page_title: Belsen trial
section_title: Overview of the trial
hierarchical_section_title: Belsen trial / First trial / Overview of the trial
caption_attribution_description: English: THE LIBERATION OF BERGEN-BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP: THE WAR CRIMES TRIAL OF FORMER BELSEN GUARDS, LUNEBURG, SEPTEMBER 1945 [Official photograph] WAR OFFICE SECOND WORLD WAR OFFICIAL COLLECTION Deutsch: Innenaufnahme des Verhandlungsraumes 10 Tage vor dem Beginn des Bergen-Belsen-Prozesses in der MTV-Turnhalle Lüneburg
context_page_description: The Belsen trial was one of several trials that the Allied occupation forces conducted against former officials and functionaries of Nazi Germany after the end of World War II.
  The Belsen trial took place in Lüneburg, Lower Saxony, Germany in 1945 and the defendants were men and women of the SS as well as prisoner functionaries who had worked at various concentration camps, notably Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.
  The 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. Some later trials are also referred to as Belsen trials.
context_section_description: The trial lasted 54 days in court. It began on 17 September with the indictment and the opening speech for the prosecution. Brigadier Glyn Hughes was the first witness for the prosecution on 18–19 September. 
  On 20 September, the British Army screened a film they had made of the conditions at Belsen immediately after liberation. On 21 September, the court visited Bergen-Belsen. Evidence for the defence began on 8 October with the opening speech for the defendant Kramer who also testified. Closing speeches were made from 7–12 November, followed by the closing arguments by the prosecution on 13 November. Sentencing took place four days later, on 17 November 1945.
  Since the trial was conducted in English, translations into German and Polish were necessary. This was one of the factors that prolonged the trial, which had initially been expected to last for two to four weeks. In retrospect, the prosecution has been criticised as hasty and ill-prepared. None of the SS guards who had fled the camp after the ceasefire on 13 April had been searched for. Instead of eyewitness testimony in some cases only affidavits were available at the trial. Some witnesses contradicted themselves on cross-examination, others failed to identify the defendants as the perpetrators of the crimes in question. One former inmate, Oskar Schmitz, was erroneously charged as an SS man and had no chance to clarify things before the trial began.
  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. However, the wording on this point was only clear for members of the Wehrmacht at Belsen. Moreover, according to the prosecution, the burning of the camp files by the SS and the firing of shots on 15 April had voided the agreement. 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. When their services can be dispensed with, their disposal is left by the Wehrmacht to the British authorities.
  On 17 November, the court sentenced 11 of the defendants to death by hanging. Another 18 were found guilty and sentenced to prison sentences of one to 15 years. One defendant, Erich Zoddel, was sentenced to life in prison, but he had been sentenced to death in a separate military trial in August 1945 for murdering a female prisoner after liberation and was executed. None of the sentenced were found guilty only of the "conspiracy" of working within the concentration camp system, but all of them were rather sentenced for individually committed crimes. 14 defendants were acquitted (the final defendant was too sick to stand trial). Due to clemency pleas and appeals, many prison sentences were eventually shortened considerably. By mid-1955 all those sentenced to prison had been released.
caption: Interior shot of the court room ten days before the start of the trial
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