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Dora Trial

The Dora Trial, also the "Dora"-Nordhausen or Dachau Dora Proceeding (German: Dachau-Dora Prozess) was a war crimes trial conducted by the United States Army in the aftermath of the collapse of the Third Reich. It took place between August 7 and December 30, 1947, on the site of the former Dachau concentration camp, Germany.

Vans Maienschein, a prosecution witness, points out former camp doctor Heinrich Schmidt as the man who let patients die because of lack of medical care. September, 1947

In the proceedings, officially known as the United States of America vs. Kurt Andrae et al. (Case 000-50-37), 19 men were accused of war crimes committed in the operation of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, its many subcamps, and the Mittelwerk armaments plant located near Nordhausen, Germany. The main trial ended with 4 acquittals and 15 convictions, including 1 death sentence. Dora was the last of a sequence of proceedings which took place in the context of the Dachau Trials relating to wide-ranging war crimes uncovered by the United States in its zone of occupation at the end of World War II. Those convicted in the Dora Trial served their sentences at Landsberg Prison.

Additional Dora-related proceedings were held both during and after the Dora Trial. Between late-October and mid-December 1947, short trials were held against 14 lower-level defendants, mostly SS-TV Guards. These resulted in 4 convictions and 1 acquittal, with the remaining 9 cases dropped for lack of evidence or available witnesses. Violent crimes still extant in the body of the facts resulted in several more trials of individual cases in both West Germany and East Germany. The most public and important occurred in Essen between 1968 and 1970, resulting in 2 convictions.

Background

 
Dead prisoners discovered after the liberation of the camp complex by members of the United States Army Signal Corps, April 11, 1945

Of the more than 60,000 prisoners who passed through the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp complex, with its catastrophic working and living conditions, at least 20,000 died of hunger, exposure, disease and abuse.[1] When American troops reached Mittelbau on 11 April 1945, they found nearly 2,000 dead bodies. Only several hundred prisoners were found alive, mostly sick or dying, as the Mittelbau and its sub-camps had already been forcibly evacuated by the SS-Totenkopfverbände on April 6, 1945.

During the "evacuation", approximately 36,500 prisoners were sent on death marches and over 8,000 died from starvation, exposure and summary executions.[2] In one infamous example, about 400 prisoners led by Erhard Brauny left the Rottleberode subcamp on 4 April 1945 in a plan to move them to Neuengamme concentration camp, which was still operational. When the transport reached the town of Gardelegen, the prisoners were joined by additional "evacuation transports". The prisoners, now numbering over 1000, could be moved no further due to damaged railway lines. There they were simply murdered by their captors at Isenschnibber Barn on 13 April 1945.[3][4]

Investigating Team 6822, part of the U.S. War Crimes Program to create legal standards and judicial systems to prosecute Nazi crimes, quickly began to identify the perpetrators. By May 25, 1945, the investigations were complete and a report was sent to General Simpson, Supreme Commander of United States 9th Army.[5] Many of the suspects were quickly captured and interned. Recorded testimony and photographic evidence formed the basis of the indictments.[6] The process became complicated after the withdrawal of American forces from Thuringia on July 1, 1945, when the Mittelbau-Dora complex wound up in the Soviet occupation zone. On September 3, 1946, an exchange of detainees and evidence failed, as no Soviet military representatives appeared at a previously agreed meeting point on the frontier.[7] Corresponding demands to the Soviet military administration remained mostly unanswered. Why Soviet authorities did not cooperate on Dora was unclear, since evidence presented to them on the Gardelegen Massacre resulted in the transfer of 22 suspects. The notebook of an American investigator indicates the possibility that due to unclear responsibilities among the Soviet investigators and their managers, they could not make a decision.[8] Those Mittelbau-Dora suspects and evidence that were in U.S. custody were finally incorporated into the framework of the Dachau Trials.

Prior to the start of the Dora Trial, 12 former members of the SS administration at Mittelbau-Dora had already been convicted of war crimes under British military jurisdiction in the Belsen Trial. There, 4 defendants were sentenced to imprisonment and 5 acquitted. Protective Custody Camp Leader Franz Hößler, commander of the Kleinbodungen subcamp Franz Stofel and his deputy Wilhelm Dörr were all sentenced to death and executed by hanging on 13 December 1945 in Hamelin prison [de].[9] Josef Kollmer, the commander of Dora's SS guard battalion from October, 1943 to May, 1944, was executed in Kraków on January 28, 1948, following his conviction by Poland's Supreme National Tribunal in the First Auschwitz Trial. Former camp commandant Otto Förschner was executed by U.S. military authorities at Landsberg Prison on May 28, 1946, following his conviction for war crimes that occurred during his tenure as commander of the Dachau subcamp of Kaufering. His successor, former Auschwitz commandant Richard Baer was arrested by West German authorities in 1960, but died of natural causes in 1963, before he was able to appear as a defendant in the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials.[10] Helmut Bischoff, SS security chief for the V-weapons program and commander of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) detachment in Mittelbau-Dora, was arrested by Soviet occupation forces in January, 1946 and held in military detention in East Germany, and later Siberia, until 1955. Karl Kahr, the former SS Camp Physician, was not charged due to his relatively good reputation among the prisoners. He became a witness for the prosecution in the Dora Trial.[11][12]

Legal basis and indictment

 
16 of the 19 defendants on 19 September 1947

The legal basis of the proceedings was established in March 1947 with the adoption of the Legal and Penal Administration under the Office of Military Government for Germany (OMGUS).[13] The indictment, which was served on the defendants on 20 June 1947, consisted of two main charges brought together under the title "Violation of the Customs and Laws of War". The content of the application covered war crimes committed in the operation of Mittelbau-Dora and its subcamps from 1 June 1943 to 8 May 1945 upon non-German civilians and prisoners of war. This was a decisive change from other Dachau Trials, because it now covered not only war crimes committed against Allied nationals, but also against stateless persons, Austrians, Slovaks and Italians. German perpetrators of crimes on German victims remained long unpunished and were usually only later heard in German courts.[13][14]

All the defendants were charged in a Common Design of unlawfully and intentionally participating in abuses and killings of prisoners of war and non-German civilians. By the institution of the Common Design approach, specific criminal offenses did not have to be proven individually; rather, by participation in the operation of a concentration camp and membership in the criminal organization of the SS, a war crime had already been committed. The degree of individual responsibility in the Common Design was determined by acts of excess and rank of the accused. This also influenced the verdict and degree of punishment.[5]

Participants

Judges

 
American Military Tribunal presiding over the Dora-Mittelbau war crimes trial in September, 1947.

Colonel Frank Silliamn III took over the chairmanship of a Military tribunal consisting of seven American officers, including Colonel Joseph W. Benson, Colonel Claude O. Burch, Lieutenant Colonel Louis S. Tracy, Lieutenant Colonel Roy J. Herte, Major Warren M. Vanderburgh, and the lawyer Lieutenant Colonel David H. Thomas.[15]

Prosecution team

The prosecution consisted of Chief Prosecutor William Berman, Captain William F. McGarry, Captain John J. Ryan, Lieutenant William F. Jones, and investigators Jacob F. Kinder and William J. Aalmans.[15] Aalmans, a Dutch citizen serving with the U.S. Army, served as a translator during the liberation of the central camp complex. He also heard the testimony of the accused as a member of the investigative team. Aalmans produced a booklet entitled the "Dora"-Nordhausen Labor-Concentration Camps.[16][17]

Defense team

The accused were defended by two American Army officers, Major Leon B. Poullada and Captain Paul D. Strader, and German legal advisers Konrad Max Trimolt, Emil Aheimer, and Louis Renner. From 31 October 1947, Milton Crook supported the defense team after a request by Poullada.[15]

Defendants

The defendants consisted of 14 members of the SS, 4 Kapos and 1 civilian: Georg Rickhey, Director-General of the Mittelwerk GmbH. SS-Obersturmführer Kurt Mathesius, who had commanded the subcamp of Boelke Kaserne, was slated to appear as the 20th defendant at trial, but committed suicide while in US custody in May, 1947.[17] The highest-ranking defendant was the former camp physician, SS-Hauptsturmführer Heinrich Schmidt.[18]

The Dora Defendants in June, 1947

Trial

 
Prosecution in the Dora Trial on 19 September 1947. From left to right: Lt. Col. William Berman, Capt. William F. McGarry, 1st Lt. William F. Jones, and Capt. John F. Ryan.
 
