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Defendants Michael Koerner (left) and Kurt Eccarius (right) sit in the dock at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp war crimes trial in Berlin.

Photograph | Photograph Number: 33866
Defendants Michael Koerner (left) and Kurt Eccarius (right) sit in the dock at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp war crimes trial in Berlin.

Defendants Michael Koerner (left) and Kurt Eccarius (right) sit in the dock at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp war crimes trial in Berlin.

Date
1947 October 23 - 1947 November 01
Locale
Berlin, [Berlin] Germany
Variant Locale
Berlin-Buckow
Berlin-Mariendorf
Berlin-Ploetzensee
Berlin-Reinickendorf
Berlin-Tempelhof
Berlin-Wannsee
Berlin-Schlachtensee
Berlin-Duppel
Photo Designation
PURSUIT OF JUSTICE -- Concentration Camp/Atrocity Trials -- Polish/Soviet Trials -- Sachsenhausen -- Trial
Photo Credit
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Central Archive of the Federal Security Service

About This Photograph

Event History
On October 23, 1947 fifteen former Sachsenhausen concentration camp personnel and one former prisoner were brought to trial before a Soviet Military Tribunal in Berlin. Among the defendants were Anton Kaindl, the former commandant, and Paul Sakowski, a kapo who had served as an executioner. The findings were announced on November 1, 1947 after only a brief trial. All sixteen were found guilty. Fifteen of the defendants were sentenced to life in prison with forced labor and one, to fifteen years in prison with forced labor.

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007776.
Biography
Kurt Eccarius was born in 1905 in Coburg, Germany. After joining the Nazi Party in 1932 and the Waffen-SS in 1933, he was assigned work in various concentration camps. From 1933 to 1936 he served in the guard battalion at Dachau. In the fall of 1936 he was transferred to Sachsenhausen. From 1938 until 1945 he was part of the so-called "Zellenbau" (of which he became the leader in August 1942), and was known for beating prisoners unconscious with his hands. Eccarius was also notorious for whipping prisoners and confining them to cells in the Zellenbau for up to 42 days at a time. In October 1944, on orders from commandant Kaindl, he had forty prisoners from the Zellenbau shot or hanged. Following his trial by a Soviet Military Tribunal, he was sentenced to life in prison with forced labor.

Michael Koerner joined the Hitler Youth in 1931 and joined the SA and the Nazi Party in February 1933, becoming part of the SS-Totenkopf Brigade (later the Totenkopf Division) in 1935. In September 1944 he became a Lagerfuehrer in Sachsenhausen, where between October 1944 and April 1945, he took part in the hanging of thirteen prisoners and the shooting of two hundred and twenty-two. Following his trial by a Soviet Military Tribunal, he was sentenced to life in prison with forced labor.

Keywords and Subjects

Rights and Restrictions

Photo Source
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provenance: Central Archive of the Federal Security Service
Source Record ID: Collections: RG-06.025*26
Second Record ID: KGB Archives: N-19092, Appendix - - file 2294
 
Record last modified: 2010-04-26 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1099332