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Defendant Gustav Sorge at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp war crimes trial in Berlin.

Photograph | Photograph Number: 33880
Defendant Gustav Sorge at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp war crimes trial in Berlin. The man on the right has been identified as Wilhelm Schubert.

Defendant Gustav Sorge at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp war crimes trial in Berlin.

The man on the right has been identified as Wilhelm Schubert.

Date
1947 October 23 - 1947 November 01
Variant Locale
Berlin-Buckow
Berlin-Mariendorf
Berlin-Ochstumsand
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
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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.
Biography
Gustav Sorge was an ethnic German, who was born in 1911 in Reinicken, Poland, near Poznan. He joined the Nazi Party in 1931 and the Waffen-SS in 1934, and from the fall of 1937 until the end of the war, he was active in the concentration camp system. From November of 1937 until June of 1942 he was a labor leader or "Rapportfuehrer" in Sachsenhausen, where his brutal treatment of prisoners earned him the name "Iron Gustav." He also oversaw the mass execution, imprisonment, and torture of many prisoners. From 1941 to 1942, he oversaw the execution of Soviet POWs and other prisoners, and in the spring of 1942 he was responsible for starving to death four hundred Russians in the isolation barracks. 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: 2005-11-29 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1099385