Belsen trials

The Belsen trials took place in Lüneburg, Lower Saxony, Germany, in 1945 and the defendants were men and women of the Schutzstaffel as well as prisoner functionaries who had worked at various concentration camps, notably Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.

The first trial generated considerable interest around the world, as the public heard for the first time from some of those responsible for the mass murder in the eastern extermination camps.

[2] The defendants were 45 former SS men, women and kapos (prisoner functionaries) from the Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz concentration camps.

[3][better source needed] Three SS members had been shot trying to escape after the British took over the camp and one had committed suicide.

Out of a total of 77 SS men and women arrested by the British in April, another 17 had died of typhus by 1 June 1945.

[6] As this was a military court, it was legally based on the Regulations for the Trial of War Criminals made under Royal Warrant of 14 June 1945.

[6] All the charges related to international law, which applied at the time the crimes were committed, so this was not a case of retroactive justice.

[9] On 20 September, the British Army screened a film they had made of the conditions at Belsen immediately after liberation.

One former inmate, Oskar Schmitz, was erroneously charged as an SS man, and had no chance to clarify this before the trial began.

[11][12] The defence claimed that the arrest of the defendants had been illegal, as it contravened the promise of free withdrawal contained in the ceasefire agreement.

[13] In fact, the relevant section of the ceasefire agreement read: SS guard personnel [...] will be treated as PW.

SS Adj personnel will [...] remain at their posts and carry on with their duties (cooking, supplies, etc) and will hand over records.

Zoddel had been sentenced to death in a separate military trial in August 1945 for murdering a female prisoner after the liberation.

[2] Through them, the world learned not just about the thousands of deaths by hunger and disease at Belsen, communicated especially forcefully by the film and photo evidence produced by the British Army.

Possibly even more importantly, the Belsen trial also was the first time that the organised mass murder at Auschwitz Birkenau received a public airing, with some of those responsible describing the selection process, the use of the gas chambers and the crematoria.

In Great Britain, the trial was mostly viewed positively, as a triumph of the rule of law, given the fairness and meticulousness with which it had been conducted.

Meyer was found guilty of war crimes for non-fatal abuse and sentenced to life in prison.