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Trial to the Einsatzgruppen

The Einsatzgruppen Trial was the ninth of twelve trials that followed Nuremberg’s main trial . It was carried out of 15 of September of 1947 to October of April of 1948 in Room 600 of the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg , where the main Nuremberg Trial by had already taken place International Criminal Court . Unlike the main trial, the trial of the Einsatzgruppen took place before a military tribunal American (Nuremberg Military Tribunal, NMT) and not under control of the four powers . Officially, the case was called The United States of America against Otto Ohlendorf, et al ( English for “The United States of America v. Otto Ohlendorf et al.).

24 SS officers were charged as commanders of the Einsatzgruppen with responsibility for the crimes of their units in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union . Since the beginning of Operation Barbarossa , the Einsatzgruppen were commissioned to assassinate Soviet officials and the ” Jewish intelligentsia ” of the Soviet Union. During the first three months of the war against the Soviet Union, the massacres of the Einsatzgruppen in the East increased, so that, in early October 1941 , they fired indiscriminately at Jewish men, women, children and old men. Among the victims of the Einsatzgruppen were also prisoners of war , gypsies , communist militants, mentally ill and hostages of the civilian population. 1 The number of victims killed by the Einsatzgruppen between June 1941 and 1943 in the Soviet Union has been estimated at at least 600,000 or, according to other data, more than one million people. 2 The accusation was made on the basis of reports from the Einsatzgruppen, which numbered more than one million victims. 3

The trial concluded without acquittals: 14 defendants were sentenced to death , two received life sentences and five were sentenced to prison terms of ten to twenty years. One inmate committed suicide before the start of the process, one was released from prison due to one illness and another was released after serving pre-trial detention . Four death sentences were commuted to life sentences and six prison sentences were reduced. Four executions took place on 7 June as as 1951 . The last three prisoners were released from jail in May 1958 .

Accused

First name Photo Function Judgment Result of the amnesty of 1951
Otto Ohlendorf SS Gruppenführer ; Member of SD ; Commanding officer of the Einsatzgruppe D Death by hanging Executed on June 7, 1951
Heinz Jost SS Brigadeführer ; Member of SD ; Commanding officer of the Einsatzgruppe A Life imprisonment Switched for 10 years; Deceased in 1964
Erich Naumann SS Brigadeführer ; Member of SD ; Commanding officer of the Einsatzgruppe B Death by hanging Executed on June 7, 1951
Otto Rasch SS Brigadeführer ; Member of the SD and the Gestapo ; Commanding officer of the Einsatzgruppe C Separated from the trial on February 5, 1948 for medical reasons n. 1 He passed away on November 1, 1948
Erwin Schulz SS Brigadeführer ; Member of the Gestapo ; Commanding officer of Einsatzkommando 5 and Einsatzgruppe C 20 years Switched to 15 years; Released on January 9, 1954; Deceased in 1981
Franz Six SS Brigadeführer ; Member of SD ; Commanding officer of Vorkommando Moscow and Einsatzgruppe B 20 years Switched to 15 years; Released on September 30, 1952; Deceased in 1975
Paul Blobel SS Standartenführer ; Member of SD ; Commanding officer of Sonderkommando 4a and Einsatzgruppe C Death by hanging Executed on June 7, 1951
Walter Blume SS Standartenführer ; Member of SD ; Commanding officer of Sonderkommando 7a and Einsatzgruppe B Death by hanging Switched to 25 years; Released in 1955; Deceased in 1974
Martin Sandberger SS Standartenführer ; Member of SD ; Commanding officer of Sonderkommando 1a and Einsatzgruppe A Death by hanging Commuted to life imprisonment; Released in 1958; Deceased in 2010
Willy Seibert SS Standartenführer ; Member of SD ; Substitute boss of the Einsatzgruppe D Death by hanging Switched to 15 years; Deceased in 1976
Eugen Steimle ( DE ) SS Standartenführer ; Member of SD ; Commanding officer of Sonderkommando 7a , Einsatzgruppe B , Sonderkommando 4a and Einsatzgruppe C Death by hanging Switched to 20 years; Released in June 1954; Deceased in 1987
Ernst Biberstein SS Obersturmbannführer ; Member of SD ; Commanding officer of the Einsatzkommando 6 and the Einsatzgruppe C Death by hanging Commuted to life imprisonment; Released in 1958; Deceased in 1986
Werner Braune SS Obersturmbannführer ; Member of the SD and the Gestapo; Commanding officer of Sonderkommando 11b and Einsatzgruppe D Death by hanging Executed June 7, 1951
Walter Haensch SS Obersturmbannführer ; Member of SD ; Commanding officer of Sonderkommando 4b and Einsatzgruppe C Death by hanging Switched to 15 years
Gustave Nosske SS Obersturmbannführer ; Member of the Gestapo; Commanding officer of the Einsatzkommando 12 and the Einsatzgruppe D Life imprisonment Switched to 10 years; Died in 1990
Adolf Ott SS Obersturmbannführer ; Member of SD ; Commanding officer of Sonderkommando 7b and Einsatzgruppe B Death by hanging Commuted to life imprisonment; Released on May 9, 1958
Eduard Strauch SS Obersturmbannführer ; Member of SD ; Commanding officer of the Einsatzkommando 2 and the Einsatzgruppe A Death by hanging; N. 2 delivered to the Belgian authorities ; Died in a hospital on September 11, 1955
Emil Haussmann SS Sturmbannführer ; Member of SD; Commanding officer of the Einsatzkommando 12 and the Einsatzgruppe D He committed suicide before the sentence on July 31, 1947
Waldemar Klingelhöfer SS Sturmbannführer ; Member of SD; Commanding officer of Sonderkommando 7b and Einsatzgruppe B Death by hanging Commuted to life imprisonment; Released in 1956; Deceased in 1980
Lothar Fendler SS Sturmbannführer ; Member of SD; Provisional head of the Sonderkommando 4b and the Einsatzgruppe C 10 years n. 3 Switched to 8 years
Waldemar von Radetzky SS Sturmbannführer ; Member of SD; Provisional head of the Sonderkommando 4a and the Einsatzgruppe C 20 years Released
Felix Rühl SS Hauptsturmführer ; Member of the Gestapo; Officer of Sonderkommando 10b and Einsatzgruppe D 10 years n. 4 Released
Heinz Schubert SS Obersturmführer ; Member of SD; Official in Einsatzgruppe D Death by hanging Switched to 10 years
Mathias Graf SS Untersturmführer ; Member of SD; Officer of the Einsatzkommando 6 and the Einsatzgruppe D Penalty served n. 5

