Flick Trial

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Friedrich Flick receives his sentence in the Flick Trial.
Friedrich Flick receives his sentence in the Flick Trial.

The United States of America vs. Friedrich Flick, et. al. or the Flick Trial was the fifth of twelve Nazi war crimes trials held by U.S. authorities in their occupation zone Germany (Nuremberg) after World War II. It was the first of three trials of leading industrialists of Nazi Germany; the two others were the IG Farben Trial and the Krupp Trial.

These trials were all held before U.S. military courts—not the International Military Tribunal, though they took place in the same rooms. The twelve U.S. trials are collectively known as the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials" or, more formally, as the "Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals" (NMT). (See also Nuremberg Trials)

The defendants in this case were Friedrich Flick and five other high-ranking directors of Flick's group of companies, officially called Flick Kommanditgesellschaft, or Flick KG. The charges centered on slave labor and plundering, but Flick and the most senior director, Otto Steinbrinck, were also charged for their membership in the "Circle of Friends of Himmler." The circle was a group of influential German industrialists and bankers—founded originally in 1932 by Wilhelm Keppler and taken over by Himmler in 1935—for the purpose of giving financial support to the Nazis. Its members "donated" annually about 1 million Reichsmark to a "Special Account S" in favor of Himmler.

The judges in this case, heard before Military Tribunal IV, were Charles B. Sears (presiding judge), former Chief Judge of the court of appeals of the state of New York, William C. Christianson from Minnesota, Frank N. Richman from Indiana, and Richard D. Dixon from North Carolina as an alternate judge. The Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution was Telford Taylor, and the lead Prosecutor in this case was Joseph M. Stone, Esq., a labor lawyer on leave from the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. The indictment was filed on February 8 and amended on March 18, 1947; the trial lasted from April 19 to December 22, 1947. Friedrich Flick was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment, two of the other defendants received shorter sentences, and the remaining three were acquitted.

  1. War crimes and crimes against humanity by participating in the deportation and enslavement of the civilian populations of countries and territories under the belligerent occupation of or otherwise controlled by Germany, and of concentration camp inmates, for use in slave labor in Flick mines and factories.
  2. War crimes and crimes against humanity through the plundering and spoliation of occupied territories, and the seizure of plants both in the west (France) and the east (Poland, Russia).
  3. Crimes against humanity through participation in the persecution of Jews and the "aryanization" of their properties.
  4. Membership in the NSDAP and the "Circle of Friends of Himmler".
  5. Membership in a criminal organization, the SS.

Count 2 excluded Terberger, count 3 applied to Flick, Steinbrinck, and Kaletsch, count 4 to Flick and Steinbrinck, while count 5 applied only to Steinbrinck, who had been a SS Brigadeführer. The SS had been declared a criminal organization previously by the IMT.

All defendants pleaded "not guilty".

The court dismissed count 3, stating that the evidence presented (which was all for cases prior to September 1939) fell outside its jurisdiction as the tribunal had a mandate only for acts committed during World War II, i.e. from September 1939 to May 1945.

Name Charges Sentence
  1 2 3 4 5  
Friedrich Flick G G I G   7 years, incl. time already served
Otto Steinbrinck I I I G G 5 years, incl. time already served
Bernhard Weiss G I       2½ years, incl. time already served
Odilo Burkart I I       acquitted
Konrad Kaletsch I I I     acquitted
Hermann Terberger I         acquitted

I — Indicted   G — Indicted and found guilty


Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.