flag . As a result of this incident, it was clear to Eck that the enemy had also placed military reasons above the safety of the shipwrecked.
The defense lost ground in the cross-examination that followed. First, the prosecution worked out the contradiction between Eck's concern about airmen in the Peleus incident and the fact that U 852 had been found by airmen on the surface during the day; then she turned to the Peleus incident herself and forced Eck to admit that he suspected about 20 survivors in the water. Then she tried to get Eck to admit that he had given up attempts to sink the rafts because there were no more survivors, and thus undermine one of the basic lines of defense. Eck was able to avoid this, but not by giving the impression that he was indifferent to the fate of the survivors.
The court opened its questioning to Eck by asking how often Eck had seen sinking ships overall. The aim was that the sinking of ships almost always left traces in the form of oil stains from lubricating oil or fuel tanks, so that the destruction of the life rafts alone would not have made sense. The court then asked Eck why Eck had not started at the highest speed from the start, why Eck had not checked whether the life rafts had radio communication, and also elicited from Eck that the first officer Colditz (who had fallen) was against Eck's decision protested. The latter was bad for the defense of the other four defendants, as they pleaded that they had obeyed an order.
Overall, the second day of the trial went badly for the defendants, because the operational necessity of destroying the life rafts could not be conveyed.
The third day of the trial
The third day of the trial began in the morning and with the continuation of Eck's cross-examination by the defense lawyers of the co-defendants. It was important for the co-defendants to emphasize that they acted under orders and that disregard or refusal to comply with an order was a capital crime. Eck answered the related questions satisfactorily.
Then Todsen, Eck's defense attorney, called on one of the employees of the British naval intelligence service who had interrogated the defendants and asked him first about the density of air surveillance over the South Atlantic. It was found that a maximum of five to six aircraft were available to monitor the area between Freetown and Ascension Island and that from time to time aircraft carriers were deployed in the area. Todsen then directed the survey on the Laconia -Incident to by the British witnesses to Laconia command of Karl Doenitz introduce, and paving the call of witnesses in the defense saw as their most important witnesses: Lieutenant Commander Adalbert Schnee .
Schnee had been one of the most successful submarine commanders and had been awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. In addition, he had been on the staff of the BdU for two years and had instructed Eck before the departure. Todsen began the questioning by letting Snow reproduce this conversation, and then moved on to the question of how long the remains of a sunken ship were visible from the air, which Snow answered with "a few days". Snow also confirmed that this could be shortened by sinking larger debris.
Next Todsen tried to refute the objection of the oil stain remaining in a sinking with the help of snow. While Snow confirmed that the sinking of an oil-fired steamer like the Peleus left an oil stain, it also pointed out that oil stains on shipping lanes are not uncommon, as they also occur when bilges are cleaned . Todsen asked Schnee further which weapon he would have used in Ecks place to sink liferafts. Schnee stated that both the on-board cannon and explosive charges were unsuitable for this; he would have used machine guns too. Overall, Schnee supported the defense's position before the prosecution cross-examined him. After a brief preliminary questioning, the prosecution then asked Schnee the hypothetical question what he would have done in Eck's position after the sinking of the Peleus . Before Schnee could answer, Major Lermon, the most experienced defense attorney in English procedural law, interrupted that it was necessary to warn Schnee that if he were to put himself at risk of prosecution by answering, he would not have to answer that question. The judge chief advised Schnee that he would not have to answer questions that would expose him to prosecution for war crimes. This enlightenment threw Schnee into the dilemma that not responding would have been an indirect admission of war crimes.
After the key defense witness was so cornered, the prosecution reiterated the hypothetical question that Schnee could not answer the defense had wanted: both failure to answer and the answer that he had acted immediately would have put himself at risk. Schnee tried to avoid answering, but then had to admit that he suspected Eck had lost his nerve. When asked again, Schnee confirmed that he had acted differently. The prosecution had thereby dismantled a defense witness and strengthened their own position; she also used Schnees testimony to support her own argument. Schnee confirmed that he did not know of any comparable case in which a submarine commander had acted like Eck, and that the BdU had never approved the killing of survivors. The prosecution concluded their cross-examination of Schnees by asking whether there had been any special orders not to kill survivors , to which Schnee replied that this had been a standing order since the outbreak of war.
