International Military Tribunal

Home , Arthur Liebehenschel, Auschwitz trial, Johann Kremer, Maria Mandl

INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL

November 24, 1947

President: Salomé Beyer

Vice-President: Tomás Ortiz

Index 1. Cover page 2. Letters from the Chair 2.1. President 2.2. Vice -President 3. Purpose of the Committee 3.1. What is the International Military Tribunal? 3.2. Why is the International Military Tribunal important? 4. Law 5. History 5.1. World War II 5.2. The Holocaust 5.3. The Auschwitz Trials 6. Defendants 6.1. Maria Mandl 6.2. Arthur Liebehenschel 6.3. Johann Paul Kremer 7. QARMAS 8. Useful Sources 9. Bibliography

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2. Letters from the Chair 2.1. President “Those who do not remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.” -George Santayana Dearest delegates, It is an absolute honor and privilege to be the president of the International Military Tribunal for COSMUN 2019. I personally want to thank you for choosing to be part of this committee, and COSMUN as a whole, and guarantee that both myself and Tomás will do our absolute best to make this experience an engaging and impactful one. I have been involved with Model United Nations since sixth grade and I completely love it. The magic that I have found within the walls of committees like the Security Council, the Human Rights Council, the International Court of Justice and the Joint Crisis Committee is unlike anything else I have ever experienced, and the friendships that I have developed because of these activities are priceless and timeless. I also want to tell you that all my experience is entirely at your disposal if you are to have any doubts, comments or concerns. All of my experience leads me to believe that the IMT at this year’s COSMUN is perhaps the most challenging, exciting and innovative committee I have ever been a part of. As a committee that has rarely, if ever, been done before in any of the Medellín Model United Nations, COSMUN proudly introduces a criminal and historical court, which goes along with COSMUN’s mission to create a better future for ourselves, and the future generations. After all, to change the present you must understand the past. We expect deep historical and political understanding from our delegates and are looking forward to seeing their individual and collective performance. Also, we expect that both the procedure and the historical guides be completely read by all of our delegates. Please take into account that you must turn in a document with your responses to the Questions to the Delegate prior to the Model. Please contact us if you have any doubts, comments or concerns at [email protected]. I look forward to meeting you, and wish you the best of luck,

Salomé Beyer President of the International Military Tribunal

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2.2. Vice-President Distinguished delegates, Welcome to the International Military Tribunal at COSMUN 2019. As Vice-President, it is a great privilege to form part of this committee. The Model of United Nations is more than a school activity. Beyond the leadership that it promotes, it is all about the essence of being able to transport yourself, and interpret a situation second handedly, by understanding first how humanity has treated past, current, and future matters. It is about the personal growth, academic learning, social connections, and exposure to the world that make such an event worth all the hard work. I can guarantee that the next three days we will be overseeing a transformation in every one of you, because a committee as challenging as the International Military Tribunal requires true academics, and leaders in formation. I have been deeply involved with Models of United Nations for years, and I can testify that when I am there, there is nowhere I would rather be. I remember being skeptical about the simulations that took place, until I was faced with how real history is, and how we are changed when we learn from it. With this same passion I am really looking forward to co-lead a committee of past and future merged in one. The hard work that both the president and I have put into this committee is at your entire disposal, and it is with all the passion, experience, research, and commitment that we have worked together with the purpose of creating an innovative committee that has not been presented before. It is precisely with this component of originality that we expect deep analysis of history, politics and society from each and every one of the delegates, because such a fusion requires a profound understanding. COSMUN intends to simulate a reality, and it is this very reality that we will be living, because the future is ours to shape, based on what has occurred. If there is anything you might need, either a question or a request, do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected]. I look forward to meeting you, and await with eagerness and high expectations,

