Process of Economic and Administrative Main Office of the SS
The trial against the Economic and Administrative Main Office of the SS ( WVHA ) took place as the fourth of a total of twelve follow-up trials in Nuremberg against those responsible for the German Reich at the time of National Socialism from January 13 to November 3, 1947 in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice before a US military court . The indictment mentioned above all the joint commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity as a member of a criminal organization .
The accused top functionaries of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (SS-WVHA) administered the SS-owned industries, trades and businesses, including those in the concentration camps , until May 1945 , and merged them into their own corporations . At the same time, the SS was part of the state police apparatus and the office was u. a. responsible for the economic exploitation of this function. The WVHA worked closely with the general SS main office and the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), and from 1942/43 at the latest, office D was responsible for almost the entire concentration camp system. The Office D was the inspection of the concentration camps under SS-group leader Richard happiness .
The SS-WVH office also consisted of the following four other office groups: Office A: Troop administration , Office B: Troop management , Office C: Construction under SS-Gruppenführer Kammler and Office W: Business enterprises under the direct direction of Pohl. These worked u. a. working closely together in controlling the storage system.
The legal basis for this process was the Control Council Act No. 10 on the Punishment of Persons Guilty of War Crimes, Crimes against Peace or against Humanity . War crimes were defined as crimes that had already been defined in the Hague Accords before the First World War : killing or mistreating prisoners of war, execution of hostages, deportation for forced labor, etc. Crimes against humanity primarily included the persecution and extermination of Jews all of Europe and the " destruction of life unworthy of life ", ie homicides that are persecuted in all civilized countries.
The charges
The indictment of January 13, 1947:
- The joint project or conspiracy (I.) to commit war crimes (II.),
- Crimes against humanity (III.),
- Membership in criminal organizations (IV).
The judge
In contrast to the main proceedings, only American judges sat on the bench in all subsequent trials.
- President: Robert M. Toms , Justice of the Detroit , Michigan Court of Appeals
- Fitzroi D. Phillips , North Carolina State Judge
- Michael A. Musmanno , judge in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania
- John J. Speight , Alabama judge
The prosecution was represented by Telford Taylor (Chief of Counsel for War Crimes), James M. McHaney (Chief of the SS Section of Prosecutors) and Jack W. Robbins (Chief Prosecutor for this case)
The defendants
Alphabetically ordered names of the 18 defendants in the
"United States vs. Oswald Pohl et al. "And judgments of November 3, 1947:
| Defendant | rank | function | Guilty on charge | judgment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Johannes Baier * 1893; † 1969
 |
SS-Oberführer | Chief of Staff of Office Group W (commercial enterprises) | II, III, IV | 10 years imprisonment, released early in 1951 |
Hanns Bobermin * 1903; † 1960
 |
SS-Obersturmbannführer | Head of Office W II (Stones and Earths - East) | II, III, IV | 20 years imprisonment, reduced to 15 years imprisonment |
Franz Eirenschmalz * 1901; † after 1964
 |
SS standard leader | Head of Office C VI (Building Maintenance) | II, III, IV | Death penalty, commuted to 9 years imprisonment |
Heinz Fanslau * 1909; † 1987
 |
SS Brigade Leader | Head of Office Group A (1944–1945) | II, III, IV | 20 years in prison, reduced to 15 years in prison, released early in 1954 |
August Frank * 1898; † 1984
 |
SS-Obergruppenführer | Head of Office Group A (until 1944), Deputy Head of WVHA (until 1943) | II, III, IV | Life sentence converted to 15 years, early released May 7, 1954 |
Hans Hohberg * 1906; † 1968
 |
Not a member of the Schutzstaffel | Chief of Staff of Office Group W (commercial enterprises) | II and III | 10 years imprisonment, released early in 1951 |
Max Kiefer * 1889; † 1974
 |
SS-Obersturmbannführer | Head of Office C II (Special Tasks Construction) | II, III, IV | Life sentence, reduced to 20 years, released early in 1951 |
Horst Klein * 1910; † 1947
