Sobibor trial

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The Sobibor trial in the mid-1960s was a trial against twelve former SS members of the Sobibor extermination camp before the Hagen district court . It was preceded by two Sobibor trials that took place in Berlin and Frankfurt am Main in 1950 . Crimes were still being tried in Sobibor in the 1970s and 1980s.

In the Belzec Trial , the Sobibor Trial and the Treblinka Trials , the crimes of mass extermination were negotiated in the context of Aktion Reinhardt , the killing of over two million Jews and 50,000 Roma and Sinti . These processes are directly related to the mass murders of 100,000 handicapped people as part of " Aktion T4 ", since many guards worked in Nazi killing centers before they started working in the extermination camps . The first euthanasia trials were carried out shortly after the end of the war.

From 2009 to 2011 the Munich District Court II tried the Ukrainian John (Iwan) Demjanjuk , who was a security guard at the Sobibor extermination camp and was sentenced to five years imprisonment for aiding and abetting murder in thousands of cases.

The Sobibor trials in Berlin and Frankfurt in 1950

Erich Bauer , the “gas master” from Sobibor, was recognized and reported by a surviving prisoner in Berlin in 1949. The Berlin district court sentenced Bauer to death on May 8, 1950 for crimes against humanity based on Control Council Act No. 10 . However, the death penalty has been converted into a life sentence , as the Basic Law does not provide for the death penalty.

Defendant Function in Sobibor Offense judgment
Erich Bauer responsible for the gassings in camp III ("death camp"). Crimes against humanity - mass killing of Jews, mistreatment and shooting of individual prisoners Death penalty - converted to life imprisonment

Based on a statement by Josef Hirtreiter , who was arrested as early as 1946 as a result of the investigation into the killing of disabled people in the Hadamar “euthanasia” facility and sentenced to life imprisonment in the first Treblinka trial in 1951, the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's Office identified some accomplices who were deployed in Sobibor . The trial before the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court ended on August 25, 1950 with the pronouncement of the verdict.

Defendant Function in Sobibor Offense judgment
Hubert Gomerski Head of forest command Murder in an indefinite number of cases life imprisonment
Johann Klier Head of bakery and shoe warehouse Aiding and abetting community murder Acquittal due to significantly exonerating statements from surviving Sobibor prisoners (conspiratorial help for Jewish prisoners)

The Sobibor trial before the Hagen district court

The trial against the twelve defendants, which was hardly noticed by the public, took place from September 6, 1965 to December 20, 1966 before the Hagen district court . On January 15, 1965, the Hagen Regional Court decided not to open main proceedings against seven defendants because they were in a putative emergency at the time of the offense . Of these seven defendants, five were already accused in the Belzec trial , namely Dubois, Fuchs, Jührs, Unverhau and Zierke. In contrast to the Belzec proceedings, the competent Hamm Higher Regional Court did not follow this decision, so the main proceedings were opened against all of the accused. At least 24 witnesses were heard during the trial, including in the United States and Israel .

The judgments and crimes in detail

Defendant Function in Sobibor Offense judgment
Karl Frenzel Head of Camp I (Jewish Work Command) Joint murder of at least 150,000 people, murder of 6 Jewish prisoners prison for life
Franz Wolf Supervision of the undressing of the victims Aiding and abetting the collective murder of at least 39,000 people 8 years imprisonment
Erich Fuchs Procurement of materials for the construction of the extermination facility Aiding and abetting the collective murder of at least 79,000 people 4 years imprisonment
Alfred Ittner Inventory accountant, confiscation of victims' valuables Aiding and abetting the collective murder of at least 68,000 people 4 years imprisonment
Erwin Lambert Construction manager of the T4 department (construction of the gas chambers in Sobibor) Aiding and abetting the collective murder of at least 57,000 people 3 years imprisonment
Werner Dubois temporarily head of the forest command Aiding and abetting the collective murder of at least 15,000 people 3 years imprisonment
Erich Lachmann Head of the Trawniki guard until autumn 1942 Aiding and abetting the collective murder of at least 150,000 people Acquittal due to putative emergency
Hans-Heinz Schuett Office work and payroll Aiding and abetting the collective murder of at least 86,000 people Acquittal due to putative emergency
Heinrich Unverhau Head of a commando from Sobibor to build a farm on the site of the disbanded and demolished Belzec camp to cover up traces Aiding and abetting the collective murder of at least 72,000 people Acquittal due to putative emergency
Robert Jührs Monitoring the demolition of the camp Aiding and abetting the collective murder of 30 people Acquittal due to putative emergency
Ernst Zierke Monitoring the demolition of the camp Aiding and abetting the collective murder of 30 people Acquittal due to putative emergency
Kurt Bolender Management of the crematorium in camp III. (“Totenlager”) until autumn 1942, from then head of the Trawniki guards Aiding and abetting the collective murder of at least 86,000 people, murder in at least 360 cases Suicide on October 10, 1966 before the verdict was pronounced

Further lawsuits against the camp personnel of the Sobibor extermination camp

The former camp commandant of Sobibor and Treblinka, Franz Stangl , who was still missing during the Hagen trial, was also tried before the Düsseldorf Regional Court in 1970 , with his crimes in Treblinka in the foreground in this trial. Before the Hamburg Regional Court further proceedings against six accused, the crime as part of Operation Reinhard ended in 1976 also included in Sobibor - the six defendants were acquitted.

Trials against the Trawniki men

Trials against the Ukrainian Trawniki men , who were also deployed as guards in the Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka extermination camps, were already being held in the Soviet Union in the post-war period . After the war, six of them were sentenced to death and executed. In Kiev, further trials of Trawniki men took place in 1963 (against 11 defendants) and 1965 (against 3 defendants), with the exception of one defendant, who received a fifteen-year prison sentence, all of them were sentenced to death and executed. The main witness for the prosecution in the 1963 trial was Alexander Petscherski , who planned the Sobibór uprising in 1943 and led it with Leon Feldhendler . Trials in this regard were also carried out elsewhere until the 1980s, for example against those accused who had gone into hiding in the United States ( John Demjanjuk ) or Canada.

The Sobibor Trial against John Demjanjuk

See also main article John Demjanjuk

On November 30, 2009, a trial against the Ukrainian John Demjanjuk was opened before the Munich II Regional Court . On May 12, 2011, he was sentenced to five years imprisonment by the Munich District Court II for aiding and abetting the murder of at least 27,900 Jews.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nazi war crimes: court sentences Demjanjuk to five years in prison . In: Spiegel Online . May 12, 2011.