War crimes trials: Various papers microfilm

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 1556 WL 1185
Held at	: Wiener Library   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/ ›
Full title	: War crimes trials: Various papers microfilm
Date(s)	: 1947-1967
Level of description	: Collection level
Extent	: 3 microfilm reels
Name of creator(s)	: Various regional courts and the appeal courts, Germany, Switzerland and Poland

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Papers relating to a number of separate war crimes trials deposited at different times from different sources. There follow the names of defendants in the said trials followed by short biographical histories, where known:

Erich Koch Trial, People's Court, Warsaw, 1958- Erich Koch, former Gauleiter of the Ukraine, and Reich Defence Commissioner in East Prussia was convicted of the murder of 72,000 Poles, and of sending 200,000 others to forced labour camps. He was accused by prosecutors of bearing directly responsibility for the deaths of several million Poles and Russians.

The Swiss Federal Supreme Court conducted 6 trials of 102 Swiss citizens between 1946 and 1948, of whom 99 would be given various sentences for political treason, political or military intelligence activities, violation of military secrets, and military service abroad. Notable names among them were P Benz, G Oltramare, P Bonny, R Fonjallaz, J Barwirsch, H Frei, F Riedweg, T Stadler, F Burri and M L Keller.

Horst Wagner Trial, Hamm, North Rhine Westphalia, District Court, 1959- This former legation counsellor in the Nazi foreign ministry was accused of being accessory to the murder of several hundred thousand Jews. He was head of Gruppe Inland II, which worked with Adolf Eichmann, on the deportation of Jews from a number of European countries. He managed to evade justice for 30 years. Born in Posen in 1906, trained as a journalist in Berlin where he joined the SA in 1933, in May 1938 he joined the foreign ministry. In January 1944 he became liaison officer between the foreign office and the SS, during which period he became involved in the deportation of Jews. He was in custody during the Nuremberg trials where he was a witness, and after which, in 1948, he was released.

Fischer-Schweder et al Higher District Court Stuttgart, 1959. The defendants Bernhard Fischer-Schweder; Werner Schmidt-Hammer; Hans-Joachim Böhme; Werner Hersmann; Edwin Sakuth; Werner Kreuzmann; Harm Willms Harms; Gerhard Carsten; Franz Behrendt; Pranas Lukys alias Jakys were accused of the mass murder of of Jews and Communists in and around the Tilsit region of Lithuania as part of the orders carried out by Einsatzgruppe A.

Heilmann, Kierspel and Mirbeth, Jury Court, Bremen, 1953- Helmrich Hermann Philipp Heilmann, Josef Kierspel and Johann Mirbeth were found guilty of murder, attempted murder and manslaughter in their respective capacities as concentration camp guards in Sachsenhausen, Flossenbürg, Auschwitz and others.

Udo von Woyrsch and Ernst Müller Trial, Jury Court Osnabrueck and Federal Appeal Court, 1957-1958- charged with accessory to manslaughter and manslaughter of a number of SA men on 30 June 1934.

Dr Emanuel Schaefer and others, Jury Court, Köln - charged, in his capacity as commander of the Sicherheitspolizei und SD in Serbia, for affording assistance to others in their perpetration of the murder of over 6000 Jewish women and children in a camp in Belgrade between end February and end May 1942 also Emanuel Schaefer, Franz Sprinz and Kurt Matschke charged for having knowingly afforded assistance to those who effected the deportation of Jews from Köln to the east. Schaefer, a career police officer with a law degree, held a number of senior positions in various forces including leader of the Stapo in Oppel; a short stint as head of an Einsatzgruppe of the Sicherheitspolizei und SD in Poland; head of the Stapo at Kattowitz; head of the Stapo at Köln until 6 January 1942 when he was made commander of the Sicherheitspolizei und SD in Serbia.

Franz Rademacher and Dr Klingfuss, District Court Nuremberg-Fürth, 1952- Franz Rademacher was the head of D III the so-called Jewish desk of the Nazi Foreign Office from May 1940 to April 1943. He became involved in the plan to re-settle Jews in Madagascar and after it was decided that this plan could no longer be realized, he was sent to Serbia to help the authorities to find a 'local solution' to their 'Jewish problem' (firing squads). In Autumn 1941 he was directly involved in the mass murder of Jews. In the Spring of 1943 he was released for military service in the navy. After the war he was tried and convicted at Nuremberg-Fürth (see below), but jumped bail while the case was being appealed and fled to Syria in 1953. Penniless and in ill health he returned to Germany in 1966 and faced a further trial, conviction, and appeal before his death in 1973. Dr Klingenfuss had spent many years in the foreign office and from July to December 1942 he worked with the co-defendant in department D III of the Foreign Office.

Friedrich Georg Hermann Hildebrand, District Court, Bremen, 1953- Hildebrand was was part of the staff of the Lemberg office of the Galicia district of the SS und Polizeiführer, from July 1942, as commandant of the slave labour camp of Drohobycz and Boryslaw until his deployment as inspector of the Jewish slave camps throughout Galicia in summer 1943.

Johann Paul Kremer, Highest People's Court, Krakau, Poland, 1947- Kremer, a former doctor at Auschwitz was condemned to death by the Polish Supreme National Tribunal on 22 December 1947 for his involvement in the murder of Auschwitz prisoners. He received a presidential reprieve and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. On 11 January 1958 he was let out on probation and handed over to West Germany where he was tried at the Landgericht, Münster, Westphalia, and sentenced to a total of 10 years for 2 counts of accessory to murder, on 29 November 1960. Since he had spent more than 10 years in a Polish prison he was allowed to go free.

Philipp Mensinger, District Court, Bremen, 1967- Mensinger was accused of 8 counts of murder at the site of the business Karpathen Öl AG, Galicia which employed slave labour.

Dr Carl Clauberg Trial, District Court, Kiel, 1956- Carl Clauberg, an eminent professor of medicine at Kiel University, is indicted here on numerous counts of grievous bodily harm; intent to injure; manslaughter as a result, principally, of his experiments on sterilisation of women patients at Auschwitz and Ravensbrück.

Indictment 1964- Karl Wolff, one of Himmler's most trusted colleagues. In 1931 Wolff joined the Nazi party and the SS, and in July 1933 he was appointed Himmler's adjutant. In 1936 he was elected to the Reichstag as a member from Hesse. Wolff advanced rapidly up the SS ladder, being appointed Standartenführer in January 1934, Gruppenführer in the Waffen- SS in May 1940, and SS- Obergruppenführer and Generaloberst (senior general) in 1942. He was awarded the Nazi party gold medal on January 30 1939. It was Wolff, who, with Himmler's help, obtained the necessary deportation trains from the German railways administration for transporting innumerable thousands of Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp. In September 1943 Wolff became military governor of northern Italy and plenipotentiary of the Reich to Mussolini's Fascist government. In February 1945 Wolff contacted US intelligence agent Allen Dulles in Zurich and arranged for the surrender of the German forces in northern Italy.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

War crimes trials: trial papers including detailed indictments and verdicts of various post-World War Two war crimes trials; reports on trials by observers; copy statements and other papers, 1947-1967.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:

German and Polish

System of arrangement:

Chronological

Conditions governing access:

Open

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies can be made for personal use. Permission must be sought for publication.

Finding aids:

Description exists to this archive on the Wiener Library's online catalogue www.wienerlibrary.co.uk

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Bronislaw Tronski et al

Allied Materials

Related material:

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Entry compiled by Howard Falksohn.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
January 2008