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No Time for “Old Fighters”: Postwar West Germany and the Origins of the 1958 Ulm Einsatzkommando Trial

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

Patrick Tobin
Patrick Tobin
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Extract

In May 1955, the local Ulm newspapers reported on a curious lawsuit brought before the labor court. Earlier that year, authorities had forced the director of the nearby refugee camp to resign upon learning that he had been an SS officer under the Nazi regime. Now the former Nazi, Bernhard Fischer-Schweder, felt he had been unfairly victimized by the regional government and was suing to be reinstated to his post. Far from solving this perceived injustice, the lawsuit instead signaled the end of Fischer-Schweder's postwar rise from door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman to prominent director of a displaced persons camp. In the coming weeks, he lost his lawsuit and, more seriously, allegations regarding his Nazi past surfaced. Once authorities began to investigate, they uncovered a broader web of entanglement, and three years later the case culminated in Fischer-Schweder's conviction along with nine other defendants in one of the largest Nazi trials put before West German courts, the so-called Ulm Einsatzkommando trial of 1958. Although most scholarship has focused on the legacy of this trial, this article looks at the unusual origins and escalation of the case in order to draw attention to the trial's complex but overlooked relationship with postwar political and social attitudes toward the Nazi past.

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Articles
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Central European History , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , December 2011 , pp. 684 - 710
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Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 2011

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References

1 “Ein interessanter Arbeitsgerichtsprozeß,” Schwäbische Donau-Zeitung, May 26, 1955Google Scholar; “SS-Oberführer wieder ‘aufgetaucht,’” Ulmer Nachrichten, May 25, 1955Google Scholar.

2 The trial in Ulm prosecuted and convicted ten former members of Einsatzkommando Tilsit for mass executions during the summer months of 1941. This unit was created immediately upon the outbreak of war with the Soviet Union and was based out of Tilsit, though organized under Einsatzgruppe A. For more on the unit and its crimes, see Kwiet, Konrad, “Rehearsing for Murder: The Beginning of the Final Solution in Lithuania in June 1941,” Holocaust Genocide Studies 12, no. 1 (1998): 3–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Matthäus, Jürgen, “Jenseits der Grenze,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 44, no. 2 (1996): 101–117Google Scholar.

3 By exploring the trial's prehistory through the biography of Fischer-Schweder, the article draws on the increasing influence of biography and collective biography in perpetrator studies. Most recently, Hilary Earl has examined the cohort of defendants in the Nuremberg Einsatzgruppen trial. See Earl, Hilary, The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgruppen Trial, 1945–1958: Atrocity, Law, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)Google Scholar. While her work and that of others rely on trial data to explain wartime motivation, this article uses the trials as a means of understanding postwar perpetrator behavior. In this regard, I draw on recent scholarship on postwar perpetrators done by Bernhard Brunner and Jürgen Matthäus. See Brunner, Bernhard, Der Frankreich-Komplex. Die nationalsozialistischen Verbrechen in Frankreich und die Justiz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2004), 149–180Google Scholar; Matthäus, Jürgen, “‘No Ordinary Criminal’: Georg Heuser, Other Mass Murderers, and West German Justice,” in Atrocities on Trial: Historical Perspectives on the Politics of Prosecuting War Crimes, ed. Heberer, Patricia and Matthäus, Jürgen (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2008), 187–210Google Scholar.

4 Herf, Jeffrey, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 7Google Scholar.

5 Frei, Norbert, Vergangenheitspolitik. Die Anfänge der Bundesrepublik und die NS-Vergangenheit (Munich: Beck, 1996)Google Scholar.

6 My interpretation of the victimization narrative relies particularly on the work of Robert Moeller. See Moeller, Robert G., War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

7 In certain respects, this argument relates to Herf's thesis of “multiple restorations” in postwar West Germany and pursues it from the perspective of Fischer-Schweder, an individual that society would both try to restore and ultimately leave behind. See Herf, Divided Memory.

8 This focus on the legal parameters of the trial conforms to a scholarly trend that Devin Pendas has termed the “juridical politics of the past,” which has examined Nazi trials to draw attention to “their social location at the intersection of law and politics.” See Pendas, Devin, “Seeking Justice, Finding Law: Nazi Trials in Postwar Europe,” The Journal of Modern History 81, no. 2 (June 2009): 352–354CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 According to Kathleen Nawyn, Ulm had a “reputation as a postwar stronghold of Nazism.” See Kathleen J. Nawyn, “Striking at the Roots of German Militarism: Efforts to Demilitarize German Society and Culture in American-Occupied Württemberg-Baden, 1945–1949” (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008), 131–135.

