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Dossier : L’Aktion Reinhardt et l’Aktion Erntefest

‘Incriminated but not guilty as charged’: The Denazification of Kriminalkommissar Christian Wirth Inspector of the Aktion Reinhardt death camps, 1946‑1949

“Inculpé, mais non coupable”. La dénazification de Christian Wirth, Kriminalkommissar et inspecteur des camps de l’Aktion Reinhardt, 1946‑1949
Michael Tregenza
p. 81-93
Traduction(s) :
“Inculpé, mais non coupable”. La dénazification de Christian Wirth, Kriminalkommissar et inspecteur des camps de l’Aktion Reinhardt, 1946‑1949 [fr]

Résumés

La dénazification est une initiative lancée après la guerre par les Alliés, dans l’espoir d’éradiquer le nazisme en Allemagne en arrêtant et en enfermant les « éléments dangereux » et les personnes à « l’influence non négligeable », tels que les membres de la SS. Passé par deux tribunaux de dénazification de Stuttgart avant de finir sa course devant un tribunal d’appel, le Kriminalkommissar Christian Wirth.

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Texte intégral

Accusation

  • 1 Kardoff, Ursula von, ‘Beamte der Teufel’, Stuttgarter Zeitung, 10 August 1946, 2.

1NUREMBERG, 7-8 August 1946. Ursula von Kardoff, a long-time anti-Nazi journalist, who attended the trial of the Major German War Crimi­nals in Nuremberg as correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, heard the testimony of a witness summoned in defence of the SS, an obese, balding man who peered at the court through round glasses, described by von Kardoff as ‘an orangutan-like figure’.1 The witness, SS-Sturm­bannführer Konrad Georg Morgen, an SS judge, related to the tribunal a tale that seemed surreal, a tale about death camps in eastern Poland where Jews participated in the slaughter of their fellow Jews, a Jewish wedding attended by a thousand guests including SS-men, and aircraft hangers on an abandoned airfield that contained vast heaps of Jewish clothing and belongings, and untold amounts of gold, valuables and cash. Morgen told the Tribunal that in return for their cooperation, the Jews were permitted to pilfer a certain amount of the Jewish loot plundered from the dead, and were led to believe they would be allowed to live after completion of their macabre work. It was in this connection that the Jewish wedding had been permitted to take place. Morgen named as commander of this surreal world a Kriminalkommissar from Stuttgart called Christian Wirth.

2Morgen testified to the International Tribunal about what he had discovered about this police officer from Stuttgart:

  • 2 IMT Nuremberg, op. cit., 383-385.

(He) was a Kriminalkommissar who investigated major crimes, particularly murder. He had quite a reputation for following-up clues […] When Wirth took over the extermination of the Jews, he was already a specialist in the destruction of human beings. He had previously carried out the task of getting rid of the incurably insane. By order of the Führer himself, whose order was transmitted through the Führer’s Chancellery, he had, at the beginning of the war, set up a unit for this purpose, probably composed of a few of his officers. He had been given only a half-empty institution in Brandenburg. In Brandenburg he had carried out his first experiments and had first arrived at the later system after much thought and individual experiments. This system was then made use of in the mental institutions […] This system, […] with which he could kill large numbers of people with very few people; this system, with a few changes and improvements, Wirth had used in the extermination camps.2

  • 3 On 10 January 1940, Wirth arrived at the abandoned prison in Brandenburg, 70 kilometers west of Ber (...)

3Wirth, a boastful man, had grossly exaggerated to Morgen his importance and personal involvement in the gassing experiments and evolution of the extermination process for the killing of the mentally ill and later extermination of the Jews.3

4SS-Sturmbannführer Morgen, the ‘Bloodhound Judge’, pursued Wirth from Poland to Trieste in northern Italy where Wirth had been transferred in September 1943, right up until his death on 26 May 1944 when the car in which he was travelling was ambushed between the villages of Krvavy Potock and Kozina, about 20 kilo­meters southeast of Trieste, by partisans of the ‘Istrska Odred’ (‘Istrian Division’). Despite Morgen’s intensive investigations into Wirth’s activities that lasted almost a year, he was never able to prove anything against him. If nothing else, throughout his life Christian Wirth had been a dedicated and professional policeman; theft – even from the Jews – was a criminal offence.

5In Nuremberg on 8 August 1945, at the end of Morgen’s testimony about Wirth, he again emphasized the fact – of prime importance to Horst Pelckmann, defence counsel for the SS which had been declared a criminal organization by the Nuremberg Tribunal – that Wirth was not a member of the SS but a police officer, a Kriminalkommissar from Stuttgart.

