Trial History and Verdict

The group of newspapers to which the Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz belongs is on the web,  so I e-mailed them for their coverage of the trial.   Dr. Hans Schade  of the Verlagsgruppe Rhein-Main kindly sent me copies of all the items he located, and gave us permission to post them.

There were two trials.  The first ended in mistrial due to a scandal.

Further information from the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen

•  According to a letter from the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen, Werner died in 1971.

• The verdict rendered against Windisch on 17 July 1969 has file number 3 Ks 1/67 StA Mainz.  The verdict document, which the Zentralel Stelle enclosed in the letter,  is 136 single-spaced typewritten pages.  We have their permission to post the verdict, provided we consider personal privacy.  In large part, it reproduces the material in the indictment.

The results were as follows:
He was convicted of the mass murders in
Lida – 8 May 1942
Zoludek – 9 May 1942
Vasilishki – 10 May 1942
Voronovo – 11 May 1942
Ivje – 12 May 1942

Of the execution of 86 Gypsies in Fall, 1941
Of the Aktion against refugees from Vilnius 1 March 1942

In all, seven counts of mass murder.

He was aquitted of:
Shooting a Jewish painter, Fall 1941
Shooting the Jewish student Zeldowicz
Murdering the Judenrat members in March 1942
Shooting the Jew Halpern in Fall 1942

The jury was conservative in its decisions.  The cases of which he was acquitted rested on the testimony of  one or maybe two witnesses, which fact seems to be the primary reason for acquittal.

The sentence:
Windisch was stripped of German citizenship for life.
He was liable for paying for the charges incurred in trying him on the counts of which he was convicted, as well.  This was largely meaningless, as he [see the indictment] he had not been economically successful after the war.
Windisch was sentenced to life imprisonment.

His appeal was denied 15 Jan 1971.

An interesting point in the verdict is that the defense argument that Windisch would have been unable to prevent the mass executions had he tried was rejected.  The verdict states unequivocally:  “Co-responsible for an act is also he who has not the power to prevent it”. [page 109]  His responsibility in this case rests on his participation in gathering the Jews to be murdered, and his part in the organization of the entire sequence of events.

I am not translating the entire document because it contains many references to the subjective impressions the witnesses made on the jury, and how these impressions affected the verdicts rendered.  Insufficient time has passed for such material to lose its sensitivity.

Points made in the verdict that were not in the indictment:
 

• Windisch had been stripped of his Austrian citizenship in 1933 for Nazi activities.  These were detailed in the indictment, as was his flight to Germany, but there was no mention of his loss of citizenship.
• As to how he came to settle in Mainz:  his wife was from central Germany, and after the war, his in-laws were living in Mainz.  His wife moved there at the end of the war, and he followed her there from Vienna.   Because he was living there, he was tried there.
• The Nazi policy of selecting not just a single individual for survival, but some family members as well rested on the logic that a single surviving family member was far more likely to join the partisans in the forests than someone with dependents.
• The case of the Gypsies was did not have the status of a separate allegation in the indictment’s organization, though it is described there in detail.  This seems to be due to the fact that between the indictment and trial, another witness was located.  This is Mr. Figger’s testimony:  [pp 94-95]:
"From July to mid-December 1941, he [Figger] was Stabsfeldwebel at the Local Command in Lida.  The accused appeared there in mid-September 1941, had represented himself as RC and asked him to continue his police duties until [Windisch’s] police arrived.  This collaboration with the RC lasted about 10 to 14 days.  The only member of the RC staff he ever met was the accused.  One day the local city police brought 6 to 8 Gypsies to the Field Gendarmerie, on suspicion of looting in the city outskirts.  One was found to have a German pistorl.  He had locked up the the Gypsies, and next day he asked visited the accused to deliver a written announcement.  Toward noon he was called to the business office of the Local Command.  There the accused asked him, if he wanted to head up a firing squad to execute the Gypsies.  He asked the accused how many Gypsies were going to be shot, to which the accused replied, he didn’t know exactly, the police was still rounding up the rest of the band.  There would be about 80 men, women, and children.  They were being arrested on his own orders.  Thereupon [the witness] declined to lead the firing squad, and gave an appointment with the director of the railway depot as an excuse.  His junior officer Raudzus declared himself to be prepared to lead the squad.  The Gypsies were executed under his direction by a squad of Lithuanian prisoners of war.  He did not himself witness the execution, but he’d heard the shots and the screams of the victims.  When he arrived at the execution site, the Lithuanians squad was just covering the graves.  Nothing was said of the affair, it was supposed to be kept secret.  He heard rumors that a c a field exercise by the SD stationed in Lida was being given as an explanation for the shots.  But he had heard the shooting from the field exercise that morning, and the execution had been in the afternoon".
• In the indictment, the case of a bookkeeper in the nail factory is described, and it is stated that on a warning from the technical director Dubis, he was able to flee.  On page 26 of the verdict, on the other hand, it states that the bookkeeper, Mr. GOLDMANN, had been able to pass as a non-Jew for a while.  One day, the entire family was arrested and shot in prison.  Dubis, a witness at the trial, arrived shortly after the execution; he wanted to consult Goldmann a business matter.