Tomás Ortiz Vice-President of the International Military Tribunal

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3. Purpose of the Committee 3.1. What is the International Military Tribunal? The International Military Tribunal was the entity through which the Allied Powers of World War II judged Nazi war criminals for their atrocious war crimes. The Tribunal was formally opened in Nuremberg, Germany on the November 20, 1945 and by October of that same year, the chief prosecutors had already presented the charges against the 24 Nazis who were to be judged. The four charges which were presented against them were: 1. Conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity, 2. Crimes against peace, 3. War Crimes, 4. Crimes against humanity. The defendants represented the diplomatic, economic, political and military areas of leadership within the Nazi party. But the most prominent leaders of Nazi Germany, them being Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels, did not stand trial because they committed suicide before the end of the war. Even though they could, the IMT decided to not try them posthumously because they did not want to create speculation or any kind of doubt on people’s minds on whether or not these infamous leaders were dead. Even though the IMT wanted to put 24 individuals on trial at Nuremberg, they only managed to include 22. Of these 22, the Allied forces had convincing evidence which tied them to crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity: 1. Martin Bormann, 2. Karl Doenitz, 3. Hans Frank, 4. Wilhelm Frick, 5. Hans Fritzsche, 6. Walter Funk, 7. Hermann Goering, 8. Rudolph Hess, 9. Alfred Jodl, 10. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, 11. Wilhelm Keitel, 12. Erich Raeder, 13. Alfred Rosenberg

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14. Fritz Sauckel, 15. Hjalmar Schacht, 16. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, 17. Albert Speer, 18. Julius Streicher, 19. Constantin von Neurath, 20. Franz von Papen, 21. Joachim von Ribbentrop, 22. Baldur von Schirach. These 22, the “original 22”, had committed crimes that ranged from forced slave labor to the creation of concentration camps and being the masterminds behind the infamous Kristallnacht1. The Allied Forces tried their hardest to legally punish each and every single member of the Nazi party, but many of them argued that they were only following orders, which tainted the cases by affecting the ruling. This made the specific piece of evidence a mitigating circumstance2 . Many Nazis who claimed such things received very light sentences and went back to their normal lives in a matter of months. Other former Nazis escaped to other countries to avoid persecution. Many of them lived their lives without any sort of punishment for what they had done. One must consider that even though the Nuremberg Trials were the most famous and the most publicized trials out of the ones the IMT directed, many more trials happened under their ruling. Some other tribunals were the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings3, the individual trials carried out by the Soviet Union, the United States of America, the French Republic and the United Kingdom, and finally, the Auschwitz trials.

3.2. Why is the International Military Tribunal important? The International Military Tribunal is a historical accomplishment and this can be proven just by looking at the name of their most famous trials; Nuremberg. Many historians consider the decision of having the trials take place in Nuremberg as a final act of defiance against the Nazis,

1 The organized destruction of synagogues, Jewish houses and shops, along with the arrest of individual Jews. It took place on the night between the 9th and the 10th of November of 1938. 2 Mitigating circumstance: an accessory condition, event or fact which may be considered by the court to reduce the culpability of a criminal. 3 12 trials on high ranking German officials directed by the United States of America. COSMUN 2019

considering the previous existence of the Nuremberg Laws4. But its defiance towards immoral and atrocious organizations and coalitions is not the only aspect which makes the IMT so special. The testimonies brought out in the trials revealed much of what we know about the Holocaust today, and guided many of the articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The IMT also served as a base for the current international criminal law because it introduced and established the mentality of “justice, not revenge”. This means that the winners of the war prosecuted criminals because of factual information and because of things that were proven to have occurred, rather than simply to look for revenge, as it happened after WWI. In addition, the Charter for the International Military Tribunal served as base for the Nuremberg Principles established by the International Law Commission5. These are: ● Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment. ● The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law. ● The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law. ● The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him. ● Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law. ● The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law: a. Crimes against peace b. War crimes c. Crimes against humanity ● Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law. The International Military Tribunal was perhaps the greatest achievement that international law made in the 20th century, and its principles and way of thinking are still used to this very day.

