A crowd watches the destruction of the last camp hut at Bergen-Belsen.

One significant date for the British forces arose on 15th April 1945, 80 years ago with the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. That was the camp from which British troops sent back reports to home, including the now famous broadcast by Richard Dimbleby, describing the unimaginable scenes that faced him and the British troops (and where, allegedly, he threatened to resign from the BBC if they did not broadcast this programme).

These reports and indeed, those images which are so familiar to us today, were to shape British public opinion after the war about the Nazi genocide. They provided the focus for the earliest war trial held in the wake of World War 2. The Bergen-Belsen war trial began on 17th September 1945 and concluded on 17th November 1945, after 54 days.

The trial

The trial began at Lüneburg, Lower Saxony and was presided over by Deputy Judge Advocate General Carl Ludwig Stirling OBE CBE KC, who was of Scottish descent and was born on 10 November 1890 in Manchester. He graduated from Manchester University before being called to the Bar in 1913. In 1927, he became a legal assistant to the Office of the Judge Advocate General and thereafter took silk.

Colonel TM Backhouse MBE TD, Major HG Murton-Neale, Captain SM Stewart and Lieutenant-Colonel LJ Glenn presented the prosecution case. Eleven counsel represented the defendants, including Major TCM Wingate and Lieutenant A Jedrzejowicz, the only Polish officer representing six Polish defendants.

Forty-five former SS men and women and certain prisoners who had functioned as camp supervisors were indicted. Many were to face both charges as follows:

• Charge 1 comprised alleged conduct having occurred between 1st October 1942 and 30th April 1945 when, as members of staff at the Concentration Camp, they were responsible for the wellbeing of the persons interned there and, in violation of the law and usages of war, were concerned as parties to the ill-treatment of certain of such persons.
• Charge 2 followed in a similar vein but related to conduct at Auschwitz from 1st October 1942 to 30th April 1945. Since Auschwitz was not located in an Allied occupation zone, none of the four leading Allied powers could hold a trial there. As the SS guards stationed at Belsen had previously served at Auschwitz, the British included charges for both Belsen and Auschwitz.

The trial was conducted in English, with translations into German and Polish which lengthened the trial. Eleven defendants who were found guilty were sentenced to death by hanging – which was carried out on 13th December 1945. Eighteen were given prison sentences and 14 were acquitted. One was too sick to stand trial and was removed. One sentenced to prison was subsequently executed. By mid-1955, those sentenced to prison had been released.

Reflection on the aftermath

Public reaction to the verdicts was mixed. As recorded by the Imperial War Museum, one survivor of both Auschwitz and Belsen found the presumption of innocence hard to fathom. While recognising that it was a commendable concept, it was “hardly applicable or even adaptable to the sort of crimes that were being dealt with at Belsen”.

Taking up the role as a defence solicitor was perhaps not the easiest position to have been in as well. Major Wingate, mentioned above, was one of the defence solicitors (qualified before the War) who had found out that he was to defend Kramer among others when he arrived at the trial. He reflected subsequently that there were significant problems facing the defence given the serious nature of the crimes and the time pressures as outlined above as the trial was to be completed prior to Nuremberg. There were those who considered that he was defending the indefensible.

In conclusion, there was a feeling from the British public that the trial showed British justice at its best, though the 14 acquittals were a surprise. There had been an assumption that anyone charged with war crimes would be found guilty. There had inevitably been problems with a hastily prepared trial over evidence including eye-witness testimony identification of those involved.

Though the Belsen trial was to be eclipsed by the Nuremberg trials, on the 80th anniversary of liberation it does serve as an example of how incomprehensible the crimes were then and still are now to the rest of the world.