Representatives of the defense on 19 September 1947. In the foreground is Leon Poullada and Capt. Paul Strader. In the background is the accused.
 
A defense witness makes statements about the Gardelegen Massacre

The trial began on 7 August 1947 before the "General Military Government Court" at the US Army Dachau Internment Camp, within the walls of the former Nazi Dachau concentration camp, and was open to the public. An interpreter translated between the Court and the accused in English and German, as the language of the Court was English. After the reading of the indictment, the defendants all pled "not guilty".[19] All were accused of neglecting, abusing and killing prisoners. Some defendants were also accused of specific offenses in the context of death marches or in the course of the "evacuation of the camp". Former camp physician Heinrich Schmidt was accused of medical neglect of inmates, causing them to die of hunger, exposure, and disease. The main responsibility for the inhumane living conditions was attributed to former Protective Custody Camp Leader Hans Möser. The four prisoners who functioned as camp Kapos were also accused of abusing and sometimes killing fellow prisoners. German Civilian Georg Rickhey, as a former General Manager of Mittelwerk Gmbh, was held responsible for the disastrous working conditions.[13][14]

Pretrial motions

At the request of the prosecution, defendants Albin Sawatzki, Otto Brenneis, Hans Joachim Ritz and Stefan Palko were deleted from the list of the accused.[5] Defense counsel Poullada unsuccessfully made several requests as to the Military Court's jurisdiction.[20] He petitioned for the removal of the words "and other non-German nationals" in the indictment, arguing that U.S. military courts were not responsible for the prosecution of war crimes committed by German citizens upon nationals of Allies of the Third Reich.[21] This request was not granted as the court decided that the crimes against non-German victims would therefore go unpunished. In addition, Poullada repeatedly requested removal of the legal institution of the Common Design, because in his opinion the court's decision process should not be based on Common Design but upon individually verifiable crimes. This application was refused as well.[20]

Opening arguments

In his opening argument, chief prosecutor Berman explained that Mittelbau-Dora not only provided a source of forced labor for the Reich armaments industry, but that its primary purpose was the deliberate killing of concentration camp prisoners by a systematic policy of extermination through labor (German: Vernichtung durch Arbeit). Berman went on to present evidence submitted at the arraignment of the defendants and placed it in the immediate context of war crimes by identifying specific camp operations targeted at human destruction. According to his argument, therefore, all the accused were guilty of mass murder.[22]

Evidence

Evidence presented by prosecutor Ludendorff attempted to prove the inherent criminality of the Mittelbau-Dora complex through the identified responsibility of individual defendants in the system as a whole, and by specific proof of the commission of or participation in excessive acts within that system. In addition to the living and working conditions in the camp, the prosecution also referred to the death marches as evidence of collective criminality, with the Gardelegen Massacre a primary focus.[23] In their arguments, the prosecution presented more than 70 camp survivors as witnesses.[24] The witnesses reported on the appalling conditions, especially of inadequate food and clothing, poor hygiene and poor medical care, and the imposition of punishments.[23]

The testimony of the witnesses regarding forced labor at the complex were essentially descriptions of working and living conditions during the construction phase of the camp during winter of 1943–1944. This phase, also known as the "Hell of Dora", was marked by exhausting work in digging tunnels into the Kohnstein Mountain to create a subterranean V-weapons (German: Vergeltungswaffen) rocket factory. Statements referring to the subsequent functioning of the Mittelwerk Assembly Plant formed a second priority in this context. Executions of camp prisoners due to alleged rebellion and sabotage were also portrayed.[25] Of the 19 accused, 13 took advantage of their right to testify in their own behalf, the rest referenced their own interrogation logs.[26] The defendants either downplayed their actions, stated they were only following orders (the Führerprinzip), or claimed they were not present at the scene of the crimes.[13][14] The defense offered 65 witnesses, and the military court was provided with 9 additional written statements for the defense.[26]

On the living conditions in subcamp Boelcke Kaserne, where about half of the concentration camp prisoners captured did not survive, the camp doctor stated: "The weather in March 1945 was at that time very sunny and warm. In accommodation Blocks 6 and 7 the prisoners spent almost all day on the south wall sunning themselves."[27]

Rickhey case

 
Georg Rickhey being sworn in before giving his statements on 18 December 1947.

As sole representative of the Mittelwerk Gmbh, Georg Rickhey was at the center of the Court proceedings on forced labor in the plant. Rickhey was alleged to have been responsible for the disastrous working conditions, cooperating closely with the SS and Gestapo, and being present during executions. The proof for this war crime was important, as Rickhey – unlike the other defendants – could not be blamed for the catastrophic living conditions in the concentration camps or the execution of the death marches. The basis of the prosecution was his participation in the underground missile production of the V-1 and V-2 rockets, which required the use of forced labor.[13][28]

Rickhey was exonerated by statements of past employees and written interrogations of his engineering colleagues – only the testimony of one former engineer was incriminating. Witnesses offered by the prosecution made only vague statements about his activities in camp operations because they had generally not personally witnessed it. Written evidence of Rickhey's guilt was also lacking; only after the end of the trial were documents found showing his culpability in the inhumane working conditions in the Mittelwork. Rickhey testified on his own behalf and put the entire responsibility for the inhumane conditions and forced labor on the late internment engineer Albin Sawatzki, who had died in American detention in 1945. Furthermore, he pointed to his cooperation with the U.S. Air Force (USAF) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.[29]

Closing arguments

In closing arguments, prosecutor Berman argued for the death penalty for all defendants, because if a consistent interpretation of Common Design were applied then they were all mass murderers.[30] The defense did well in their closing arguments.[31] They insisted on the non-application of Common Design and asked the court to consider only those crimes that could be individually proven.[30] Poullada appealed that the military court use the "high standards of Anglo-American jurisprudence". In this view, the accused should not be judged differently than American citizens in a court of law and therefore should be acquitted if the evidence against them was not unequivocal.[31] For Rickhey in particular, the defense asked for an acquittal because the allegations against him could not be proved.[30]

Verdicts

 
Defendant Erhard Brauny receives his judgment on 30 December 1947

The chairman of the military court announced the verdicts on Christmas Eve, 1947 and delivered the corresponding sentences on December 30. Seven life sentences, seven fixed-term prison sentences, and one death penalty were handed down. Four defendants were acquitted, including Rickhey.[31][32]

A review of the verdicts was completed on 23 April 1948 by the Deputy Judge Advocate for War Crimes, which were all confirmed with one exception: regarding the offender Oskar Helbig, the sentence of twenty years in prison was reduced to ten. The United States War Crimes Board of Review then conducted a second review of the recommendations. The military Governor of the American occupation zone, Lucius D. Clay, confirmed all the judgments according to the recommendations in the review process and pronounced them final on June 25, 1948.[33]

The 19 verdicts were in particular:[34]

