The first of a series of trials arising out of an investigation of more than 1,000 former staff members at the Auschwitz murder factory will start in mid-1962, Fritz Wolf, Frankfurt state prosecutor, announced today. He said arrest orders had been issued for 22 of the former staff members. The massive investigation was undertaken on instructions of the Federal Supreme Court.
The prosecutor said that 50 persons were found to be “under heavy suspicion” of having participated in the murder of millions of victims. These included an estimated 2,000,000 Jews who were gassed and burned in the huge camp.
Reporting that the whereabouts of most of the suspects could not be determined, the prosecutor also reported that 140 of the former staff members were known or believed to be dead, that six of the suspects, including three doctors, killed themselves, and that 48 were executed as war criminals, including Rudolf Hoess, who was commandant at Auschwitz during its peak period of exterminations.
In addition to the 22 for whom arrest warrants have been issued, preliminary criminal investigations have been started against 24 other suspects, the prosecutor said. Three of the 22 are free on bail on claims of bad health. The prosecutor revealed that 1,000 witnesses were questioned in West Germany and abroad, among them 800 survivors of the death camp. He said thousands of documents were examined in various archives in European countries, the United States and in Israel.
One of those under arrest here is Richard Baer, the last Auschwitz commandant.
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