Wannsee Conference in 100 Facts

[RolandVT]

There were five Chelmno trials in two countries (one in Poland, four in West Germany) that spanned exactly twenty years – from 1945 to 1965.

The first trial of members of the SS-Sonderkommando Kulmhof who committed serial mass murder (genocide) of Jews in Chelmno death factory (killing center) began less than a month after the end of the Second Great War – on May 24, 1945. It was held in Poland, at the District Court in Lodz (Chelmno death factory was created specifically to kill Jews in Lodz ghetto – the second largest in Poland).

The subsequent four trials, held in Bonn, West Germany, began in 1962 and concluded three years later, in 1965 in Cologne.

The biggest problem with the first Chelmno trial was (and is) that it violated the first fundamental principle of criminal justice: victims can not try the criminal in a court of law (otherwise it would be revenge – not justice).

Consequently, while de-facto all defendants were guilty of serial mass murder (no doubt about that), de-jure they are all not guilty. Not innocent – just not guilty… even if you do not take into account highly questionable witnesses’ statements, forged documents (standard operation procedure of Communists worldwide) and use of torture to secure confessions (ditto).

Chelmno trial was unlike any other war-crimes trial, because the camp had been essentially annihilated by the SS (in Aktion 1005), along with most traces of the serial mass murder.

Truckloads of ashes of its victims were dumped in the Warta River daily, the mansion was blown up with rubble removed to foundations, mobile gas-chambers and loot were driven back to Berlin, written records were destroyed, including train departure records.

To make things worse, some of the key evidence was mistakenly discarded in the trash in 1945 (i.e., over 5,000 pairs of damaged shoes from a destroyed synagogue in Koło), or hauled away as usable materials, including wooden fencing and cremation grids; few people were aware of its importance. By comparison, other former death camps were overflowing with direct evidence of war-crimes, as in the case of the Majdanek trial decided several months prior.

Still, three defendants were sentenced to death (no surprise here), including the camp deputy commandant Walter Piller; the gas van operator Hauptscharführer Hermann Gielow, as well as Bruno Israel from Ordnungspolizei, his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.

Death sentences were made possible by the Decree by the Communist Polish “government” of August 31, 1944 pertaining to Nazi War Criminals. This decree made war crimes trials in now Communist Poland not much different from show trials in kangaroo courts in the Soviet Union under Stalin.

Both Walter Piller and Hermann Gielow applied for a presidential pardon, which they were not granted. After a few years spent on death row, Walter Piller was executed on January 19, 1949. Herman Gielow was executed in the Poznan Prison on June 6, 1951.

Chelmno Trials in Germany were highly valuable because they (officially, in a court of law) provided the total number of victims (180,000) which was far lower than the commonly accepted 320,000. Which means that the total number of Holocaust victims is probably lower than 4 million that I estimated (and the number of entries in Yad Vashem database).

Twelve former members of SS-Sonderkommando Kulmhof were tried before the Special Criminal Court in Bonn, in 1962–1965 on charges of complicity to the murder of 180,000 Jews. One more was tried in Cologne.

A total of four trials were held. Later observers referred to at least one of them as a judicial farce… which made this trial not that different from the one in Poland.

The problems the judges (and prosecutors) faced were even worse. For starters, genocide was not in the criminal code of Nazi Germany (which formed the basis for the one in BRD) and the court ruled that it could not be applied retroactively.

Depositions were not sufficient to secure convictions. There was little physical evidence remaining at the crime scene. No victims’ bodies to examine: their ashes had been carried downriver and out to sea. Et cetera, et cetera.

Still, prosecutors somehow managed to secure convictions in 7 out of 13 cases. The most severe penalties of 15 years were given to Gustav Laabs, SS Hauptscharführer, (Oberfeldwebel) a gas van operator, and Alois Häfele, SS Untersturmführer (second lieutenant), a camp Hauskommando leader.

The latter’s sentence was reduced by two years on appeal… because he reportedly gave cigarettes to some of the victims. Oberscharführer (Feldwebel) Gustaw Fiedler, from Polizeiwachtkommando, was tried in 1965 in Cologne and sentenced to 13½ months imprisonment.

