Supreme National Tribunal

TheSupreme National Tribunal(Polish:Najwyższy Trybunał Narodowy [NTN]) was awar-crimetribunalactive incommunist-era Polandfrom 1946 to 1948. Its aims and purpose were defined by theState National Councilin decrees of 22 January and 17 October 1946 and 11 April 1947. The new law was based on an earlier decree of 31 August 1944 issued by the new Soviet-imposed Polish regime, with jurisdiction over "fascist-Hitleritecriminals and traitors to the Polish nation ".The Tribunal presided over seven high-profile cases involving a total of 49 individuals.

Background

Further information:Nazi crimes against the Polish nation,The Holocaust in Poland,andNuremberg trials

Nazi Germanyoccupied Polandin 1939 and carried outmany atrocities.The 1943Moscow Declaration statedthat Germans judged guilty ofwar crimeswould be sent back to the countries where they had committed their crimes and "judged on the spot by the peoples whom they have outraged." Poland, which suffered heavily due to Nazi atrocities, identified over 12,000 criminals it requested to beextradited;eventually about 2,000 German criminals were extradited to Poland (from 1945 onwards, most before 1949).

ThePolish Underground Statehad its ownSpecial Courtsinoccupied Poland,which tried and passed sentences on some German war criminals.Communist Polishauthorities (of thePolish Committee of National Liberation,PKWN) who did not recognize the Underground State (and in some cases actively persecuted people connected with it) established its own alternative structure, which with the victory of the communist authorities over the Underground State became dominant in post-war Poland. PKWN authorities authorized the establishment of theSpecial Criminal Courtson 12 September 1944 to try German war criminals. On 22 January 1946, the single-instance Supreme National Tribunal was formed, with a mission to try the main perpetrators of crimes committed by the Third Reich in the occupied Polish territories.

Jurisdiction and powers

The jurisdiction and powers of the Tribunal were defined in decrees of 22 January and 17 October 1946 and a decree of 11 April 1947. The law applied was a decree of 31 August 1944 "concerning the punishment of fascist-Hitlerite criminals guilty of murder and ill-treatment of civilian population and of prisoners of war, and the punishment of traitors to the Polish Nation."

There was noappealfrom the Tribunal's verdicts.

Composition of the tribunal

The tribunal had threejudges,four members of thejury,procuratorsanddefenders.

The best known judge wasEmil Stanisław Rappaport.

Trials

The full Supreme National Tribunal in the trial ofAmon Göth,1946

Warsaw Trial, 1946–1947

Auschwitz Trial, Kraków, 1947

Seven trials were brought before the Supreme National Tribunal in 1946–1948:

1. The trial ofArthur Greiser,head of theFree City of Danzigand later, governor ofReichsgau Wartheland

   Trial took place inPoznań,from 22 June to 7 July 1946.

   Sentence: Death, executed

2. The trial ofAmon Göth,commander of theKraków-Płaszów concentration camp

   Trial took place inKraków,from 27 August to 5 September 1946.

   Sentence: Death, executed

3. The trial ofLudwig Fischer,Ludwig Leist,Josef Meisinger,Max Daume,all four high-ranking Nazi officials of occupied Warsaw

   Trial took place inWarsawfrom 17 December 1946 to 24 February 1947

   Sentences: Fischer, Meisinger, Daume — Death, executed, Leist — 8 years

4. The trial ofRudolf Höss,one of the commanders of theAuschwitz concentration camp

   Trial took place in Warsaw from 11 March to 29 March 1947

   Sentence: Death, executed

5. The trial of 40 staffof theAuschwitz concentration camp(including one of the commanders,Arthur Liebehenschel).

   Trial (also known as the First Auschwitz Trial, with theFrankfurt Auschwitz Trialsknown as the Second Auschwitz Trial) took place in Kraków from 24 November to 16 December 1947

   Sentences: 23 death sentences (21 executed), 16 imprisonments fromlife sentencesto 3 years of imprisonment, one person (Hans Münch)acquittedfor humane behavior and enabling the survival of numerous patients.

6. The trial ofAlbert Forster,governor ofReichsgau Danzig-West Prussia

   Trial took place inGdańskfrom 5 April – 29 April 1948

   Sentence: Death, executed

7. The trial ofJosef Bühler,state secretary and deputy governor to theGeneral Government

   Trial took place in Kraków from 17 June – 5 July 1948

   Sentence: Death, executed

The first two of the above trials (of Greiser and Göth) were completed before the sentence was passed by theInternational Military TribunalinNurembergon 30 September 1946.

The Tribunal also declared that theGeneral Governmentwas a criminal institution.

See also

• Institute of National Remembrance

Further reading

• Tadeusz Cyprian, Jerzy Sawicki,Siedem procesów przed Najwyższym Trybunałem Narodowym,Poznań 1962
• Various authors.W czterdziestolecie powołania Najwyższego Trybunału Narodowego. Materiały posiedzenia naukowego 20 I 1986(Forty years after the foundation of the Highest National Tribunal. Papers of a scientific session on Jan 20th 1986), Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce, Warszawa 1986
• David M. Crowe,The Holocaust: Roots, History, and Aftermath,Westview Press, 2008,ISBN0-8133-4325-9,Google Print, pp. 423–425
• Mark A. Drumbl:Germans are the Lords and Poles are the Servants. The Trial of Arthur Greiser in Poland, 1946.In:Kevin Jon Heller,Gerry J. Simpson(Hrsg.):The Hidden Histories of War Crimes Trials.Oxford University Press 2013,ISBN978-0-19-967114-4.
• Andrzej Rzepliński:Prosecution of Nazi Crimes in Poland in 1939-2004.(PDF) March 2004

External links

• "Chronicles of Terror" testimony database - materials used by Supreme National Tribunal in trials from 1946-1948