Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities Volume 12 | Issue 2 Article 4 January 2000 "I didn't know what Auschwitz was": The rF ankfurt Auschwitz Trial and the German Press, 1963-1965 Devin O. Pendas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjlh Part of the History Commons, and the Law Commons Recommended Citation Devin O. Pendas, "I didn't know what Auschwitz was": The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial and the German Press, 1963-1965, 12 Yale J.L. & Human. (2000). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjlh/vol12/iss2/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities by an authorized editor of Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Pendas: "I didn't know what Auschwitz was" "I didn't know what Auschwitz was": The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial and the German Press, 1963-1965 Devin 0. Pendas* On December 20, 1963, the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial opened before the State Court (Schwurgericht) at Frankfurt am Main. Ginther Leicher, covering the trial for the Allgemeine Zeitung/Neuer Mainzer Anzeiger, described the scene thus: "A huge mass of journalists, photographers and camera people from all over the world and half-empty seats in the visitors' gallery: these are the contradictory emblems of the public interest in the Auschwitz trial, which opened last Friday, four days before Christmas, in the Frankfurt City Council chambers."' In this Article, I examine the seeming paradox that the Auschwitz trial could attract such considerable attention from the mass media while remaining a matter of indifference, if not open hostility, for much of the German public.