SMT convicts
SMT convicts are those of the final phase of World War II in the to 1955 Soviet occupation zone and initially in the occupied eastern territories of S owjetischen M ilitär- T ribunalen (SMT) condemned civilians. Around 40,000 Germans were sentenced either to long prison terms (mostly 25 or 10 years), to deportation to the Soviet Union or to death. From 1945 until the temporary abolition of the death penalty in the Soviet Union in 1947, a total of 1,797 death sentences were imposed and carried out, from 1950 to 1953 there were 606. The only public SMT trial in the Soviet occupation zone was the Sachsenhausen trial . In the Soviet occupation zone in Austria , around 2200 civilians were arrested between 1945 and 1955, at least 1000 of whom were convicted and deported to the Soviet Union.
Custody of the SMT convicts in Germany
In the three of the ten Soviet special camps , namely in Bautzen , Sachsenhausen and Torgau (Fort Zinna) , special accommodations were built or prepared for this from November 1945. So came sheet metal panels in front of the cell windows in Bautzen, which only let in a narrow slit of daylight vertically from above. The guards in the house were Soviet uniformed men. In Bautzen there was the toughest penal system from 1945 to 1950; those who had been sentenced to 25 years of forced labor went there. Those sentenced to ten years were sent to Sachsenhausen. While there was a warehouse in Sachsenhausen, Bautzen was kept in cages. Four of the prisoners were crammed into the one-man cell; 400 men came into one room (taken from Benno von Heynitz # 1945–1956 , slightly shortened).
By June 30, 1947, according to Soviet information, the following were sentenced by military tribunals: 8,980 Germans, 1,746 citizens of the USSR and 120 people of other nationalities.
Many death sentences were carried out in Moscow. For 927 Germans executed in Moscow , a memorial stone was inaugurated on July 1, 2005 in the Moscow Donskoy cemetery (see also Wolfgang Waterstraat ).
After the founding of the GDR, the SMT more frequently negotiated cases in which the acts of Germans had been directed against the Soviet Union; They left many other cases to the Stasi and German courts (see e.g. the notorious Waldheim trials and the proceedings against Rudolf Bahro , Georg Dertinger , Karl Wilhelm Fricke , Otto G possibly , Walter Janka , Hans-Ulrich Klose , Josef Kneifel , Erich Loest , Armin Raufeisen , Hannes Sieberer , Wolfgang Welsch ).
Well-known SMT convicts
The list below only includes those SMT convicts for whom an article exists in Wikipedia:
- Horst Bachmann , allegation unknown; Painter, sculptor, draftsman
- Leo Bauer , persecuted Nazi, politician and publicist (KPD and SED), allegation of espionage
- Heinz Baumkötter , concentration camp doctor
- Hermann Becker , 1946 Thuringian state parliament member for the LDP , espionage
- Herbert Belter , student, opponent of the GDR
- Siegfried Berger , strike leader on June 17, 1953
- Erich Besser , not loyal to the line communist politician
- Ernst Busse , communist politician (was already in the concentration camp)
- Eugen Walter Büttner , camp manager of sub-camps
- Mykolay Charnetskyi , Ukrainian titular bishop, "Agent of the Vatican"
- Herbert Crüger , politician and author
- Ewald von Demandowsky , employee at the Völkischer Beobachter
- Alfred Diener , locksmith, participant in the uprising of June 17, 1953
- Margot Drechsel , concentration camp guard
- Fritz Drescher , politician (SPD and SED), accused of promoting a social democratic underground movement
- Kurt Eccarius , SS-Hauptscharführer and head of the detention area in Sachsenhausen concentration camp
- Edeltraud Eckert , was involved in the anti-communist fighting group against inhumanity
- Max Emendörfer , KPD resistance fighter against National Socialism
- Heinrich Erlen , police and SS leader, war criminal
- Arno Esch , allegedly espionage and formation of a counter-revolutionary organization
- Wilhelm Falk , LDP politician, anti-Soviet agitation
- Karl Fischer , Austrian Trotskyist politician, resistance fighter against National Socialism
- Wieland Förster , visual artist and writer
- Alfred Franke-Gricksch , SS-Sturmbannführer, war criminal
- Gisela Gneist , was sentenced to several years in prison when she was 15
- Stella Goldschlag , betrayed Jews in hiding to Nazi authorities
