Kharkov Trial

The Kharkov Trial was a war crimes trial held in front of a Soviet military tribunal in December 1943 in Kharkov, Soviet Union. Defendants included one Soviet collaborator, as well as German military, police, and SS personnel responsible for implementing the occupational policies during the German–Soviet War of 1941–45. The trial was the first time that German personnel had been tried for war crimes by the Allies during and after World War II.

Kharkov Trial
CourtSoviet military tribunal
Kharkov, Soviet Union
IndictmentWar crimes
Treason
Decided18 December 1943
Case history
Related action(s)Moscow Declarations

Background

Units of the German Wehrmacht first occupied Kharkov on 23–24 October 1941. German forces, including the Einsatzgruppen (mobile death squads), killed tens of thousands of Jews, as well as Communists, Soviet prisoners of war, and other "undesirables". Shooting, hanging, and gas vans were used. Fifteen thousand Jews were murdered on 15 December 1941 in a mass shooting in Drobytsky Yar.[1]

The city was temporarily retaken by the Red Army in February 1943 and then by the Wehrmacht in April 1943. Already in the spring of 1943 Soviet authorities discovered mass graves of the victims, mostly Jews. By the time that Kharkov was liberated for good in August 1943, virtually no Jews survived in the city.[1]

Proceedings
Konstantin Simonov served as a war correspondent during the trial.

The tribunal heard the case against four defendants, Soviet collaborator, Mikhail Bulanov, and three Germans, Wilhelm Langfeld, 52, Reinhard Retzlaff, 36, and Hans Ritz, 24, members of the Wehrmacht, police, and SS forces, respectively.[2][3][4] They were charged both under the Soviet and international law, the Moscow Declarations. Langfeld, Retzlaff, and Ritz were accused in participating in the murders of Soviet citizens, while Bulanov was charged with treason. Prosecutors, defence counsel, and judges were military. A six-person forensic team provided expert testimony and a report concluding that the manner of killings was consistent with shootings and the use of gas.[5]

All four men pleaded guilty, admitting to the crimes and describing them in detail, including the use of the gas vans, mass shootings, and murder of women and children, encouraged and rewarded by their superiors. Langfeld admitted to personally killing approximately 100 Soviet citizens. Defence counsel's strategy amounted to arguing that the accused were following orders. The prosecution acknowledged that the men were indeed acting on superior orders, but rejected this as a valid defence, using the decision of the Leipzig War Crimes Trials as a precedent. The trial concluded on 18 December 1943 with guilty verdicts. They were all hanged in the public square of Kharkov the next day.[6]

The proceedings were published in English for an international audience.

References
  1. Bazyler & Tuerkheimer 2014, pp. 18–21.
  2. "Justice Is Coming" (PDF).
  3. "Kharkov Trial (December 1943)". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2022-03-31.
  4. "RUSSIA: Pattern for Hanging". Time. 1943-12-27. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2022-03-31.
  5. Bazyler & Tuerkheimer 2014, pp. 22–25.
  6. Bazyler & Tuerkheimer 2014, pp. 26–34.

Bibliography
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