Name Rank Function Verdict
Hans Möser SS-Obersturmführer Protective Custody Camp Leader at the Dora main complex. Death by hanging, executed on November 26, 1948
Erhard Brauny SS-Hauptscharführer Protective Custody Camp Leader at the Rottleberode subcamp, detachment commander in Dora Life imprisonment
Otto Brinkmann SS-Hauptscharführer Rapportführer in Dora, Protective Custody Leader in subcamp Ellrich-Juliushütte Life imprisonment
Emil Bühring SS-Stabsscharführer Head of the Bunker Life imprisonment
Ruldof Jacobi SS-Hauptscharführer Construction manager of camp barracks in Dora Life imprisonment
Josef Kilian Kapo Executioner in Dora Life imprisonment
Georg König SS-Hauptscharführer Rapportführer in Dora, responsible for the vehicle fleet Life imprisonment
Wilhelm Simon SS-Oberscharführer Arbeitseinsatzführer Life imprisonment
Willi Zwiener Kapo Highest ranking Kapo in Dora 25 years imprisonment
Arthur Andräe SS-Hauptscharführer Head of the Post Office in Dora 20 years imprisonment
Oskar Helbig SS-Oberscharführer Manager of the Food Warehouse in Dora 20 years imprisonment, reduced to 10 years imprisonment
Richard Walenta Kapo Highest ranking Kapo in subcamp Ellrich-Juliushütte, Aufseher in Dora 20 years imprisonment
Heinrich Detmers SS-Obersturmführer Adjutant to the Camp Commandant 7 years imprisonment[Footnote 1]
Walter Ernst Ulbricht Kapo Office clerk in subcamp Rottleberode 5 years imprisonment
Paul Maischein SS-Rottenführer SS medical orderly in subcamp Rottleberode 5 years imprisonment
Josef Fuchsloch SS-Hauptscharführer Deputy Camp Leader of subcamp Harzungen Acquitted
Kurt Heinrich SS-Obersturmführer Adjutant to the Camp Commandant Acquitted
Georg Rickhey Civilian Director General of Mittelwerke, GmbH Acquitted
Heinrich Schmidt SS-Hauptsturmführer Physician in the subcamp Boelcke-Kaserne Acquitted
  1. ^ It was announced before the Military Tribunal that in January 1947, in a secondary proceeding of the Dachau Trials (Case No. 000-50-2-23 US vs. Alex Piorkowski et al.), that Detmers had already been sentenced to 15 years in prison. The penalty had also been reduced to five years after a review procedure. Upon the Dora Trial verdict, it was determined that both sentences should be served concurrently.

Secondary trials

During the Dora Trial, additional proceedings against five lower-level defendants occurred between late October 1947 and mid-December 1947. These were short-term trials agreed between the prosecution and the defense, each lasting a few days.[35] There were a total of 14 secondary procedures planned, however 9 were cancelled for lack of witnesses and evidence.[32] In addition, Case 004 (listed below) was begun but not pursued for the same reasons.[35]

The five cases and their verdicts[36]
Case Defendant Rank Function Verdict
Case No. 000-Nordhausen-1 Michail Grebinski Romanian SS guard Guard in Dora-Mittelbau Acquitted
Case No. 000-Nordhausen-2 Albert Mueller SS-Rottenführer Guard in Dora-Mittelbau 25 years imprisonment, reduced to 10 years imprisonment
Case No. 000-Nordhausen-3 Georg Finkenzeller Kapo Guard in the Quarries command 2 years imprisonment
Case No. 000-Nordhausen-4 Case dropped due to a lack of evidence
Case No. 000-Nordhausen-5 Philipp Klein SS-Scharführer SS medical orderly 4 years imprisonment
Case No. 000-Nordhausen-6 Stefan Palko SS-Rottenführer Block Leader 25 years imprisonment, reduced to 15 years imprisonment

Execution of sentence

After the verdict, the convicts were transferred to Landsberg Prison to serve out their sentences. Möser, the only defendant sentenced to death, was executed by hanging on November 26, 1948.[37] All of the other convicts were released early, with the exception of Erhard Brauny, who died in prison in 1950. The last defendant released was Otto Brinkmann on May 9, 1958.[38] Brinkmann and three men who had been convicted in the Einsatzgruppen Trial were the last four inmates to be released from Landsberg Prison at the conclusion of the U.S. War Crimes program.[39]

Analysis and reactions

As measured by the 2,400-strong staff of the Mittelbau-Dora complex, only a small number were actually charged: Only 19 defendants were indicted in the Dora Trial and 5 in the collateral proceedings. Also, in relation to other Dachau concentration camp procedures, the number of defendants was rather low. The tendency for leniency in the Dora Trial was clear: In the main Dachau Trials, 36 of the 40 defendants were sentenced to death; in Dora, only one. Moreover, this last of the Dachau Trials occurred over three and a half years after the liberation of Mittelbau. By this time, the judges could only hearken back to indirect impressions of camp horrors, unlike the earlier trials. Moreover, witnesses who were needed to identify the accused were often nowhere to be found.[40]

In addition, by contrast to the Buchenwald Trial completed in the American Zone in August 1947, the Dora Trial received minimal public attention. Differences in newspaper coverage were obvious: In the Frankfurter Rundschau, the headlines of 8 August 1947 read: "Sensational Trial at Dachau. 19 defendants from the Death Camp of Nordhausen - The secret to producing the V-weapons in Dora". In the southern Harz region where Nordhausen was located, now in the Soviet Zone, this American trial was barely mentioned.[41]

The legal institution of common design was applied, but not as consistently as in the main Dachau concentration camp trials. For example, defendant Kurt Heinrich, former adjutant to the camp commander, was acquitted. In the Dachau Trials, Rudolf Heinrich Suttrop was sentenced to death for performing the same function. This trend is also evident at the Secondary Dora proceedings, where the indictments had been for a single, provable offense and not common design.[32]

In addition, neither Wernher von Braun nor Arthur Rudolph nor other important representatives of the Mittelwerk GmbH were indicted or required to appear in court to testify. They were, as Rickhey before them, sent away in Operation Paperclip for rocket research in the United States.[13][28] Only interrogation logs from Rudolph and von Braun were available, both fully exonerating Rickhey. During this time the American authorities began to pursue a policy opposing the further prosecution of war crimes in order to utilize the expertise of the engineers in the Cold War.[42]

Denazification also lost importance as the Allies wanted to win over West Germany as an ally. In the German population, after the first shock of the concentration camp crimes, solidarity emerged with the welfare of the war criminals in Landsberg Prison. This was also reflected in the gradual mitigation of sentences and the premature commuting of sentences.[43]

Later Mittelbau-Dora legal proceedings

 
Plaintiff's lawyer Friedrich Karl Kaul during the Essen Dora Trial, October, 1968.

Long after the Dachau Dora Trials were complete, violent crimes still extant in the body of facts resulted in new Mittelbau-Dora trials both in West Germany and East Germany.[44] The most important was the Essen Trial, held on 17 November 1967 before the District Court at Essen, West Germany.[45] In these proceedings, former camp guard Erwin Busta, Gestapo official Ernst Sander and chief of security for the V-weapons program Helmut Bischoff were tried.[45] Among the charges were summary executions of prisoners who had attempted escape or who were accused of sabotage. Furthermore, the murder of 58 suspected resistance fighters and deadly abuses in "enhanced interrogation" of prisoners were subject to proceedings.[44] During the trial, East German lawyer Friedrich Karl Kaul was counsel for the plaintiffs by summons.[46] Bischoff's participation in the proceedings on 5 May 1970 had to be suspended because of ill health and were postponed until 1974. On 8 May 1970, Busta was sentenced to eight and a half years and Sander sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.[47]

Dora Trial today

In the spring of 2004, while emptying a container of waste paper, the owner of a recycling company in Kerkrade, Netherlands found an extensive set of documents from the Dora Trials as well as original photographs of the initial liberation of Mittelbau-Dora and its auxiliary camps. It was not possible to identify how these documents came to be in the waste container. However, it is clear they were from the estate of William Aalmans, the Dutch citizen who served with the U.S. Army in the liberation of Mittelbau-Dora and then worked for the prosecution in the Dora Trial. In the beginning of July 2004, all the documents were given over to the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial (German: Gedenkstätte Mittelbau-Dora). The documents, many of which were previously unknown, are an extremely valuable addition to the collection. Many are now on display at the new permanent exhibition at the former camp site, opened in April 2006.[48]

