The Riga Trial was a

war crimes trial A war crimes trial is the trial of persons charged with criminal violation of the laws and customs of war and related principles of international law committed during armed conflict. History The trial of Peter von Hagenbach by an ad hoc tribun ...

held in front of a Soviet

military tribunal Military justice (or military law) is the body of laws and procedures governing members of the armed forces. Many nation-states have separate and distinct bodies of law that govern the conduct of members of their armed forces. Some states us ...

between 26 January and 3 February 1946 in

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (Also known as the Latvian SSR, or Latvia) was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1941, and then from 1944 until 1990. The Soviet occupation and annexation of Latvia began between J ...

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

against six high ranking

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

officers, Höheren SS- und Polizeiführer

Friedrich Jeckeln Friedrich August Jeckeln (2 February 1895 – 3 February 1946) was a German Nazi Party member, police official and SS-'' Obergruppenführer'' during the Nazi era. He served as a Higher SS and Police Leader in Germany and in the occupied Sov ...

and SA-Standartenführer Alexander Boecking. All eight defendants were found guilty of war crimes during the German–Soviet War of 1941–45 and sentenced to death. They were publicly hanged immediately after sentencing. Only Wolfgang von Ditfurth escaped execution due to bad health. He died in prison from heart failure on 22 March 1946.

Proceedings

Unlike some previous trials, the prosecutors wanted to and were able to prove concretely that the main defendant, Jeckeln, was responsible for the crimes of which he was accused. Thus Jeckeln, a Nazi "race warrior" who oversaw the

Rumbula massacre The Rumbula massacre is a collective term for incidents on November 30 and December 8, 1941, in which about 25,000 Jews were murdered in or on the way to Rumbula forest near Riga, Latvia, during World War II. Except for the Babi Yar massacre in ...

in Latvia, could be proven guilty on the basis of his own statements, as well as testimonies of other participants and survivors of the massacres as well as on the basis of German documents. Not only had he given the orders, but he was also present in person for some of the time, and had even participated personally in the shootings and boasted about it. Prosecutors were able to trace his "blood trail" through Ukraine and the Baltic states as a commander of ''

Einsatzgruppen (, ; also 'task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the imp ...

death squad A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out extrajudicial killings, massacres, or enforced disappearances as part of political repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or revolutionary terror. Except in rare cases in w ...

s and determine his responsibility for the murder of over 100,000

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnic groups * Romani people, or Roma, an ethnic group of Indo-Aryan origin ** Romani language, an Indo-Aryan macrolanguage of the Romani communities ** Romanichal, Romani subgroup in the United Kingdom * Romanians (Romanian ...

, and others. Jeckeln defended his actions on the grounds that he was acting on orders from Reichsführer SS

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...

. Boecking, the area commissioner of the Tallinn district, was accused of the "

Germanisation Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people, and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In l ...

policy" in Estonia with the looting and extermination of Estonian people and the settlement of Germans in their place. Concrete accusations such as forced labour, forced relocation and looting were also made and concretely identified.

Defendants

References

Sources

* Mike Schmeitzer: ''Konsequente Abrechnung? – NS-Eliten im Visier sowjetischer Gerichte 1945–1947''. In: ''Todesurteile sowjetischer Militärtribunale gegen Deutsche (1944–1947): eine historisch-biographische Studie''. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015, , Page 63 and following.

External links

''Hinrichtung''
Film of the execution, Chronoshistory {{Army Group Rear Area (Wehrmacht) 1946 in law 1946 in the Soviet Union 1940s trials Holocaust trials Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic Nazi war crimes trials Riga in World War II Trials in Latvia War crimes of the Wehrmacht War crimes trials in the Soviet Union