4 The Nuremberg Laws were two anti-jewish statutes enacted on September 1935 on the city in Nuremberg. 5 Created by the General Assembly with the purpose of “initiating studies and make recommendations for the purpose of encouraging the progressive development of international law and its codification.” COSMUN 2019

4. Law Due to the fact that the IMT was an innovative and never-seen-before type of organ, its creators had to establish the way it would function. They did so in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal6. The 30 Articles which make up the document dictate how to deal with defendants, define what Crimes Against Humanity are, mandated the composition of the individual courts, and gave the option to independent nations to judge war criminals on their own courts, among other things. This document will be considered the prime reference document in COSMUN 2019’s IMT. The term “international law” is a relatively new one, considering it was first used a little over 200 years ago by the great British philosopher Jeremy Bentham. But even before that, when the US Constitution was created in 1787, people were introduced to the concept of a nation having a democratic government strong enough to execute its own laws by its own tribunals. But it wasn’t until the International Peace Conference of 1899 in the Hague when countries realized that they needed a set of rules and regulations which prevented war. After the creation of the Convention with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on the Land in such conference, international law began to evolve and the face of the evolution was the United States of America. After World War I, the winning side did not know what to do with the Central Powers and the crimes they had committed against millions of human beings. This is why they called upon a conference in Versailles (1919), where the Treaty of Versailles was born. In this treaty, the winning countries used rough drafts of international law concepts to decide that proper trials for everyone involved would be too long and that they would rather force Germany to sign a document which would sink their economy and their society as a whole. Kaiser Wilhelm II was extradited without standing in trial and German officers who committed atrocities got off on light sentences in German courts. After this and noting that the world needed an organ whose main purpose was the preservation of peace, US president Woodrow Wilson sponsored the creation of a League of Nations. The League of Nations was the predecessor of the United Nations, but it dissolved because it didn’t keep its most important promise: preventing another world war. But before the start of WWII, the League was able to start planning a permanent Court of International Justice. Many countries, however, did not want to give up any percentage of their jurisdiction regarding national affairs, and looked down upon such plans.

6 See: http://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.2_Charter%20of%20IMT%201945.pdf COSMUN 2019

When World War II broke out, many civilians condemned their indecisive government officials for not being able to prevent another war through the League of Nations. The contradictory actions of the international community leading up to WWII would eventually cost paid the highest price anyone has ever paid for anything; 85 million lives, the rise Fascism and infinite scarring on the world’s memories of the 1940s. In 1941, four years before the end of the War, Germany was warned of the punishments war criminals would receive after the fight had ended. And so it happened. When WWII ended, the Allies had already planned for the trials which would hold war criminals accountable for they actions. This is why it only took six weeks for the Allies to come to an agreement in London about the Articles of the Charter. Only three types of crimes were punishable by the IMT: Crimes against Peace (planning, preparing and waging aggressive war), War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity (genocide, etc). All of the trials were open to the public and were heavily publicized by the media. All records would have a transcript available in four languages, and the defendants could choose their counsel. In addition, it was agreed that every single person on Earth- including heads of state- could be judged by courts and tried for crimes. Finally, the Hague Conventions were cited frequently in order to reject Germany’s claims of the legality of the war and the mass murder which they had committed. Article 6 in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal define “Crimes against Humanity” as “Namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, of persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.” This was an immense step because it was the first time in history when violations against what we know today as humans rights, were punishable by an international entity. The IMT secured the future of the Human Rights and the evolution in the mentalities of leaders all over the world. 5. History 5.1. World War II The Second World War was the conflict which took place all over the world from 1939 to 1945. The war began taking shape after Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler were chosen to lead their countries under a Fascist7 rule. But the trouble started when Hitler began preaching about