References

  1. ^ Wagner 2007, p. 7.
  2. ^ Wagner 2001, p. 301.
  3. ^ Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel: "Der Ort des Terrors. Geschichte der Nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager", In: Wewelsburg, Majdanek, Arbeitsdorf, Herzogenbusch, Bergen-Belsen, Mittelbau-Dora (München: C. H. Beck, 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-52967-2) p. 333
  4. ^ Karola Fings, Krieg, Gesellschaft und KZ. Himmlers SS-Baubrigaden (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2005, ISBN 3-506-71334-5) p. 274
  5. ^ a b c Löffelsender 2007, p. 154.
  6. ^ Robert Sigel, Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit. Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945-48., (Frankfurt am Main, 1992) p. 16 ff.
  7. ^ Manfred Overesch: Buchenwald und die DDR - oder die Suche nach Selbstlegitimation (1995) p. 207 ff.
  8. ^ Katrin Greiser: "Die Dachauer Buchenwaldprozesse – Anspruch und Wirklichkeit – Anspruch und Wirkung" In: Ludwig Eiber, Robert Sigl: Dachauer Prozesse – NS-Verbrechen vor amerikanischen Militärgerichten in Dachau 1945–1948. (Göttingen, 2007) p. 162
  9. ^ Wagner 2001, p. 567.
  10. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: Wer war was vor und nach 1945 (Frankfurt am Main, 2007) p. 24, p. 158
  11. ^ Wagner 2001, p. 296.
  12. ^ Frank Wiedemann: Alltag im Konzentrationslager Mittelbau-Dora. Methoden und Strategien des Überlebens der Häftlinge (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang - Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2010) p. 51
  13. ^ a b c d e f Robert Sigel: Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit. Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945-48., Frankfurt am Main 1992, S. 16 ff., S. 99f.
  14. ^ a b c Deputy Judge Advocate's Office 7708 War Crimes Group European Command APO 407: United States v. Kurt Andrae et al. Case No. 000-50-37. Review and Recommendations of the Deputy Judge Advocate for War Crimes, April 1948, p. 30
  15. ^ a b c Löffelsender 2007, p. 155.
  16. ^ Robert Sigel: Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit. Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945-48., Frankfurt am Main 1992, p. 214
  17. ^ a b Löffelsender 2007, p. 152.
  18. ^ Robert Sigel: Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit. Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945-48., Frankfurt am Main 1992, S. 96
  19. ^ Deputy Judge Advocate's Office 7708 War Crimes Group European Command APO 407: United States v. Kurt Andrae et al. Case No. 000-50-37. Review and Recommendations of the Deputy Judge Advocate for War Crimes, April 1948, p. 2f.
  20. ^ a b Löffelsender 2007, p. 158.
  21. ^ Robert Sigel: Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit. Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945-48., Frankfurt am Main 1992, p. 98f.
  22. ^ Löffelsender 2007, p. 157f.
  23. ^ a b Löffelsender 2007, p. 159f.
  24. ^ Wagner 2001, p. 26.
  25. ^ Löffelsender 2007, p. 160.
  26. ^ a b Löffelsender 2007, p. 164.
  27. ^ Wagner 2001, p. 496ff.
  28. ^ a b Wagner 2001, p. 567-8.
  29. ^ Löffelsender 2007, p. 163ff.
  30. ^ a b c Löffelsender 2007, p. 165.
  31. ^ a b c Robert Sigel: Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit. Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945-48., Frankfurt am Main 1992, p. 102.
  32. ^ a b c Löffelsender 2007, p. 166.
  33. ^ Robert Sigel: "In the interest of justice. The Dachau war crimes trials 1945-48 ", Frankfurt am Main 1992, p. 102
  34. ^ "United States of America vs. Kurt Andrae et al. - case 000-50-37" 2015-09-25 at the Wayback Machine www1.jur.uva.nl (Justice and NAZI crimes) and Deputy Judge Advocate's Office 7708 war crimes group European command APO 407: "United States v. Kurt Andrae et al. case No.. 000-50-37. Review and recommendations of the Deputy Judge Advocate General for war crimes "from the April bogenschiessens
  35. ^ a b Sigel 1992, p. 104
  36. ^ Namensliste der in den Dachauer Prozessen angeklagten Personen 2011-09-15 at the Wayback Machine from www1.jur.uva.nl (Justiz- und NS-Verbrechen)
  37. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: Wer war was vor und nach 1945., Frankfurt am Main 2007, S. 414
  38. ^ Wagner 2001, p. 568.
  39. ^ Norbert Frei: Vergangenheitspolitik. Die Anfänge der Bundesrepublik und die NS-Vergangenheit. München 2003, S. 138
  40. ^ Robert Sigel: Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit. Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945-48., Frankfurt am Main 1992, p. 103ff.
  41. ^ Wagner 2007, p. 168-9.
  42. ^ Löffelsender 2007, p. 162.
  43. ^ Norbert Frei: Vergangenheitspolitik: Die Anfänge der Bundesrepublik und die NS-Vergangenheit. München 2003, ISBN 3-423-30720-X, S. 133 - 306
  44. ^ a b . Archived from the original on 2012-02-23. Retrieved 2012-02-24.
  45. ^ a b Sellier, Andre (2000). Zwangsarbeit im Raketentunnel (in German). zu Klampen. p. 518. ISBN 978-3924245955.
  46. ^ Wagner 2007, p. 155.
  47. ^ Georg Wamhof: Geschichtspolitik und NS-Strafverfahren. Der Essener Dora-Prozess (1967–1970) im deutsch-deutschen Systemkonflikt. In: Helmut Kramer, Karsten Uhl, Jens-Christian Wagner (eds.): Zwangsarbeit im Nationalsozialismus und die Rolle der Justiz - Täterschaft, Nachkriegsprozesse und die Auseinandersetzung um Entschädigungsleistungen. Nordhausen 2007, p. 190
  48. ^ "Aus dem Müll in die Gedenkstätte" in: Neue Nordhäuser Zeitung Online July 7, 2004 In German. Retrieved 02-25-2012

Bibliography

  • Deputy Judge Advocate's Office 7708 War Crimes Group European Command APO 407: United States v. Kurt Andrae et al. Case No. 000-50-37. Review and Recommendations of the Deputy Judge Advocate for War Crimes, April 1948. (online PDF-file; 14.1 MB in English. Retrieved 02-25-2012).
  • Löffelsender, Michael (2007). "'A particularly unique role among concentration camps'. Der Dachauer Dora-Prozess 1947". In Kramer, Helmut; Uhl, Karsten; Wagner, Jens-Christian (eds.). Zwangsarbeit im Nationalsozialismus und die Rolle der Justiz. Täterschaft, Nachkriegsprozesse und die Auseinandersetzung um Entschädigungsleistungen (PDF) (in German). Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora / Fachhochschule Nordhausen. pp. 152–68.
  • Robert Sigel: Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit. Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945-48. (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1992) ISBN 3-593-34641-9
  • Ute Stiepani: "Die Dachauer Prozesse und ihre Bedeutung im Rahmen der alliierten Strafverfolgung von NS-Verbrechen." In: Gerd R. Ueberschär: Die alliierten Prozesse gegen Kriegsverbrecher und Soldaten 1943 - 1952. (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1999) ISBN 3-596-13589-3
  • Wagner, Jens-Christian (2001). Produktion des Todes: Das KZ Mittelbau-Dora. Göttingen: Wallstein. ISBN 3-89244-439-0.
  • Wagner, Jens-Christian, ed. (2007). Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp 1943-1945. Guide to the Permanent Exhibition at Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial. Göttingen: Wallstein. ISBN 978-3-8353-0118-4.

