A group of six members of Majdanek personnel – who had not managed to escape – were arraigned before the Soviet-Polish Special Criminal Court immediately following the camp's liberation of July 23, 1944. After the trial, and deliberations which lasted from November 27, 1944 to December 2, 1944 all accused were found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and sentenced to death by hanging. They included SS-Obersturmführer Anton Thernes, SS-Hauptsturmführer Wilhelm Gerstenmeier, SS-Oberscharführer Hermann Vögel, Kapo Edmund Pohlmann, SS-RottenführerTheodor Schöllen and Kapo Heinrich Stalp, all of whom were executed by hanging on December 3, 1944 except for Pohlmann, who had committed suicide the night before.
I will post information about the Deputy Camp Commandant, Anton Thernes from Wikipedia.
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The first judicial trial of the Nazi officials at the Majdanek extermination camp took place from November 27, 1944, to December 2, 1944 in Lublin, Poland. In this photograph, Anton Thernes, standing on the left at his trial. |
SS-ObersturmführerAnton Thernes (February 8, 1892 – December 3, 1944) was a Nazi German war criminal, deputy commandant of administration at the notorious Majdanek concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland in World War II. He was tried at the Majdanek Trials and executed on December 3, 1944 along with five other war criminals near the gas chambers and the Majdanek crematorium.
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Showers (left) and gas chambers (right) at Majdanek |
War Crimes
Thernes was married with six children in Trier before the Nazi German invasion of Poland. A member of the SS, Thernes served as the last administrative chief of KL Lublin / Majdanek. He was also in charge of food and slave labour administration, starvation rationing, and the maintenance of camp structures including the storage depot for property and valuables stolen from the Holocaust victims at the killing centers in Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.
Thernes was given the task of destroying the evidence of crimes against humanity and genocide, but ran out of time due to his ineptitude and lethargy. Instead of blowing up the chimneys and torching his city of death, the SS actually brought an additional 500 prisoners from Lublin for the last timely kill, while the T-34 tanks were already at the gates. Thernes was caught by the Soviets and tried at the Majdanek Trials together with his assistant SS-HauptsturmführerWilhelm Gerstenmeier. He denied knowing anything, but the proceedings were swamped with testimonial proofs offered by eyewitnesses. He was executed on December 3, 1944 along with five other war criminals, close to the gas chambers and the Majdanek crematorium.
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The camp's original crematorium with reconstructed wooden building around it, Majdanek c. 2006 |
Harvest Festival
During the mere 34 months of camp operation, more than 79,000 people were murdered at the main camp alone (59,000 of them Polish Jews). Some 18,000 Jews were killed at Majdanek on November 3, 1943 during the largest single-day, single-camp massacre of the Holocaust, named Harvest Festival(totalling 43,000 with subcamps).