6Two days later, Ursula von Kardoff’s article on the Nuremberg court hearing and Morgen’s testimony was published under the title ‘Officer of the Devil’ (Beamte der Teufel) in the Stuttgarter Zeitung, in which she latched onto the fact that the Kriminalkommissar Christian Wirth named at Nuremberg had been accused of carrying out medical experiments on German citizens at Brandenburg. There was scant mention of his activities in the surreal world of death camps in Poland.

Investigation and verdict

7As a consequence of this and other press reports, the public prosecutor in Stuttgart began an investigation to determine whether the Kriminalkommissar Wirth named in evidence at Nuremberg and implicated in alleged medical experiments was the same Wirth who in prewar years had been head of Kommisariat 5, which included the murder squad, at the Büchsenstrasse headquarters of the Stuttgart Kriminalpolizei. If so, then he was suspected of being either a major war criminal who had ‘committed inhuman personal acts’, a war criminal, or an active militant or profiteer who had ‘gained considerable material advantages through political connections with the Nazi Party’. This meant that Wirth’s entire background, career and politics during the Nazi period, as well as the past and present circumstances of his wife and two sons, aged thirty-five and twenty-four in 1946, would have to be scrutinized. Denazifacation Tribunal 10 was convened at Waldstrasse 8 in Wirth’s home locality of Stuttgart-Degerloch, consisting of a chairman and two associates, all of whom were trained jurists and were familiar with the local conditions The venue was selected because it was the neighbourhood in which the accused had last resided and in which he owned property. The tribunal chairman had considerable powers and could issue temporary orders, including the confiscation of property and freezing of financial assets, which was the only penalty possible in the case of Wirth as he had been dead for over two years.

8From 1 April 1946, the US military authorities in their Zone of Occupation, which included Stuttgart, had handed over the denazification tribunals to the Germans but under American supervision, in the mistaken belief that they would speed up the process of investigating the more than 900,000 suspects awaiting judgement. The result was the opposite. The tribunals began instead to deal with the least important cases while ignoring obviously serious cases, and falsified their reports to the Americans about the number of cases dealt with and the verdicts handed out. The case against the deceased Kriminalkommisar Wirth, ostensibly believed to be either a major war criminal or war criminal, was dealt with in a leisurely fashion and was to be drawn out over the next three years.

9On 6 November 1946, Denazification Tribunal 10 issued an Interim Order (Einstweillige Anordnung) for the freezing of Wirth’s estate and current bank account (No. 10773) at the Stadtbank in Stuttgart which amounted to 70,436 Marks, until a final legal decision could be made to determine in which category Wirth should be placed. This interim decision was made ‘as the grounds for suspicion against Kriminalkommissar Christian Wirth are sufficiently well founded’.

10On 5 June 1947, almost seven months after the issue of the interim verdict, Denazification Tribunal 10 received an official communiqué from the Stuttgart Police Presidium concerning Wirth’s prewar police service:

  • 4 Statsarchiv Ludwigsburg, 37/40167 – B 9631/48, Zentral-Berufungskammer VII, Nord-Württemberg, Ludwi (...)

Wirth was known in the police as the worst Nazi. He made collections for the Party using all means and is therefore responsible for many police officers who had no political affiliation joining the Nazi Party. His canvassing activities for the Party were intensive. He was not particular about what methods he used and flinched at nothing. Violence and threats were used to achieve his aims. He was the representative of the Party in the police. Also in his police duties he demonstrated that he was a bruiser and a brute. Nothing is known about the other Party offices and organizations with which Wirth dealt, but it is definite that he had other important offices. His reputation in the police was conceivably the worst. He was generally known as ‘characterless’. In 1943 or 1944 he went on foreign duty to Poland and found there his end. As is known here, he was shot in Poland.4

11This inaccurate and damning ‘official statement’ was to form part of the basis for the case against Wirth in the main denazification hearings.

12Six months later, on 21 November 1947, the tribunal requested from the Württemberg Ministry of the Interior in Stuttgart the prewar police file of Kriminalkommissar Christian Wirth. The information it contained was greatly at variance with the information issued in the police communiqué and referred to him in glowing terms. He was described as:

Impeccable and correct, ebullient, hard and intelligent, with outstanding willpower and personal toughness; very good and quick faculties, extreme reliability, exemplary and stimulating devotion to duty, mental and physical agility, energy and perseverance. No special deficiencies or weaknesses. He is an officer with outstanding capabilities on duty, in discipline and administration, and especially outstanding capabilities as a criminologist. An energetic, trustworthy officer with an extensive general background who has performed his duties with unflagging purpose of mind, who has a reputation for solving the most difficult cases which had defeated other officers. His exemplary devotion to duty is stimulating, his service achievements exemplary and worthy of imitation.

