Waldheim trials

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Trial against Ernst Heinicker , storm leader of the SA and deputy camp commandant of the Hohnstein concentration camp ; the verdict reads under "Control Council Act No. 10" and "Directive 38" on the death penalty for "crimes against humanity" (June 21, 1950).

The Waldheim trials took place from April 21 to June 29, 1950 in the penitentiary of the small Saxon town of Waldheim . Several criminal chambers of the Chemnitz Regional Court negotiated there against 3,442 persons transferred by the Soviets who were accused of war or National Socialist crimes . 3324 defendants were sentenced (72 persons unable to stand trial, 43 died during the trials), mostly (1901) to imprisonment of 15 to 25 years, 146 persons to life imprisonment, only 5 to up to four years. In 1327 cases alleged crimes against humanity were the basis of the verdicts. Although many of the accused were demonstrably heavily incriminated, the Waldheim trials became the epitome of a lack of the rule of law due to their lack of legal order .

history

The defendants were from the remaining three Soviet NKVD - special camps Bautzen , Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen , brought in which they were sometimes imprisoned since 1945 on 15 February to Waldheim. Since the Soviet Control Commission intended to dissolve its camps in the GDR in 1950 , its chairman Tschuikow had announced in January 1950 that the prisoners would be transferred to the GDR authorities.

Fundamental rules of the rule of law were seriously violated in the conduct of the proceedings . At the Chemnitz Regional Court, twelve large and eight small criminal chambers were formed with 18 public prosecutors, 37 judges and 29 lay judges. Hildegard Heinze from the Justice Ministry of the GDR and Paul Hentschel , department head in the SED party executive, headed an organizing committee to organize the process. The process building was the cleared prisoner hospital. The bulk of the trials from April 26th to June 14th took place in rapid succession - the individual proceedings often only lasted a few minutes - without critical assessment of the incriminating material submitted by the Soviet investigative bodies and, with a few exceptions, without the approval of legal representatives. Only in ten cases did the court take the time to publicly try defendants who were clearly incriminated in show trials in the Waldheim town hall. This included the case of the concentration camp commandant Ernst Heinicker pictured above .

The course of the process followed the plans of the SED leadership and was monitored by them during the entire period. The judges and prosecutors were according to their loyalty to the regime from among the trained in short courses since 1946 Volksrichter been selected to ensure that the judgments corresponded to the expectations of the SED leadership and the Soviet occupiers. The basis of the indictment was Order No. 201 of the SMAD of August 16, 1947, according to which the sanctions were to be measured. Hilde Benjamin , who later became Minister of Justice, also acted in an advisory capacity. Isolated resistance on the part of the appointed judges was massively suppressed. The sentences to be passed should not be less than five years in prison . The defense attorneys, insofar as they were admitted, were public prosecutors assigned by the state leadership.

Penitentiary card Walter Jurisch - 14 years old when arrested and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment after 5 years in special camps in Waldheim
(published in Kurt Noack: NachkriegsErinnerungen. )

Among the convicted were 60 young people known by name, three of whom died while imprisoned in Waldheim. The case of the youngest convict, Walter Jurisch (1931-2010), was particularly drastic. He was arrested at the age of 14, had to spend five years in special camps and was then sentenced to 20 years in prison in Waldheim. According to his prison card, he was accused: "Through his work in the Hitler Youth and the Werewolf, he promoted the Nazi tyranny and endangered the peace of the German people after May 8, 1945," which was also used as a reason for the judgment.

Some processes were separated as so-called Hohnstein processes . Three show trials were held against the accused Ernst Heinicker (Deputy Camp Commandant of the Hohnstein Concentration Camp ), Friedrich Beyerlein ( Gestapo employee) and Hellmut Peitsch ( DAF General Manager). In front of a wider public and, exceptionally, with the approval of defense counsel and with the involvement of witnesses, the procedures, which were clear from the results, were used to create the impression of fairness. They ended with death sentences.

After the completion of the 1317 revision proceedings (159 approved negotiations) before the criminal senate of the Dresden Higher Regional Court in Waldheim in July 1950, 33 death sentences were passed . Six of those sentenced to death were pardoned to long prison terms, two more died before execution, and Gestapo man Lehne was transferred to the ČSSR / USSR . The remaining 24 death sentences were carried out on November 4, 1950. For the method of execution , there are different specifications: lethal injection , extrusion or guillotine . Of those sentenced to death, four were judges Rudolf Niejahr , senior war judge Alfred Herzog, senior staff judges Horst Rechenbach and Walter Schmidt, three public prosecutors (Wilhelm Klitzke, Hermann Hahn, Heinz Rosenmüller ), five so-called informers (e.g. Paul Coijanovic), 13 Officials (concentration camp and prison guards, Nazi officials such as Hellmut Peitsch ) and members of various executive bodies (e.g. administrative officials such as Ernst Kendzia , police officers such as Friedrich Duda or the former director of the Waldheim sanatorium, Gerhard Wischer ).

146 convicts received life imprisonment, 1901 sentences between 15 and 25 years, 947 sentences between 10 and 14 years, 290 sentences between 5 and 9 years, 5 sentences under five years, two people were admitted to a mental institution.

