Minsk Trial
The Minsk Trial was a war crimes trial held in front of a Soviet military tribunal in 1946 in Minsk, the capital of Soviet Belarus. Defendants included German military, police, and SS officials who were responsible for implementing the occupational policies in Belarus during the German–Soviet War of 1941–45.
| Minsk Trial | |
|---|---|
 Defendants at the trial | |
| Court | Soviet military tribunal Minsk |
| Decided | 29 January 1946 |
Proceedings
The tribunal heard the case against 18 German military, SS and other officials accused of crimes committed during the occupation of Belarus, in the course of the Soviet-German war of 1941–1945.[1] The defendants included 11 members of the Wehrmacht, including two generals; four members of the police (Ordnungspolizei), including a police general; and three members of the Waffen-SS and SD.[2]
The trial started in December 1945 and concluded in January 1946, with the sentence pronounced on 29 January.[3] All 18 defendants were convicted; 14 were sentenced to death. They were hanged in public, with over 100,000 civilian spectators, in the horse racing venue of Minsk (now Victory Square, Minsk with a memorial street lamp), on 30 January 1946.[2]
Defendants
The three most high-ranking defendants were:
- Gottfried von Erdmannsdorff: General of the Wehrmacht; military commander of Mogilev.[2]
- Eberhard Herf: General of the police; commanded Ordnungspolizei in Minsk (Kommandeur der Ordnungspolizei (KdO) Minsk) since 1941 and directed mass murder of the Jews in the Minsk Ghetto.[4]
- Johann-Georg Richert: General of the Wehrmacht; commanded the 286th Security Division that operated in the Army Group Center Rear Area.[3]
References
Citations
- Matthäus 2008, p. 194.
- Heer 1995.
- Heer 2004, p. 126.
- Blood 2006, p. 226.
Bibliography
- Blood, Philip W. (2006). Hitler's Bandit Hunters: The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe. Potomac Books. ISBN 978-1-59797-021-1.
- Heer, Hannes (1995). "Der Minsker Prozess". Hannesheer.de.
- Heer, Hannes (2004). "The Logic of the War of Extermination". In Hannes Heer; Klaus Naumann (eds.). War of Extermination: The German Military In World War II. Berghahn Books. ISBN 1-57181-232-6.
- Matthäus, Jürgen (2008). Patricia Heberer; Jürgen Matthäus (eds.). Atrocities on Trial: Historical Perspectives on the Politics of Prosecuting War Crimes. Washington, D.C.: University of Nebraska Press. p. 232. ISBN 978-0-8032-1084-4.