  • 5 Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, E 151/21: Personal police file of Christian Wirth.

His appearance both on and off duty is sober and soldierly. His behaviour is good, proper and appropriate with a spiritual freshness that is very brisk. Nationalistic, philosophical about life and politically conforms as a National Socialist officer with a clean, decent character and aggressive bearing. From this there projects a professional quality that is worthy of imitation.5

13Under no circumstances could such a file be construed as belonging to a police officer now regarded by his former employers as ‘characterless and with the worst reputation’, and consequently disowned by a department which was once proud to have had him on the force. The file was returned to the Interior Ministry on 10 January 1948.

14By the time the investigation into Wirth’s past began in the early autumn of 1948, the majority of cases before the denazification tribunals were summary proceedings, carried out in an increasingly lukewarm and lenient way, based on perfunctory investigations that inevitably resulted in questionable verdicts. Such was the case against Wirth before Denazification Tribunal 10 in Stuttgart-Degerloch, which had to prove or disprove the following charges, that Wirth:

  1. through his zealous activities on behalf of the Nazi Party had pressurized fellow officers in the police force, as well as private citizens, to join the Party against their will, and in doing so had used violent and illegal means;

  2. through his activity on behalf of the Party he had subsequently profited by being preferentially selected for promotion and special duty, as well as profiting financially;

  3. that his heirs today – through his thriftiness – have inherited his ill-gotten gains;

  4. that while a member of criminal organizations, namely the SS and SD, he had carried out illegal medical experiments on human beings.

  • 6 StA Ludwigsburg, op. cit.

15Through these activities he should be arraigned under Category I – as a major war criminal.6

16Under Item 3, it had been estimated that Wirth’s assets, which included three properties in Stuttgart, amounted to over 123,000 Marks of which 17,186 Marks were deposited in a Stuttgart bank account. It was surmised that some of these assets were ‘ill-gotten gains’.

17In an effort to speed up the judicial proceedings, the denazification tribunals accepted statements by witnesses regarding the political involvement and attitude of the accused to Nazism. Consequently, during the first week of September 1948, four witnesses who had known Wirth personally before the war, both within and outside the police, provided written opinions about Wirth. The first two were Frau Else Kippenberger, a non-Party member who had been a tenant in Wirth’s house at Kauzenhecke 22 since before the war, and Frau Lina Bock, also a non-Party member, and Wirth’s former neighbour at Kauzenhecke 20. They concurred that in the Degerloch neighbourhood Wirth was ‘hardly noticed, he lived a very secluded life with his wife and children who were very respectable. In his manner, Wirth had been vigorous, like a sergeant-major, but polite. No one ever heard anything about what he had done.’

  • 7 Ibid.

18The next witnesses, Franz Lung and Paul Scheffel, had served with Wirth before the war in the Stuttgart Kriminalpolizi. Lung was questioned in his home at Möhringstrasse 11 in Stuttgart. Their statements seemed to partly confirm the information in the June 1946 communuiqué by the Stuttgart Police Presidium. Both agreed that Wirth was an ‘Old Fighter’ (‘Alter Kämpfer’), ‘a violent man who was afraid of nothing, went over bodies and pressurized his colleagues through blackmail to join the Party. He never shrank from using the most shameful means.’ However, although Scheffel had refused to join the Party: ‘He did nothing to me personally; he knew very well my opposing standpoint.’ Nevertheless, Wirth continued to work with Lung because his value as an experienced police officer was far more important than his political beliefs. Lung and Scheffel both mentioned that in 1939 Wirth was the only officer from the Stuttgart Kriminalpolizei ordered to Vienna for a special task. His promotions, however, were completely normal. Neither Lung nor Scheffel knew anything about Wirth’s duty in Poland.7 These statements were added to File No. 37/40167 at Denazification Tribunal 10.

19On 25 October 1948, Wirth’s widow, Frau Maria Wirth, assigned Dr Ottmar Häfele a defence attorney with the law firm of Dr Helmuth Fischinger on Alexanderstrasse in Stuttgart to act on her behalf during the forthcoming denazification hearings ordered by Tribunal 10 in Stuttgart-Degerloch.

20At the beginning of November, six more witnesses provided written statements that would also be submitted in evidence in Wirth’s defence. Four of them had also served with Wirth in the prewar Stuttgart Kriminalpolizei. The first, Kriminalkommissar Hermann Schaaf, who was still a serving police officer, had worked with Wirth for almost 20 years. He was questioned at his home in Tübingen, a university town just over 40 kilometers southwest of Stuttgart. Schaaf stated about Wirth:

  • 8 Ibid.