 |
SS-Obersturmbannführer | Head of Office W VII (special tasks) | acquittal | |
Georg Loerner * 1899; † 1959
 |
SS group leader | Head of Office Group B, Deputy Head of WVHA (until 1944–1945) | II, III, IV | Death penalty reduced to life imprisonment converted to 15 years in prison, early released on March 31, 1954. |
Hans Lörner * 1893; † after 1951
 |
SS-Oberführer | Head of Office AI (Household Economics) | II, III, IV | 10 years imprisonment, released early in 1951 |
Karl Mummenthey * 1906; † after 1953
 |
SS-Obersturmbannführer | Head of Office WI (Stones and Earths in the Reich) | II, III, IV | Life sentence - converted to 20 years imprisonment, Landsberg released early on December 18, 1953 |
Oswald Pohl * 1892; † 1951
 |
SS-Obergruppenführer | Head of the WVHA | I, II, III, IV | Death penalty - executed June 7, 1951 |
Hermann Pook * 1901; † 1983
 |
SS-Obersturmbannführer | Deputy Head of Office D III (Medical Services) | II, III, IV | 10 years imprisonment, released early in 1951 |
Rudolf Scheide * 1908; † unknown
 |
SS standard leader | Head of Office B IV (Transport) | acquittal | |
Karl Sommer * 1915; † unknown
 |
SS-Sturmbannführer | Deputy Head of Office D II (prisoners' deployment) | II, III, IV | Death penalty reduced to life imprisonment converted to 20 years' imprisonment, released early on December 11, 1953 |
Erwin Tschentscher * 1903; † 1972
 |
SS standard leader | Deputy Head of Office Group B | II, III, IV | 10 years imprisonment, released early in 1951 |
Josef Vogt * 1884; † 1967
 |
SS standard leader | Head of Office A IV (Examination Office) | acquittal | |
Leo Volk * 1909; † 1973
 |
SS-Hauptsturmführer | Adjutant to Oswald Pohl | II and III | Ten years imprisonment, converted to eight years imprisonment, released early in February 1951 |
Procedure
- Jan. 13, 1947 Opening of the charges
- March 10th opening of proceedings and questions about admission of guilt
- April 8 to May 14 Prosecutor's lectures
- 14.-16. May First statements by the defense lawyers
- June 5 to August 18 Defense of the individual defendants
- September 16 Additional lectures by both sides
- September 17th Prosecutor's closing argument
- 17th to 20th September closing statements by the defense lawyers
- September 22 Closing remarks by the defendants
- November 3, 1947 sentencing
- The next procedural steps concerned the revision of the judgments by the military governors, procedural instructions for the defense and the execution of the judgments on August 11, 1948.
Historical meaning
The process should show the public that the desk perpetrators are also held accountable. They had at least as much guilt as the local killers. So that the participation was of administrative heads, without whose services a regime of terror would not be able to act for the first time internationally criminally punished.
The lawsuit against Pohl and the WVHA partially failed to have its intended effect within Germany. At that time, the verdict was often assessed as winning justice and sometimes even publicly referred to as a shameful verdict. On January 9, 1951, a delegation of the German Bundestag presented the American High Commissioner John Jay McCloy with an unsuccessful request for Pohl's amnesty .
See also
- Nazi forced labor
- The general agent for the work assignment Fritz Sauckel (defendant in the main proceedings)
- Reich Labor Minister Franz Seldte (died before charges were brought)
- The Todt organization also used many concentration camp prisoners as a construction organization for military installations (sub-organization in the Reich Ministry for Armaments and Ammunition)
Time after 1945:
- denazification
- Punishment of National Socialist crimes up to the 1970s (D and international)
- Debate about the book by Götz Aly Hitler's Volksstaat , published in 2005 . Robbery, Race War and National Socialism
literature
- Johannes Tuchel : Case 4: The trial against Oswald Pohl and other members of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt . 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. 110-120.
- Robert MW Kempner : SS cross-examined. Rütten & Loening, Munich 1964.
- Records of the United States Nuremberg War Crimes Trials , Vol. V. United States Government Printing Office , District of Columbia 1950. (Volume 5 of the " Green Series ")
Web links
- Video collection on the Nuremberg Trials of the Robert H. Jackson Center, including recordings from the Pohl Trial (1947/48)
- Introduction to NMT Case 4 - USA v. Pohl et al. , Nuremberg Trials Project (Harvard Law School Library)