Existing comment:
1958 ULM EINSATZGRUPPEN TRIAL
Between April and August 1958, the first trial before a German jury court in connection with the Nazi mass murders of Jews took place in Ulm. The accused were ten members of a task force that had killed more than 5,000 Jewish men, women and children in the German-Lithuanian border area in 1941.
Public knowledge of these crimes brought about a change in the public mood. In an opinion poll carried out in West Germany before the judgment, 54% of those polled were in favour of punishing Nazi crimes. In view of the fact that the
previous dominant view had been to reject denazification and Allied trials, it is likely that a much lower number would have been in favour in an earlier poll.
The accused Edwin Sakuth, Harm Harms and Bernhard Fischer-Schweder during the Ulm Einsatzgruppen trial, 1958
Journalists and observers in court during
the Ulm Einsatzgruppen trial, 1958 |