The Auschwitz trial began on November 24, 1947, in Kraków, when Polish authorities (the Supreme National Tribunal) tried 41 former staff of the Auschwitz concentration camps. The trials ended on December 22, 1947.

The best-known defendants were Arthur Liebehenschel, former commandant; Maria Mandel, head of the Auschwitz women's camps; and SS-doctor Johann Kremer. 38 other SS officers — 34 men and four women — who had served as guards or doctors in the camps were also tried.

Rudolf Höss, sentenced in another trial, was executed on April 16, 1947 in front of the crematorium at Auschwitz I.

The Supreme National Tribunal issued 23 death sentences, and 17 imprisonments ranging from life sentences to 3 years. One person was acquitted. All executions were carried out in a Kraków prison on January 28, 1948; Maria Mandel and Therese Brandl were the first to be executed.

Liebehenschel, Mandel and Kremer were condemned to death, as were Hans Aumeier, August Bogusch, Therese Brandl, Arthur Breitwiser, Fritz Buntrock, Wilhelm Gehring, Paul Götze, Maximilian Grabner, Heinrich Josten, Hermann Kirschner, Josef Kollmer, Franz Kraus, Herbert Ludwig, Karl Möckel, Kurt Mueller, Eric Muhsfeldt, Ludwig Plagge, Hans Schumacher and Paul Szczurek (Arthur Breitwieser and Johann Kremer had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment). Luise Danz, Hans Koch, Anton Lechner, Adolf Medefind, Detlef Nebbe, and Karl Seufert received life sentences. Oswald Kaduk was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment. Alexander Bülow, Hans Hoffmann, Hildegard Lächert, Eduard Lorenz, Alice Orlowski, Franz Romeikat, and Johannes Weber were sentenced to 15 years. Richard Schroeder received 10 years, Erich Dinges five years, and Karl Jeschke three years. Hans Münch was acquitted.

Rudolf Walter Richard Hess, also spelled Heß (26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987), was a prominent Nazi politician who was Adolf Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party during the 1930s and early 1940s. On the eve of war with the Soviet Union, he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom, where he was arrested and became a prisoner of war. Hess was tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to life imprisonment, which he served at Spandau Prison, Berlin, where he died in 1987. After World War II Winston Churchill wrote of Hess, "He was a medical and not a criminal case, and should be so regarded."

On 27–28 September 2007, British news services published descriptions of disagreement between his Western and Soviet captors over his treatment and how the Soviet captors were steadfast in denying his release. In July 2011, the remains of Hess were exhumed from a grave in Bavaria after it became a focus of a pilgrimage for neo-Nazis.

Hess, the eldest of four children, was born in Alexandria, Egypt, to Fritz H. Hess, a prosperous German Lutheran importer/exporter from Bavaria, and Clara Hess (née Münch). The family lived in luxury on the Egyptian coast near Alexandria, and visited Germany often during the summers, allowing the Hess children to learn the German language and to absorb German culture. The family moved back to Germany in 1908, where Hess enrolled as a boarder at the Protestant School in Bad Godesberg. