War Crimes: Try Nazis, Frontier (Article, 1945)

• 

Full Text

WAR CRIMES:

Try Nazis

Charges with systemic starvation and neglect of internees at the notorious Belsen concentration camp, 45 Nazi men and women tried to fight back at their war crimes trial conducted at a British military court in Lueneburg, Germany.

In seeking to defend themselves, the accused followed the line that most of the 40,000 prisoners in the camp were all habitual criminals, felons and [homosexuals]. Britons taking over the camp upon the Nazi collapse claimed that their experience showed it was not necessary to use force to govern the internees.

In first seizing the camp, the British counted 13,000 dead and another 13,000 died later because their condition was beyond treatment, medical officers charged. Though supplies were obtainable in the immediate vicinity of the camp, no effort was made to procure provisions.