page_title: Friedrich Jeckeln
section_title: Trial and execution
hierarchical_section_title: Friedrich Jeckeln / Trial and execution
caption_attribution_description: English: Friedrich Jeckeln (standing, at left) SS war criminal and murder, on trial in 1946 in Riga. Other defendants from left to right&#160;: 2. Generalmajor Hans Paul Kupper, 3. Generalleutnant Siegfried Ruff, 4. SA-Standartenführer Alexander Bocking, 5. Generalleutnant Wolfgang von Ditfurth, 6. Generalleutnant Albrecht Baron Digeon von Monteton, 7. Generalmajor Bronislav Pavel.
context_page_description: Friedrich Jeckeln was a German SS commander during the Nazi era. He served as a Higher SS and Police Leader in the occupied Soviet Union during World War II. Jeckeln was the commander of one of the largest collection of Einsatzgruppen death squads and was personally responsible for ordering and organizing the deaths of over 100,000 Jews, Romani, and others designated by the Nazis as "undesirables". After the end of World War II in Europe, Jeckeln was convicted of war crimes by a Soviet military tribunal in Riga and executed in 1946.
context_section_description: Jeckeln was taken prisoner by Soviet troops near Halbe on 28 April 1945. Along with other German personnel, he was tried before a Soviet military tribunal in the Riga Trial in Latvia from 26 January 1946 to 3 February 1946. During the investigation, he was calm, answering questions from investigators in essence, on the dock looked dull and impartial.
  Jeckeln in his last words was restrained, he fully admitted his guilt and agreed to bear full responsibility for the activities of subordinate police, SS and SD in Ostland. Concluding his speech, he said:
  I have to take full responsibility for what happened in the borders of Ostland, within SS, SD and the Gestapo. Thereby increases much my fault. My fate is in the hands of the High Court, and so I ask only to pay attention to mitigating circumstances. I will accept a sentence in full repentance and I will consider as worthy punishment.
  Jeckeln and the other defendants were found guilty, sentenced to death and hanged in Riga on 3 February 1946 in front of some 4,000 spectators. Against popular misconception, the execution did not happen in the territory of the former Riga Ghetto, but in Victory Square (Uzvaras laukums).
caption: Jeckeln (left, standing), at the Riga Trial, 1946
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