10 According to data assembled by Andreas Eichmüller and the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, in the decade from 1945–1958 fewer than half of all investigations initiated resulted in convictions of the accused. See Eichmüller, Andreas, “Die Strafverfolgung von NS-Verbrechen durch westdeutsche Justizbehörden seit 1945. Eine Zahlenbilanz,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 56, no. 4 (2008): 621–640Google Scholar.

11 The Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklärungen national-sozialistischer Gewaltverbrechen (Central Office of the State Justice Ministries for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes of Violence).

12 The initial scholarly explanation for the Zentrale Stelle came from Adalbert Rückerl, who was the second president of the agency and argued that the organization emerged in the wake of a public outcry with regard to the Ulm trial over the incomplete judicial process of coming to terms with the past. See Rückerl, Adalbert, Die Strafverfolgung von NS-Verbrechen 1945–1978. Eine Dokumentation (Heidelberg: C. F. Müller, 1979Google Scholar). While there is still general agreement that the Ulm trial provided a momentary impulse behind the creation of the Zentrale Stelle, current scholarship emphasizes that the agency emerged not from massive public support, but rather from political anxieties over possible international and domestic frustrations with the weak West German response to former Nazis. See Fröhlich, Claudia, “Die Gründung der ‘Zentralen Stelle’ in Ludwigsburg—Alibi oder Beginn einer systematischen justitiellen Aufarbeitung der NS-Vergangenheit?,” in Justiz und Nationalsozialismus—Kontinuität und Diskontinuität, ed. Pauli, Gerhard and Vormbaum, Thomas (Berlin: Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2001), 213–250Google Scholar; Greve, Michael, Der justitielle und rechtspolitische Umgang mit den NS-Gewaltverbrechen in den sechziger Jahren (Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Hochschulschriften, 2001)Google Scholar; Miquel, Marc von, Ahnden oder amnestieren? Westdeutsche Justiz und Vergangenheitspolitik in den sechziger Jahren (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2004)Google Scholar; Weinke, Annette, Eine Gesellschaft ermittelt gegen sich selbst. Die Geschichte der Zentralen Stelle Ludwigsburg 1958–2008, 1st ed. (Darmstadt: WGB [Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft], 2008Google Scholar).

13 Currently the best available information on the prehistory of the trial comes from Marc von Miquel. While he explores the origins through the Fischer-Schweder case, he emphasizes the bizarre and chance encounters that led to the arrest, a point of view that has been echoed in many subsequent works. See von Miquel, Ahnden, 150–162.

14 Norbert Frei has delineated three eras of judicial coming to terms with the past—Allied prosecutions, amnesty and reintegration years, and the wave of 1960s prosecutions—and argued that the shift between the last two can be interpreted as an ethical and legal correction to the inadequacies of the integration politics. This article embraces this concept to argue that the origins of the trial were not simply coincidences, but rather an expression of this frustration with the incomplete judicial process of dealing with Nazi crimes. See Frei, Norbert, “Nach der Tat. Die Ahndung deutscher Kriegs- und NS-Verbrechen in Europa—eine Bilanz,” in Transnationale Vergangenheitspolitik. Der Umgang mit deutschen Kriegsverbrechern in Europa nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, ed. Frei, Norbert (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2006), 7–36Google Scholar.

15 Annette Weinke, for example, has put forward the thesis that Cold-War tensions and in particular East German propaganda spurred the Federal Republic into action to avoid appearing weak on fascism. Much of this effort, in her formulation, came on the part of the state ministries, notably through the foundation of the Zentrale Stelle. See Weinke, Annette, Die Verfolgung von NS-Tätern im geteilten Deutschland. Vergangenheitsbewältigung 1949–1969, oder: eine deutsch-deutsche Beziehungsgeschichte im Kalten Krieg (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2002)Google Scholar.

16 Statement by Charlotte Fischer, October 23, 1954, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg; Personalbogen, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

17 Heineman, Elizabeth, “The Hour of the Woman: Memories of Germany's ‘Crisis Years’ and West German National Identity,” The American Historical Review 101, no. 2 (April 1996): 354–395CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Memel is present-day Klaipėda, Lithuania. Historically a Prussian city, Memel and the surrounding region were awarded to Lithuania following World War I. Under an ultimatum by Hitler, Lithuania ceded the region to Germany in 1939. See Weinberg, Gerhard L., A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 14, 31–32Google Scholar.