External links

  • Dachau Nordhausen Cases in English. Retrieved 02-25-2012.
  • Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial in German. Retrieved 02-25-2012.

dora, trial, also, dora, nordhausen, dachau, dora, proceeding, german, dachau, dora, prozess, crimes, trial, conducted, united, states, army, aftermath, collapse, third, reich, took, place, between, august, december, 1947, site, former, dachau, concentration, . The Dora Trial also the Dora Nordhausen or Dachau Dora Proceeding German Dachau Dora Prozess was a war crimes trial conducted by the United States Army in the aftermath of the collapse of the Third Reich It took place between August 7 and December 30 1947 on the site of the former Dachau concentration camp Germany Vans Maienschein a prosecution witness points out former camp doctor Heinrich Schmidt as the man who let patients die because of lack of medical care September 1947 In the proceedings officially known as the United States of America vs Kurt Andrae et al Case 000 50 37 19 men were accused of war crimes committed in the operation of the Mittelbau Dora concentration camp its many subcamps and the Mittelwerk armaments plant located near Nordhausen Germany The main trial ended with 4 acquittals and 15 convictions including 1 death sentence Dora was the last of a sequence of proceedings which took place in the context of the Dachau Trials relating to wide ranging war crimes uncovered by the United States in its zone of occupation at the end of World War II Those convicted in the Dora Trial served their sentences at Landsberg Prison Additional Dora related proceedings were held both during and after the Dora Trial Between late October and mid December 1947 short trials were held against 14 lower level defendants mostly SS TV Guards These resulted in 4 convictions and 1 acquittal with the remaining 9 cases dropped for lack of evidence or available witnesses Violent crimes still extant in the body of the facts resulted in several more trials of individual cases in both West Germany and East Germany The most public and important occurred in Essen between 1968 and 1970 resulting in 2 convictions Contents 1 Background 2 Legal basis and indictment 3 Participants 3 1 Judges 3 2 Prosecution team 3 3 Defense team 3 4 Defendants 4 Trial 4 1 Pretrial motions 4 2 Opening arguments 4 3 Evidence 4 4 Rickhey case 4 5 Closing arguments 5 Verdicts 6 Secondary trials 7 Execution of sentence 8 Analysis and reactions 9 Later Mittelbau Dora legal proceedings 10 Dora Trial today 11 References 12 Bibliography 13 External linksBackground EditMain article Mittelbau Dora Dead prisoners discovered after the liberation of the camp complex by members of the United States Army Signal Corps April 11 1945 Of the more than 60 000 prisoners who passed through the Mittelbau Dora concentration camp complex with its catastrophic working and living conditions at least 20 000 died of hunger exposure disease and abuse 1 When American troops reached Mittelbau on 11 April 1945 they found nearly 2 000 dead bodies Only several hundred prisoners were found alive mostly sick or dying as the Mittelbau and its sub camps had already been forcibly evacuated by the SS Totenkopfverbande on April 6 1945 During the evacuation approximately 36 500 prisoners were sent on death marches and over 8 000 died from starvation exposure and summary executions 2 In one infamous example about 400 prisoners led by Erhard Brauny left the Rottleberode subcamp on 4 April 1945 in a plan to move them to Neuengamme concentration camp which was still operational When the transport reached the town of Gardelegen the prisoners were joined by additional evacuation transports The prisoners now numbering over 1000 could be moved no further due to damaged railway lines There they were simply murdered by their captors at Isenschnibber Barn on 13 April 1945 3 4 Investigating Team 6822 part of the U S War Crimes Program to create legal standards and judicial systems to prosecute Nazi crimes quickly began to identify the perpetrators By May 25 1945 the investigations were complete and a report was sent to General Simpson Supreme Commander of United States 9th Army 5 Many of the suspects were quickly captured and interned Recorded testimony and photographic evidence formed the basis of the indictments 6 The process became complicated after the withdrawal of American forces from Thuringia on July 1 1945 when the Mittelbau Dora complex wound up in the Soviet occupation zone On September 3 1946 an exchange of detainees and evidence failed as no Soviet military representatives appeared at a previously agreed meeting point on the frontier 7 Corresponding demands to the Soviet military administration remained mostly unanswered Why Soviet authorities did not cooperate on Dora was unclear since evidence presented to them on the Gardelegen Massacre resulted in the transfer of 22 suspects The notebook of an American investigator indicates the possibility that due to unclear responsibilities among the Soviet investigators and their managers they could not make a decision 8 Those Mittelbau Dora suspects and evidence that were in U S custody were finally incorporated into the framework of the Dachau Trials Prior to the start of the Dora Trial 12 former members of the SS administration at Mittelbau Dora had already been convicted of war crimes under British military jurisdiction in the Belsen Trial There 4 defendants were sentenced to imprisonment and 5 acquitted Protective Custody Camp Leader Franz Hossler commander of the Kleinbodungen subcamp Franz Stofel and his deputy Wilhelm Dorr were all sentenced to death and executed by hanging on 13 December 1945 in Hamelin prison de 9 Josef Kollmer the commander of Dora s SS guard battalion from October 1943 to May 1944 was executed in Krakow on January 28 1948 following his conviction by Poland s Supreme National Tribunal in the First Auschwitz Trial Former camp commandant Otto Forschner was executed by U S military authorities at Landsberg Prison on May 28 1946 following his conviction for war crimes that occurred during his tenure as commander of the Dachau subcamp of Kaufering His successor former Auschwitz commandant Richard Baer was arrested by West German authorities in 1960 but died of natural causes in 1963 before he was able to appear as a defendant in the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials 10 Helmut Bischoff SS security chief for the V weapons program and commander of the Sicherheitsdienst SD detachment in Mittelbau Dora was arrested by Soviet occupation forces in January 1946 and held in military detention in East Germany and later Siberia until 1955 Karl Kahr the former SS Camp Physician was not charged due to his relatively good reputation among the prisoners He became a witness for the prosecution in the Dora Trial 11 12 Legal basis and indictment Edit 16 of the 19 defendants on 19 September 1947 The legal basis of the proceedings was established in March 1947 with the adoption of the Legal and Penal Administration under the Office of Military Government for Germany OMGUS 13 The indictment which was served on the defendants on 20 June 1947 consisted of two main charges brought together under the title Violation of the Customs and Laws of War The content of the application covered war crimes committed in the operation of Mittelbau Dora and its subcamps from 1 June 1943 to 8 May 1945 upon non German civilians and prisoners of war This was a decisive change from other Dachau Trials because it now covered not only war crimes committed against Allied nationals but also against stateless persons Austrians Slovaks and Italians German perpetrators of crimes on German victims remained long unpunished and were usually only later heard in German courts 13 14 All the defendants were charged in a Common Design of unlawfully and intentionally participating in abuses and killings of prisoners of war and non German civilians By the institution of the Common Design approach specific criminal offenses did not have to be proven individually rather by participation in the operation of a concentration camp and membership in the criminal organization of the SS a war crime had already been committed The degree of individual responsibility in the Common Design was determined by acts of excess and rank of the accused This also influenced the verdict and degree of punishment 5 Participants EditJudges Edit American Military Tribunal presiding over the Dora Mittelbau war crimes