{{Short description|Trials related to the personnel of the Treblinka extermination camp that began in 1964}} thumb|Düsseldorf District Court (''Land- und Amtsgericht Düsseldorf''). Trial location, 2008 photo. The two '''Treblinka trials''' concerning the Treblinka extermination camp personnel began in 1964. Held at Düsseldorf in West Germany, they were the two judicial trials in a series of similar war crime trials held during the early 1960s, such as the Jerusalem Adolf Eichmann trial (1961) and the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials (1963–65), as a result of which the general public came to realize the extent of the crimes that some two decades earlier had been perpetrated in occupied Poland by German bureaucrats and their willing executioners. In the subsequent years, separate trials dealt with personnel of the Bełżec (1963–65), Sobibor (1966), and Majdanek (1975–81) extermination camps.<ref name="Sereny">{{cite book |last=Sereny |first=Gitta |author-link=Gitta Sereny |title=Into That Darkness: from Mercy Killing to Mass Murder, a study of Franz Stangl, the commandant of Treblinka |year=1974 |publisher=Random House |isbn=9781446449677 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IshTvCJsgZQC&q=Treblinka+trials |access-date=2021-07-06 |archive-date=2023-09-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230919194836/https://books.google.com/books?id=IshTvCJsgZQC&q=Treblinka+trials |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Hirtreiter trial== thumb|left|Josef Hirtreiter 1946 mugshot In 1946 Josef Hirtreiter was arrested in the course of the Allied investigations into the killing of disabled persons in the Hadamar killing centre. Although not focused on Treblinka from the beginning, and not serving as a lead-in to the later Treblinka trials, the Hirtreiter trial is viewed by some historians as being part of these.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Bauer |editor-first=Fritz |editor-link=Fritz Bauer |title=Justiz und NS-Verbrechen: Sammlung deutscher Strafurteile wegen nationalsozialistischer Tötungsverbrechen 1945–1999 (Justice and Nazi Crimes: a Collection of German Verdicts on national socialist Killings) |publisher=Amsterdam University Press |language=de |location= Amsterdam |isbn= 90-6042-000-4 |year=1968|volume= 8}}</ref> Hirtreiter could not be shown to have been criminally involved at Hadamar; however, he did confess to having worked in a camp near the Polish village of Małkinia where Jews were killed in a gas chamber. Further investigations showed that Hirtreiter had been stationed at the Treblinka extermination camp, where he supervised the victims' disrobing prior to their gassing. He was charged with participation in the mass-murder of Jews, particularly the killing of more than 10 persons, including infants. On 3 March 1951 Hirtreiter was sentenced to life in prison. He was released on health grounds in 1977, and died in 1978.<ref name="Bryant">{{cite book |title=Eyewitness to Genocide: The Operation Reinhard Death Camp Trials, 1955–1966 |first=Michael |last=Bryant |publisher=Univ. of Tennessee Press |year=2014 |page=36 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k-j7AwAAQBAJ&q=Hirtreiter+released |isbn=978-1621900498 |access-date=2018-01-11 |archive-date=2023-09-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230919194838/https://books.google.com/books?id=k-j7AwAAQBAJ&q=Hirtreiter+released |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Webb195">{{cite book |title=The Treblinka Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance |first=Chris |last=Webb |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2014 |pages=195–196, 233 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RVD_BgAAQBAJ&q=Hirtreiter+1951+trial |isbn=978-3838265469 |access-date=2018-01-11 |archive-date=2023-09-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230919194839/https://books.google.com/books?id=RVD_BgAAQBAJ&q=Hirtreiter+1951+trial |url-status=live }}</ref>
==First Treblinka trial== The crimes committed in the General Government territory of occupied Poland were investigated by the Central Agency from July 1959 by the German specialist in the Nazi prosecution Dietrich Zeug, present at the Eichmann trial. His inquiry led to the first arrest of Treblinka deputy commandant on 2 December 1959. Zeug received survivor testimonies from Yad Vashem which allowed him to examine German national archives for more clues. He was the first to establish the chain of command for Operation Reinhard.<ref name="Birn">{{cite journal |url=http://law.case.edu/journals/JIL/Documents/(21)%20Birn_Darby.pdf |title=Fifty Years After: A Critical Look At The Eichmann Trial |author=Ruth Bettina Birn|author-link = Ruth Bettina Birn |journal=Journal of International Law, Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Ohio |issue=1/28/2012 |pages=6, 13–14/31 |id=PDF file, direct download |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203021540/http://law.case.edu/journals/JIL/Documents/%2821%29%20Birn_Darby.pdf |archive-date=2013-12-03 }}</ref>
