Trial

Trials

Introduction to the Holocaust Trials

Nürnberg Image Gallery

  Trials

• The 1st  Nürnberg IMT

• The Belzec Trial

• Einsatzgruppen Trials

• The Josef Müller Trial

• The Eichmann Trial

• Eichmann Trial Jankel Wiernik

• The Eichmann Trial Eliahu Rosenberg

• The Eichmann Trial Avraham Lindwasser

• The Eichmann Trial The Fuhrer Order

• The Eichmann Trial Moshe Bahir

• The Eichmann Trial George Wellers

• The Eichmann Trial Itschak Nechama

• The Belsen Trial Irma Grese

• The Sobibor Trial Sobibor  Wachman

• The Treblinka Trial Fedor Fedorenko

• Amon Goeth Part 1

• "Part 2"

• "Part 3"

  Interrogations &

  Testimonies

• Bruno Israel Chelmno Wachmeister

• Suchomel on Treblinka

• The Capture of Eichmann

• The Trawniki

  Interrogations 

• The Malagon

  Interrogation

• Wied Interrogation

• "Ivan the Terrible"

  John Demjanjuk

• Statements given to the War Crimes team at Belsen

• Friedel Rau

• Frank Nowak

• Dmitry Korotikikh 

• Samuel Rajzman

• Otto Horn

• Mosche Feigenberg

• Robert Lorent

The  IMT Series

•   V240 Paul Roser

  Nazi Justice

• Konrad Morgen

  Bloodhound Judge

• Nazi Hunter

The Sobibor Trial       

On 6 September 1965 the German court in Hagen initiated criminal proceedings against twelve former SS men,

accusing them of crimes against humanity.

On 20 December 1966, the following sentences were handed out:

Karl Frenzel

Carpenter

Arrested in 1962, accused of killing 42 Jews and participating in the murder of approximately 250,000 Jews. Found guilty of personally killing 6 Jews and of participation in the mass murder of approximately 150,000 Jews.

Sentenced to life imprisonment

Franz Wolf 

Warehouse clerk

Arrested in 1964, accused in 1964, accused of personally killing one Jew and participating in the mass murder of 115,000 Jews. Found guilty of participation in the mass murder of at least 39,000 Jews.

Sentenced to eight years in prison. Lives in Bavaria

Alfred Ittner

Labourer

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 57,000 Jews. Found guilty of participation of the murder of approximately 68,000 Jews.

Sentenced to four years in prison

Werner Dubois

German railroad employee and mechanic

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 43,000 Jews. Found guilty of participation in the murder of at 15,000 Jews.

Sentenced to three years in prison

Erich Fuchs

Truck driver.

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 3,600 Jews. Guilty of participation in the murder of at least 79,000 Jews

Sentenced to four years in prison

Erich Lachmann

Mason

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 150,000 Jews.

Acquitted

Heinz – Hans Schutt

Salesman

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 86,000 Jews.

Acquitted

Heinrich Unverhau

Male Nurse and professional musician

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 72,000 Jews

Acquitted

Robert Juhrs

Porter – Janitor

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 30 Jews.

Acquitted

Ernst Zierke

Sawmill worker

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 30 Jew.

Acquitted

Erwin Lambert

Ceramic Tile salesman

Accused of participating in the mass murder of an unknown number of Jews.

Acquitted

Kurt Bolender

Hotel porter

Arrested in 1961, accused of personally killing approximately 360 Jews and of participation in the mass murder of approximately 86,000 Jews.

Committed suicide in prison before sentencing.

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Earlier several key SS officers who had served at Sobibor were tried, such as SS-Oberscarfuhrer Hubert Gomerski, who was arrested but acquitted in a 1947 euthanasia trial.

When his participation in the crimes committed at Sobibor were proven, he was sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 August 1950.  SS- Untersturmfuhrer Johann Klier was arrested, but based on the testimony of Sobibor survivors, that Klier was a person who felt compassion for the Jews and secretly tried to help them, he was released.

In the 1965/66 trials the accused claimed that once assigned to serve in a death camp, there was no way out, 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.

However, Klier who asked to be transferred from Sobibor was not killed but allowed to leave. One of the worst murderers in Sobibor was SS-Oberscharfuhrer Erich Bauer, the gas chamber “meister”, was recognised on the streets of Berlin, by survivor Samuel Lerner.

On 8 May 1950 Bauer was sentenced to death, but this was commuted to life in prison, as the death penalty had been abolished. Bauer died in the Tegel prison in Berlin 1n 1980.

Werner Dubois admitted during the trial his guilty part in the extermination of the Jews, his court testimony at Hagen read:

“it is clear to me that in the extermination camp, murder was committed. What I have done was only to assist in the murder. If I were to be found guilty it would be justified, murder is murder.

We are all guilty. The camp had a chain of command and if one link in the chain were to refuse to co-operate then the whole system would collapse. We did not have the courage to disobey orders.”  

 
Franz Stangl the first commander of Sobibor, was tried for his activity at Treblinka, but Sobibor was excluded for administrative purposes.

A few of the Ukrainian guards who served at Sobibor were brought to trial in the Soviet Union, such as:

• B. Bielakow

• M. Matwijenko

• I. Nikifor

• W. Podienko

• F. Tichonowski

• Emanuel Schultz

• J. Zajcew

They were found guilty and executed for their crimes.

In April 1963, at a court in Kiev where Sasha Pechersky was the chief prosecution witness, ten former Ukrainian guards were found guilty and executed, one was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

A third trial was held in Kiev in June 1965, where three former death camp guards from Sobibor and Belzec were executed by firing squad.
 

Sources:

Belzec - The Forgotten Camp, by Robin O’Neil, unpublished account.

Sobibor - The Forgotten Revolt by Thomas (Toivi) Blatt, published by H.E.P 1998.
Into that Darkness by Gitta Sereny, published by Pimlico 1974

Copyright CW  H.E.A.R.T 2007