Other defendants were cleared of all charges and released.

[RolandVT]

Holocaust-related politics, to be more precise. Hence, it was a purely political process – cut and dry, plain and simple, loud and clear.

The primary objective was to radically increase awareness of the Holocaust worldwide – in that Israeli government was very successful. Eichmann trial became the second most well-known war crimes trial after the IMT Nuremberg trial of top Nazi leaders and Adolf Eichmann became almost a household name.

The second objective was to force West German criminal justice system to (finally) get serious about prosecuting Holocaust-related war crimes. This objective was achieved with great success as well: in a few years after Eichmann trial mass murderers of Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka stood trial in West Germany.

Sentences were mostly lenient; many defendants were acquitted… but still it was much better than nothing which was the case before the Eichmann trial in 1961. Majdanek trial followed in 1975… curiously, there was no Auschwitz-Birkenau trial in West Germany (only a judicial farce in Communist Poland in 1947).

The force objective was to instill fear in hearts, minds and souls of Nazi war criminals that murdered Jews in the Second Great War by sending a loud and clear message: “We will find you, bring you to court, convict and hang you”. Although no more “Eichmann trials” followed, this objective was apparently achieved as well.

The final (and obvious) objective was to exact revenge (retribution) on Adolf Eichmann – one of the worst serial mass murderers in human history, who put together Wannsee Conference – a diabolical criminal conspiracy to murder 11 million Jews of Europe (Nazis ended up killing around 3 million).

He got what he richly deserved – hangman’s noose – however, this (obvious) success came at a steep price. Very steep price. For starters, it was revenge – pure and simple. Revenge, not justice, because the Israelis violated the fundamental principle of criminal justice: victims can not judge the criminal. Consequently, although de-facto Eichmann was guilty 3 million times, de-jure he was not guilty due to legal issues. Not innocent – just not guilty.

Second, by kidnapping Eichmann, Israeli agents committed a capital crime – and then violated its own laws – putting death penalty on the books specifically for Eichmann (and then abolishing it back). Which made Israel look like a terrorist state that will violate any laws – domestic and international – to get what it wants. Anti-Semitism went through the roof worldwide – hardly a desirable outcome for the State of Israel.

[RolandVT]

It took almost fifteen years and a shocking Eichmann trial for West German criminal justice system to start getting serious about prosecuting Nazi war criminals involved in the “final solution to the Jewish question” – and Nazi war criminals in general.

But when it (finally) got to it, West German jurists wisely decided to do it the right way – sticking to all universally accepted fundamental principles of criminal justice. Thus, avoiding the catastrophic problem of just about all post-WW2 war crimes trials.

The latter were all about politics – mostly of a dirty variety (concealing serial mass murder, rape, plunder, etc.) – and so (obviously) did not follow the abovementioned principles, rules and procedures.

The end result was genuinely catastrophic: while most (but not all!) defendants in post-WW2 war crimes trials were guilty de-facto, de-jure they were not guilty due to violation of abovementioned principles. Not innocent – just not guilty.

All war crimes defendants convicted by West German criminal courts, were guilty both de-facto and de-jure. Which was a major, major victory for justice… unfortunately, it came at a hefty price.

The fist of “Holocaust by Gas” trials (ultimately, there was one or more trials for every killing center – Auschwitz, Majdanek, Chelmno, Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka) commenced in 1963 – twenty years after Aktion Reinhard was over and almost twenty years after the last mass murders in Auschwitz.

Witnesses died (or their memory became too weak to testify convincingly); physical evidence was lost or impossible to recover… consequently, it became very, very difficult to prove anyone’s guilt beyond the reasonable doubt.

Even of being accessory to murder – let alone of murder (giving or executing orders to kill). Hence, many defendants known to be guilty of heinous, horrifying crimes, were acquitted and set free.

Unlike the USA, Britain, Poland, USSR, etc., West Germany declined to pass a specific law aimed at Nazi war criminals. And it was right – in a civilized criminal justice system the law can not be applied retroactively – and there was no such law anywhere during the Holocaust.

