RuSHA Trial

The RuSHA Trial (or, officially, The United States of America vs. Ulrich Greifelt, et. al.) was the eighth of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II. These twelve trials were all held before U.S. military courts, not before the International Military Tribunal, but took place in the same rooms. The twelve U.S. trials are collectively known as the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials" or, more formally, as the "Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals" (NMT).

In the RuSHA Trial, the 14 defendants were all officials of various SS organizations responsible for the implementation of the Nazi "pure race" programme: the Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (RuSHA), the office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism (Reichskommissar fuer die Festigung des deutschen Volksturms, RKFDV, a post held by Heinrich Himmler), the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, VoMi), and the Lebensborn society. The charges centered on these racial cleansing and resettlement activities.

The judges in this case, heard before Military Tribunal I, were Lee B. Wyatt (presiding judge) from Georgia, Daniel T. O'Connell from Massachusetts, and Johnson T. Crawford from Oklahoma. The Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution was Telford Taylor. The indictment was served on July 7, 1947; the trial lasted from October 20, 1947 until March 10, 1948.

Indictment

1. Crimes against humanity by implementing "racial purity" programmes by kidnapping children, forcing "non-arian" pregnant women to undergo abortions, plundering, deportation of populations from their native lands in occupied countries and resettling of so-called "ethnic Germans" (Volksdeutsche) on such lands, sending people who had had "interracial" sexual relationships to concentration camps, and general participation in the persecution of Jews.
2. War crimes for the same reasons.
3. Membership in a criminal organization, the SS.

All defendants were indicted on counts 1 and 2. Inge Viermetz was excluded from count 3. All defendants pleaded "not guilty".

Defendants

I — Indicted   G — Indicted and found guilty

The four Lebensborn members were not found guilty on counts 1 and 2 of the indictment. The tribunal considered the Lebensborn society not responsible for the kidnapping of children, which was carried out by others. [1]

Greifelt died in the Landsberg prison on February 6, 1949. Hildebrandt was turned over to Polish authorities. He was put on trial for war crimes again in Poland and sentenced to death. He was hanged on March 10, 1952. Hübner, Brückner, and Schwalm were released in 1951. Also in that year, the sentences of Hofmann and Lorenz were reduced to 15 years, and that of Creutz to 10 years. Hofmann was released in 1954.

References

• Trial proceedings from the Mazal Library.
• Description from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
• Notes on the trial.
• Lebensborn (in German).