Sobibor - Holocaust Propaganda And Reality - Unity of Nobility ...

182 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
The witnesses have strengthened their depositions under oath to the
extent that they were questioned during the main trial hearings. Also
during the initial investigations, the witnesses, independently of each
other, had made statements which essentially agree with those made
here.”
The court apparently never thought that the witnesses, who quite naturally
were in constant touch with one another, might have mutually
adjusted their statements. Still, the court remained unable to bring about
a guilty plea by Gomerski: 250
“Without showing any sign of emotion, Gomerski followed the
horrifying descriptions of the witnesses who were testifying under
oath. He qualified their depositions as being false and would sometimes
smile during the questionings.”
6.4. The Sobibór Trial at Hagen (1965/1966)
Between 6 September 1965 and 20 December 1966 twelve former
Sobibór camp personnel were tried at Hagen in Germany. While on trial,
one of the defendants, Kurt Bolender, committed suicide by hanging
himself; he left a letter in which he insisted on his innocence. 519 Six defendants
were convicted, whereas five others were acquitted on the
grounds of putative state of emergency. Like their colleagues in Berlin
and Frankfurt, the Hagen judges did not consider the mere fact of
someone having served as an SS man in the Sobibór camp to be sufficient
reason for a conviction. This level of infamy would only be
reached four decades later in connection with the Demjanjuk case.
Contrary to the procedures in the Berlin and Frankfurt Sobibór trials
of 1950, the Hagen court attempted to determine, by means of transport
lists, the number of detainees shipped to Sobibór. It came to the following
conclusion: 520
“Using considerations most favorable for the defendants, it was
determined on the basis on documentary evidence and witness testimonies
heard in the main hearings that the deadly fate of at least
150,000 Jewish persons at Sobibór is known.”
519
520
“Der ‘vergessene Prozeß,’” Die Zeit, No. 49, 1966, www.zeit.de/1966/49/Dervergessene-Prozess
A. Rückerl (ed.), op. cit. (note 36), p. 153.