7 Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. COSMUN 2019

how the Treaty of Versailles8 was unfair to Germany and how Germans could not possibly survive if they complied with the Allied Powers’ ruling. The United Kingdom and France, torn after WWI, decided to let Hitler violate many of the clauses specified in the Treaty to avoid another war. But when Hitler invaded Poland on August 31, 1939 following the Non Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France declared war. Countries all over the world rushed to take sides, and the majority sided with the Allied forces. War went on around Poland and Germany until September 1940, when the Tripartite Pact was signed. In this document, Germany, Italy and Japan formalized their alliance and established defense mechanisms in case one of them was to be attacked. The Axis Powers had the upper hand during the first three years of the conflict because of they were much better equipped than the Allies, who were struggling to get by because of the effects of WWI. But 1941 was the year when the roles were reversed. The Axis Powers made a very big mistake when carrying out Operation Barbarossa. This operation consisted of the invasion of Soviet Union, the Axis’ once ally. Hitler sent 3 million soldiers and 3,500 tanks to the USSR, and logically, Stalin was very surprised considering the deal they had struck before. But the USSR’s political leaders did not waste a second when they signed a mutual assistance treaty with Britain and began a war on the Eastern front which claimed 20 millions deaths. But when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December of this same year, everything started crashing down for the Axis powers. The USA, who was already supplying weapons to the Allies through the Lend-lease Act, decided to cut all ties with Japan after their invasion of Manchuria, and this lead to Japan’s response; bombs. The very next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on Japan, which made Germany and Italy declare war on the US. This lead the great western nation into the biggest conflict in the history of mankind. The first significant victory that the Allies managed to pull off after the US’ entrance into the coalition was at the Battle of Stalingrad. After this, the Allies rarely lost a battle. With the US on their side and constantly deploying previously desperately needed soldiers, Europe began to be invaded and aided by Britain. Meanwhile, France was invaded by the Germans, but resistance groups and movements grew. Finally, after six years, the Allies clearly saw that they were the winning side when the Invasion of Normandy succeeded under the command of the US. While all of this was going on, China had to fight Japan alone. But when the Allies closed up on Germany and handled the

8 Document signed by the Allied Powers of WWI and used to impose economic sanctions of Germany. The result of this was terrible hyperinflation and finally, protests from Hitler followers. COSMUN 2019

situation in Europe, new president Harry S. Truman made a decision which would change history forever; the dropping of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After China received aid from Russia to reclaim their Manchuria territory, Japan still refused to surrender. This is when president Truman, who had only recently been notified about the Manhattan Project, decided to drop an atomic bomb in the city of Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945. When the Japanese still refused to surrender, another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, which was the final straw to the Japanese. Two years before the end of the war, the Allied Powers signed the Moscow Declaration in which they agreed that when they won, they would put Germans guilty of of war crimes on trial. This is where the International Military Tribunal began to be developed.

5.2. The Holocaust The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic and state sponsored persecution and murder of 6 million Jews during World War II. This massive massacre was carried out mainly by members of the Nazi party, as they were inspired by the concept of the creation of an Aryan Race. The Aryan Race was a theory introduced by Adolf Hitler which stated that Germans were superior to people from any other country or race. Hitler considered everyone who didn’t have pale skin, blonde hair and blue eyes were inferior to those that did, and he created a table of races in which Gypsy, Jewish and colored people were at the bottom.

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Propaganda made by the Nazis in 1930. A Nazi sword kills a snake, piercing the Star of David placed on the head of the snake. The words coming out of the snake are: usury, Versailles, unemployment, war, guilt, lie, Marxism, Bolshevism, lies, betrayal, inflation, Locarno, Daws Pact, Young Plan, corruption, Barmat, Kutistker, Sklarek, prostitution, terror and finally, civil war. Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis sought to increase Germany’s power, believing in the superiority of their race. Their objective was to eradicate the undesirable populations from Europe and ultimately, the world. Hitler thought that by doing so, he would cleanse the human race and create a new generation in which the “ideal” humans would rule the Earth and produce perfect offsprings.

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Victims of The Holocaust were either brutally murdered by Nazi Einsatzgruppen9 or taken to one of the 42,000 concentration camps, also called death camps, which were spread out across Germany and German occupied areas such as Poland, and Ukraine.

But the Nazis were not only persecuting Jews. They were also hunting people with physical or mental disabilities, citizens of Poland, socialists and communists, those who opposed their political party, Roma (Gypsies), colored people and homosexuals. As the Nazi regime spread through Europe, the prisoners of war which the Germans had managed to capture died from starvation, brutal treatment, or other types of abuse. These prisoners were first recruited with the purpose of forcing them into slavery in concentration camps, where deplorable conditions awaited them. Contrary to popular belief, there were many murder methods- other than gassing and shootings-. Many sick people who were considered a threat to the union would be killed through the “Euthanasia Program” which was introduced by the Nazis to many hospitals.