trial in September 1947 Colonel Frank Silliamn III took over the chairmanship of a Military tribunal consisting of seven American officers including Colonel Joseph W Benson Colonel Claude O Burch Lieutenant Colonel Louis S Tracy Lieutenant Colonel Roy J Herte Major Warren M Vanderburgh and the lawyer Lieutenant Colonel David H Thomas 15 Prosecution team Edit The prosecution consisted of Chief Prosecutor William Berman Captain William F McGarry Captain John J Ryan Lieutenant William F Jones and investigators Jacob F Kinder and William J Aalmans 15 Aalmans a Dutch citizen serving with the U S Army served as a translator during the liberation of the central camp complex He also heard the testimony of the accused as a member of the investigative team Aalmans produced a booklet entitled the Dora Nordhausen Labor Concentration Camps 16 17 Defense team Edit The accused were defended by two American Army officers Major Leon B Poullada and Captain Paul D Strader and German legal advisers Konrad Max Trimolt Emil Aheimer and Louis Renner From 31 October 1947 Milton Crook supported the defense team after a request by Poullada 15 Defendants Edit The defendants consisted of 14 members of the SS 4 Kapos and 1 civilian Georg Rickhey Director General of the Mittelwerk GmbH SS Obersturmfuhrer Kurt Mathesius who had commanded the subcamp of Boelke Kaserne was slated to appear as the 20th defendant at trial but committed suicide while in US custody in May 1947 17 The highest ranking defendant was the former camp physician SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Heinrich Schmidt 18 The Dora Defendants in June 1947 Arthur Kurt Andrae Erhard Richard Brauny Otto Georg Werner Brinkmann Emil Otto Buhring Heinrich Georg Alfred Detmers Josef Fuchsloch Richard Kurt Heinrich Oskar Georg Helbig Rudolf Ewald Otto Jacobi Josef Kilian Georg Wilhelm Konig Paul H Maischein Hans Karl Moser Georg Johannes Rickhey Dr Heinrich Schmidt Wilhelm Simon Walter Ernst Ulbricht Richard Walenta Willi ZwienerTrial Edit Prosecution in the Dora Trial on 19 September 1947 From left to right Lt Col William Berman Capt William F McGarry 1st Lt William F Jones and Capt John F Ryan Representatives of the defense on 19 September 1947 In the foreground is Leon Poullada and Capt Paul Strader In the background is the accused A defense witness makes statements about the Gardelegen Massacre The trial began on 7 August 1947 before the General Military Government Court at the US Army Dachau Internment Camp within the walls of the former Nazi Dachau concentration camp and was open to the public An interpreter translated between the Court and the accused in English and German as the language of the Court was English After the reading of the indictment the defendants all pled not guilty 19 All were accused of neglecting abusing and killing prisoners Some defendants were also accused of specific offenses in the context of death marches or in the course of the evacuation of the camp Former camp physician Heinrich Schmidt was accused of medical neglect of inmates causing them to die of hunger exposure and disease The main responsibility for the inhumane living conditions was attributed to former Protective Custody Camp Leader Hans Moser The four prisoners who functioned as camp Kapos were also accused of abusing and sometimes killing fellow prisoners German Civilian Georg Rickhey as a former General Manager of Mittelwerk Gmbh was held responsible for the disastrous working conditions 13 14 Pretrial motions Edit At the request of the prosecution defendants Albin Sawatzki Otto Brenneis Hans Joachim Ritz and Stefan Palko were deleted from the list of the accused 5 Defense counsel Poullada unsuccessfully made several requests as to the Military Court s jurisdiction 20 He petitioned for the removal of the words and other non German nationals in the indictment arguing that U S military courts were not responsible for the prosecution of war crimes committed by German citizens upon nationals of Allies of the Third Reich 21 This request was not granted as the court decided that the crimes against non German victims would therefore go unpunished In addition Poullada repeatedly requested removal of the legal institution of the Common Design because in his opinion the court s decision process should not be based on Common Design but upon individually verifiable crimes This application was refused as well 20 Opening arguments Edit In his opening argument chief prosecutor Berman explained that Mittelbau Dora not only provided a source of forced labor for the Reich armaments industry but that its primary purpose was the deliberate killing of concentration camp prisoners by a systematic policy of extermination through labor German Vernichtung durch Arbeit Berman went on to present evidence submitted at the arraignment of the defendants and placed it in the immediate context of war crimes by identifying specific camp operations targeted at human destruction According to his argument therefore all the accused were guilty of mass murder 22 Evidence Edit Evidence presented by prosecutor Ludendorff attempted to prove the inherent criminality of the Mittelbau Dora complex through the identified responsibility of individual defendants in the system as a whole and by specific proof of the commission of or participation in excessive acts within that system In addition to the living and working conditions in the camp the prosecution also referred to the death marches as evidence of collective criminality with the Gardelegen Massacre a primary focus 23 In their arguments the prosecution presented more than 70 camp survivors as witnesses 24 The witnesses reported on the appalling conditions especially of inadequate food and clothing poor hygiene and poor medical care and the imposition of punishments 23 The testimony of the witnesses regarding forced labor at the complex were essentially descriptions of working and living conditions during the construction phase of the camp during winter of 1943 1944 This phase also known as the Hell of Dora was marked by exhausting work in digging tunnels into the Kohnstein Mountain to create a subterranean V weapons German Vergeltungswaffen rocket factory Statements referring to the subsequent functioning of the Mittelwerk Assembly Plant formed a second priority in this context Executions of camp prisoners due to alleged rebellion and sabotage were also portrayed 25 Of the 19 accused 13 took advantage of their right to testify in their own behalf the rest referenced their own interrogation logs 26 The defendants either downplayed their actions stated they were only following orders the Fuhrerprinzip or claimed they were not present at the scene of the crimes 13 14 The defense offered 65 witnesses and the military court was provided with 9 additional written statements for the defense 26 On the living conditions in subcamp Boelcke Kaserne where about half of the concentration camp prisoners captured did not survive the camp doctor stated The weather in March 1945 was at that time very sunny and warm In accommodation Blocks 6 and 7 the prisoners spent almost all day on the south wall sunning themselves 27 Rickhey case Edit Georg Rickhey being sworn in before giving his statements on 18 December 1947 As sole representative of the Mittelwerk Gmbh Georg Rickhey was at the center of the Court proceedings on forced labor in the plant Rickhey was alleged to have been responsible for the disastrous working conditions cooperating closely with the SS and Gestapo and being present during executions The proof for this war crime was important as Rickhey unlike the other defendants could not be blamed for the catastrophic living conditions in the concentration camps or the execution of the death marches The basis of the prosecution was his participation in the underground missile production of the V 1 and V 2 rockets which required the use of forced labor 13 28 Rickhey was exonerated by statements of past employees and written interrogations of his engineering colleagues only the testimony of one former engineer was incriminating Witnesses offered by the prosecution made only vague statements about his activities in camp operations because they had generally not personally witnessed it Written evidence of Rickhey s guilt was also lacking only after the end of the trial were documents found showing his culpability in the inhumane working conditions in the Mittelwork Rickhey testified on his own behalf and put the entire