Todsen tried to limit the damage the Chief Prosecutor had done in the defense's evidence by asking Schnee, in turn, the hypothetical question of what he would have done in Eck's situation. Snow contradicted his previous testimony and confirmed that he had tried to sink the wreckage. The prosecution took the opportunity to persuade Snow to admit that he had never tried to sink a life raft with a machine gun and had never seen it.
Snow's cross-examination was continued by the defense lawyers of the remaining defendants. When asked by Pabst, the defense attorney Schwenders, he confirmed that Eck, as a superior, was entitled to use the firearm if he refused to order. He was then released from the stand.
Next, the defendant Hoffmann was called to the stand by his defense attorney, but his questioning did not reveal anything new, since the court was prepared to assume that Hoffmann's good repute was true. The subsequent cross-examination by the prosecution was disastrous for Hoffmann. The prosecutor first made Hoffmann admit that he had assumed that there were survivors on the rafts. When the prosecution also found out that Hoffmann had never been ordered to shoot by Eck, Hoffmann's fate was sealed.
The next accused on the witness stand was the board doctor Weispfennig, whose case was particularly difficult to defend because of the Hippocratic oath for him as a doctor . His questioning as well as that of the other co-defendants brought nothing new.
Then Wegner appeared again for the defense. He had prepared a longer legal declaration and was overtired after working on the declaration all night. His request for an adjournment was rejected by the court. Wegner had already worked scientifically in the past on a precedent from the First World War, in which a German submarine shot at lifeboats of an English ship. The Reichsgericht had to decide on this case in 1921 . The sentences at that time, four years in prison for each of the two defendants, were felt to be too mild in England. Wegner had defended the conviction, but not the sentence, in a book about the case. As an expert he could not meet the expectations placed on him by the defense. His statements were without a common thread; he got lost in incidental events.
The fourth day of the trial
Todsen gave Eck the first closing argument of the defense, which he based on the line of argument that sinking the life rafts was an "operational necessity". An order to shoot the survivors of the Peleus has not been established, and there has been no motive for such an order.
As the next of the defense lawyers, Pabst spoke for Weispfennig, Hoffmann and Schwender, whereby Pabst, instead of re-presenting what had been presented by the evidence, used the more modern method of presenting the conclusions of the defense. He advised the court that if a guilty verdict was reached, it would have to decide whether it was murder , manslaughter or negligent homicide , taking into account that the defendants were agitated and exhausted that night. With this argument a conviction for manslaughter would have been possible. Pabst went on to explain that the three had acted on orders before he turned to the arguments in favor of each of his clients, starting with the easiest individual case, that of the sailor Schwender. This had only given a burst of fire, and the evidence had only shown that he had aimed at wreckage. There is no evidence that he participated in the killing of people.
It was different with Hoffmann and Weispfennig. It was proven to both of them that they had shot, and in addition Hoffmann had not been on duty and Weispfennig had been a noncombatant as a doctor . Pabst could only rely on the justification for acting according to the orders, for which he could cite a German precedent from the First World War, against the decision of which the British government had not protested.
Major Lermon began his closing argument by taking up Pabst's idea that aimed shots at survivors had not been proven. The only evidence of this was the survivors' written testimony, with Lermon heavily criticizing that they had not been heard as witnesses and had not been available for cross-examination. Lermon also relied on the fact that Lenz had acted on orders in order to finally explain why it was a matter of honor for his client instead of shooting Schwender.
The prosecutor, Colonel Halse, explained the conviction of the prosecution that Eck's order was cold-blooded murder and therefore obviously illegal. As a result, Eck's co-defendants could not plead that they followed an order. The prosecution is also fully convinced of the guilt of Hoffmann, who admitted firing and throwing hand grenades. Halse found particularly sharp words for Weispfennig, since his actions were in absolute opposition to all medical duties. After all, Schwender must have known that he was shooting at people.