He was a criminalist from head to toe, energetic and methodical. He was, moreover, unflinching in his fight against the criminal underworld and was the most hated man in criminal circles. His energy and enterprise are attributable to the fact that he wanted to keep the criminal underworld’s unending defiance in check. Ruthless to himself, he sacrificed innumerable nights and Sundays to lead the fight against the criminal underworld. Through this, he had the trust of the Stuttgart Kriminalpolizei, and not only in Württemberg and further afield, but also abroad (Switzerland). He was always in demand which earned him a considerable reputation […] He also insisted on scrupulous tidiness in the administration of the head office.8

21Schaaf made a point of stating that Wirth was always the same, regardless of whether he was taking action against criminals or against his own subordinates, and his disciplinary measures often incurred the wrath of members of the Kriminalpolizei. According to Schaaf, Wirth did not stand out politically until the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, but from then on he was a convinced Nazi and in his capacity as liaison between the Police Federation in Berlin and the Württemberg State Police he prevailed upon his subordinates to join the Party. He also transferred the Württemberg Police Association to the Nazi Comradeship Association of German Police Officers. Schaaf too was convinced that Wirth’s promotions were quite normal and that he never received any special privileges.

22The following day, 3 November, Frau Hedwig Roller, a secretary at the Stuttgart Police Presidium, was interviewed at here home in Stuttgart-Feuerbach. She had been employed by the Stuttgart Kriminalpolizei for 27 years through which she got to know Wirth and had briefly also been his secretary: ‘I worked for many years in the outer office of our chief, where Wirth often had to wait when the chief was busy. As Wirth was a department head he had to deal with the chief on a daily basis because he had to report each arrest and every special case.’ Frau Roller agreed with Schaaf that in his official capacity, Wirth was guided by his sense of duty and not by the appearance of the person when dealing with cases. He even reported SS and SA leaders to the State Prosecutor if he had evidence that they had committed criminal acts. Although employed in a position of trust, Frau Roller did not join the Nazi Party. She knew that Wirth had been killed in Italy in 1944 – she had informed Frau Wirth of her husband’s death.

23Next day, Kriminal Obersekretär Georg Ziegler, Nazi Party member since 1933 and Wirth’s prewar deputy in the Stuttgart Kriminalpolizei, was questioned in his home in Stuttgart. He stated that Wirth was not only a soldier from head-to-toe for whom every wish of his superiors was his command, he also unselfishly and energetically stood up for the welfare and grievances of his subordinates and comrades. In the fight against the criminal underworld, Wirth ‘through his cunning and skill had achieved the biggest results and in doing so took the Stuttgart Kriminalpolizei far across the State border.’ About Wirth’s politics, Ziegler testified:

  • 9 Ibid.

Probably through his inherent soldier’s nature he joined the Nazi Party and the SA very early on […] After the seizure of power he canvassed among the police officers to join the Party […] and told them that membership of the Party from top to bottom was desirable and required because the Party was now the State and the State the Party. Whoever did not join the Party had to bear the consequences […] he no longer bothered with the few officers who did not join.9

24Ziegler stated, however, that he knew nothing about Wirth intimidating anyone to join the Nazi Party. Ziegler elaborated on remarks by Hermann Schaaf and Frau Hedwig Roller, that Wirth did not allow personal or Party considerations to influence him:

  • 10 Ibid.

After the seizure of power this often brought him into conflict with SS, SA and local Party leaders. The SS and SA men were arrested for causing grievous bodily harm to members of the public, damage to public property, and unlawful detention. I accompanied Wirth to several such incidents and on each occasion he instructed us to use our weapons if we met with armed resistance.10

25In conclusion, Ziegler stated that he could confirm under oath that in each case Wirth had acted ‘fully and completely for law and justice’.

26On 4 November 1948, Wirth’s next-door neighbour, Dr Otto Hohenstatt, stated that although he had not known Wirth very well, he had never known him to disseminate Nazi propaganda; he also knew him to be against injustice. Prior to 1933, Dr Hohenstatt had been the editor of a Social Democrat newspaper which criticized the Nazis. Inevitably he lost his job. When Wirth heard about this, according to Dr Hohenstatt, ‘he was unprejudiced enough to take the trouble to seriously look for a new job for me, but without success.’ Dr Hohenstatt was especially bitter about the fact that after being victimised by the Nazis and losing his job he had no alternative but to join the Party. For this, he and his wife had been recently penalized by a Denazification Tribunal although they had been exonerated upon appeal. Dr Hohenstatt maintained that other witnesses should be found to confirm his personal view of Wirth’s political impartiality.

