Het Proces Fiebig

During the occupation of the Netherlands, German businessman Richard Fiebig (1899-1983) was the representative of the German Ministers of Armament and War Production Fritz Todt and Albert Speer respectively. After the war, Fiebig was tried for his pivotal role in the exploitation and plundering of Dutch businesses on behalf of the German war effort. The Hague Special Criminal Court sentenced Fiebig to 12 years in prison. The Special Court of Review overturned the verdict and referred the criminal case to the Amsterdam court. There, the case got bogged down, and as a result, a final judgment was never given. Meanwhile, Fiebig had been released in June 1951 and had returned to his homeland.

In this historical, post-war trial, the substantive question of whether the collaboration of the Dutch business community with the Germans was voluntary or under duress played a central role. Was Fiebig granted a fair trial? During the proceedings before the Special Court, some fundamental legal principles were violated, such as judicial impartiality, the principle of hearing both sides of the arguments, and the pursuit of the objective truth.

The Fiebig Trial is a collection containing the verbatim reports of the court sessions of the Rotterdam Chamber of the Special Criminal Court of Justice of The Hague of the 2 May 1949 and 14 June 1949, and of the Special Court of Review of 4 November 1950, as well as the court decisions and a number of other relevant documents.

The text can be downloaded as a PDF file. The work is licensed under a CC-BY licence.

The monograph Richard Fiebig and the exploitation of Dutch industry 1940-1945 was published at the same time as this edition with source material.

Joggli Meihuizen

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