Arbeit macht frei: - Fredrick Töben

Friedrich believes that the Demjanjuk trial illustrates two important
developments in the German judiciary’s attitude to the Holocaust. Firstly,
that it is rethinking, or being forced to rethink, its definition of a Holocaust
perpetrator. Secondly, that it is prepared to lower the bar of required
evidence in order to convict Holocaust perpetrators.
But Boere’s crime is much easier to define than Demjanjuk’s - he is
accused of, and has admitted to, three specific acts of murder. By current
German law, this is the crime that Demjanjuk will have to be found guilty
of if he is to be convicted - of all the crimes that Demjanjuk may or may
not have committed, murder is the only one that has not exceeded its
time-bar limit. Germany lifted that limit on murder in the 1960s.
‘This is a problem that judges in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s ignored,’
Friedrich told Deutsche Welle, ‘The majority of Holocaust-perpetrators
were seen as abetters, those that helped the murderers. The actual
murderers were always defined as Hitler, Himmler, Eichmann - those that
made the decision to instigate the Holocaust - or those that showed a
personal motivation in the act. Murder is not simply killing someone - you
must prove intent and motivation to ensure a conviction. The abetters
were those that helped Hitler, but had no motives of their own - they
simply carried out their tasks.’
This narrow definition of the murderers of the Holocaust appears in
almost all Nazi trial judgements from previous trials. Simply working in a
concentration camp never convicted anyone. But this is all that can be
established beyond doubt about Demjanjuk. In order to convict him, the
judges will essentially have to redefine murder for the extreme and
abstract circumstances of the Holocaust.
A long chain
‘In previous Nazi trials, those that were convicted were the so-called
‘concentration camp monsters’ - people who had been seen tormenting,
abusing, or beating Jews before their execution,’ Friedrich explains, ‘Such
actions were considered ‘personal contributions’, and people were
convicted not of being abetters to the crime but of being co-perpetrators.’
This goes some way to explaining why so few people were convicted of
Holocaust crimes in Germany. According to an article in news magazine
Der Spiegel on the legacy of German guilt, of over 100,000 investigations
that were carried out in postwar Germany into Nazi crimes, only around
6,500 people were convicted. Thirteen death sentences were passed, 167
life sentences, and the rest received shorter prison sentences or fines.
Only a fifth of those convictions were for murder.
‘For the German judiciary, the Holocaust only ever existed within the
camp gates,’ Friedrich points out, ‘But in fact the Holocaust was a long
chain. The whole of society played dumb and those that did the bloody
work appeared in court.’
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