The Nuremberg trial

I already had the opportunity, at our beautiful Congress, to report to our companions on the trip I made to Hamburg to testify at the trial of the Nazi assassins on our camp. But perhaps it is not useless to summarize this testimony here for those of our companions who were unable to attend the Congress.

In December, I had been called to testify in Paris before a British colonel about the atrocities in Neuengamme. On March 6th, I was informed that the trial would begin on the 14th and invited to testify, which I accepted, of course on condition that I stay there as little time as possible.

There were only 14 defendants at this trial, all SS, and all from Neuengamme itself. It had been explained to me, in fact, that this was only a first trial, for which the most seriously compromised SS men had been sorted out, and that the others, as well as the criminal kapos and also those responsible for the various kommandos dependent on Neuengamme, would be tried later, with less pomp and circumstance and in a more expeditious manner, once the first result had been obtained.

The 14 defendants were, indeed, not badly chosen. There was PAULI, the head of the camp, and TOTSAUER, his assistant, and the sinister THUMANN, and Rapportführer DREYMANN, and the awful bully SPEK of the Fertigungsstelle, and the doctors KITT and TRZEBINSKI, the latter responsible, among  other crimes, for the assassination of   20 enfants (20 children) in experience in the infirmary.

I’m only quoting here the most famous ones. All of them had their heads very low and hardly looked like anything we had experienced there.

The trial was much better conducted than the one in Bergen-Belsen, and the prosecutor really asked the right questions, instead of getting lost in idle detail. I also had the satisfaction of silencing the lawyers when they tried to ask me questions, because my answers were not to the advantage of their clients and they soon preferred to keep quiet.
I did not have time to wait for the verdict and we did not know the verdict until much later. Of the 14 defendants, 11 were sentenced to death. Of the other three, TOTSAUER was sentenced to 20 years hard labour, WIEDEMANN, the Obersturmführer in charge of the sentries, to 10 years, and RIESE, the murderer of the Fertigungsstelle*, to 10 years as well.

We do not yet know, at the present time, if the sentences have been carried out and if THUMANN is hanged**, nor if other trials have begun…..

Article published on page 1 of No. 6 of N’Oublions Jamais ! in August 1946.

* Manufacturing workshops (Walther-Werke)

** The eleven condemned to death were hanged on 8 October 1946 in Hameln, Lower Saxony, 45 km south-west of Hanover. More than 100 proceedings were then carried out until 1948. Twenty SS men from Neuengamme or its external Kommandos were sentenced to death and executed. Many others escaped the sentence