responsibility for the inhumane conditions and forced labor on the late internment engineer Albin Sawatzki who had died in American detention in 1945 Furthermore he pointed to his cooperation with the U S Air Force USAF at Wright Patterson Air Force Base 29 Closing arguments Edit In closing arguments prosecutor Berman argued for the death penalty for all defendants because if a consistent interpretation of Common Design were applied then they were all mass murderers 30 The defense did well in their closing arguments 31 They insisted on the non application of Common Design and asked the court to consider only those crimes that could be individually proven 30 Poullada appealed that the military court use the high standards of Anglo American jurisprudence In this view the accused should not be judged differently than American citizens in a court of law and therefore should be acquitted if the evidence against them was not unequivocal 31 For Rickhey in particular the defense asked for an acquittal because the allegations against him could not be proved 30 Verdicts Edit Defendant Erhard Brauny receives his judgment on 30 December 1947 The chairman of the military court announced the verdicts on Christmas Eve 1947 and delivered the corresponding sentences on December 30 Seven life sentences seven fixed term prison sentences and one death penalty were handed down Four defendants were acquitted including Rickhey 31 32 A review of the verdicts was completed on 23 April 1948 by the Deputy Judge Advocate for War Crimes which were all confirmed with one exception regarding the offender Oskar Helbig the sentence of twenty years in prison was reduced to ten The United States War Crimes Board of Review then conducted a second review of the recommendations The military Governor of the American occupation zone Lucius D Clay confirmed all the judgments according to the recommendations in the review process and pronounced them final on June 25 1948 33 The 19 verdicts were in particular 34 Name Rank Function VerdictHans Moser SS Obersturmfuhrer Protective Custody Camp Leader at the Dora main complex Death by hanging executed on November 26 1948Erhard Brauny SS Hauptscharfuhrer Protective Custody Camp Leader at the Rottleberode subcamp detachment commander in Dora Life imprisonmentOtto Brinkmann SS Hauptscharfuhrer Rapportfuhrer in Dora Protective Custody Leader in subcamp Ellrich Juliushutte Life imprisonmentEmil Buhring SS Stabsscharfuhrer Head of the Bunker Life imprisonmentRuldof Jacobi SS Hauptscharfuhrer Construction manager of camp barracks in Dora Life imprisonmentJosef Kilian Kapo Executioner in Dora Life imprisonmentGeorg Konig SS Hauptscharfuhrer Rapportfuhrer in Dora responsible for the vehicle fleet Life imprisonmentWilhelm Simon SS Oberscharfuhrer Arbeitseinsatzfuhrer Life imprisonmentWilli Zwiener Kapo Highest ranking Kapo in Dora 25 years imprisonmentArthur Andrae SS Hauptscharfuhrer Head of the Post Office in Dora 20 years imprisonmentOskar Helbig SS Oberscharfuhrer Manager of the Food Warehouse in Dora 20 years imprisonment reduced to 10 years imprisonmentRichard Walenta Kapo Highest ranking Kapo in subcamp Ellrich Juliushutte Aufseher in Dora 20 years imprisonmentHeinrich Detmers SS Obersturmfuhrer Adjutant to the Camp Commandant 7 years imprisonment Footnote 1 Walter Ernst Ulbricht Kapo Office clerk in subcamp Rottleberode 5 years imprisonmentPaul Maischein SS Rottenfuhrer SS medical orderly in subcamp Rottleberode 5 years imprisonmentJosef Fuchsloch SS Hauptscharfuhrer Deputy Camp Leader of subcamp Harzungen AcquittedKurt Heinrich SS Obersturmfuhrer Adjutant to the Camp Commandant AcquittedGeorg Rickhey Civilian Director General of Mittelwerke GmbH AcquittedHeinrich Schmidt SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Physician in the subcamp Boelcke Kaserne Acquitted It was announced before the Military Tribunal that in January 1947 in a secondary proceeding of the Dachau Trials Case No 000 50 2 23 US vs Alex Piorkowski et al that Detmers had already been sentenced to 15 years in prison The penalty had also been reduced to five years after a review procedure Upon the Dora Trial verdict it was determined that both sentences should be served concurrently Secondary trials EditDuring the Dora Trial additional proceedings against five lower level defendants occurred between late October 1947 and mid December 1947 These were short term trials agreed between the prosecution and the defense each lasting a few days 35 There were a total of 14 secondary procedures planned however 9 were cancelled for lack of witnesses and evidence 32 In addition Case 004 listed below was begun but not pursued for the same reasons 35 The five cases and their verdicts 36 Case Defendant Rank Function VerdictCase No 000 Nordhausen 1 Michail Grebinski Romanian SS guard Guard in Dora Mittelbau AcquittedCase No 000 Nordhausen 2 Albert Mueller SS Rottenfuhrer Guard in Dora Mittelbau 25 years imprisonment reduced to 10 years imprisonmentCase No 000 Nordhausen 3 Georg Finkenzeller Kapo Guard in the Quarries command 2 years imprisonmentCase No 000 Nordhausen 4 Case dropped due to a lack of evidenceCase No 000 Nordhausen 5 Philipp Klein SS Scharfuhrer SS medical orderly 4 years imprisonmentCase No 000 Nordhausen 6 Stefan Palko SS Rottenfuhrer Block Leader 25 years imprisonment reduced to 15 years imprisonmentExecution of sentence Edit Landsberg Prison After the verdict the convicts were transferred to Landsberg Prison to serve out their sentences Moser the only defendant sentenced to death was executed by hanging on November 26 1948 37 All of the other convicts were released early with the exception of Erhard Brauny who died in prison in 1950 The last defendant released was Otto Brinkmann on May 9 1958 38 Brinkmann and three men who had been convicted in the Einsatzgruppen Trial were the last four inmates to be released from Landsberg Prison at the conclusion of the U S War Crimes program 39 Analysis and reactions EditAs measured by the 2 400 strong staff of the Mittelbau Dora complex only a small number were actually charged Only 19 defendants were indicted in the Dora Trial and 5 in the collateral proceedings Also in relation to other Dachau concentration camp procedures the number of defendants was rather low The tendency for leniency in the Dora Trial was clear In the main Dachau Trials 36 of the 40 defendants were sentenced to death in Dora only one Moreover this last of the Dachau Trials occurred over three and a half years after the liberation of Mittelbau By this time the judges could only hearken back to indirect impressions of camp horrors unlike the earlier trials Moreover witnesses who were needed to identify the accused were often nowhere to be found 40 In addition by contrast to the Buchenwald Trial completed in the American Zone in August 1947 the Dora Trial received minimal public attention Differences in newspaper coverage were obvious In the Frankfurter Rundschau the headlines of 8 August 1947 read Sensational Trial at Dachau 19 defendants from the Death Camp of Nordhausen The secret to producing the V weapons in Dora In the southern Harz region where Nordhausen was located now in the Soviet Zone this American trial was barely mentioned 41 The legal institution of common design was applied but not as consistently as in the main Dachau concentration camp trials For example defendant Kurt Heinrich former adjutant to the camp commander was acquitted In the Dachau Trials Rudolf Heinrich Suttrop was sentenced to death for performing the same function This trend is also evident at the Secondary Dora proceedings where the indictments had been for a single provable offense and not common design 32 In addition neither Wernher von Braun nor Arthur Rudolph nor other important representatives of the Mittelwerk GmbH were indicted or required to appear in court to testify They were as Rickhey before them sent away in Operation Paperclip for rocket research in the United States 13 28 Only interrogation logs from Rudolph and von Braun were available both fully exonerating Rickhey During this time the American authorities began to pursue a policy opposing the further prosecution of war crimes in order to utilize the expertise of the engineers in the Cold War 42 Denazification also lost importance as the Allies wanted to win over West Germany as an ally In the German population after the first shock of the concentration camp crimes solidarity emerged with the welfare of the war criminals