Defendant Hinrich Fresemann speaks from the dock at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp war crimes trial in Berlin.

Photograph | Digitized | Photograph Number: 33875

Overview

Caption: Defendant Hinrich Fresemann speaks from 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 Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Central Archive of the Federal Security Service
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.

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

Keyword: CLOSE-UPS COURTS/COURTROOMS DEFENDANTS FRESEMANN, HINRICH INTERIORS SS (SCHUTZSTAFFELN) TRIALS TRIALS (SACHSENHAUSEN) WAR CRIMINALS/TRIALS
Photo Designation: PURSUIT OF JUSTICE -- Concentration Camp/Atrocity Trials -- Polish/Soviet Trials -- Sachsenhausen -- Trial

Biography: Hinrich Fresemann was born in 1914 in Follenerfen, Germany in the district of Hannover. After joining the Waffen-SS in 1935, he was assigned to the 3rd SS Panzer Division and fought in the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, in 1937 he had joined the Nazi Party, and from November 1942 until July 1944 he was Master Sergeant of an SS guard unit at Sachsenhausen, serving also as the leader of an SS training company in 1943. In 1944 he was made head of the Klinkerwerke with three thousand forced laborers under his charge. He was known to have systematically whipped and beaten them, and to have withheld food, leading to the death of twenty to twenty-five of them per day. He also sent sixty to one hundred and fifty people per month to various other parts of the camp for extermination. Following his trial by a Soviet Military Tribunal, he was sentenced to life in prison with forced labor.