Notes

  1. Back to top↑ Rasc had to be removed from the court during the sentence due to his poor health; Was sentenced separately on September 22, 1947.
  2. Back to top↑ Strauch suffered a seizure during sentencing on 15 September 1947. Subsequently, the defense triedremove the trial on medical grounds; However, the court dismissed the request because Strauch’s statements (which he subsequently gave) were consistent and showed no indication that he was not mentally capable of standing trial.
  3. Back to top↑ While Fendler was found guilty of all charges, the court found that the evidence presented was insufficient to prove that he ordered or helped plan the killings. Apparently, he would have maintained a mainly office position.
  4. Back to top↑ Rühl was found guilty onlythe third charge. As to the first and second counts, the court did not find him guilty, stating that, as a junior officer, he was not responsible for the atrocities committed by the Einsatzgruppe D and was not in a position to prevent them, even though he knew of the killings, his participation Direct in them could not be proven.
  5. Back to top↑ Graf was found guilty only of beingmember of the SD. In fact, he had been expelled from the SS for “general indifference to the organization” 4 and subsequently attempted to be discharged from the SD. 4 On the first and second counts, he was not found guilty because he was a non-commissioned officer who had never held a directive position and indeed even once rejected one. 4

References

  1. Back to top↑ Johannes Hürter (2007). Hitlers Heerführer: Die deutschen Oberbefehlshaber im Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion 1941/42 . Munich: Oldenbourg, 2nd edition, p. 520-521, ISBN 3-486-58341-7
  2. Back to top↑ Bibliography on the number of victims:
    • Yahil, Leni; Friedman, Ina; Galai, Haya (1991). The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932-1945 (in English) . Oxford University Press. P. 270, table 4. “618,089 victims of the Einsatzgruppen in the Soviet Union”.
    • Ronald Headland (2000). Messages of Murder , Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2nd edition, p. 124. estimates the number of victims of the Einsatzgruppen, including German police units and collaborators, in more than one million people.
    • Helmut Langerbein (2004). Hitler’s Death Squads: The Logic of Mass Murder . Texas A & M University Press, College Station, p. 15-16, ISBN 1-58544-285-2 . The number of victims in Soviet territory at the hands of the Einsatzgruppen in conjunction with other units of the SS , Wehrmacht and German police is estimated at about half a million people, but emphasis is placed on the difficulties of estimation and definition.
  3. Back to top↑ Benjamin Ferencz : Opening Statement of the Prosecution , filed September 29, 1947. In: Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. , Vol. . 30.
  4. ↑ Jump to:a b c Nuremberg Military Court, United States of America Vs. Otto Ohlendorf, et. to the. (“Einsatzgruppen trial”), Judgment, pp. 585-586.

