Auschwitz Trial Information & Auschwitz Trial Links at HealthHaven.com

This is about the trial held in Poland. See Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials for the German Auschwitz trials.

The Auschwitz trial began on November 24, 1947, in Kraków, when Polish authorities (the Supreme National Tribunal) tried 41 former staff of the Auschwitz concentration camps. The trials ended on December 22, 1947.

The best-known defendants were Arthur Liebehenschel, former commandant; Maria Mandel, head of the Auschwitz women's camps; and SS-doctor Johann Kremer. Thirty-eight other SS officers — 34 men and four women — who had served as guards or doctors in the camps were also tried.

[edit] Sentences

Summary: 23 death sentences, 16 imprisonments from life sentences to 3 years, one person acquitted.

Liebehenschel, Mandel and Kremer were condemned to death, as were Hans Aumeier, August Bogusch, Therese Brandl, Arthur Breitwiser, Fritz Buntrock, Wilhelm Gehring, Paul Götze, Maximilian Grabner, Heinrich Josten, Hermann Kirschner, Josef Kollmer, Franz Kraus, Herbert Ludwig, Karl Möckel, Kurt Mueller, Eric Muhsfeldt, Ludwig Plagge, Hans Schumacher and Paul Szczurek (Arthur Breitwieser and Johann Kremer had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment).
Luise Danz, Hans Koch, Anton Lechner, Adolf Medefind, Detlef Nebbe, and Karl Seufert received life sentences;
Oswald Kaduk was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment;
Alexander Bülow, Hans Hoffmann, Hildegard Lächert, Eduard Lorenz, Alice Orlowski, Franz Romeikat, and Johannes Weber were sentenced to 15 years;
Richard Schroeder received 10 years, Erich Dinges five years, and Karl Jeschke three years.
Hans Münch was acquitted.

Rudolf Höß, sentenced in another trial, was executed on April 16, 1947 in front of the crematorium at Auschwitz I. All other executions were carried out in a Kraków prison on January 28, 1948; Maria Mandel and Therese Brandl were the first to be executed.