Hence, all defendants were tried under common criminal law – hence the less-than-satisfactory outcome (in terms of verdicts and sentences). But very satisfactory in terms of justice.

[RolandVT]

The Frankfurt Auschwitz trials was a series of three trials running from 20 December 1963 to 14 June 1968, charging 25 defendants for their roles in the Holocaust as mid- to lower-level officials (the top ones were long gone by that time) in the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center and labor camp system.

Overall, only 789 individuals of the approximately 8,200 surviving SS personnel who served at Auschwitz and its sub-camps were ever tried, of whom 750 received sentences – usually far too lenient.

Unlike the first Auschwitz trial in Communist Poland (judicial farce, to put it mildly) held almost two decades earlier, the trials in Frankfurt were not based on the legal definition of crimes against humanity (genocide) as recognized by international law, but according to the criminal laws of the Federal Republic of Germany.

And for good legal reason – according to universally accepted fundamental principles of criminal justice, these laws could not have been applied retroactively… and there were no such laws on the books at the time of Shoah.

Consequently, while most (but not all!) defendants convicted under the “genocide laws” were undoubtedly guilty de-facto (many got what they richly deserved – hangman’s noose), de-jure they were not guilty. Not innocent – just not guilty. Which decades later became a major problem (neo-Nazis, “Holocaust deniers”, etc).

Most of the senior leaders of the camp, including Rudolf Höss, the longest-standing commandant of the camp, were turned over to the Polish authorities in 1947 following their testimony in the Nuremberg Trial (where they were lying through their teeth – Höss inflated the number of Auschwitz victims four-fold).

Subsequently, they were tried in Kraków and sentenced to death for violent crimes and torturing of prisoners. Characteristically, not for serial mass murder of Jews as Poland was only marginally less anti-Semitic than Nazi Germany.

SS-Sturmbannführer Richard Baer, the last camp commandant, died in detention while still under investigation as part of the trials. Defendants ranged from members of the SS to kapos, privileged prisoners responsible for low-level control of camp internees.

Among the defendants were some of those who conducted “selection,” or determination of who should be sent to the gas chambers directly from the “ramp” upon disembarking the trains that brought them from across Europe… and who would live for a while being eligible for hard labor.

In the course of the trial, approximately 360 witnesses were called, including around 210 survivors. Proceedings began in the townhouse Bürgerhaus Gallus, in Frankfurt am Main, which was converted into a courthouse for that purpose, and remained there until their conclusion.

Hessian State Attorney General Fritz Bauer, himself briefly interned in 1933 at the Heuberg concentration camp, led the prosecution. He was Jewish, a politician and played an instrumental role in the post-war capture of former Holocaust planner Adolf Eichmann – but there was no legal problem here.

He was a prosecutor, not a judge or member of the jury so there was no conflict of interest. He was essentially a crusader obsessed with prosecuting Nazi war criminal and at some point, it took a literally deadly toll on him.

On July 1, 1968, he committed suicide by had consumed a lot of alcohol, taken sleeping pills and drowned himself in the tub. Rumors were that he was murdered by the Nazis in retribution for all of the above… but there was no proof.

One of the factors that undoubtedly contributed to his suicide at not exactly old age (he was 64) was the inability of prosecution to secure conviction of murder… of just about every defendant in every Nazi war crimes trial. He could only obtain conviction of being accessory to murder which resulted in far lesser sentences.

All Nazi war criminals in all war crimes trials plead not guilty to serial mass murder claiming that they were “just following orders”. Orders from above that is. Outside West Germany it did not work – the courts ruled that anyone who follows the order to kills (and kills) is guilty of murder. And should be punished accordingly.

The outcome in West German trials was very different – thanks to legal precedent set by (in)famous trial of Bohdan Stashynsky trial in 1962. Stashynsky was a KGB assassin who murdered Ukrainian nationalist leaders Lev Rebet and Stepan Bandera in the late 1950s (amazingly, Stashynsky is still alive at 93).

Following his defection to West Germany in 1961, Stashynsky was put on trial for the two murders in October 1962… but sentenced to only eight years in prison.

