The "Disappeared" Defence Witness at the Belsen Trial

While searching on Revisionist sites for any tiny straw to support a possible conspiracy for what they call the "hoax", I came across the blog posting Defence witness disappears from Belsen trial from The Black Rabbit of Inlé (hereafter "Lesser Bunny"; to discriminate him against the crematoria denier Little Grey Rabbit). 

According to the Lesser Bunny, "a former Auschwitz inmate arrived at Hoessler's witch-trial and offered to testify in his defence. But she then disappeared - she was last seen walking with witnesses for the prosecution i.e. lying Jews" and adds some newspaper article from the Western Morning News of 12 October 1945 to the posting. 

While an annual subscription to the British newspaper archive is surely a nice thing to have, it is more instructive to check out the relevant Belsen trial transcript (online available at least since 2010 according to the wayback machine) to clarify the issue. 

Most interesting is the reaction of the Judge Advocate on the allegation that the witness Erika Schopf disappeared after talking to prosecution's witnesses:

"Far more important than the absence of a witness is the fact that witnesses are not going to testify because they have been in conversation with witnesses for the Prosecution. If that be the case the Court will have to do something about it."

Erika Schopf actually testified two days later on 13 October 1945, and explained that she had been afraid of "two Jews [who] told me it would have been better not to have come as a witness", but back in Hannover she was told by the "905 Military Government...to come to the court guarded by British guards". Note that Schopf testified the same she already wrote in a postcard sent to the court, i.e. she did not change her testimony.

Now that's a very strange "witch-trial", where they are worried about that a defendant's witness may have been intimidated by a prosecution's witness and then protect the defendant's witness from further such incidents. By the way, previously also prosecution's witnesses seemed to have been threatend by some Polish nationals.

And while we are at it, how does the fact that the defendant lawyer Cranfield sounded just like a semi-Revisionist in his closing speech fit to the characterisation as "witch-trial"?

"From the evidence it appeared that the usual grounds for inferring people had been gassed was that they disappeared, but the same thing would have happened if they had been sent away to a factory or to another camp. With regard to Block 25, it might well have been that that block was used as a staging block for any party that was to leave the camp after a selection"

For the record, if sick or emaciated Jews were selected in Auschwitz and sent away, then certainly not "to a factory or another camp", but as useless eaters straight to the extermination sites.