After a lunch break, the chairman summarized the events after the sinking of the Peleus for the jury by contrasting arguments of the defense and the prosecution and, in the style of a prosecutor, invalidating arguments of the defense. After this summary of the trial material, the jury withdrew and returned to the boardroom after 40 minutes with a guilty verdict on all of the defendants.
Under British law, the trial of the sentence was entered into, beginning with the defense. Again Todsen spoke first and first renewed the argument that the sinking of the Peleus was a lawful act of war and that the destruction of the life-saving equipment was necessary. Then Todsen took up the argument Snow had tried to explain Eck's behavior. In contrast to Schnee, who was a highly experienced submarine commander, it was Eck's first patrol as commander. On the basis of this, one could not deduce anything to the disadvantage of Eck from Schnee's statement that he had behaved differently.
Reputation witnesses were heard for the co-defendants, and Pabst again explained for Weispfennig and Schwender what effects the pressure of orders had had on them. Under the conditions of a submarine, they should have trusted and relied on the commander.
After Major Lermon had once again stated that Lenz, as an officer, had taken off the machine gun from the sailor Schwender for an illogical but not unknightly motive, i.e. an illogical understanding of officer's honor, the jury of seven officers withdrew again to deliberate .
The jury discussed the five defendants' sentences for less than an hour. She imposed the death penalty on Eck, the second officer Hoffmann and the on-board doctor Weispfennig for war crimes . Lenz was sentenced to life imprisonment , the sailor Schwender received a prison term of 15 years.
After the trial
The judgments were confirmed by the higher authorities, most recently by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery as commander of the British occupation forces on November 12, 1945. Eck, Hoffmann and Weispfenning were executed by firing squad on the morning of November 30, 1945 in the courtyard of the Hamburg-Altona prison and buried in the Hamburg-Ohlsdorf cemetery. The graves of Eck and Weispfenning are laid out side by side.
Those convicted with them did not have to serve the full duration of the sentences imposed on them. The seaman Schwender was released from prison in December 1951, the flight engineer Lenz in August 1952.
Discussion of the judgment
The trial against Eck and his fellow officers is hardly known today outside of those interested in marine history, as there were larger war crimes trials such as the Nuremberg Trials , which were more in the focus of the post-war public. The process is occasionally used as an example of the fact that there was a winning judiciary .
A comparison of the Eck process with the Nuremberg trials shows that these were prepared much more carefully. At the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals, there was not four days between the presentation of the indictment and the start of the proceedings, as in the Ecks case, but a month. While in the Nuremberg trial against Karl Dönitz, his defender Otto Kranzbühler was even able to enforce a written questioning of American officers, the defenders in the corner proceedings were limited to the evidence that they could obtain until the end of the taking of evidence. There are at least doubts about the fairness of the Eck procedure.
Whether Eck was actually a war criminal is controversial among naval historians. The critics of Eck's classification as a war criminal essentially follow the line given by Eck's defense during the trial that the sinking of the life rafts was operationally necessary. There were also comparable acts in the navies of the other warring parties that never became the subject of judicial investigations. The court was biased from the start and the trial was unfair. The opposing view points out that there was no operational necessity, as emerged from the evidence, in particular from Schnees testimony and the fact that, contrary to Eck's fears, the aerial surveillance did not discover the sinking. Eck had completely misjudged the situation, so shooting at the life rafts was unnecessary at best. Eck violated his orders as well as the German laws. Ultimately, a fair trial could have resulted in the same verdict.
See also
literature
- Theodore P. Savas: Silent Hunters: German U-Boat Commanders of World War II , Savas Publishing, 1997, ISBN 1-882810-17-1
- John Cameron: "Peleus" Trial: Lieutenant Captain Eck and Others , W. Hodge, 1948, ISBN 0-85279-015-5
- Theodore P. Savas: Silent hunters: German submarine commanders in World War II , Ullstein Verlag Berlin, 1999, ISBN 3-548-24621-4
Web links
- Sinking of Peleus and the process ( English )
- Detailed treatise on the corner and the process ( English )
Footnotes
- ↑ Hans Herlin : Damned Atlantic - Fates of German submarine drivers. 11th edition. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag Munich, 1979, ISBN 3-453-00173-7 , page 205.