27The next day, Kriminalpolizei Sekretär Helmuth Pfeiffer, not a Party member and long-standing tenant in Wirth’s house on Kauzenhecke, provided the tribunal with a hand-written note: ‘The undersigned has lived since 1935 in the house of the deceased Herr Christian Wirth, Kauzenhecke 22. Herr Wirth appeared to me to be always impeccable. Any kind of propaganda for the Nazi Party was not stated by Herr Wirth.’ That was all. A surprisingly uninformative statement from a police colleague who had lived under the same roof as Wirth for four years.

28On 5 November, in the small market town of Korb-bei-Waiblingen, where Wirth’s eldest son Eugen lived with his wife Joanna, the investigators interviewed two friends of the Wirth family, Karl Ade, a non-Party member who had been Eugen Wirth’s business partner in the building trade since long before the war, and Friedrich Ellwangen, a Party member who had only recently been amnestied by a Denazification Tribunal. They willingly recounted their meetings in the town with Christian Wirth in the early 1930s when he had been a regular weekend visitor and had helped Ade build a new house for Eugen Wirth and his wife. Ade in particular recalled Wirth’s extraordinary thriftiness when on his visits to Korb: ‘He often brought his afternoon tea with him to save money, which I as a young man […] could not understand.’ Neither Ade nor Ellwangen could recall ever having discussed politics with Wirth, although they knew he must have held a high Party rank. They knew nothing about his wartime past and could only state the best about him. The point about Wirth’s thriftiness was to be emphasized later by defence counsel Häfele.

  • 11 The Rotebühl Barracks had accommodated 1. Württemberg Grenadier Regiment 119 (‘Königen Olga’), 7. W (...)

29On 15 November 1948, more than two years after the initial allegation against Christian Wirth, the main hearing began before Denazification Tribunal 15 in the former Rotebühl barracks on Rotebühl Platz in Stuttgart which before the war, with the exception of Potsdam, had been the biggest army barracks in Germany accommodating 3,000 troops.11 In was the task of the three-man tribunal to assess the original charges against Wirth in the light of evidence provided in the written statements by the witnesses and the written case for the defence, already presented on 8 November by Frau Wirth’s defence counsel, Dr Ottmar Häfele.

30Defence attorney Häfele opened his case by stating that his client could not be charged with membership of a criminal organization, the SS, because he had never been a member of either the Allgemeine or the Waffen‑SS.

  • 12 Ibid.

On the contrary, at the beginning of the war he was commandeered as a police officer to special duty and while with this unit he was taken over by the SD. He was also commandeered to an Einsatzkommando of the SD which was engaged in anti-partisan duty in Italy in 1944 during which he wore only police uniform. From 1933 until the outbreak of war he was also active and fully occupied in the civilian sector of the Kriminalpolizei, namely, he was a member of the murder squad and made an excellent name for himself. He was never employed in a political department.12

  • 13 The amnesty law stated that all Germans born after 1 January 1919 were supposedly ‘too young to hav (...)

31Häfele also stressed Wirth’s outstanding character and qualities as a police officer and criminologist who appeared only rarely in public in SA uniform, had never disseminated Nazi propaganda among his circle of private friends, nor canvassed any of them to join the Nazi Party. Indeed, he had seldom discussed politics and many of friends and acquaintances had not known about his Party membership. Dr Häfele stated that Wirth could not have been a fanatical Nazi as now alleged because it was significant that neither Frau Maria Wirth nor their son Eugen had been a member of any Nazi organization. Only the younger son Kurt had been in the Jungvolk (the junior version of the Hitler Youth) and later conscripted into the Waffen-SS. He had been amnestied under the youth amnesty declared by the US Military Government in August 1946.13 Häfele argued that if Wirth had been such a big Nazi who had pressurized everyone into joining the Party, then it would be incomprehensible for his nearest relatives not to belong to any Nazi organization. It must therefore be concluded that Wirth could not have been a fanatical Nazi.

Christian Wirth in civilian clothes

Christian Wirth in civilian clothes

© Bundesarchiv

32Dr Häfele next submitted in evidence the statements by Wirth’s former police comrades which refuted the claim that Wirth ‘through employing unpleasant methods had forced police officers to join the Nazi Party.’ He pointed out that those officers who had declined to join had not been penalized in any way by Wirth.

33To the original allegation made at Nuremberg that Wirth had carried out medical experiments on German citizens in Brandenburg and his ‘special duty’ in death camps in Poland, as reported in the newspapers, Häfele commented, quite truthfully at the time:

  • 14 StA Ludwigsburg, op. cit. The Neugereut Strasse property was completely destroyed in 1943 and today (...)

