Twenty-three former Gestapo officers, described by the prosecution as the “greatest murderers” in history, today went on trial before an American military court here on charges of having killed more than 1,000,000 persons, including many Jews.
The 23 were members of a special Nazi task force entrusted with he mission of exterminating Jews, Gypsies and other non-Aryan racial groups. U.S. prosecutor Benjamin B. Ferencz, of New York, charged that the, troops assigned to this unit killed an average of 50 persons an hour for a two-year period. The accused include Maj. Gen. Otto Ohlendorf, Brig. Gen. Otto Rasch and Lt. Col. Eduard Strauch. The trial is expected to last only three days.
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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.