Belsen Trial
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The Belsen Trial was one of several trials for war crimes and crimes against humanity that the Allied occupation forces conducted against former officials and functionaries of Nazi Germany after the end of World War II.
The Belsen Trial (or, officially, Trial of Josef Kramer and 44 others) began in a Lüneburg courtroom on September 17 1945 against 45 former SS men, women and kapos (prisoner functionaries) from the Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz concentration camp. The trial took place before a British military court and lasted until November 17, 1945.
The defendants faced charges for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in these two concentration camp through their participation in the torture and mass-murder of camp inmates. All except Starotska were accused of having committed such crimes at Bergen-Belsen; Starotska, Kramer, Klein, Weingartner, Kraft, Hoessler, Borman, Volkenrath, Ehlert, Gura, Grese, Lothe, Lobauer and Schreirer were also charged with atrocities committed at Auschwitz.
The verdicts were as follows:
- Josef Kramer, Fritz Klein, Peter Weingartner, Franz Hössler, Juana Bormann, Irma Grese, Elisabeth Volkenrath, Karl Francioh, Anchor Pichen, Franz Stofel, and Wilhelm Dorr were sentenced to death by hanging.
- Erich Zoddel was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment.
- Deputy wardress Herta Ehlert, Otto Calesson, Heinrich Schreirer, kapo Helena Kopper, and Vladislaw Ostrovski were sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.
- Kapo Hildegard Lohbauer, and guards Ilse Forster, Herta Bothe, Irene Haschke, Gertrud Sauer, Johanne Roth, Anna Hempel, Stanislawa Starotska, and Antoni Aurdzieg were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.
- Gertrude Fiest, and Medislaw Burgraf were sentenced to 5 years, Frieda Walter to 3 years, and Hilde Lisiewitz to one year.
- Georg Kraft, Josef Klippel, kapo Ilse Lothe, Oscar Schmitz, Fritz Mathes, Karl Egersdorf, Walter Otto, Eric Barsch, Ignatz Schlomovicz, Ida Forster, Klara Opitz, Charlotte Klein, Hildegard Hahnel, and Antoni Polanski were acquitted.
- One defendant, Ladislaw Gura, was removed from the trial due to illness.
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