What special duties Wirth had other than the short commandeering to Vienna, is not known to the heirs. Nothing is apparent from the documentation as to what duties Wirth had there […] Even less so may it be said that Wirth was charged with such a duty – to kill racially unacceptable people. There is no basis for this, much less any proof presented. It is similarly so with the naming of Wirth at the Nuremberg Trial. I know especially about this, that in spite of its endeavours, the Tribunal was unable to learn any further details. Such extensive and far-reaching allegations should not be based on general remarks and journalistic reports.14

34With this remark, Christian Wirth’s major role in the extermination of the Jews in the Aktion Reinhardt death camps in Poland was dismissed from the case and not mentioned again.

35Häfle concluded his defence by stating that if the tribunal arraigned Wirth as a major war criminal, for which the penalty would be the seizure of his entire estate, such an order would be disastrous for the heirs: Frau Wirth would be left entirely without means and would have to fall back on public welfare. Häfele therefore earnestly requested that the following facts should be taken into consideration:

  • 15 Ibid.

Wirth was an extremely thrifty man and through this came by his assets. Already long before the Nazi time he was the owner of a house at Neugereut Strasse 13, which he sold in 1926 in order to purchase another house, although this house was bought at the time with his wife’s means. After World War I, Frau Wirth possessed about 10,000 Marks which she placed at he husband’s disposal to buy the house. In addition, Wirth’s wife had acquired in 1932 about (illegible in the original text, but a five-figure sum) Marks through an inheritance which she also placed at her husband’s disposal. In this respect, Wirth’s wife also has the right to reimbursement from her husband’s means as the estate was acquired through the wife.15

36Häfele argued that the regrettable state of reducing Frau Wirth to poverty could only be avoided if she retained the larger part of the estate which she had shared with he husband. It should also be taken into consideration that Wirth’s youngest son, Kurt, was in vocational training. In view of this critical financial situation, Häfele requested that Wirth be arraigned in Category II – war criminal, and that only a small part of his estate should be confiscated.

  • 16 Ibid.

37The president of the Denazifaction Tribunal and his two assistants listed such flimsy reasons for incriminating Wirth as membership of the Nazi Party, holder of the Gold Party Badge, and that as a Kriminalkommissar he had been assigned to the SD for special tasks which, however, the Tribunal could not specify. Regarding the original newspaper reports that Wirth had been named among the guilty at Nuremberg, the tribunal ‘did not judge in favour of Wirth.’ His membership of the SD was regarded as ‘incriminating’ and his secondment for special duty in Vienna ‘in the view of the Tribunal is attributable to the trust placed in the deceased Wirth by the leading Nazi authorities.’ Denazification Tribunal 15 therefore arrived at the conclusion that Wirth must be considered ‘guilty as charged’ – as a major war criminal. However, as requested by defence counsel Häfele, Wirth would be arraigned in a lesser category, Category II – war criminal. Consequently, the Tribunal ordered the confiscation of Wirth’s estate, less the debts and charges incurred, and ruled that Frau Wirth’s assets were not a part of Wirth’s estate; therefore, provision was made for a maintenance allowance for Frau Wirth and a back-dated allowance for Wirth’s two sons. The costs of the hearing were set at 9,170 Marks and ordered to be paid by the State of Württemberg.16

38Frau Wirth had one month in which to appeal in writing the verdict of Denazification Tribunal 15, requesting a new verdict on the grounds that her husband had been placed in the wrong category, that the seizure of assets was unjustified, and alleging a miscarriage of justice due to the misrepresentation of facts during the hearing. The Appeal Tribunal was empowered to modify the original verdict, affirm the decision made, or remand the case for retrial with Denazification Tribunal 15 or another tribunal.

39On 8 December 1948, Frau Wirth’s defence attorney lodged a written appeal with Central Denazification Tribunal VII based in Ludwigsburg, an old garrison town about fifteen kilometers north of Stuttgart, in which he questioned the legality of the hearing and the verdict by Denazification Tribunal 15 which had been based on the most flimsy evidence, none of which condemned Wirth. Häfele also stressed the inaccuracy of the 1947 communiqué issued by the Office of the Police President of Stuttgart, ‘a document that should be treated with great caution because this office could neither state correctly the time nor place of Wirth’s death.’ Denazification Tribunal 15, according to the defence, had not legally justified the expropriation order on Wirth’s estate, therefore, Häfele pleaded:

  • 17 Ibid.

It is completely out of order that the confiscation of the assets of the incriminated should be spoken of as a means of expiation. This would result in there being no distinction between the incriminated and a major war criminal. According to the statutes, only a part of the assets of the incriminated may be confiscated, therefore, technically in law the seizure of the entire estate was not only entirely unjustified, but actually illegal. The complete confiscation of assets […] is a punishment on the whole family, which is an impossible state of affairs to a democratic way of thinking, for those who suffer most in the first instance are the widow and children [...] the heirs would lose everything and they would have to answer for something about which, with the best of wills, they knew nothing.17

  • 18 Ibid.

