The Buchenwald main trial begins in 1947
More than 277,000 people were imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp on the outskirts of Weimar between 1937 and 1945. Although it did not operate as a death camp, some 56,000 of the inmates perished before its liberation by the US Army on 11 April 1945. A few days later, the Americans ordered 1,000 citizens of nearby Weimar to visit the camp and view the piles of corpses. After the US had withdrawn from Thuringia, the Soviets showed little interest in investigating the crimes committed in Buchenwald and it was left to the Americans to open proceedings against those responsible. All 31 of those arraigned at a military court convened in Dachau on 11 April 1947 were found guilty of war crimes, nine of whom were given prison sentences and 22 sentenced to death (13 were later commuted). Ilse Koch, the wife of a camp commandant and notorious as the “witch of Buchenwald”, was later sentenced to life imprisonment by a West German court after completing the four-year sentence handed down by the Americans.
Other events of 11 April
11.04.1961 The trial of Adolf Eichmann
Known as the “architect of the Holocaust” for his role in organizing the deportation of European Jews to the death camps, SS Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann fled to Argentina after the Second World War. Kidnapped by Mossad agents in 1960 while living under a false identity, he was spirited to Israel and put on trial in Jerusalem on 11 April 1961. Found guilty of a number of crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, he was handed a death sentence, which was carried out just over a year later.
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