He got such a lenient sentence (killing two human beings will get you death penalty or life in prison just about anywhere) because West German court ruled that the responsibility for his murders rested only with his superiors in the KGB who had given him his orders and he was… just an accessory to murder. Getting good-time credit, he served 4 years, was released and have been living happily ever after.

The legal implication of the Stashynsky case was that the courts had ruled that in a totalitarian system only executive decision-makers could be convicted of murder and that anyone who followed orders and killed someone could be convicted only of being accomplices (accessories) to murder.

The term executive decision-maker was thus defined by the courts to apply only to the highest levels of the Reich leadership during the National Socialist period, and that all who just followed orders when killing were just accomplices to murder.

Hence, the defendant in a West German war crimes trial could be convicted of murder only if it was proven beyond the reasonable doubt that he or she had killed someone on his/her own initiative.

In practice, this meant that an SS man who killed thousands while operating the gas chambers at Auschwitz could only be found guilty of being accomplice to murder because he had been following orders; while another SS man who had beaten one inmate to death on his own initiative could be convicted of murder because he had not been following orders.

This principle is not as insane as it might seem from the first glance as in any civilized criminal justice system, the legal definition of murder requires the full intent and thus the full amount of free will.

In any totalitarian system (Nazi, Communist, etc.) no one has the full amount of free will. Consequently, when one was following the orders to kill, one did not possess the full amount of free will and thus did not have full intent.

Therefore, one can not be found guilty of murder but only accessory to murder which required a limited amount of free will and no intent (proving full intent in war crimes was practically impossible).

Information about the actions of those accused and their whereabouts had been in the possession of West German authorities since 1958, but action on their cases was delayed by jurisdictional disputes, among other considerations… like no one in West German powers that be gave a rat’s ass (pardon my French).

It took a shocking and much-publicized Eichmann trial to get the wheels of West German justice turning… and the results were shocking, to put it mildly. The court’s proceedings were largely public and served to bring many horrific details of the Holocaust (hence the shock) to the attention of the elites and the general public in the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as abroad.

Six defendants were given life sentences and several others received the maximum prison sentences possible for the charges brought against them (four to ten years). Four were acquitted and released.

In 1966, three more SS men who had served at Auschwitz were tried: Wilhelm Burger, Josef Erber, and Gerhard Neubert. All three men were found guilty. Erber was sentenced to life in prison, while Burger and Neubert received 8-year and 3.5-year sentences, respectively. From 1967 to 1968, two Kapos, Bernhard Bonitz and Josef Windeck, were tried. Both men received life sentences.

The trial attracted much publicity in West Germany and abroad, but was considered by Bauer to be a failure (which undoubtedly contributed to his subsequent decision to commit suicide).

Bauer complained that the defendants were portrayed by the media as freakish monsters, which allowed the German public to distance themselves from feeling any moral guilt about what had happened at Auschwitz, (it was presented as the work of a few sick people who were not at all like “normal Germans”).

The latter was true – “normal Germans” did not believe (let alone deeply, sincerely and passionately) that they were fighting an “existential war with the Jewish race” and thus had to kill all Jews – men, women, children and the elderly. Only a relatively small number of ardent Nazis held that belief… unfortunately it was enough for murdering four million Jews.

Moreover, Bauer felt that because the law treated those who had followed orders when killing as accomplices to murder it implied that the policy of genocide and the Nazi rules for treating inmates at Auschwitz were in fact legitimate.

Now this was fundamentally wrong – the law (legal precedent, actually) only stated that in the totalitarian system one – when following orders to kill – did not have a full freedom of will and thus did not possess the full intent. Consequently, his or her actions did not fit the legal definition of murder – only of the accomplice.

Furthermore, Bauer charged that the judges, in convicting the accused, had made it appear that Germany in the Nazi era had been an “occupied country”, with most Germans having no choice but to follow orders. In most cases the latter was true.

A public opinion poll conducted after the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials indicated that 57% of the German public were not in favor of additional Nazi trials. Which gives you some idea of how the German people at the time felt about the Holocaust, Nazi war crimes and the Nazi past.