40Dr Häfele explained the financial arrangements between Wirth and his wife which had enabled Wirth to deal in property, all the assets therefore should not have been seized by the tribunal as they were jointly owned. Denazification Tribunal 15 had once again acted illegally. Häfele also deplored the fact that Frau Wirth received no pension, in spite of her late husband’s twenty-four years dedicated service in the State police as an impeccable and experienced officer. He therefore recommended a confiscation of 20% of Wirth’s assets.18

41The appeal was accepted by the Ludwigsburg Central Tribunal on the grounds that ‘the provenance of the deeds had not been essentially determined in law, and the deeds determined had not vindicated the decision’. A further hearing would be held to determine the facts of the case. Dr Häfele submitted a list of witnesses he requested be summoned to testify on behalf of the deceased Christian Wirth. But no such hearing was to be held for almost a year.

Appeal and final verdict

  • 19 From 1945 the barracks were used as an Internment Camp for over 2,000 German civilians awaiting den (...)

42Frau Wirth’s appeal hearing was finally held between 1-19 November 1949 before Central Denazification Tribunal VII, consisting of a chairman and four members, sitting in the former Frommann barracks in Ludwigsburg. Before the war, the big three storey building on the western outskirts of the town had housed Infantry Regiment 13 of the German Army.19 However, by this time, more than three years after the first accusation had been leveled against Kriminalkommissar Christian Wirth, the Appeal Tribunals were content mostly to hear only the evidence produced by the appellants and their witnesses, usually submitted as affidavits attesting to the good character of the accused. If guilt was proved, the tribunal then only had to decide on the degree of guilt.

43Seven witnesses were called, including Wirth’s widow and her two sons, and the tribunal, in addition to hearing verbal testimony of the witnesses, read eleven written depositions and examined Wirth’s prewar tax returns. The family house at Kauzenhecke 22, damaged during a British air raid in 1944, was valued at 39,000 Marks, and a second property on Gebelsberger Strasse, also damaged by Allied bombing, had been devalued from 19,000 Marks to 12,000 Marks.

44The witness Kriminal Obersekretär Georg Ziegler, Wirth’s former deputy before the war, stated about his superior officer: ‘He absolutely never discussed service matters. I know that he was in Poland but what kind of job he had there I do not know and he declined to answer questions about his work.’ When asked about the detrimental comments made about Wirth by fellow police officer Franz Lung, Ziegler replied that Lung had come to Stuttgart from another town, thereby implying that this officer was not one of the close circle of detectives around Wirth. Ziegler also mentioned disparagingly that Lung was ‘very religious’. He added: ‘It is not true that Wirth “went over bodies” when he wanted to achieve his aim. He never forced anyone to join the Party. After 1933, many actually wanted to join the Party; many even believed they had left it too late and they couldn’t get in fast enough’. Kriminal Obersekretär Paul Frech, who had known Wirth the longest, since 1911, also categorically denied that Wirth ‘went over bodies’, a statement reinforced by the testimony of Krimninal Sekretär Albert Mühleisen who insisted that it was not Wirth who had forced officers to join the Nazis, but their superior at the Kriminalpolizei headquarters. The Appeal Tribunal next called to the witness stand those who had known Wirth privately. All spoke in Wirth’s favour, especially Dr Hohenstatt, who stated, ‘I only saw human traits in him, always.’

45In his final summing-up, Dr Häfele recommended that Wirth should be arraigned in Category III – incriminated, but as he was no longer alive the expropriation order previously imposed should be reduced to 10% of the estate, a figure with which Frau Wirth agreed.

46Central Denazification Tribunal VII announced its verdict on 19 November 1949. It rejected the 1947 police communiqué as evidence and agreed with defence attorney Häfele that the verdict of Denazification Tribunal 15 had been erroneously arrived at and was a grave error of judgement. In the opinion of the Appeal Tribunal, on the evidence submitted, Christian Wirth could only be formally charged with membership of the Nazi Party from 1933-44, membership of the SA from 1933-39, membership of the SD from 1939-44, and holder of the Service Merit Decoration (Verdienstauszeichen) in Silver. Wirth could not be charged with membership of a criminal organization, the SS, as he had only received SS rank by way of equal rank in the police. Regarding Wirth’s special prewar and wartime duties, the Tribunal ruled that:

  • 20 StA Ludwigsburg, op. cit.

Nothing could be definitely established, and the determination that Wirth had been named at the Nuremberg Trial was evidently based on unconfirmed rumour; not the slightest thing could be established in this direction. The facts presented in the original verdict in circumstances disadvantageous to Wirth are, at the very least, incorrect, because at best they are suppositions and not based on a single fact.20

47Consequently, the Appeal Tribunal in Ludwigsburg overturned the original verdict of Denazification Tribunal 15 in Stuttgart and arraigned Wirth under ­Category III – incriminated, but added ‘not guilty as charged’. The investigation had lasted over three years. Once again, the costs of the hearing were paid by the State of Württemberg.

