West Germany’s longest mass murder trial, in which 12 ex-Nazis are being prosecuted for the murder of 70, 000 persons, half of them Jews, in the Minsk area of White Russia during World War II, will resume here tomorrow after a holiday recess, and will not be completed until about the middle of next month, according to an announcement at Coblenz today by Dr. Erich Randebrock, presiding Justice at the proceedings.
The principal defendant of the 12 being tried is Georg Heuser, formerly a high police official in West Germany. The entire court and jury, said Judge Randebrock, will adjourn next week to Munich to hear an important witness who is unable to travel to Coblenz, where the trial has been held. The Coblenz proceedings are expected to be completed by Jan. 28.
Meanwhile, today, preparations were being completed at Frankfurt to open there, soon, a trial of a group of physicians charged with participating in the Nazi euthanasia program, under which many thousands of Jews were murdered on the grounds that they were being shown “mercy” as alleged mental sufferers. Dr. Werner Heyde is the chief defendant in that case.
To speed the preparations for that trial, Hesse’s chief prosecutor, Dr. Frits Bauer, today appointed Dr. Dietrich Rahn, Wiesbaden’s leading public prosecutor, as deputy chief prosecutor for Hesse. Dr. Rahn has had long experience in dealing with war criminals and is considered expert in his knowledge of the early stages of the Nazi euthanasia program.
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