page_title: Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp
section_title: Post-war criminal trials
hierarchical_section_title: Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp / Post-war criminal trials
caption_attribution_description: English: An American soldier in Natzweiler-Struthof examines an urn used to bury the ashes of cremated prisoners. [Photograph #02016]
context_page_description: Natzweiler-Struthof was a Nazi concentration camp located in the Vosges Mountains close to the villages of Natzweiler and Struthof in the Gau Baden-Alsace of Germany, on territory annexed from France on a de facto basis in 1940. It operated from 21 May 1941 to September 1944, and was the only concentration camp established by the Germans in the territory of pre-war France. The camp was located in a heavily-forested and isolated area at an elevation of 800 metres.
  About 52,000 prisoners were estimated to be held there during its time of operation. The prisoners were mainly from the resistance movements in German-occupied territories. It was a labor camp, a transit camp and, as the war went on, a place of execution. Some died from the exertions of their labor and malnutrition. There were an estimated 22,000 deaths at the camp, including its network of subcamps. Many prisoners were moved to other camps; in particular, in 1944 the former head of Auschwitz concentration camp was brought in to evacuate the prisoners of Natzweiler-Struthof to Dachau as the Allied Armies neared.
context_section_description: The first camp commandant, Hans Hüttig, was sentenced to death on 2 July 1954 by a French military court in Metz, but the death sentence was not carried out. In 1956, he was released from detention after being imprisoned for eleven years.
  Josef Kramer, the former commandant of the camp during the time of the Jewish skeleton collection project, was arrested at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on 17 April 1945 and tried at Lüneburg in the British-occupied sector for his crimes, including the murder of Jews in the gas chamber at Natzweiler. He was sentenced on 16–17 November 1945 and was hanged at Hamelin prison on 13 December 1945.
  The commandant of Natzweiler at the time that four female resistance agents were executed, Fritz Hartjenstein and five others were tried by a British war crimes court at Wuppertal, from 9 April to 5 May 1946. All of the accused were found guilty; of these, three were sentenced to death and two hanged. Hartjenstein's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on 1 June 1946. Then he was tried again by the British for hanging a POW who was a member of the Royal Air Force. Hartjenstein was sentenced to death by firing squad on 5 June 1946. The sentence was not carried out, and he was then extradited to France, where he was tried at Metz for his crimes at Natzweiler and sentenced to death. He died of a heart attack while awaiting execution on 20 October 1954.
  Those tried at Wuppertal were:
  Franz Berg: death sentence (executed by hanging 11 October 1946)
  Kurt Geigling: 10 years imprisonment
  Josef Muth: 15 years imprisonment
  Peter Straub: death sentence (executed by hanging 11 October 1946)
  Magnus Wochner: 10 years imprisonment
  Fritz Hartjenstein (commandant): death sentence, commuted to life (Wuppertal), death sentence by British (Rastatt), death sentence by French Court (Metz), died before sentence was carried out
  Magnus Wochner was also implicated in the Stalag Luft III murders and was listed among the accused.Heinrich Ganninger, adjutant and deputy of commander Fritz Hartjenstein, committed suicide in Wuppertal prison in April 1946 before his trial. He was accused of having murdered four British female spies.
  Heinrich Schwarz was tried separately at Rastatt in connection with  atrocities committed during his tenure as commandant of Natzweiler-Struthof. He was sentenced to death and subsequently shot by firing squad near Baden-Baden on 20 March 1947.
caption: An American soldier in Natzweiler-Struthof examines an urn used to bury the ashes of cremated prisoners.
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