The Nazi governor of Warsaw, Ludwig Fischer, and Joseph Meissinger, the Gestapo officer who directed the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto went on trial here today before the Supreme National Tribunal. Meissinger was captured in Japan by the U.S. Army which turned him over to the Polish Government. Max Daume, a police colonel, and Ludwig Leisz,an SS captain, are also being tried at the same time.
A government announcement reveals that about 380 Nazi war criminals are being held in jails in Warsaw and other cities awaiting trial. Recently another 30 were brought to Stettin from Germany, including Erich Beschke, the director of the German police in Warsaw between 1941 and 1943; Franz Seifert, a high SS officer who personally murdered hundreds of Jews in Lodz and Fridrich Kuchenbecker, who had a roving assignment during which he arranged for the mass-murder of tens of thousands of Jews in various parts of Poland.
Four Nazis who were being brought to Poland from the U.S. zone in Germany escaped last week from the train in which they were travelling near the Czech border. From documents they abandoned it was learned that while held prisoner in the U.S. zone, they had been in contact with German civilians.
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