19 Amtsärztliches Zeugnis, February 1, 1954, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

20 On the aims and problems of denazification, see Jarausch, Konrad H., After Hitler: Recivilizing Germans, 1945–1995, trans. Hunziker, Brandon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 48–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Of the other defendants at the Ulm trial, fully one-third of them, including Fischer-Schweder, pursued similar ruses to avoided denazification. For another example of how former SS officers attempted to deal with postwar denazification and prosecution efforts, see Brunner, Der Frankreich-Komplex.

22 Spruchkammer Bad Neustadt to Bernd Fischer, April 9, 1947, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

23 Firma Gerhard A. Koch, Zeugnis, undated, Record Group EL20/1, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

24 Egon Panther, Zeugnis, December 10, 1953, Record Group EL20/1, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

25 Kriminalpolizei Schweinfurt to Landespolizeidirektion Nordwürttemberg-Kriminalhauptstelle, October 1, 1954, Record Group EL48/2, Büschel 3125, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg; Statement by Bernhard Fischer-Schweder, May 2, 1955, Record Group EL 322 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

26 Personalbogen, November 30, 1953, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg; and Melde- und Personalbogen I, December 1, 1953, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

27 On Article 131, see Frei, Norbert, Adenauer's Germany: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration, trans. Golb, Joel (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 41–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Garner, Curt, “Public Service Personnel in West Germany in the 1950s: Controversial Policy Decisions and their Effects on Social Composition, Gender Structure, and the Role of Former Nazis,” in West Germany under Construction, ed. Moeller, Robert G. (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 135–195Google Scholar.

28 Garner, “Public Service Personnel,” 159.

29 New investigations of Nazi crimes sharply abated after the foundation of the West German state in 1949 and continued to decline through the mid-1950s. See Eichmüller, “Die Strafverfolgung,” 626.

30 Brunner has concluded that postwar West Germany in fact offered “extraordinarily good living conditions” for former Nazis. See Brunner, Der Frankreich-Komplex, 180–183.

31 “Der Leser hat das Wort. Nichts zu verschleiern,” Ulmer Nachrichten, May 26, 1955Google Scholar.

32 Personalbogen, November 30, 1953, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

33 Melde- und Personalbogen I, December 1, 1953, Record Group EL 20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

34 Ibid.

35 Statement by Bernd Fischer, December 12, 1953, Record Group EL28/2, Büschel 3125, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

36 Biess, Frank, Homecomings: Returning POWs and the Legacies of Defeat in Postwar Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 6–8, 47–50, 204Google Scholar.

37 Regierungspräsidium Nordwürttemberg to the Ministerium für Vertriebene, Flüchtlinge und Kriegsgeschädigte, December 10, 1953, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

38 Ibid.

39 “Frischer Wind auf der Wilhelmsburg,” Schwäbische Donau-Zeitung, May 21, 1954Google Scholar.

40 “40 Flüchtlinge im Lager erkrankt,” Schwäbische Donau-Zeitung, February 9, 1954Google Scholar.

41 Regierungspräsidium Nordwürttemberg to Abteilung I—Kanzleidirektion, January 30, 1954, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

42 “Frischer Wind auf der Wilhelmsburg,” Schwäbische Donau-Zeitung, May 21, 1954Google Scholar.

43 Bernhard Fischer-Schweder to Regierungspräsidium Nordwürttemburg, June 1, 1954, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

44 “‘Burgtheater’ wird am Samstag eröffnet,” Schwäbische Donau-Zeitung, June 25, 1954Google Scholar.

45 Report by Pallmer, June 27, 1954, Record Group EL48/2 I, Büschel 3125, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

46 Ibid.

47 Report by Pallmer, July 30, 1954, Record Group EL48/2 I, Büschel 3125, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg. Pallmer kept to his promise to look into the matter, and by the end of July he had succeeded in identifying that the man with whom he spoke was a citizen of Ulm who had been an acquaintance of one of the camp residents.

48 Report by Regierungspräsidium Nordwürttemberg, November 25, 1954, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

49 For a detailed evaluation of the limitations of the denazification program and the political considerations inherent to it, see Buscher, Frank, The U.S. War Crimes Trial Program in Germany (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

50 Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, Köln, to Berlin Document Center, U.S. Army, Berlin, September 1, 1954, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

51 For more information on the history of the Berlin Document Center and an overview of its holdings, see Eckert, Astrid, Kampf um die Akten. Die Westalliierten und die Rückgabe von deutschem Archivgut nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2004)Google Scholar; and Friedlander, Henry and Milton, Sybil, eds., Archives of the Holocaust: An International Collection of Selected Documents, vol. 11 (New York: Garland, 1989)Google Scholar.

