The district attorney here has filed an appeal against the mildness of the verdict passed last May on SS Lieutenant Fritz Hildebrand, former commandant of Jewish labor camps near the Polish towns of Drohobycz and Boryslave. The court imposed an eight-year sentence, minus time spent in pre-trial custody, while the prosecution had demanded a 15-year term without deductions.
The proceedings against Hildebrand were the most extensive war crimes case in recent German court history. Several Jewish survivors of Hildebrand’s camps journeyed to Bremen from Australia and Austria, from America and Sweden, from Israel and Italy so as to give evidence against their erstwhile tormentor. During Hildebrand’s 1943/44 tenure as camp commandant, they testified, he had hundreds upon hundreds of Jews killed, groups of orphan children among them.
After the war, Hildebrand worked as a salesman for his brother-in-law until a one-time Jewish concentration inmate spotted him in downtown Bremen.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