in Landsberg Prison This was also reflected in the gradual mitigation of sentences and the premature commuting of sentences 43 Later Mittelbau Dora legal proceedings Edit Plaintiff s lawyer Friedrich Karl Kaul during the Essen Dora Trial October 1968 Long after the Dachau Dora Trials were complete violent crimes still extant in the body of facts resulted in new Mittelbau Dora trials both in West Germany and East Germany 44 The most important was the Essen Trial held on 17 November 1967 before the District Court at Essen West Germany 45 In these proceedings former camp guard Erwin Busta Gestapo official Ernst Sander and chief of security for the V weapons program Helmut Bischoff were tried 45 Among the charges were summary executions of prisoners who had attempted escape or who were accused of sabotage Furthermore the murder of 58 suspected resistance fighters and deadly abuses in enhanced interrogation of prisoners were subject to proceedings 44 During the trial East German lawyer Friedrich Karl Kaul was counsel for the plaintiffs by summons 46 Bischoff s participation in the proceedings on 5 May 1970 had to be suspended because of ill health and were postponed until 1974 On 8 May 1970 Busta was sentenced to eight and a half years and Sander sentenced to seven and a half years in prison 47 Dora Trial today EditIn the spring of 2004 while emptying a container of waste paper the owner of a recycling company in Kerkrade Netherlands found an extensive set of documents from the Dora Trials as well as original photographs of the initial liberation of Mittelbau Dora and its auxiliary camps It was not possible to identify how these documents came to be in the waste container However it is clear they were from the estate of William Aalmans the Dutch citizen who served with the U S Army in the liberation of Mittelbau Dora and then worked for the prosecution in the Dora Trial In the beginning of July 2004 all the documents were given over to the Mittelbau Dora Concentration Camp Memorial German Gedenkstatte Mittelbau Dora The documents many of which were previously unknown are an extremely valuable addition to the collection Many are now on display at the new permanent exhibition at the former camp site opened in April 2006 48 References Edit Wagner 2007 p 7 Wagner 2001 p 301 Wolfgang Benz Barbara Distel Der Ort des Terrors Geschichte der Nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager In Wewelsburg Majdanek Arbeitsdorf Herzogenbusch Bergen Belsen Mittelbau Dora Munchen C H Beck 2008 ISBN 978 3 406 52967 2 p 333 Karola Fings Krieg Gesellschaft und KZ Himmlers SS Baubrigaden Paderborn Ferdinand Schoningh 2005 ISBN 3 506 71334 5 p 274 a b c Loffelsender 2007 p 154 Robert Sigel Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945 48 Frankfurt am Main 1992 p 16 ff Manfred Overesch Buchenwald und die DDR oder die Suche nach Selbstlegitimation 1995 p 207 ff Katrin Greiser Die Dachauer Buchenwaldprozesse Anspruch und Wirklichkeit Anspruch und Wirkung In Ludwig Eiber Robert Sigl Dachauer Prozesse NS Verbrechen vor amerikanischen Militargerichten in Dachau 1945 1948 Gottingen 2007 p 162 Wagner 2001 p 567 Ernst Klee Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich Wer war was vor und nach 1945 Frankfurt am Main 2007 p 24 p 158 Wagner 2001 p 296 Frank Wiedemann Alltag im Konzentrationslager Mittelbau Dora Methoden und Strategien des Uberlebens der Haftlinge Frankfurt am Main Peter Lang Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften 2010 p 51 a b c d e f Robert Sigel Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945 48 Frankfurt am Main 1992 S 16 ff S 99f a b c Deputy Judge Advocate s Office 7708 War Crimes Group European Command APO 407 United States v Kurt Andrae et al Case No 000 50 37 Review and Recommendations of the Deputy Judge Advocate for War Crimes April 1948 p 30 a b c Loffelsender 2007 p 155 Robert Sigel Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945 48 Frankfurt am Main 1992 p 214 a b Loffelsender 2007 p 152 Robert Sigel Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945 48 Frankfurt am Main 1992 S 96 Deputy Judge Advocate s Office 7708 War Crimes Group European Command APO 407 United States v Kurt Andrae et al Case No 000 50 37 Review and Recommendations of the Deputy Judge Advocate for War Crimes April 1948 p 2f a b Loffelsender 2007 p 158 Robert Sigel Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945 48 Frankfurt am Main 1992 p 98f Loffelsender 2007 p 157f a b Loffelsender 2007 p 159f Wagner 2001 p 26 Loffelsender 2007 p 160 a b Loffelsender 2007 p 164 Wagner 2001 p 496ff a b Wagner 2001 p 567 8 Loffelsender 2007 p 163ff a b c Loffelsender 2007 p 165 a b c Robert Sigel Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945 48 Frankfurt am Main 1992 p 102 a b c Loffelsender 2007 p 166 Robert Sigel In the interest of justice The Dachau war crimes trials 1945 48 Frankfurt am Main 1992 p 102 United States of America vs Kurt Andrae et al case 000 50 37 Archived 2015 09 25 at the Wayback Machine www1 jur uva nl Justice and NAZI crimes and Deputy Judge Advocate s Office 7708 war crimes group European command APO 407 United States v Kurt Andrae et al case No 000 50 37 Review and recommendations of the Deputy Judge Advocate General for war crimes from the April bogenschiessens a b Sigel 1992 p 104 Namensliste der in den Dachauer Prozessen angeklagten Personen Archived 2011 09 15 at the Wayback Machine from www1 jur uva nl Justiz und NS Verbrechen Ernst Klee Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich Wer war was vor und nach 1945 Frankfurt am Main 2007 S 414 Wagner 2001 p 568 Norbert Frei Vergangenheitspolitik Die Anfange der Bundesrepublik und die NS Vergangenheit Munchen 2003 S 138 Robert Sigel Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945 48 Frankfurt am Main 1992 p 103ff Wagner 2007 p 168 9 Loffelsender 2007 p 162 Norbert Frei Vergangenheitspolitik Die Anfange der Bundesrepublik und die NS Vergangenheit Munchen 2003 ISBN 3 423 30720 X S 133 306 a b Justiz und NS Verbrechen Verfahrensubersichten Archived from the original on 2012 02 23 Retrieved 2012 02 24 a b Sellier Andre 2000 Zwangsarbeit im Raketentunnel in German zu Klampen p 518 ISBN 978 3924245955 Wagner 2007 p 155 Georg Wamhof Geschichtspolitik und NS Strafverfahren Der Essener Dora Prozess 1967 1970 im deutsch deutschen Systemkonflikt In Helmut Kramer Karsten Uhl Jens Christian Wagner eds Zwangsarbeit im Nationalsozialismus und die Rolle der Justiz Taterschaft Nachkriegsprozesse und die Auseinandersetzung um Entschadigungsleistungen Nordhausen 2007 p 190 Aus dem Mull in die Gedenkstatte in Neue Nordhauser Zeitung Online July 7 2004 In German Retrieved 02 25 2012Bibliography EditDeputy Judge Advocate s Office 7708 War Crimes Group European Command APO 407 United States v Kurt Andrae et al Case No 000 50 37 Review and Recommendations of the Deputy Judge Advocate for War Crimes April 1948 online PDF file 14 1 MB in English Retrieved 02 25 2012 Loffelsender Michael 2007 A particularly unique role among concentration camps Der Dachauer Dora Prozess 1947 In Kramer Helmut Uhl Karsten Wagner Jens Christian eds Zwangsarbeit im Nationalsozialismus und die Rolle der Justiz Taterschaft Nachkriegsprozesse und die Auseinandersetzung um Entschadigungsleistungen PDF in German Stiftung Gedenkstatten Buchenwald und Mittelbau Dora Fachhochschule Nordhausen pp 152 68 Robert Sigel Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse 1945 48 Frankfurt am Main Campus 1992 ISBN 3 593 34641 9 Ute Stiepani Die Dachauer Prozesse und ihre Bedeutung im Rahmen der alliierten Strafverfolgung von NS Verbrechen In Gerd R Ueberschar Die alliierten Prozesse gegen Kriegsverbrecher und Soldaten 1943 1952 Frankfurt am Main Fischer 1999 ISBN 3 596 13589 3 Wagner Jens Christian 2001 Produktion des Todes Das KZ Mittelbau Dora Gottingen Wallstein ISBN 3 89244 439 0 Wagner Jens Christian ed 2007 Mittelbau Dora Concentration Camp 1943 1945 Guide to the Permanent Exhibition at Mittelbau Dora Concentration Camp Memorial Gottingen Wallstein ISBN 978 3 8353 0118 4 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Andrae Trial Dachau Nordhausen Cases in English Retrieved 02 25 2012 Mittelbau Dora Concentration Camp Memorial in German Retrieved 02 25 2012 Portals Germany Politics World War II Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Dora Trial amp oldid 1126306497, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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