Two of Adolf Eichmann’s closest collaborators in the deportation to their death of 300,000 Hungarian Jews during World War II have been found guilty in a Frankfurt court after a 14-month retrial on charges of mass murder and complicity of murder. Hermann Krumey, 64, who was an SS lieutenant colonel and had been Eichmann’s chief transportation officer, was sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor. Otto Hunsche, 58, a former SS captain, who had been Eichmann’s legal advisor, was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment.
In a previous trial, Krumey had been sentenced to 15 years and Hunsche acquitted but the prosecutor appealed the verdict and the new trial was ordered. Statements made by Eichmann during his interrogation and trial in Jerusalem in 1961 incriminating the two men figured largely in the Frankfurt trial. The attorney for the two men sought unsuccessfully to have former Israeli Attorney-General Gideon Hauser, who prosecuted Eichmann, called as a witness to disprove this testimony by establishing that Eichmann was a pathological liar.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.