Editing Auschwitz concentration camp (section)

===Trials of war criminals===
{{Further|End of World War II in Europe|Auschwitz trial|Frankfurt Auschwitz trials}}
[[File:AuschwitzGallows2006.JPG|thumb|Gallows in Auschwitz I where Rudolf Höss was executed on 16 April 1947]]
Only 789 Auschwitz staff, up to 15 percent, ever stood trial;{{sfn|Lasik|2000b|p=116, n.&nbsp;19}} most of the cases were pursued in Poland and the [[Federal Republic of Germany]].{{sfn|Lasik|2000b|pp=108, 113}} According to [[Aleksander Lasik]], female SS officers were treated more harshly than male; of the 17 women sentenced, four received the death penalty and the others longer prison terms than the men. He writes that this may have been because there were only 200 women overseers, and therefore they were more visible and memorable to the inmates.{{sfn|Lasik|2000b|p=110}}

Camp commandant Rudolf Höss was arrested by the British on 11 March 1946 near [[Flensburg]], northern Germany, where he had been working as a farmer under the pseudonym Franz Lang. He was imprisoned in [[Heide]], then transferred to [[Minden]] for interrogation, part of the [[British occupation zone]]. From there he was taken to [[Nuremberg]] to testify for the defense in the trial of ''SS-Obergruppenführer'' [[Ernst Kaltenbrunner]]. Höss was straightforward about his own role in the mass murder and said he had followed the orders of [[Heinrich Himmler]].<ref>{{harvnb|Lasik|1998b|p=296}}; for "Franz Lang" and Flensburg, see {{harvnb|Höss|2003|p=173}}; for Höss's testimony, see {{harvnb|The International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg|1946|p=396ff}}.</ref>{{efn|In his testimony, according to Polish historian [[Aleksander Lasik]], "Höss neither protected anyone nor evaded his own responsibility. His stance came as a surprise to many, especially those who viewed him as a bloodthirsty beast. Instead, he viewed his crimes in terms of the technical obstacles and challenges with which he had to cope. Höss stated that he led the killings in Auschwitz on express orders of Reichsführer Himmler."{{sfn|Lasik|1998b|p=296}}}} Extradited to Poland on 25 May 1946,{{sfn|Lasik|1998b|p=296}} he wrote his memoirs in custody, first published in Polish in 1951 then in German in 1958 as ''Kommandant in Auschwitz''.{{sfn|Höss|2003|loc=Publisher's Note}} His trial before the [[Supreme National Tribunal]] in [[Warsaw]] opened on 11 March 1947; he was sentenced to death on 2 April and hanged in Auschwitz I on 16 April, near crematorium I.<ref>{{harvnb|Lasik|1998b|pp=296–297}}; {{harvnb|Lasik|2000a|pp=296–297}}.</ref>

On 25 November 1947, the [[Auschwitz trial]] began in [[Kraków]], when Poland's [[Supreme National Tribunal]] brought to court 40 former Auschwitz staff, including commandant [[Arthur Liebehenschel]], women's camp leader [[Maria Mandel]], and camp leader [[Hans Aumeier]]. The trials ended on 22 December 1947, with 23 death sentences, seven life sentences, and nine prison sentences ranging from three to 15 years. [[Hans Münch]], an SS doctor who had several former prisoners testify on his behalf, was the only person to be acquitted.{{sfn|Steinbacher|2005|pp=138–139}}<!--find sources: Arthur Liebehenschel was hanged in 1948, Richard Baer died of a heart attack in pre-trial detention in 1963, Fritz Hartjenstein died of a heart attack while awaiting execution in 1954, Josef Kramer was hanged by [[Albert Pierrepoint]] in 1945, and Heinrich Schwarz was shot by firing squad in 1947.-->

Other former staff were hanged for war crimes in the [[Dachau Trials]] and the [[Belsen Trial]], including camp leaders [[Josef Kramer]], [[Franz Hössler]], and [[Vinzenz Schöttl]]; doctor [[Friedrich Entress]]; and guards [[Irma Grese]] and [[Elisabeth Volkenrath]].{{sfn|Steinbacher|2005|p=140}} [[Bruno Tesch]] and [[Karl Weinbacher]], the owner and chief executive officer of the firm [[Tesch & Stabenow]], one of the suppliers of Zyklon B, were arrested by the British after the war and executed for knowingly supplying the chemical for use on humans.{{sfn|Evans|2008|p=744}} The 180-day [[Frankfurt Auschwitz trials]], held in [[West Germany]] from 20 December 1963 to 20 August 1965, tried 22 defendants, including two dentists, a doctor, two camp adjudants and the camp's pharmacist. The 700-page indictment, presenting the testimony of 254 witnesses, was accompanied by a 300-page report about the camp, ''Nationalsozialistische Konzentrationslager'', written by historians from the ''[[Institute of Contemporary History (Munich)|Institut für Zeitgeschichte]]'' in Germany, including [[Martin Broszat]] and [[Helmut Krausnick]]. The report became the basis of their book, ''Anatomy of the SS State'' (1968), the first comprehensive study of the camp and the SS. The court convicted 19 of the defendants, giving six of them life sentences and the others between three and ten years.{{sfn|Wittmann|2005|p=3}} [[East Germany]] also held trials against several former staff members of Auschwitz. One of the defendants they tried was [[Horst Fischer]]. Fischer, one of the highest-ranking SS physicians in the camp, had personally selected at least 75,000 men, women, and children to be gassed. He was arrested in 1965. The following year, he was convicted of crimes against humanity, sentenced to death, and executed by [[guillotine]]. Fischer was the highest-ranking SS physician from Auschwitz to ever be tried by a German court.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wollheim Memorial |url=http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/prozess_gegen_horst_fischer_1966 |access-date=2022-10-01 |website=www.wollheim-memorial.de |archive-date=1 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221001171415/http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/prozess_gegen_horst_fischer_1966 |url-status=live }}</ref>