[RolandVT]

Herberts Albert Cukurs was a Latvian aviator, aircraft designer, a national hero of Latvia… and an alleged serial mass murderer. He allegedly served as the deputy commander of the notorious Arajs Kommando, a collaborationist unit that carried out the largest mass murders of Latvian Jews during the Holocaust.

The only problem is that there is not a shred of evidence that proves the abovementioned capital charge. Only statements of witnesses who can easily make colossal mistakes – especially given their genuinely hellish experiences.

Moreover, there was absolutely nothing in the pre-war life of Herberts Cukurs that even hints at any kind of anti-Semitism (let alone such a murderous one that he was charged with).

As a pioneering long-distance pilot, Cukurs won national acclaim for his international solo flights in the 1930s (Latvia-Gambia and Riga-Tokyo). He was awarded the Harmon Trophy for Latvia in 1933, and was rightfully considered a national hero, like Charles Lindbergh in the USA.

Cukurs designed and built at least three aircraft. In 1937, he made a 45,000 km tour visiting Japan, China, Indochina and India, flying the monoplane of his own design. Now why would such an accomplished man whj always stayed out of politics of any kind want to mass murder Jews???

Cukurs designed the Cukurs C-6bis prototype dive bomber in 1940. After the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940, Cukurs was summoned to Moscow in an attempt to recruit him to build planes for the Soviet Union.

Ever being a Latvian patriot, he said “no” … but surprisingly was let go – he did not spend even an hour in jail. However, it is possible that Stalin got his revenge in a different way – he ordered a smear campaign that ultimately resulted in savage murder of Cukurs by Mossad agents.

In this campaign, NKVD used Holocaust survivors who got so fanatically insane (not surprise here given the genuine Hell that they lived in for years) that they essentially forced the Israeli government to go after Cukurs.

During the war, Cukurs allegedly worked for Luftwaffe (which was probably true) so, not surprisingly, in 1944 he retreated to Germany with German forces and after the war fled to Brazil via the proverbial ratlines.

In Brazil, Cukurs established a business in São Paulo, flying Republic RC-3 Seabees on scenic flights. While living in South America, he neither hid nor tried to conceal his identity). Which was another proof that he had nothing to hide.

What really happened in 1965, is still shrouded in mystery. The most likely scenario is that some overzealous Holocaust survival got so vocal about Cukurs that he essentially forced the Mossad to dispatch a team to South America to kidnap Cukurs (Eichmann-style) and bring him to Israel to stand trial (ditto).

Agents found Cukurs (which was easy as he was not hiding from anyone) and persuaded him to travel to Uruguay under the pretense of starting an aviation business. Mossad agent Yaakov Meidad who had taken part in the capture of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960, cabled Cukurs from Montevideo.

Cukurs was invited to a house in a remote suburb of the city that had just been rented by a man from Vienna… and then a genuine Hell broke loose. The Hell was triggered by a message from Israel that there was not enough evidence to convict Cukurs of anything and that the operation must be aborted (I sincerely doubt that Mossad director ordered the brutal murder of Cukurs – it was not Mossad style).

The Jewish fanatics who somehow got into Mossad (the latter prefers level-headed agents) would have none of it. So, they attacked Cukurs, who – ever a hero – bravely fought back.

According to the coroner’s report, he was beaten to death with a hammer and shot several times post-mortem. His body was found in the trunk of an abandoned car; next to his body, several documents were left that allegedly proved to his involvement in the murder of Jews in the Riga Ghetto.

In 2006, Latvian Prosecutor General’s Office opened an official (as supposed to amateurish) investigation into Herbert Cukurs’ possible involvement in the serial mass murder of Jewish civilians in Latvia.

It sent requests for documentary and other evidence to Russia, Germany, Brazil (where Cukurs lived after the war) and Israel. The prosecutor’s office considered the documents received from Russia to be forgeries – as was just about all “documentary evidence” in all political trials in the Soviet Union under Stalin.

