ABSTRACT
By the mid 1960s, any previous doubts about the West German judiciary’s inclination to prosecute Nazi war crimes were assuaged by the sheer number of proceedings taking place across the country. The most famous of these was the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial, conducted between December 1963 and August 1965. Twenty former extermination camp personnel faced charges relating to the gassing of hundreds of thousands of Jewish men, women and children as well as the brutal murders of Polish civilians and Soviet prisoners of war between 1941 and 1945. Chief among the accused was former SS-Oberscharführer Wilhelm Boger, notorious for having devised the so-called ‘Boger Swing’ for the torture of Auschwitz prisoners. Other defendants included former medical personnel who were charged with performing human experiments and administering lethal injections. The eventual sentences passed down by the court saw the defendants receiving prison terms ranging from life to just three-and-a-half years. 1