The first Treblinka trial began on 12 October 1964 and concerned eleven members of the SS camp personnel, or about a quarter of the total number of SS employed in the extermination of Jews brought aboard Holocaust trains to Treblinka. More than 100 witnesses were called, with incriminating evidence presented by Franciszek Ząbecki, a dispatcher employed by the ''Reichsbahn'' during the Holocaust train departures from across occupied Poland, proven by original German waybills he collected. The verdicts were pronounced on 3 September 1965:<ref name=Trial>S.J. (2007), [http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/treblinkatrial.html First Treblinka Trial] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070630113513/http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/treblinkatrial.html |date=2007-06-30 }} H.E.A.R.T Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team.</ref>
{|class="wikitable sortable" |- !Defendants !Photograph !Rank !Function !Sentence !Outcome |- |{{sortname|Kurt|Franz}} |border|frameless|96x96px |''SS-Untersturmführer'' |Deputy commandant |Life imprisonment |Released in 1993; died in 1998 |- |{{sortname|Otto|Richard Horn}} |<!-- Deleted image removed: 75px --> |''SS-Unterscharführer'' |''Totenlager'' – Corpse detail |Acquitted |Died in 1999 |- |{{sortname|Erwin|Lambert}} |65px |''SS-Unterscharführer'' |Built Large Gas Chambers |4 years imprisonment |Died in 1976 |- |{{sortname|Heinrich|Matthes}} |65px |''SS-Scharführer'' |Chief of ''Totenlager'' |Life imprisonment |Died in prison in 1978 |- |{{sortname|Willi|Mentz}} |75px |''SS-Unterscharführer'' |''Lazarett'' ("Infirmary", which actually meant shooting victims) |Life imprisonment |Released in 1978 and died 3 months later |- |{{sortname|August|Miete}} |65px |''SS-Unterscharführer'' |''Lazarett'' – "Angel of Death" |Life imprisonment |Released in 1985; died in 1987 |- |{{sortname|Gustav|Münzberger}} | |''SS-Unterscharführer'' |''Totenlager'' – Gas Chambers |12 years imprisonment |Released in 1971; died in 1977 |- |{{sortname|Albert|Rum}} |<!-- Deleted image removed: 75px --> |''SS-Unterscharführer'' |''Totenlager'' – Gas Chambers |3 years imprisonment |Died in 1970 |- |{{sortname|Otto|Stadie}} | |''SS-Stabsscharführer'' |Camp Administration |6 years imprisonment |Released in 1965; died in 1977 |- |{{sortname|Franz|Suchomel}} |65px |''SS-Unterscharführer'' |Gold and Valuables |7 years imprisonment |Released in 1967; died in 1979 |- |{{sortname|Kurt|Küttner}} |65px |''SS-Oberscharführer'' |Lower camp of Treblinka II |Arrested/Charged but Died before trial |Died 1964 |}
==Second Treblinka trial== The second Treblinka trial also known as the Stangl trial,<ref name="Sereny" /> was held from 13 May to 22 December 1970, five years after the first group trial for war crimes. In this trial, camp commandant Franz Stangl, expelled three years earlier from Brazil, finally stood accused. Stangl had previously assisted in killing handicapped people during ''Aktion T4'' (the Nazi "euthanasia" programme), and, before moving on to Treblinka, had been the first commandant of Sobibor. Under his supervision, most of the Treblinka killings took place. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, and died in prison on 28 June 1971, during the appeal case.
==See also== * Belsen trial in 1945 of the SS functionaries from Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen * Belzec trial in the mid-1960s of eight former SS members of Belzec extermination camp * Chełmno trials of the Chełmno extermination camp personnel, held in Poland and in Germany. The cases were decided almost twenty years apart * Dachau trials held within the walls of the former Dachau concentration camp, 1945–1948 * Euthanasia trials, an overview of trials dealing specifically with the associated Nazi euthanasia programme * Majdanek trials, the longest Nazi war crimes trial in history, spanning over 30 years * Mauthausen-Gusen camp trials * Nuremberg trials of the 23 most important leaders of the Third Reich, 1945–1946 * Hamburg Ravensbrück trials * Sobibor trial held in Hagen, Germany in 1965 against the SS-men of the Sobibor extermination camp * Ivan the Terrible (Treblinka guard), notorious Treblinka guard not brought to trial. In the 1970s–80s John Demjanjuk was accused of being Ivan and brought to trial in 1986, but eventually it was established that he was not the same person. * Samuel Rajzman, witness at the trials
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== #''Erster Treblinka-Prozess'' (First Treblinka Trial): vol. 8, {{ISBN|90-6042-008-X}}. #''Zweiter Treblinka-Prozess'' (Second Treblinka Trial): vol. 22, {{ISBN|90-6042-022-5}}. #''Dritter Treblinka-Prozess'' (Third Treblinka Trial): vol. 34, {{ISBN|90-5356-720-8}}. * {{cite web |first=Christian |last=Hofmann |url=https://www.zukunft-braucht-erinnerung.de/die-treblinka-prozesse/ |title=Die Treblinka-Prozesse (The Treblinka Trials) | work=shoa.de |date=4 July 2006 |publisher=Arbeitskreis Shoa.de e.V.|language=de |ref=none}} * {{cite book |editor=Rückerl, Adalbert| title=NS-Vernichtungslager im Spiegel deutscher Strafprozesse (Nazi Extermination Camps mirrored by German Criminal Trials) |location=Munich |year=1977 | page= 81 |ref=none}}
{{Treblinka extermination camp}}
Category:1964 in West Germany Category:1965 in West Germany Category:1960s trials Category:1970 in West Germany Category:1970s trials Category:Holocaust trials Category:Nazi war crimes in Poland Category:Treblinka extermination camp Category:Treblinka trials