9 Battalion-sized mobile units of the Reich Security Main Office. They had the task of murdering and capturing those who were perceived as racially inferior. COSMUN 2019

5.3. The Auschwitz Trials Auschwitz was the largest and most powerful concentration and extermination camp in Nazi Germany. It was founded on April 27th, 1940 on Heinrich Himmler’s orders close to Oświęcim, Poland and it was first made up of mostly Polish political prisoners.

But by March 1941, more than 10,000 prisoners lived on its grounds. The Camp was infamous because of its harshness, and the sign on the Camp’s entrance was the first real glimpse incoming prisoners got of just how harsh it was; “Arbeit macht frei,” or “Work sets you free”. Auschwitz became famous among Nazi doctors for being the perfect place to perform experiments on prisoners, and people like Joseph Mengele participated in these atrocious and heart wrenching investigations. In March, 1941 Himmler ordered the construction of a second building right next to the original one. This camp was called Auschwitz II- Birkenau, and at its peak, it housed more than 100,000 prisoners. Its grounds were divided by electric fences and barbed wire, which resulted in the separation of entire families. This made it easier for the German officials- who were greatly outnumbered by the prisoners- to maintain control and superiority.

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In 1942, the third Auschwitz was established near Monowitz and it was not an extermination camp. Instead, the German rubber company I.G. set up a factory there and used the prisoners and slaves. In addition, Auschwitz had other 45 auxiliary camps which were used mainly by companies to exploit the German prisoners. Even though the Camp was established in 1940, it wasn’t until 1941 that extermination of Jews began to take place. In September of that year, Himmler ordered the creation of a building with the sole purpose of murdering prisoners. Four large gas chambers, capable of killing 6,000 people every day, were built at Auschwitz Birkenau disguised as showers. Prisoners would be tricked into entering the chambers this way, but instead of water coming out of the shower heads, poison gas did. Even though concentration camps usually held all sorts of minorities (colored people, Gypsies, Jews, open homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc), Auschwitz prisoners were mainly Jewish. The first Jews in Auschwitz were from Slovakia and France, and they were followed by prisoners from the Netherlands, Belgium, Yugoslavia, and Hungary, respectively. The process of selection was perhaps the most feared part out of the arrival in Auschwitz. Immediately upon arrival, prisoners would be sorted by SS officers into the ones that could work and the ones that went straight to the gas chambers. But the prisoners that did survive the very first selection put up a resistance against the tyranny of it all. They created organisations which helped the inmates get medicine, food, get the crimes against them documented, planned

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sabotages and prepared uprisings. With the help of these organisations, 667 prisoners escaped out of the Camp during its four and a half years of existence. When the end of the War was within sight and the Red Army was closing up on Auschwitz, it was hurriedly emptied and abandoned by the Nazi officials in attempts to hide their wrongdoings. The gas chambers and the crematorium were destroyed on orders of Mr. Himmler himself, but the thousands of bodies and the frail ones of the survivors had many stories to tell. Auschwitz was officially found by the Red Army on January 27th, 1945. The Soviets found 7,650 prisoners in appalling conditions, the things that the Nazis hadn’t destroyed which evidenced their crimes, 8 tons of human hair, over a million suits and dresses and finally, about 1.1 million bodies. Later on, the Allies would discover that 1.3 million deaths were registered in Auschwitz as a whole, but this left them to wonder how many deaths had not been registered. After the War, the Allied forces were eager to try those who had so terribly ended the lives of millions of civilians throughout an entire continent. This is why the first Auschwitz trial began in 1947. On April 2 of this same year, the commander of the Auschwitz concentration camps, Rudolf Hoss, was hung on the gallows next to the gas chamber in Auschwitz I. After this, a trial took place in Cracow, resulting in 23 death sentences for SS members. Among those found guilty were Maria Mandl and Arthur Liebehenschel. Following the first trial, a few more trials regarding Auschwitz officials took place in Poland. Then, British, American, Soviet, French and Czech courts tried 24 more people involved. But it wasn’t until 1963 that another large scale Auschwitz trial took place. In 1958 Germany started investigating more individuals based upon complaints from camp survivors and investigations done by the office for prosecution of Nazi criminals, and found that more people had been involved in Auschwitz. The trials finally started in 1963, in Frankfurt. They ended on 1965. Finally, another Auschwitz trial was held in Frankfurt from 1965 to 1968. 617 people were tried in the Auschwitz trials, which began on 1947 and ended in 1968. Out of these 617 Nazis, 34 were sentenced to death, most of them by hanging. But only 15% of the Camp’s personnel faced justice.

