VERDICT ON AUSCHWITZ: The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial 1963-1965

Landmark Film Now in the U.S. for the First Time Opens January 12, 2007 at the Quad Cinema in New York City.

On August 20, 1965, after 20 months of proceedings, the verdict was pronounced in one of the most significant trials in German legal history. The court heard 360 Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp survivors and other witnesses from 19 countries, in a trial against 22 members of the SS, accused of taking part in the mass murder of millions.

Verdict on Auschwitz: The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial 1963-1965 (produced by Hessischer Rundfunk, a German public television station, and made available in the U.S. by the DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst) is a documentary of immense importance that illuminates not only the horrors of Auschwitz, but the chilling atmosphere of the courtroom in Frankfurt, Germany, almost twenty years after the Holocaust. Assembled from 430 hours of original audiotapes that languished in obscurity for decades, this film brings to life the voices of Auschwitz survivors, who confronted perpetrators they had not seen for twenty years – many of whom had made comfortable lives for themselves in postwar West Germany.

Filmmakers Rolf Bickel and Dietrich Wagner located the audiotapes in the basement of the State Archive of Hesse in Frankfurt while planning a documentary for the 30th anniversary of the Auschwitz trial. Rarely does one get such a glimpse into history, where the voices of the witnesses come alive to describe unspeakable suffering at the hands of the defendants. This painful testimony helps to reconstruct the history of Auschwitz as never before.

A basic assumption behind all the work of the DEFA Film Library is that film can be a means to stimulate an understanding of history. Verdict on Auschwitz addresses one of the most profound questions of justice in modern history. The trial raised myriad questions that have yet to be fully answered, as it is still comparatively under-researched.This documentary is thus not only of historical importance – a chapter in the history of the Holocaust and in Germans’ coming to terms with this legacy – but it can also lead new audiences to consider the process of reckoning since 1945 in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere.

Founded in 1990, the DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is devoted to the study of a broad spectrum of German filmmaking. Originally focused on East German films made between 1946 and 1990, and the only archive and study center outside of Europe for these titles, the DEFA Film Library has recently branched out into other film projects and releases. Verdict on Auschwitz is one such project.



No single documentary film better captures the history of Auschwitz than Verdict on Auschwitz. Between the detailed eye-witness accounts by victims, the painstaking organization of evidence by prosecutors, and the chilling testimony by the killers themselves, this film reveals more about the workings, mindset, and logic of mass murder than any film I know.”

– Professor James Young, Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst

This documentary represents a cinematic and historic achievement that cannot be overstated. The filmmakers bring the historic trial to life again in its many overlapping voices – including those of the perpetrators, whose deviousness was exemplified for the world in these proceedings.”

– Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung



Rolf Bickel studied worked on current affairs features for the Hessian Radio evening program. Since 1984, Bickel has worked on over 150 films, reports, documentations and features on current social and historic themes for the local Hessian public television station HR, the European television station ARTE and other German television stations. Bickel is a South East Asia expert and has visited many conflict zones and developing countries.

Dietrich Wagnerhas worked as an editor for the daily paper Frankfurter Rundschau and at the Hessian public television station HR. Wagner was awarded the Adolf Grimme Prize in 1966 for one of the first German television talk shows.. For the last five years, he has worked as the Frankfurt correspondent of ARD television’s daily news program. After long years working as a political advisor, he has worked as a freelance television writer, working on feature productions for Hessian public television, ARD, and ARTE since 1985.

Verdict on Auschwitz: The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial 1963-1965

Germany, 1993, 180 minutes, color & b/w, in German w/English subtitles

Directors: Rolf Bickel, Dietrich Wagner/Cinematography: Armin Alker, Dominik Schunk

Film Editor: Sigrid Rienäcker/Producer: Gerhard Hehrleine