- Walter Hammer , SS-Obersturmbannführer
- Wolfram von Hanstein , agent
- Ernst Hefter , convicted of euthanasia crimes in the 3rd Reich
- Hans Heinze , psychiatrist involved in Nazi euthanasia
- Willi Henne , Task Force Leader I, Task Force Wiking (Norway)
- Benno von Heynitz , founder of the Bautzen-Komitee eV, initiator of the Bautzen Memorial
- Oskar Hippe , resistance fighter during the Nazi era, communist
- Herbert von Hoerner , writer and painter
- Martin Hoffmann , Resistance against human rights violations in the GDR
- August Höhn , head of the protective custody camp in Sachsenhausen concentration camp
- Karl Holtz , graphic artist and caricaturist
- Werner Ihmels , student politician
- Wilhelm Jelinek , author, anarcho-syndicalist; anti-Soviet agitation and illegal group formation
- Erwin Jöris , KPD, persecuted during the Nazi era
- Aurel von Jüchen , pastor; Espionage and formation of oppositional groups
- Oswald Kaduk , report leader of the Auschwitz concentration camp
- Anton Kaindl , commandant of Sachsenhausen concentration camp
- Walter Kempowski , writer
- Herbert Killian , Austrian schoolboy, accused of hooliganism
- Manfred Klein , politician, allegation of espionage
- Charlotte Köhler , wife of Erwin Köhler , shot dead in Butyrka
- Erwin Köhler , Mayor of Potsdam, shot dead in Butyrka
- Winfried Köhler , arrested in 1949 as a high school graduate for demanding democratic freedoms, later an architect
- Walter Kolberg , connections to the east office of the CDU as well as espionage and illegal group formation
- Michael Körner , Deputy Protective Custody Camp Leader in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp
- Erich Kranz , Protestant pastor after his release in 1956
- Hermann Kreutzer , counter-revolutionary activities, opponent of the forced union KPD + SPD
- Karl-Heinz Krumm , anti-Soviet propaganda and illegal group formation
- Petras Kubiliūnas , officer, head of the Lithuanian self-government under German occupation
- Josef Küchler , Eastern CDU, sentenced to 75 years of forced labor
- Wilhelm Kunze , German major general
- Karl-Heinz Kurras , (later West Berlin police officer, shot Benno Ohnesorg in 1967 ) member of the SED, illegal possession of weapons
- Walter Linse , political work against the GDR, kidnapped from West Berlin
- Ernst Lohmeyer , Protestant theologian, sentenced to death as a military commander of the Slavyansk district
- Günter Malkowski , student, sentenced to death for anti-Soviet activity
- Ferdinand Medlin , social democrat and trade unionist, before 1933 ADGB district secretary in Silesia, involved in the reconstruction of Pirna and Dresden as an employee of the state administration of Saxony, convicted in 1950 for "espionage"
- Fritz Meyer-Scharffenberg , writer
- Margarete Müller , CDU member of the Mecklenburg State Parliament from 1946 to 1950; Espionage and illegal group formation
- Wolfgang Natonek , Leipzig LDP student politician
- Erich Nehlhans , co-founder of the Berlin Jewish community in 1945, helped Jewish Red Army soldiers flee to Palestine
- Walter Nienhagen , LDP member, opponent of the communist dictatorship
- John H. Noble , German-American entrepreneur, allegation of espionage
- Walter Oehme , first Lord Mayor of Görlitz after the Second World War
- Benno Prieß , author
- Kurt Prüfer , engineer, responsible for the crematoria in Auschwitz
- Gottfried Raestrup , forensic doctor, had established the Soviet perpetrators in the Vinnytsia massacre in 1943
- Rudolf Ramm , doctor and NSDAP politician
- Constantin Rembe , major general, NSDAP politician
- Dieter Rieke , SPD politician, maintained contacts with the SPD's eastern office even after the forced unification of the SPD and KPD
- Erika Riemann , schoolgirl, painted picture of Stalin with lipstick
- Fritz Ritterbusch , SS officer, member of the camp administration in the Majdanek and Groß-Rosen concentration camps
- Horst Rocholl , medic, Wehrmacht officer
- Alfred Saalwächter , Admiral General of the Navy
- Paul Sakowski , prisoner functionary in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, who was described as the executioner of Sachsenhausen
- Dietrich von Saucken , tank general
- Willi Rudolf Sawatzki , SS-Hauptscharführer, involved in mass shootings in the Auschwitz concentration camp
