Weise, Gottfried

Gottfried Weise (11 March 1921 – 1 March 2000), SS Unterscharführer, was deployed at the inmate property administration at the Auschwitz Camp from May 1944. Between 1986 and 1988, Weise was tried and sentenced for five cases of murder allegedly committed during his time at Auschwitz.

The case of Gottfried Weise is the only legal case against an alleged perpetrator within the so-called Holocaust where the defense decided to go all in and let skeptical scholars (revisionists) help them all the way. It did not change the outcome of the trial, but it made it possible to document the show-trial nature of this type of trial.

The basic characteristics are:

• Once a (often Jewish) Holocaust survivor has claimed a crime, it is considered an incontrovertible fact.
• Evidence offered to refute the crime is rejected by the court, because the court is interested only in evidence that can elucidate the already-established fact that there was a crime.
• Consequently, criminal proceedings merely serve the purpose of establishing the dimension of the claimed crime, naming the culprits and meting out the punishment they presumably deserve.

For a detailed documentation of this case, see Rudolf 2019, pp. 141-173.