WWII: Holocaust – Bergen-Belsen Trial Transcripts & Documents

Description

Bergen-Belsen: Timeline, Key Figures, and The Trial

Pre-1943:

• Until 1943: Bergen-Belsen serves exclusively as a POW camp in Germany, housing Allied prisoners.

1943:

• April 1943: The SS Economic-Administration Main Office (SS Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt – WVHA) converts a portion of Bergen-Belsen into a civilian residence camp, and subsequently into a concentration camp.

1944:

• Late 1944 (Fall): The SS begins deporting large numbers of prisoners, evacuated from Nazi camps further east, to Bergen-Belsen.
• May 8, 1944 – November 25, 1944: Josef Kramer serves as commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
• June 9, 1944: A letter from the “German Company for the Control of Vermin” is dated, regarding the storage and use of “disinfectant” (likely referring to prussic acid/Zyklon B).
• December 1944: Josef Kramer assumes the role of commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

1945:

• February 1945: Anne Frank and her younger sister Margot die in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp from spotted typhus, having been transferred there from Auschwitz.
• April 15, 1945: British forces, specifically the British 11th Armoured Division, liberate Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They discover approximately 60,000 living prisoners and around 13,000 corpses throughout the camp.
• Fall 1945: The British Government establishes a British Military Tribunal in Lüneburg, Germany, to try Josef Kramer, SS personnel, and prisoner functionaries involved with the camps. This trial is known as the First Belsen Trial.
• September 17, 1945: The First Belsen Trial officially begins.
• November 17, 1945: The First Belsen Trial concludes.
• November 17, 1945 (on or after): The tribunal sentences eleven defendants, including Josef Kramer, to death. Nineteen other defendants are convicted and sentenced to prison terms. Fourteen defendants are acquitted.
• December 12, 1945: British military authorities execute Josef Kramer and ten of his co-defendants.

Post-1945:

• 1947: The United Nations War Crimes Commission publishes “United Nations War Crimes Commission Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals – Volume II the Belsen Trial,” a 172-page report on the trial’s aspects and results.
• Undated (but contextually after the trial): The Belsen Trial establishes practices for subsequent war crimes trials, such as the Nuremberg trials, which take place one year later.

Cast of Characters

• Josef Kramer: Known as the “Beast of Belsen.” He served as the commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau from May 8, 1944, to November 25, 1944, and then as the commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp from December 1944 until its liberation on April 15, 1945. He was one of 45 defendants in the First Belsen Trial, found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed on December 12, 1945.
• Anne Frank: A Jewish victim of the Holocaust, known for her diary. She was transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen in late 1944 and died there in February 1945 from spotted typhus.
• Margot Frank: Anne Frank’s older sister. She was also transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen and died in February 1945 from spotted typhus.
• Kurt Gerstein: First Lieutenant and head of Technical Disinfection Services for the SS. He was barred from State service in 1936 due to anti-Nazi activity. He possessed intimate knowledge of gas chambers and the prussic acid used in various concentration camps (Belsen, Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Oranienburg) and was an eyewitness to multiple gassings. His deposition was included in the trial documents.
• Tadeusz Cyprian: The Polish prosecutor participating in the First Belsen Trial. He described the trial as “an outstanding event from the historical point of view” and the “first mass-trial of war criminals.”
• Officer of the British Royal Artillery: An unnamed officer who was in charge of Bergen-Belsen camp after its liberation. He speaks in “Prosecution Exhibit 230 Concentration Camps, Belsen Concentration Camp” film about the conditions at the camp.
• Woman Doctor (Prisoner): An unnamed female doctor who was an inmate at Bergen-Belsen and was in charge of the female section of the camp. She describes the conditions in the “Prosecution Exhibit 230 Concentration Camps, Belsen Concentration Camp” film.