52 Berlin Document Center to Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, Köln, October 26, 1954, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

53 Geheimnis Staatspolizeiamt, Berlin, to the Oberste SA-Führung, München, October 4, 1934, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

54 Bernhard Fischer-Schweder to Reichsführer-SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei, December 14, 1942, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

55 SS und Polizeigericht XVIII, Kiev, to the SS-Personalhauptamt, Berlin, March 26, 1943, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg. His defense did not hold and he was taken off duty for four weeks.

56 Anzeige gegen Fischer-Schweder, Bernhard; Landespolizeidirektion Nordwürttemberg, Kriminalhauptstelle, November 3, 1955, Record Group EL 322 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

57 Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, Köln, to Landespolizeidirektion Nordwürttemberg, November 2, 1954, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

58 Report by Regierungspräsidium Nordwürttemberg, November 25, 1954, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

59 Statement by Bernhard Fischer-Schweder, November 23, 1954, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

60 Ibid.

61 Zwischendienstzeugnis, Regierungspräsidium Nordwürttemberg, February 16, 1955, Record Group FL700/13 II, File Reference 20/6/79, IV Ca 252/55, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

62 Bernhard Fischer-Schweder to Regierungspräsidium Nordwürttemberg, February 2, 1955, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

63 Regierungspräsidium Nordwürttemberg to Regierungspräsidium Nordwürttemberg, Abteilung I, Kanzleidirektion, February 7, 1955, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

64 Ibid.

65 Bernhard Fischer-Schweder to the Regierungspräsidium Nord-Württbg. Kanzleidirektion, March 24, 1955, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

66 Ibid.

67 Geschäftsstelle des Arbeitsgerichts, April 18, 1955, Record Group FL700/13 II, File Reference 20/6/79, IV Ca 252/55, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid.

70 Statement by Dr. Nitschke, April 15, 1955, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

71 Statement by Rudolf Renner, April 7, 1955, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

72 Urteil, October 1, 1955, Record Group FL700/13 II, File Reference 20/6/79, IV Ca 252/55, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

73 Ibid., 8.

74 “Ein interessanter Arbeitsgerichtsprozeß,” Schwäbische Donau-Zeitung, May 26, 1955Google Scholar; “SS-Oberführer wieder ‘aufgetaucht,’” Ulmer Nachrichten, May 25, 1955Google Scholar.

75 Deutsche-Presse Agentur to Arbeitsgericht Stuttgart, June 1, 1955, Record Group FL700/13 II, File Reference 20/6/79, IV Ca 252/55, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

76 “Der Leser hat das Wort. Nichts zu verschleiern,” Ulmer Nachrichten, May 26, 1955Google Scholar.

77 Landespolizei Nordwürttemberg—Kriminalhauptstelle to Staatsanwaltschaft Ulm, June 8, 1955, Record Group EL322/II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

78 Statement of Meta Poneleit, prepared by Dr. E. Ballweg, March 31, 1956, Record Group EL20/1 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

79 Ibid.

80 Otto Böhnke to Wilhelm Kersten, May 30, 1955, Record Group EL 302 I, Büschel 305, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

81 Wilhelm Kersten to Otto Böhnke, July 3, 1955, Record Group EL322 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

82 Garsden is present-day Gargzdai, Lithuania.

83 Woldmann to Israelitische Kultusvereinigung, July 21, 1955, Record Group EL 302 I, Büschel 305, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg. In the letter, Woldmann refers to a conversation with another Ulm resident who brought the Böhnke and Kersten letters to their attention. What seems likely is that Böhnke was unsure how to proceed with the war-crimes allegations Kersten made, and so handed the issue over to a confidant, who then passed it along to the Israelitische Kultusvereinigung.

84 Founded in 1945, the Israelitische Kultusvereinigung (now called the Israelitische Religionsgemeinschaft Württembergs) was initially intended to aid in the resettlement of and provide financing for Jews from displaced person camps in the region. See Record Group 1026, Israelitische Religionsgemeinschaft Württembergs, Stadtarchiv Stuttgart.

85 Warscher, Israelitische Kultusvereinigung to Staatsanwaltschaft Ulm, September 12, 1955, Record Group EL322 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

86 Landespolizeidirektion Nordwürttemberg, Kriminalhauptsstelle to Röhrig [Joachim Röhricht], Hildesheim, October 28, 1954, Record Group EL48/2, Büschel 3125, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

87 According to Eichmüller, from 1945–1949 less than ten percent of all Nazi crimes investigations in West Germany addressed war crimes, concentration-camp crimes, or mass executions. From 1960–2005, these crimes would make up more than seventy-five percent of all investigations. Instead, in the early years of prosecution, crimes taking place on German soil against other German nationals comprised the bulk of the investigations. For example, from 1945–1949, more than fifty percent of all investigations focused on Endphase crimes, denunciations, and Kristallnacht; from 1960–2005, these would amount to less than ten percent. To some extent, this disproportion is due to initial Allied restrictions on German jurisdiction over Nazi crimes, limiting them to crimes in Germany. See Eichmüller, “Die Strafverfolgung,” 628.

