An appeal was on file today by Martin Sommer against his conviction in a Bayreuth court to life imprisonment for the murder of 25 inmates of the Buchenwald concentration camp after a trial which was widely covered by the West German press.
Members of the audience in the courtroom were restrained from trying to lynch Sommer after the one-time “Butcher of Buchenwald” pleaded not guilty and told the court that he had never treated anyone brutally and that he had not’ killed “a human soul” on his own initiative.
The close of the trial Thursday also was marked by a verbal clash between the court president, Dr. Paulus, and a defense attorney when the latter declared that inmates of the concentration camp had been nothing but “a hodge-podge and criminals.”
Leading West German newspapers, devoting considerable space to coverage of the case, have pointed out that many guilty members of the Gestapo and the SS were still at large. The German press also drew the moral that young Germans must be brought up to repudiate sadism in every form.
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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.