Israel did not respond (no surprise, given that rogue Mossad agents brutally murdered an innocent man based on hearsay), and based on the Brazilian and German documents, investigators ruled that none of the charges could be proven.

More specifically, there was no proof that Cukurs participated in the Rumbula shooting or the burning of the Riga synagogues. There is not a shred of evidence that Cukurs had been at the pits at Rumbula, and that it has not been proven that he was “the most eager shooter of Jews in Latvia”… or that he shot even one Jew.

After 13 years of investigation, the case was closed.

[RolandVT]

Actually, all but one: a 1965–66 judicial trial in the West German city of Hagen of SS officers who had worked at Sobibor extermination camp. All other Sobibor-related trials were held in the Soviet Union (infamous for its kangaroo courts, show trials and judicial farces).

The latter were trials of so-called “Trawniki men” (Trawnikis). These were Eastern European (mostly Ukrainian) Nazi collaborators, consisting of either volunteers or recruits from POW camps set up by Wehrmacht for Soviet Red Army soldiers captured during Operation Barbarossa.

Thousands of these volunteers served in the General Government territory of German-occupied Poland until the end of World War II. Trawnikis belonged to a category of Hiwis (from Hilfswilliger – “willing to help”) – recruits from native subjects serving in various jobs such as concentration camp guards.

Between September 1941 and September 1942, the German SS and police trained 2,500 Trawniki men known as Hiwi Wachmänner (KL camp guards) at the special training camp at Trawniki village just outside of Lublin – hence the name.

The Trawnikis took a major part in Aktion Reinhard (extermination of Jews in General Government part of occupied Poland). They also served at extermination camps and played an important role in the suppression of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

At each of the Aktion Reinhard killing centers Trawniki Hiwi men served as the guard units (between 70 and 120 depending on location). Some were selected to act as the gas chambers operators but almost all were involved in shooting, beating, and terrorizing Jews.

After the war, a small number of Trawnikis were tried in West Germany with little success. Due to a lack of evidence and reliable witnesses, they were usually acquitted of all charges and set free.

Soviet “criminal justice system” was criminal, for sure, but had nothing to do with justice. It was not above torture, forging documents, using false witnesses, etc. (hence any document coming out of Soviet criminal “court” is highly suspect).

Unlike in the West, in the Soviet Union Trawnikis were charged with treason and thus were found guilty and sentenced to death by shooting long before the trial even started. Most probably got what they deserved; however, one can not exclude the possibility that in many cases SS officers shifted the blame for shootings, gassings, etc. to “subhuman” Trawnikis.

Soviet Trawniki trials were not limited to Sobibor; separate trials prosecuted personnel of the Belzec (1963–65), Treblinka (1964–65), and Majdanek (1975–81) extermination camps. With the same murderous result, of course.

Some of the Ukrainian guards who served at Sobibor were prosecuted in Kiev, when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. They were convicted of treason, found guilty (no surprise here), sentenced to death and executed.

In April 1963, another trial was held, in Kiev, in which survivor Alexander Pechersky (leader of Sobibor uprising) was the chief prosecution witness. Ten former Trawniki from Ukraine were found guilty and sentenced to death; all were executed. Another was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

A third Soviet trial was held in Kiev in June 1965. Three former Trawniki men from Sobibór and Belzec were charged with treason, convicted and sentenced to death. They were executed by a firing squad.

The German court in Hagen initiated proceedings on 6 September 1965 against twelve former members of Sobibor personnel. These twelve constituted about a quarter of the SS men employed at Sobibór; twelve had been killed in the October 1943 uprising, which precipitated closure and destruction of the camp by the end of the year.

Defendants claimed that once assigned to serve at a death camp, they did not believe they could refuse their orders, citing the statement made by Christian Wirth to the personnel at Sobibor:

“If you do not like it here, you can leave, but under the earth, not over it“

But the prosecution presented evidence that SS-Untersturmführer Johann Klier, who asked to be transferred from Sobibór on moral grounds, was not punished but allowed to leave, which proved that the contrary was true. Well… not exactly proved because in Auschwitz such requests were routinely denied.