88 Statement by Hans Günther, July 28, 1955, Record Group H. Nissen, Stadtarchiv Ulm; Statement by Gerhard Schwerdtfeger, August 10, 1955, Record Group H. Nissen, Stadtarchiv Ulm.

89 Statement by Wilhelm Kersten, December 6, 1955, Record Group H. Nissen, Stadtarchiv Ulm.

90 Statement by Wilhelm Kersten, December 6, 1955, Record Group EL 322 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

91 Aktenvermerk, Justizministerium Baden-Württemberg, December 16, 1959, Record Group EA 4/412, Büschel 2, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart.

92 Report by Helmut Opferkuch, March 1, 1956, Record Group EL322, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

93 For a more nuanced discussion of the intricacies of West German law regarding murder, see Pendas, Devin, The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, 1963–1965: Genocide, History, and the Limits of the Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 53–70Google Scholar; and Freudiger, Kerstin, Die juristischen Aufarbeitung von NS-Verbrechen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002)Google Scholar.

94 Schmidt-Hammer's statements were so incriminating that he became the second indicted defendant of the Fischer-Schweder investigation. He was convicted in the Ulm trial, though his verdict would later be overturned and he was retried and convicted in November 1960. For a brief biography of Schmidt-Hammer, see Urteil, August 29, 1958, Record Group EL322 II, Büschel 20, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg. For his retrial, see Urteil, November 3, 1960, Record Group EL322 II, Büschel 23, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

95 Statement by Werner Schmidt-Hammer, November 9, 1955, Record Group EL322 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

96 Ibid.

97 These locations were Garsden, Krottingen (present-day Kretinga, Lithuania), Augustowo (Augustów, Poland), and Polangen (Palanga, Lithuania). Report by Helmut Opferkuch, December 15, 1955, Record Group EL322 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

98 Staatsanwaltschaft to Amtsgericht Ulm/Donau, April 28, 1956, Record Group EL322 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

99 Schmid to Landgericht Ulm, May 8, 1956, Record Group EL322 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

100 Statement by Bernhard Fischer-Schweder, May 2, 1955, Record Group EL322 II, Büschel 1, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

101 Following Fischer-Schweder's statement, investigators began an intensive search through West Germany for Hans-Joachim Böhme. By August 1956, they found him working in a bank in Karlsruhe. He had concealed his identity after the war, created a false doctorate for himself, and avoided all denazification programs. He was convicted in the Ulm trial in 1958. See Statement by Hans-Joachim Böhme, October 17, 1956, Record Group EL322 II, Büschel 4, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg; and Urteil, August 29, 1958, Record Group EL322 II, Büschel 20, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

102 Although an active lawyer throughout the Nazi era, Nellmann never joined the Nazi party. During the Third Reich, this meant that he received no promotions, but after the war, Allies quickly appointed him Generalstaatsanwalt in Tübingen, and in 1953 he was appointed Generalstaatsanwalt in Stuttgart. See Personalakten Erich Nellmann, Record Group EA153, Büschel 399, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart.

103 Erich Nellmann to Justizministerium Baden-Württemberg, June 9, 1956, Record Group EL322 II, Büschel 304, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

104 According to Baden-Württemberg Justizminister Wolfgang Haussmann, the Ulm trial was the first to investigate an “entire crime complex,” which would eventually provide a template for investigations carried out by the Zentrale Stelle. Wolfgang Haussmann, Fernsehndung, October 9, 1958, Record Group EA 4/106, Büschel 1, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart.

105 Schüle was initially appointed to assist the Ulm attorney, Rudolf Mettler, in the investigation. Eventually, however, Mettler proved unable to continue on the case and Schüle became the lead prosecutor. Later, he became the first leader of the Zentrale Stelle. On Mettler, see Personalakten Mettler, EL322 III, Büschel 2, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

106 Urteil, August 29, 1958, Record Group EL322 II, Büschel 20, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

107 Statement by Rudolf Diels, October 16, 1956, Record Group EL322 II, Büschel 4, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.

108 Ibid.

109 Here, again, I draw on Herf's arguments regarding the presence of a critical minority tradition in postwar society. See Herf, Divided Memory.