48No other verdict was legally possible at that time; the only evidence presented to the tribunal were the character references provided by the witnesses for the defence, none of whom knew anything about Wirth’s career and activities after 1939. It was not until the start of the Aktion Reinhardt death camp trials in 1963 that the extent of Wirth’s crimes became publicly known and extensively published in detail almost daily in the West German press, fourteen years after he had been officially declared ‘incriminated but not guilty as charged’.

The German cemetery of Costermano in Italy, where Christian Wirth was buried

The German cemetery of Costermano in Italy, where Christian Wirth was buried

From 1992 to 1993 a fierce public debate raged. Because of the protests, the names of the three SS officers (Christian Wirth, Franz Reichleitner and Gottfried Schwarz), who were proven to have committed war crimes, were taken out of the graveyard honorary book, and their names were erased from the tomb stones.

© www.findagrave.com

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Notes

1 Kardoff, Ursula von, ‘Beamte der Teufel’, Stuttgarter Zeitung, 10 August 1946, 2.

2 IMT Nuremberg, op. cit., 383-385.

3 On 10 January 1940, Wirth arrived at the abandoned prison in Brandenburg, 70 kilometers west of Berlin, and carried out the experimental gassing of a small group of psychiatric patients. Two days earlier, a full-scale test gassing had been witnessed by Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler, the head of Hitler’s private chancellery, Dr Karl Brandt, Hitler’s escorting physician, Drs Albert Widmann and August Becker, two chemists who had devised and tested the method of mass murder by bottled carbon monoxide gas, and a few doctors. The method of killing by poison gas was approved by Bouhler and Brandt.

4 Statsarchiv Ludwigsburg, 37/40167 – B 9631/48, Zentral-Berufungskammer VII, Nord-Württemberg, Ludwigsburg: Denazification Hearings Against Christian Wirth and his Heirs 1946-1949. Communiqué from the Stuttgart Police Presidium to Denazification Tribunal 10, Stuttgart-Degerloch, dated 3.6.1947. (Hereafter ‘StA Ludwigsburg’).

5 Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, E 151/21: Personal police file of Christian Wirth.

6 StA Ludwigsburg, op. cit.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 The Rotebühl Barracks had accommodated 1. Württemberg Grenadier Regiment 119 (‘Königen Olga’), 7. Württemberg Infantry Regiment (‘Kaiser Friedrich, King of Prussia’), and 2. Jäger (Rifle) Battalion. Today, the building houses the Stuttgart Chief Financial Directorate (Oberfinanzdirektorat) and city Finance Offices I and II.

12 Ibid.

13 The amnesty law stated that all Germans born after 1 January 1919 were supposedly ‘too young to have understood the full consequences of their actions, with the exception of those who had held played major roles in the Hitler Youth.’

14 StA Ludwigsburg, op. cit. The Neugereut Strasse property was completely destroyed in 1943 and today the street is a pedestrian precinct.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

19 From 1945 the barracks were used as an Internment Camp for over 2,000 German civilians awaiting denazification, as well as the guard battalion for the internment camp and several other camps in and around Ludwigsburg. The Central Appeal Tribunal occupied a hall on the ground floor.

20 StA Ludwigsburg, op. cit.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Christian Wirth in civilian clothes
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Titre The German cemetery of Costermano in Italy, where Christian Wirth was buried
Légende From 1992 to 1993 a fierce public debate raged. Because of the protests, the names of the three SS officers (Christian Wirth, Franz Reichleitner and Gottfried Schwarz), who were proven to have committed war crimes, were taken out of the graveyard honorary book, and their names were erased from the tomb stones.
Crédits © www.findagrave.com
URL http://journals.openedition.org/temoigner/docannexe/image/9906/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 835k
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Michael Tregenza, « ‘Incriminated but not guilty as charged’: The Denazification of Kriminalkommissar Christian Wirth Inspector of the Aktion Reinhardt death camps, 1946‑1949 »Témoigner. Entre histoire et mémoire, 132 | 2021, 81-93.

Référence électronique

Michael Tregenza, « ‘Incriminated but not guilty as charged’: The Denazification of Kriminalkommissar Christian Wirth Inspector of the Aktion Reinhardt death camps, 1946‑1949 »Témoigner. Entre histoire et mémoire [En ligne], 132 | 2021, mis en ligne le 26 janvier 2023, consulté le 15 juillet 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/temoigner/9906 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/temoigner.9906

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