The verdicts were pronounced on December 20, 1966. Only one defendant – Karl Frenzel, commandant of Lager I, the area in which Jewish prisoners lived (for a while) and performed forced labor – got life in prison (he served 16 years).

One committed suicide in prison; four got prison terms from 3 to 8 years (no one served the full sentence) and six were acquitted of all charge due to lack of evidence (happened all the time in West German war crimes trials).

[RolandVT]

Treblinka trials were almost perfect because the prosecutors got, tried, convicted and secured adequate punishment for all key personnel of the Treblinka killing center. Consequently, the two-part Treblinka trial was a model war crimes trial.

The whole thing started in 1946, when Josef Hirtreiter, an employee of Hadamar Euthanasia Centre (he worked in the kitchen, of all places) was arrested by Allied occupation authorities who were investigating Aktion T4.

There was no proof that Hirtreiter committed any crime at Hadamar (other than being a member of SS – a genuinely criminal organization) but, completely out of the blue, he suddenly confessed to having worked in a camp where Jews were killed in a gas chamber.

Further investigations showed that Hirtreiter had been stationed at the Treblinka killing center (a massively scaled-up reincarnation of Hadamar), where he supervised the victims’ disrobing prior to their gassing.

He was (predictably) charged with being a part of serial mass murder of Jews, and on March 3, 1951 he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He served 30 years – a rare occurrence in war crimes trials and was released in 1977.

Prior to the foundation of West Germany in 1949, Nazi war crimes were investigated by Allied occupation authorities that governed Germany. After Federal Republic of Germany was established, these responsibilities were transferred to the police authorities of the new state.

However, after the Ulm Einsatzkommando trial in 1958 of Gestapo and SS officers responsible for crimes along the Eastern front at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa in 1941, German authorities decided that a large number of Nazi crimes that had occurred outside Germany itself had remained uninvestigated.

To remedy this unacceptable situation, the justice ministries of German states formed the Central Office of the State Justice Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes (Zentrale Stelle or just Zentrale) in December 1958.

From July of 1959, Zentrale began investigating Nazi war crimes committed in the General Government territory of occupied Poland. The lead investigator was the specialist in the Nazi prosecution Dietrich Zeug, present at the Eichmann trial.

His inquiry led to the first arrest of Treblinka deputy commandant on December 2, 1959. Zeug received survivor testimonies from Yad Vashem which allowed him to examine German national archives for more clues. He was the first to establish the chain of command for Aktion Reinhard.

The first Treblinka trial began on 12 October 1964. Eleven members of the SS camp personnel, or about a quarter of the total number of SS employed in the serial mass murder of Jews stood trial before Düsseldorf District Court. Unlike in other trials, there was some “big fish”: deputy commander of the killing center and commander of subcamp (where actual killing took place).

The verdicts were pronounced on September 3, 1965. Four out of eleven got life in prison (one died in jail; others served 14, 21 and 28 years – a lot by West German standards); five got from 4 to 12 years (served only a small part of their sentences); one died during the trial and one was acquitted.

But the biggest fish was yet to come: on May 13, 1970 camp commandant Franz Stangl, extradited three years earlier from Brazil, finally stood trial. Stangl had previously assisted in killing handicapped people during Aktion T4, and, before moving on to Treblinka, had been the first commandant of Sobibor. Under his supervision, most of the Treblinka killings took place.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment, and died in prison on 28 June 1971, while trying to appeal the verdict.

[earlbrooks]

Dear Roland,

You wrote: "First of all, I have nothing but deepest respect for and admiration of Jewish people. History proved beyond the reasonable doubt that Jews made the highest contribution to human progress than any other nation – both in absolute terms and on a per capita basis."

I too agree with this. I hold great respect. I try to keep my AI reenactments to a serious reality avoiding erotic spins.
Many deviant bloggers request more sexual spin offs, but I refuse.
The AI robots too keep deviating into an erotic spin - DELETE!

Your books are easy to read and follow. 4 million does appear more accurate, yet still a number too high.

