Hans Fritzsche - Military Tribunal

Military Tribunal

Fritzsche was taken prisoner by Soviet soldiers in Berlin on May 2, 1945. He was sent to Moscow for interrogation at Lubyanka Prison where, according to his own account, three gold teeth were yanked from his mouth upon arrival. He was confined to a "standing coffin", a 3-foot-square cell where it was impossible to sleep, and placed on a bread and hot water diet. He eventually signed a confession.

Later, while on trial at Nuremberg, he wrote his account of Soviet prison which was published in Switzerland.

Fritzsche was sent to Nuremberg, and tried before the International Military Tribunal. He was charged with conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It was unclear to attendees why he was charged, rumors abounded that he was only in the dock as a stand-in for Goebbels. William Shirer remarked that "no-one in the courtroom, including Fritzsche, seemed to know why he was there – he was too small a fry – unless it were as a ghost for Goebbels..." He was one of only three defendants to be acquitted at Nuremberg (along with Hjalmar Schacht and Franz von Papen). He was acquitted because it became evident to the tribunal that he had never pushed for the extermination of the Jews, and on two instances he even attempted to stop the publication of the anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer.

He was later tried by a West German denazification court and was sentenced to nine years. He was released in September 1950 and died of cancer soon after. His wife Hildegard Fritzsche (born Springer) died the same year.