Bibliography

Primary sources and memories

  • Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. , Vol. 4: United States of America vs. Otto Ohlendorf, et. to the. (Case 9: Einsatzgruppen Case). US Government Printing Office, District of Columbia 1950. (Volume 4 of the 15 of the “Green Series” on the Nuremberg trials. Volume includes demand, judgment and extracts from documents used in trial).
  • The court documents are in the National Archives of the United States ; Those pertinent are found in Inventory Groups 94, 153, 238, 260, 319, 338 and 446. The essential documents of the process were published in the form of three microfiche :
    • Records of the United States Nuernberg War Crimes Trials, United States of America v. Otto Ohlendorf et al. (Case 9) . NARA, Washington 1973. (National Archives Microfilm Publication M895, 38 rolls, Table of contents and aid of the historian John Mendelsohn, Washington 1978.)
    • Records of the United States Nuernberg War Crimes Trials Interrogations, 1946-1949 . NARA, Washington 1977. (National Archives Microfilm Publication M1019, 91 rolls, Table of contents )
    • Interrogation Records Prepared for War Crimes Proceedings at Nuernberg 1945-1947 . NARA, Washington, 1984. (National Archives Microfilm Publication M1270, 31 rolls, Table of Contents )
  • Telford Taylor , ed. (1950): Final Report to the Secretary of the Army on Nuernberg War Crimes Trials under Control Council Law No. 10 . US Government Printing Office, District of Columbia.
  • Telford Taylor (1992). The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials - a Personal Memoir . New York: Knopf, ISBN 0-394-58355-8 .
  • Benjamin Ferencz (2006) “Von Nürnberg nach Rom. Ein Leben für die Menschenrechte”. Aufbau. Das jüdische Monatsmagazin. Zürich, 2: 6-9, ISSN 0004-7813
  • Michael A. Musmanno (1961). The Eichmann Kommandos. Philadelphia: Macrae Smith.

Secondary Bibliography on the Holocaust in the Occupied Soviet Union

  • Christopher Browning (2004). The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 - March 1942. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, ISBN 0-8032-1327-1 .
  • Israel Gutman, ed. (1998): Enzyklopädie des Holocaust - Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden. Munich: Piper, 3 volumes, ISBN 3-492-22700-7 .
  • Ernst Klee (2007). Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2nd edition, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .

Secondary bibliography on the Einsatzgruppen in the Soviet Union and the process itself

  • Andrej Angrick (2003). Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord: die Einsatzgruppe D in der südlichen Sowjetunion 1941-1943. Hamburg: Hamburger, ISBN 3-930908-91-3 .
  • Donald Bloxham (2001). Genocide on Trial: War Crimes Trials and the Formation of Holocaust History and Memory . Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-925904-6 .
  • Hilary Earl (2009). The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgruppen Trial, 1945-1958: Atrocity, Law, and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-45608-1 .
  • Ronald Headland (2000). Messages of Murder: A Study of the Reports of the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the Security Service, 1941-1943. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2nd edition, ISBN 0-8386-3418-4 .
  • Peter Klein, ed. (1997): Die Einsatztruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion 1941/42. Berlin: Hentrich, ISBN 3-89468-200-0 .
  • Ralf Ogorreck and Volker Rieß (1999). Fall 9: Der Einsatzgruppenprozess (gegen Ohlendorf und andere). In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Der Nationalsozialismus vor Gericht. Die alliierten Prozesse gegen Kriegsverbrecher und Soldaten 1943-1952. Frankfurt: Fischer, p. 164-175, ISBN 3-596-13589-3
  • Robert Wolfe (1980). “Putative Threat to National Security as a Nuremberg Defense for Genocide”. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS), 450 (1): 46-67, doi 10.1177 / 000271628045000106 .

Secondary bibliography on the practice of pardons and the ‘politics of memory’ in the Federal Republic

  • Ludwig Eiber and Robert Sigel, eds. (2007). Dachauer Prozesse - NS-Verbrechen vor amerikanischen Militärgerichten in Dachau 1945-1948. Göttingen: Wallstein, ISBN 978-3-8353-0167-2 .
  • Norbert Frei (1996). Vergangenheitspolitik: die Anfänge der Bundesrepublik und die NS-Vergangenheit. Munich: Beck, ISBN 3-406-41310-2 .
  • Kerstin Freudiger (2002). Die juristische Aufarbeitung von NS-Verbrechen. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, ISBN 3-16-147687-5 .
  • Thomas Raithel (2009). Die Strafanstalt Landsberg am Lech und der Spöttinger Friedhof (1944-1958). Munich: Oldenbourg, ISBN 978-3-486-58741-8 .
  • Thomas Alan Schwartz (1990). “Die Begnadigung deutscher Kriegsverbrecher - John J. McCloy und die Häftlinge von Landsberg.” In: Institut für Zeitgeschichte München (ed.): Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 3, ISSN 0042-5702 . ( Online , PDF; 1.6 MB)
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