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The Chełmno trials were a series of consecutive war-crime trials of the Chełmno extermination camp personnel, held in Poland and in Germany following World War II. The cases were decided almost twenty years apart. The first judicial trial of the former ''SS'' men – members of the ''SS-Sonderkommando Kulmhof'' – took place in 1945 at the District Court in Łódź, Poland. The subsequent four trials, held in Bonn, Germany, began in 1962 and concluded three years later, in 1965 in Cologne. A number of camp officials, gas-van operators and ''SS'' guards, were arraigned before the court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed at Chełmno (a.k.a. ''Kulmhof'') in occupied Poland in the period between December 1941 and January 1945. The evidence against the accused, including testimonies by surviving witnesses, former prisoners, and mechanics attending to repair needs of the ''SS'', was examined in Poland by Judge Władysław Bednarz of the Łódź District Court (''Sąd Okręgowy w Łodzi''). Three convicted defendants were sentenced to death,〔 including the camp deputy commandant ''Oberscharführer'' Walter Piller (wrongly, Filer); the gas van operator ''Hauptscharführer'' Hermann Gielow (Gilow), as well as Bruno Israel from Order Police (his sentence was commuted to life). All three were members of the ''SS Special Detachment Kulmhof'' responsible for the extermination of Jews and non-Jews, during the Holocaust in occupied Poland. In the years 1962–65, a dozen ''SS''-men from Kulmhof were arraigned before the German court (''Landgericht'') in Bonn, RFN. They were charged with the murder of 180,000 Jews in the camp. The jury deliberations continued for three years, with sentences ranging from 13 years' imprisonment to 13 months and 2 weeks. Half of the defendants were cleared of all charges and released by Germany.〔 ==1945 Chełmno Trial in Poland== After liberation by the Soviet Army, the new government of Poland began its official investigation into the Chełmno war crimes on May 24, 1945. Although most Germans fled, Piller and Gielow were soon captured by the Soviets and brought back. Notably, the trial of Holocaust perpetrators from Chełmno was unlike any other war-crimes trial, because the camp had been essentially eradicated by the SS, along with most traces of the mass murder. Truckloads of ashes of its victims were dumped in the Warta river daily, the "palace" was blown up with rubble removed to foundations, mobile gas-chambers and loot were driven back to Berlin, written records were destroyed, including train departure records. There was nothing to see for the commissars, or draw interest. Some of the key evidence was mistakenly discarded in the trash in 1945 (i.e. over 5,000 pairs of damaged shoes from destroyed synagogue in Koło), or hauled away as usable materials, including wooden fencing and cremation grids; few people were aware of its importance.〔 By comparison, other former death camps were overflowing with direct evidence of war-crimes, as in the case of the Majdanek trial decided several months before. Judge Bednarz soon ordered excavation of the waste in a ''Schlosslager'' burn pit. About 24,200 spoons, 4,500 knives, and 2,500 forks were found, among pots, pans, eye glasses and many other half-burned items in the debris.〔 It was also known that most of the victims were Jews from the Łódź Ghetto, where chronicles of ghetto operations were found; in addition, non-Jewish Poles, Soviet prisoners, about 5,000 Gypsies, and whole transports of children had been deported to Chełmno where they were murdered. The SS Master Sergeant Walter Piller testified about the final phase of the camp operation, including 1944 deportations from Łódź. To circumvent the Nazi destruction of records and evidence, Judge Bednarz used Łódź ghetto records and estimates to arrive at the number of victims. Based on ghetto statistics together with testimonies, he estimated some 350,000 victims. He did not account for the period of camp inactivity. The range of estimated victims presented at the 1962 trial in Bonn was 180,000 with 152,000 as the lowest acceptable number. The first Chełmno trial in Poland established many critical details from the camp history, but also revealed the operation of mobile gas chambers, which used exhaust fumes as the killing agent, diverted into sheet metal-lined vans. The names of SS officials and commanders at the camp were established, including the ''SS-Hauptsturmführer'' Herbert Lange and the ''SS-Hauptsturmführer'' Hans Bothmann who had vanished.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chełmno trials」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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