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"On Point"
MINSK, 27 January (BelTA) – In a recent episode of BelTA’s YouTube project On Point. History Svyatoslav Kulinok, Candidate of Historical Sciences, explained that 18 criminals, including military personnel of Germany’s Wehrmacht, were tried in Minsk 80 years ago.
As the historian noted, on 21 November 1945 a secret resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was issued “On organizing trials of former servicemen of the German army and German punitive units”. In accordance with this resolution the first eight trials were held in the Soviet Union’s largest population centers that had suffered during the war. These were cities such as Smolensk, Bryansk, Leningrad, Kiev, and Riga… Minsk was among them.
“The trial was prepared very thoroughly. Eighteen criminals were brought to trial. It should be noted that those were people of various ranks ranging from privates to generals,” said Svyatoslav Kulinok. “They served in both the SS and the Wehrmacht. This is important because the Nuremberg Tribunal did not convict the Wehrmacht. It convicted the SS, the Gestapo, the Nazi Party, and the Nazi ideology.”
Among the defendants were Generals Johann-Georg Richert and Gottfried von Erdmannsdorff, the organizers and leaders of the terrible crimes committed on the territory of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). “One of the defendants was Johann Richert, commanding officer of the 286th Security Division, who later commanded the 35th Infantry Division. This is the man who bears responsibility for the creation of the Ozarichi camp,” the historian emphasized.
He cited the example of another defendant Hans Koch. He was the head of security police in Orsha and Borisov and was directly responsible for the elimination of thousands of people in Orsha and Borisov. Apart from that, Hans Koch participated in Operation 1005, an action aimed at destroying traces of Nazi crimes.
“He was a passionate Nazi. While the other criminals repented by the end of the tribunal and said they had realized their guilt, Koch said something like this in his testimony: ‘We were taught to kill. It is in my character.’ In other words, he did not repent and remained a convinced Nazi,” said Svyatoslav Kulinok.
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