Process of Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS
The race and settlement main office of the SS was the eighth of a total of twelve follow-up trials in Nuremberg against those responsible in the German Reich at the time of National Socialism .
While the term "Nuremberg Trials" is primarily used for the Nuremberg Trials against the main war criminals , it also includes the twelve subsequent trials that were held in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice before American military courts against a further 177 people. The eighth trial dealt with the crimes in the annexed areas and the displacement of their people. All three SS main offices , the Race and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA), the Main Staff Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Ethnicity (RKF) and the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle(VoMi) or their leaders were charged in this process. At the time of the Third Reich, the RuSHA was responsible for race examinations and marriage permits of the SS as well as for the naturalization of ethnic Germans and the racial selection of so-called "German-able" people with non-German citizenship.
Together with the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office and the Einsatzgruppen process, this process is one of the three “ethnological cases” of the Nuremberg follow-up processes.
Like all twelve follow-up trials, this trial was based on the Allied Control Council Act No. 10 , in which the crime of crimes against humanity is defined independently.
The charges
The indictment of July 1, 1947:
- Crimes against humanity
- War crimes
- Membership in criminal organizations
The judge
- President: Lee B. Wyatt , Georgia Supreme Court Justice
- Daniel T. O'Connell , Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice
- Johnson T. Crawford , Oklahoma District Court Justice
The crimes of the accused
The Germanization program of the National Socialists understood the "Germanization" of the annexed areas as "consolidation of German nationality", the administrative measures were summarized under the concept of national politics .
Taking the annexed parts of Poland as an example, this folk politics comprised:
- Displacement of the population
- Expropriation of private and public property
- Forced sterilization to prevent childbirth
- Forced abortion and prohibition of marriage
- Abduction of children and their integration into their own nation
- Deportation of civilians for Nazi forced labor
- Assassination of the national functional elite
The judges condemned Ulrich Greifelt as the person primarily responsible for the "evacuation" of people from Slovenia, Alsace, Lorraine and Luxembourg to the Reich, which was forced under threat of imprisonment in a concentration camp and deportation from the national territory. The accused were shown to have participated in the deportations of Jews, Poles, Yugoslavs, Alsatians and Luxembourgers, while doing the job of racial verification. The heads of the RuSHA, Otto Hofmann and Richard Hildebrandt , were also found guilty of the charges of forced abortions among Eastern workers and the persecution of sexual relationships between slave laborers and Germans (so-called racial disgrace ). Hildebrandt was also convicted of participating in the euthanasia program .
The judges judged the VoMi camps as places where “resettled people” and “resettled people” were placed for forced labor and forced recruitment for the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS . They considered that these were criminal deportations by an order from Himmler of September 21, 1942 as proven. According to this order, all relatives of Slovenes who had fled a VoMi camp should be taken to a concentration camp and their children should be taken away. All those who knew about the escape should also be hanged.
The Lebensborn e. V. no crime was proven, Inge Viermetz was acquitted, the accused male employees only convicted because of their membership in the SS.
The judgments
| Surname | judgment | Rank and position | Others |
|---|---|---|---|
 Ulrich Greifelt * 1896 † 1949 |
Died for life in custody |
SS-Obergruppenführer Head of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Volkstum ("Staff Main Office of the RKFDV") |
significantly involved in the “ General Plan East ” |
 Rudolf Creutz * 1896 † 1980 |
15 years 1951 converted to 10 years, released in 1954 |
SS-Oberführer Head of Office Group A in the "Staff Main Office of the RKFDV" |
was responsible for part of the "re-Germanization program" |
 Konrad Meyer * 1901 † 1973 |
Released 2 years 10 months after judgment |
SS-Oberführer until 1942 Head of the planning office in the "Staff Main Office of the RKFDV" (developer of the "General Plan East") |
from 1942 planning officer at the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture |
 Otto Schwarzenberger * 1900 † unbek. |
Released 2 years 10 months after judgment |
SS-Oberführer Head of Office V (Finance Administration) Office Group B in the "Staff Main Office of the RKFDV" |
|
 Herbert Hübner * 1902 † after 1951 |
Dismissed for 15 years in 1951 |
SS-Standartenführer until 1942 Head of the "Staff Main Office of the RKFDV" in Posen |
from 1942 leader in the Race and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA) Wartheland (Poland) |
 Werner Lorenz * 1891 † 1974 |
20 years 1951 converted to 15 years; Dismissed in 1955 |
SS-Obergruppenführer Head of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VOMI), from 1939 SS main office in the "Staff Main Office of the RKFDV" |
responsible for resettlement and "home management" of foreigners of German origin, German minorities and "Germanization" of foreign children |
|
Heinz Brückner * 1900 † 1968 |
Dismissed for 15 years in 1951 |
SS-Sturmbannführer in the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VoMi) Amt VI (Securing German Volkstums in the Reich) |
|
 Otto Hofmann * 1896 † 1982 |
25 years converted into 15 years in 1951, released in 1954 |
SS-Obergruppenführer until 1943 Head of Race and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA) |
from 1943 leader of the SS-Oberabschnitt Southwest, took part in the Wannsee Conference in 1942 . |
 Richard Hildebrandt * 1897 † 1952 |
Extradited to Poland for 25 years , sentenced to death in 1949, executed in 1952 |
SS-Obergruppenführer Head of the Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS (RuSHA) |
from 1942 to 1943 member of the People's Court |
 Fritz Schwalm * 1910 † after 1970 |
Dismissed 10 years in 1951 |
SS-Obersturmbannführer Head of the RuSHA branch in Litzmannstadt |
SS special leader “Kampfgruppe Jeckeln” / massacre of Jews in Latvia |
 Max Sollmann * 1904 † after 1970 |
Released 2 years 8 months after judgment |
SS-Standartenführer Managing Director Lebensborn e. V. |
belonged from 1942 as head of department L to the personal staff of Himmler |
 Gregor Ebner * 1892 † 1974 |
Released 2 years 8 months after judgment |
SS-Oberführer medical director Lebensborn e. V. |
from 1938 chairman of the disciplinary court of the National Socialist Medical Association |
 Günther Tesch * 1907 † 1989 |
Released 2 years 10 months after judgment |
SS-Sturmbannführer legal advisor Lebensborn e. V. |
u. a. responsible for changing the name of Polish children who are “capable of Germanization” |
 Inge Viermetz * 1908 † 1997 |
acquittal | female SS followers Head of department and special representative Lebensborn e. V. |
Dismissed without notice due to financial irregularities in December 1943 |
literature
- Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. , Vol. 4: United States of America vs. Ulrich Greifelt, et al. (Case 8: "RuSHA Case"). US Government Printing Office, District of Columbia 1950, pp. 597-1185. (Volume 4 of the 15-volume “Green Series” on the Nuremberg follow-up trials. The volume contains, among other things, indictment, judgment and excerpts from the trial documents. The volume also contains the documents relating to the Einsatzgruppen trial .)
- Isabel Heinemann: Race, Settlement, German Blood. The Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS and the racial reorganization of Europe. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89244-623-7 .
Web links
- Mazal Library RuSHA eng, in the internet archive
- Video collection on the Nuremberg trials of the Robert H. Jackson Center, including recordings from the RuSHA trial (1947/48)