Post-history

After the judgments led to worldwide protests because of the lack of legality, numerous convicts were released or the sentences reduced in 1952. In July 1950 Thomas Mann wrote to Walter Ulbricht that communism had to be combined with humanism, pointing out the serious legal defects and the parallels to Roland Freisler's style .

In the GDR government, the State Secretary of Justice Helmut Brandt (CDU) informed the Deputy Prime Minister Otto Nuschke (CDU) about the wrong course after participating in the process. In July 1950 this demanded the repetition of the proceedings, whereupon he was yelled down by Ulbricht. On August 18, he described the shortcomings to Justice Minister Max Fechner in detail and backed them up with some highly questionable judgments (e.g. Detective Superintendent Herbert Michalke ). In the vote in the GDR cabinet on August 31, all SED ministers voted against Nuschke's proposal. Brandt was arrested on September 6 and, after four years of pre- trial detention, convicted in 1954 in connection with Georg Dertinger (CDU). Even the Soviet Control Commission under Colonel Titov later criticized the documents with destruction, and Ms. Heinze was demoted as a result. In 1952 an investigative commission of the MfS and various other ministries examined the files, whereupon 997 convicted persons were released in October 1952 and 1024 received a lesser sentence. Further reductions and releases followed.

In 1954 the Higher Regional Court in West Berlin ruled that the sole aim of these proceedings was to legalize the illegal measures of the Soviet occupying power, and declared these judgments null and void.

After German reunification , the convicted could apply for rehabilitation because the rulings of the LG Chemnitz were incompatible with essential principles of a free constitutional order ( § 1 Abs. 2 StrRehaG ). There were criminal proceedings against some judges and public prosecutors of the Waldheim trials on charges of perversion of the law and deprivation of liberty .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Figures in the following from Klonowsky / von Floren (1993), pp. 205-213, and reliable Otto (1998), pp. 547ff., Based on the final report of the German People's Police.
  2. ↑ Kurt Noack: Post-War Memories - As a fifteen-year-old in Stalin's camps. Niederlausitzer Verlag, Guben 2009, 1st edition, ISBN 978-3-935881-70-8 , p. 309.
  3. ↑ Bernd Withöft (2008/14), pp. 65-78
  4. ^ Henry Leide: Nazi Criminals and State Security. (2nd edition 2006), p. 42 ; Klaus Behling, The Criminal History of the GDR. (2017), Chapter 3 . Werkentin ( KJ 1991 pp. 333 , 338) and Fricke ( committed to the truth. 2nd edition 2000, p. 292 ) name 32 death sentences.
  5. ↑ J. Müller, Hommel, Zieger, Hunger and Knöffler on November 2, 1950 (Eisert pp. 262 , 292 ); also Sagolla (GDR justice and Nazi crimes # 2008 )
  6. ↑ Roloff and Rummler (Withöft p. 101 ; GDR justice and Nazi crimes. # 2006 , # 2035 )
  7. ↑ For the delivered backrest cf. Bernd Withöft (2008/14) p. 101 ; GDR justice and Nazi crimes. # 2014 .
  8. ^ Death sentences Waldheim trials. Retrieved March 2, 2019 (The website calls the number 23, but lists 24 names.).
  9. ↑ Beyerlein, Coijanovic, Duda, Geppert, Hahn, Heinicke, Heinicker, Hentschel, Herzog, Kendzia , Klitzke, Koplowitz, May, P. Müller, Niejahr, Peitsch , Pietsch, Rechenbach, Rosenmüller, Schmidt, Schneider, Steinberg, Uhlig, Wischer ( Death sentences from the Waldheim trials. )
  10. ↑ Bernd Withöft (2008/14), p. 100
  11. ^ Karl-Wilhelm Fricke (2000), p. 292.
  12. ^ Michael Klonovsky, Jan von Flocken: Stalin's Camp in Germany 1945–1950. Ullstein, Berlin / Frankfurt, 1st edition 1991, p. 219 , ISBN 3-550-07488-3
  13. ↑ Dieter Winderlich: Karl Mays Zuchtanstalt through the ages. May 2007, accessed March 10, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Withöft (2008/14), pp. 37-99
  15. ↑ Klonovsky / von Flocken (1993), p. 212.
  16. ↑ Klonowsky / von Flocken (Ed.): Stalin's camp in Germany . dtv documents, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-423-02966-8 , p. 219-222 .
  17. ↑ Information from Klonovsky / von Floren (1993), pp. 213-218.
  18. ↑ Decision of the Court of Appeal of March 15, 1954, 1 RHE AR 7/54 (PDF; 262 kB); hereinafter: Dresden District Court, BSK (1) 118/91 and BSK (1) 231/91
  19. ↑ Example: Irmgard Jendretzky geb. Eisermann, judge at the revision senate of the OLG Dresden in Waldheim ( LG Dresden, November 28, 1997, 1 Ks 825 Js 21999/94 )

Web links

Commons : Waldheimer processes  - collection of images, videos and audio files