Prosecution

Immediately after the Liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, the British military justice system initiated an investigation into the crimes committed there. From 17 September to 17 November 1945, 44 men and women had to stand trial before a British military court in Lüneburg.

In addition to the former camp commandant Josef Kramer, sixteen other Schutzstaffel SS ("Protection Squadron") men, sixteen female SS supervisors and eleven former prisoners in function (Kapo) were charged. The trial was conducted in accordance with British military criminal law and the charges were limited to the offence of war crimes. In contrast, the main war criminals were also charged with "crimes against humanity" and "crimes against peace" before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg in 1946.

Well over a hundred representatives of the German and international media reported extensively on the course of the trial in Lüneburg. They informed the public not only about the mass deaths at Bergen-Belsen, but also about the gassings at Auschwitz-Birkenau. After two months of intensive questioning of witnesses, the judges pronounced eleven death sentences, including against the commandant Josef Kramer, the head guard Elisabeth Volkenrath and the last camp doctor Fritz Klein. They were carried out on 13 December 1945 in the Hamelin penitentiary.

The court acquitted fourteen defendants. In the remaining cases, the judges handed down prison sentences of between one and fifteen years, although these were usually significantly reduced in the course of subsequent appeals and pardons. In two further military court trials in 1946 and 1948, nine more members of the Bergen-Belsen camp staff were tried.

The so-called "Spruchgerichte" (denazification tribunals) were set up on the instructions of the Allies to try people who had been members of the Secrect state police, Gestapo, Schutzstaffel SS ("Protection Squadron") or other criminal organisations. Between 1947 and 1949, "Spruchgerichtsverfahren" (azification court proceedings) were initiated against at least 46 former members of the guard and command centre staff of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Almost half of the proceedings were discontinued. In sixteen cases, the defendants were sentenced to between 120 days and two and a half years imprisonment or to pay a fine. In these cases, however, the judges declared that the sentences had already been served in full due to the fact that the defendants had been interned for several years in most cases.

The German justice system only conducted one trial involving offences committed in Bergen-Belsen. In this trial before the Jena Regional Court in 1949, a former "Unterscharführer" (SS junior squad leader) was acquitted. No further proceedings on Bergen-Belsen were subsequently conducted in either the Federal Republic of Germany or the GDR. The few investigations that were initiated by the responsible public prosecutor's office in Lüneburg ended in dismissal.

In total, more than 200 Schutzstaffel SS ("Protection Squadron") members from Bergen-Belsen are known by name who never stood trial.