In summary, I fear the Shoah will be trimmed, edited and censored to a forgotten petty mishap.
Using graphic photos, People will remember the crime stronger.
The classic text of "33,771 innocent men women and children were slain at Babi Yar Ukraine makes a "sad wow" moment.
The image of 33,771 slain side by side within the 500 meter Babi Yar ravine makes a "HOLY MOTHER OF....!" moment.

Thank you again for your works - Earl Brooks

[earlbrooks]

PS: You might be aware, I have transitioned to the other site, more humans, less robots.



https://forum.shtorny.com/

[RolandVT]

Yes, you read that right – the first two Majdanek trials (out of five overall) were, indeed, conducted by the SS. More specifically, two Majdanek camp commandants (yes, this one was mostly a labor camp – with a death factory inside) were put on trial by the special SS court for large-scale stealing from the Reich. Stealing the valuables left from their murdered Jewish owners.

Both were found guilty (as evidence against them was overwhelming); both were sentenced to death (wholesale stealing from the Reich at wartime was a capital offence – and for a good reason) and both were ruthlessly (SS-style) executed.

Karl-Otto Koch (camp commander from July 1941 till August 24, 1942) was executed by firing squad on April 5, 1945; Hermann Florstedt, the third commandant of Majdanek (from October 1942 on) was shot ten days later.

Overall, the Goddess of Justice was far too blind in Majdanek case. Only 170 Nazis of the 1,037 known by name who served at Majdanek had been prosecuted at all.

Half of the defendants charged by the West German justice system were acquitted of murder. Acquitted for usual reasons: insufficient evidence and unreliable witnesses (knowing for sure that one committed the crime is one thing – proving it beyond the reasonable doubt in a court of law is a totally different matter).

Majdanek was occupied by the victorious Red Army on July 24, 1944. Due to a lightning-fast advance of the Soviets and his ineptitude and lethargy of Anton Thernes (then deputy commander of the camp), Majdanek was the best-preserved Nazi killing center, with intact gas chambers and crematoria.

His sloth turned out to be a literally deadly sin for him: he was among the six Majdanek officials who were caught by the Red Army and was brought before what was called a “trial” by the Soviets those days.

Officially, the Soviet-Polish Special Criminal Court, it was little more than infamous “troikas” of Stalin’s Great Purge. However, it did not matter at all – the evidence was so overwhelming that convictions and death sentences were inevitable.

The “trial” began the very next day after the liberation of the camp and lasted surprisingly long – four months. Apparently, the NKVD wanted to squeeze as much information from the defendants as was possible under the circumstances.

On December 2, all defendants, except for Kapo Edmund Pohlmann, who had committed suicide, were found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death by hanging. They were all hanged the next day right next to the gas chambers and the Majdanek crematorium.

The second Majdanek trial (actually, a whole series of trials held in 1946-48 in Poland) was not very different from the first one. Overall, 95 SS-men, mostly guards (including those apprehended hiding in postwar Germany), were charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Notably, genocide of the Jews was not mentioned (again).

Seven of the defendants were given the death penalty. The most prominent of them was Elsa Ehrich, Oberaufseherin of the women and children camp division (liquidated in spring of 1944). She was responsible for the selections to gas chambers… and killed a lot of women and children herself.

Given a blatant disregard of Soviet “criminal justice system” to even the most elementary rules and principles of civilized due process, it is hard to know for sure how guilty she was – and whether she (or any other defendant) was guilty at all. My guess is that they most likely were – and that they got what they deserved. Most other defendants were sentenced from 2 years to life imprisonment.

Third Majdanek Trial was held between November 26, 1975, and June 30, 1981 (almost 40 years after the crimes have been committed), before a West German Court at Düsseldorf.

Out of sixteen defendants, five were cleared of all charges (due to insufficient evidence and unreliable witnesses); two released due to ill health, one died of old age, and eight (i.e., half) were found guilty. They were sentenced to 3 to 12 years imprisonment.

In 1988, Karl-Friedrich Höcker (the adjutant to the commandant at Majdanek) was brought to trial for ordering the Zyklon B poison gas used in Majdanek gas chambers. He was sentenced to four years in prison in May 1989.