6. Defendants 6.1. Maria Mandl Maria Mandl was one of the first women to serve for and perform a job in a Nazi concentration camp. She volunteered for the job in 1938, and from this year on, stood out as one of the most enthusiastic and sadistic murderers in all of the Nazi concentration camps.

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Mandl was born in the north of Austria in 1912 and her career as a Nazi began as a guard at Lichtenberg Camp, the first only-female camp. She quickly climbed through the different positions offered in concentration camps because her bosses saw just how effective her methods were, and was ultimately trusted as being the one woman who could put out protests in a matter of seconds. In 1939 Mandl was appointed Chief Guard of the Ravensbrück Camp and became famous because the inmates and her colleagues called her “The Beast.” Mandl preferred to beat prisoners herself rather than have others do it, and was known to forcefully shave the prisoners’ heads and beat them she she was in the mood. But she didn’t become well known throughout Nazi Germany until she was transferred to Auschwitz in 1942. In Auschwitz she had to oversee all the women and the work that they did throughout the day. In a matter of months, Mandl became the most important woman on camp, as all other were her subordinates. Besides punishing the prisoners, Mandl got to choose which incoming female prisoners got gassed, which ones would be subject to experiments, and finally, which ones would be able to live. It is believed that Mandl was responsible for the murder of approximately 500,000 women and girls, many of the girls being under the age of 5. Mandl also got into the habit of obsessing over incoming little girls. She would dress them up, make them follow her everywhere, teach them how to play the piano, braid their hair and read stories to them before bedtime. But once she grew tired of the constant company, she would take the girls to the gas chambers herself, and watch them as they died. Her obsession is a perfect exemplification of the joy that Mandl felt in inflicting pain, especially to people she knew. As the allies advance into Germany, her villainy came to an end. Mandl was captured by American forces as she was preparing to flee to Bavaria and finally, had to answer for her crimes at the Auschwitz trials in Cracow. Because of her role in the torture and murder of hundreds of thousands, if not a million prisoners, she was convicted to being a war criminal, and the verdict of the trial led to her execution by hanging the 24th of January, 1948.

6.2. Arthur Liebehenschel Although he has drawn less attention than other Nazi Commanders, Arthur Liebehenschel has caused outrage, but not because of the reasons a regular Nazi commander did. His actions proved that he was a very conflicted person, stuck in between of doing what was right and what he was told. Nonetheless, he was still responsible for many Jewish deaths in Auschwitz.

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Arthur Liebehenschel was born on November 25, 1901 in what is considered Posen, Poland today. Liebehenschel completed a study in economics and civil administration because he was not old enough to serve in World War I. At the end of the War, Liebehenschel was an active participant in a Freikorps10. In 1919 he became a member of the Reichswehr11, and he would remain a part of this group for 12 years. After doing other jobs, Liebehenschel was given the chance to perform executive and administrative work in the Columbia House concentration camp (Berlin) and as one of the first camps to be established, it was already filled with prisoners by the time Liebehenschel got there. But Columbia House was closed in 1935 due to other better and bigger camps built in the neighboring vicinities. Fasting forward to the actions for which he was tried, Liebehenschel was appointed commander of Auschwitz on November 10, 1943. As second in command to Rudolph Höss, he was the Chief Commander of all three Auschwitz sites and their 45 auxiliary camps. As soon as he arrived in camp, Liebehenschel received 18,000 prisoners. During his time in Auschwitz, Liebehenschel managed to significantly reduce the “unjustified” beatings and murders of prisoners and would strip the guards of their honors if they disobeyed this order. While he was commander, the executions in Block 11, also known as the Bunker were stopped. He also granted amnesty to the prisoners that were already in the Bunker. Plus, he ordered the destruction of the Steht Zellen12. Despite these positive changes, executions and gassins continued to happen in other areas of the camps. Liebehenschel was responsible for the destruction of the black wall13, for the arresting of the thieves in camp and never ordered anyone to beat a prisoner. There is no evidence that he ever deliberately beat a prisoner himself either. Although Liebehenschel worked to better the camp’s conditions, the death toll was not lowered in Auschwitz. Illness and malnutrition killed thousands of prisoners every day. Prisoners would still be selected for the gas chambers every day, and in the eyes of the law, Liebehenschel was as much responsible for this as any other Nazi on camp. Because Liebehenschel entered Auschwitz directly in a position of power and did not have to experience the atrocities committed by the guards first hand, he had no idea of how things actually were for the prisoners Liebehenschel promised the inmates that everything would get better and that he would make sure the camp was turned into an actual labor camp, not a