- Walter Scheler , accountant, involved in the uprising of June 17, 1953
- Alfred Schmidt , communist politician and trade unionist, anti-Soviet propaganda
- Rudolf Schmidt , Colonel General
- Wilhelm Schubert , SS-Oberscharführer and block leader in Sachsenhausen concentration camp
- Horst Schüler , journalist, distributed leaflets for more freedom of the press
- Kurt Seipel , Austrian student, accused of espionage and the rebuilding of the international bourgeoisie
- Walther von Seydlitz , General, accusation: murder of the civilian population and captured Red Army soldiers
- Heinz Sokolowski , journalist, allegation of espionage (later shot while trying to escape at the Berlin Wall)
- Walther Sommer , lawyer in the party chancellery of the NSDAP, executed
- Gustav Sorge , SS-Hauptscharführer and war criminal; charged with killing more than 18,000 Soviet prisoners in Sachsenhausen concentration camp
- Günter Stempel , politician (LDP), rejection of the electoral law of the GDR with unified lists of all parties
- Helmut Stief , parliamentary stenographer, state parliament director, inventor of the stenography system stepography
- Wolfgang Strauss , LDP member, accused of anti-Soviet propaganda
- Albert Thormann , accusation of anti-Soviet propaganda
- Erwein von Thun and Hohenstein , major, war crimes in Slovakia, executed
- Friedrich Timm , Defamation of the Soviet Union
- Hans Voelkner , foreign spy in the service of the GDR
- Günther Wagenlehner , insubordinate special camp inmate
- Erica Wallach , allegation of espionage
- Wolfgang Waterstraat , doctor; executed for alleged espionage, diversion and anti-Soviet propaganda
- Gerhard Weck , SPD member, persecuted Nazi, Lord Mayor of Werdau
- Arno Wend , politician (SPD), opposed the SED course
- Friedrich-Franz Wiese , LDP member
- Joachim Wrana , electrical engineer, alleged sabotage
- Heinz Zeiss , doctor, epidemiologist and hygienist
- Eduard Zimmermann , initially a black market trader, then a criminal hunter, later a journalist (moderator) and security expert
- Kurt Zipper , politician (LPDP) and member of the People's Chamber of the GDR, executed for espionage for the American secret service
Comment on the SMT judgments
Friedrich-Christian Schroeder , Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Regensburg, states:
"The actions of the Soviet military tribunals against German civilians stood in stark contradiction to the rule of law not only in terms of the legal provisions applied, but also in terms of their practice."
See also
literature
- Andreas Hilger , Ute Schmidt , Mike Schmeitzner (eds.): Soviet military tribunals . Volume 2: The conviction of German civilians 1945–1955 (= writings of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism . Vol. 17) Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-412-06801-2 .
- Andreas Weigelt, Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner (eds.): Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). A historical-biographical study (= writings of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarian Research . Vol. 56). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 3-525-36968-9 .
Web links
- List (PDF; 1.0 MB) of the SMT convicts shot in Moscow and buried in mass graves in the Donskoy cemetery
- Online database with the names of around 25,000 SMT convicts for whom the Saxon Memorials Foundation to Remember Victims of Political Tyranny after 1990 has reviewed judgments.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The German Gulag , ed. v. Federal Center for Political Education and Robert Havemann Society, last change September 2008, [1]
- ↑ Source: Saxon Memorials Foundation, Documentation Center for the History of Resistance and Repression
- ↑ Harald Knoll, Barbara Stelzl-Marx: Austrian civil convicts in the Soviet Union. An overview. In: Andreas Hilger, Ute Schmidt , Mike Schmeitzner (eds.): Soviet military tribunals. Volume 2, Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar, 2003, p. 571 ff., ISBN 978-3412068011 .
- ↑ From the "Letter from the Head of the Dept. Special Camps to the Deputy Minister of the Interior Serov" of July 10, 1947, p. 290
- ↑ Arsenij Borisovich Roginskij, Frank Drauschke and Anna Kaminsky: Shot in Moscow ...: the German victims of Stalinism in the Moscow Donskoye cemetery 1950–1953. Metropol, 2006, ISBN 3938690143 .