Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials

Frankfurt Auschwitz trials
Buergerhaus at Frankenalle in Frankfurt am Main-Gallus. Courthouse for the first Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial in 1963-65, 2009 photo
Court	Frankfurt
Full case name	Second Auschwitz trial (der zweite Auschwitz-Prozess)
Indictment	20 December 1963
Decided	19 August 1965
Case history
Subsequent action(s)	Verdict in the last Auschwitz/Lagischa case: September 1977

The Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, known in German as der Auschwitz-Prozess, or der zweite Auschwitz-Prozess, (the "second Auschwitz trial") was a series of trials running from 20 December 1963 to 19 August 1965, charging 22 defendants under German criminal law for their roles in the Holocaust as mid- to lower-level officials in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death and concentration camp complex. Hans Hofmeyer led as Chief Judge the "criminal case against Mulka and others" (reference number 4 Ks 2/63).

Overall, only 789 individuals of the approximately 6,500 surviving SS personnel who served at Auschwitz and its sub-camps were ever tried, of which 750 received sentences. Unlike the first trial in Poland held almost two decades earlier, the trials in Frankfurt were not based on the legal definition of crimes against humanity as recognized by international law, but according to the state laws of the Federal Republic.

Most of the senior leaders of the camp, including Rudolf Höss, the longest-standing commandant of the camp, were turned over to the Polish authorities in 1947 following their participation as witnesses in the Nuremberg Trial. Subsequently, the accused were tried in Kraków and many sentenced to death for violent crimes and torturing of prisoners. Only SS-Untersturmführer Hans Münch was set free, having been acquitted of war crimes. That original trial in Poland is usually known as the first Auschwitz Trial.

SS-Sturmbannführer Richard Baer, the last camp commandant, died in detention while still under investigation as part of the trials. Defendants ranged from members of the SS to kapos, privileged prisoners responsible for low-level control of camp internees, and included some of those responsible for the process of "selection," or determination of who should be sent to the gas chambers directly from the "ramp" upon disembarking the trains that brought them from across Europe ("selection" generally entailed inclusion of all children held to be ineligible for work, generally under the age of 14, and any mothers unwilling to part with their "selected" children). In the course of the trial, approximately 360 witnesses were called, including around 210 survivors. Proceedings began in the "Bürgerhaus Gallus", in Frankfurt am Main, which was converted into a courthouse for that purpose, and remained there until their conclusion.