10 The group of german paramilitary units established after WWI by former soldiers of the front. 11 The German Army during the Weimar Republic. 12 The place where prisoners would be kept while they were being tortured. 13 Where prisoners would be taken to get shot. COSMUN 2019

murder camp, but he could not possibly keep his promises. But this doesn’t mean that he didn’t try. It has been proven that he once tried to stop the gassing of 500 prisoners by driving to Oranienburg, but it was too late when he got there. Liebehenschel left Auschwitz and became the last commander of camp Majdanek in the year 1944. He was arrested and interrogated by the American army, and this is when he stated that the prisoners in Auschwitz would testify for him rather than against him. And so they did. Several former Auschwitz prisoners testified in favor of him at his trial, all of them saying that Liebehenschel dramatically bettered the conditions of the camp, and actually showed mercy and felt remorse about what the prisoners were going through. But his daughter has stated that she knows for a fact that Liebehenschel was not completely truthful in his testimony and that she did not believe him when he stated that he did not know about the gas chambers before directing Auschwitz. Liebehenschel was extradited to Poland by the Americans and in 1947, the Polish Supreme People’s Court found him guilty of war crimes. He was sentenced to death by hanging.

6.3. Johann Paul Kremer Senior Assault Leader Johann Kremer was an assistant professor at Münster University and also a physician of the Waffen SS. Because of this, he was instructed to go to Auschwitz on August 30th, 1942. While there, Kremer served as the camp doctor for a period of three months. Kremer’s main job was assessing prisoners who were trying to get medical assistance, but many times, he would only let people who would be useful for his twisted and evil experiments. Kremer would also kill the prisoners who he did not want using the lethal injection. In order to successfully perform his “medical” experiments, Kremer selected those that appeared to be the “best experimental material”, meaning that they had a twin, had some sort of physical deformity or had a genetic condition which was easily recognizable by just looking at the prisoner in subject. He would lay his patients in the autopsy bed and question them about their medical history. Then he would photograph the prisoners as they were being put through the process of the experiment.

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Kremer then proceeded to describe everything he saw. His journals contain accounts of gassings and how people responded to the poison, as well as accounts of limb amputations, Siamese separations and experiments on pregnant women. During his trial, the commander of the Camp, Rudolph Höss, testified that his duty in the gassings was to supervise the actual poisoning of the prisoners, and instruct when the gas chamber was to be opened again. In addition to participating in the gassings, he actively participated in the shooting of undefined people with small caliber weapons. Furthermore, he actively participated in the murder of 24 people from different backgrounds (7 Polish citizens and 6 activist women). Kremer was also found guilty because there was evidence to demonstrate that he did not perform his job as a doctor. When granting admission to the hospital, he would carry out the cruelest assessments to prisoners who were literally nearly starving to death. Kremer did not actually examine the sick, but rather ruthlessly assessed them based on their physical appearance. One of his most famous practices was taking the organs of prisoners starved near to death, and then after that giving them the phenol injection. He wanted to research the changes that the human body underwent when subjected to conditions of extreme starvation. The liver, spleen and pancreas are only some of the examples of sliced organs. Although numbers are not exact, his diary talks about 1,600 prisoners dying in gassings in a single day, and so it was concluded that Johann Kremer was responsible for the murder of more than a thousand prisoners. Convicted as a war criminal in the Auschwitz trial of 1947, Kremer was sentenced to death by hanging. Despite this, this sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, and he was finally liberated in the year 1958, seven years before his death.

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7. QARMAS 1. What was the most common sentence among the original 22? 2. What was the Moscow Declaration? 3. Who was Heinrich Himmler? 4. What was the SS? 5. What was the Red Army? 6. What were the Hague Conventions? Why were they used in the International Military Tribunal? 7. How can one know if Liebehenschel was truthful in his testimony? 8. Under which parameters is a sentence decided?

8. Useful Sources ● Movie: Campos de Concentración Nazi (netflix.com). 14 ● https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/war-crimes-trials?series=21802 ● http://www.iccnow.org/documents/FromNurembergtoHague_07july_eng.pdf ● https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/auschwitz ● https://www.scrapbookpages.com/AuschwitzScrapbook/History/Articles/ArthurLiebehen schel.html ● http://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.2_Charter%20 of%20IMT%201945.pdf ● https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/31/ ● https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/arts/design/auschwitz-museum-of-jewish-heritage. html ● https://facesofauschwitz.com/

9. Bibliography (www.nux.cz), Nux s.r.o. “Auschwitz.” The Persecution of German Jews after the Nazi Seizure of Power | Holocaust, www.holocaust.cz/en/history/concentration-camps-and-ghettos/auschwitz/.

14 This movie is the documentary the Allied Powers made when they discovered the concentration camps with the purpose of showing the world just how evil the Nazis had been. It shows extremely graphic content. Watch with caution. COSMUN 2019

“Arthur Liebehenschel, Commandant of Auschwitz.” History of Dachau Concentration Camp, 24 Jan. 2010, www.scrapbookpages.com/AuschwitzScrapbook/History/Articles/ArthurLiebehenschel.h tml.

“AUSCHWITZ.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/auschwitz.

Dimuro, Gina. “Nazi Camp Guard Maria Mandl Sent 500,000 Women To Their Deaths – And Loved Every Minute Of It.” All That's Interesting, All That's Interesting, 19 Dec. 2018, allthatsinteresting.com/maria-mandl.

“EINSATZGRUPPEN.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/einsatzgruppen.

“From Nuremberg to The Hague .” Icconow.org, www.iccnow.org/documents/FromNurembergtoHague_07july_eng.pdf.

“International Law, Codification, Legal Affairs, Commission, ILC, Instruments and Reports, Yearbook.” United Nations, United Nations, legal.un.org/ilc/.

“INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL AT NUREMBERG.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/international-military-tribunal-at-nuremberg.

“Introduction to The Holocaust.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust.

“Johann Paul Kremer.” Suleyman, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/johann-paul-kremer.

“Liebehenschel, Arthur.” Stein, Herman E. - TracesOfWar.com, www.tracesofwar.com/articles/4871/Liebehenschel-Arthur.htm?c=gw.

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“Nazi Treatment of Non-Jewish Minorities.” Deportation and Transportation – The Holocaust Explained: Designed for Schools, www.theholocaustexplained.org/life-in-nazi-occupied-europe/non-jewish-minorities/.

“Stage Seven: Extermination.” Stages Of The Holocaust, 7 Feb. 2014, mwgenocide.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/stage-seven-extermination/.

“The Auschwitz Trials: Background & Overview.” Suleyman, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-of-the-auschwitz-trials.

“The International Military Tribunal for the Far East.” The International Military Tribunal for the Far East, U.Va., imtfe.law.virginia.edu/.

“What Is Mitigating Circumstance? Definition and Meaning.” BusinessDictionary.com, www.businessdictionary.com/definition/mitigating-circumstance.html.

“What Was the Holocaust?” Deportation and Transportation – The Holocaust Explained: Designed for Schools, www.theholocaustexplained.org/what-was-the-holocaust/.

“World War Two Timeline.” History, 15 Nov. 2018, www.historyonthenet.com/world-war-2-timeline-2.

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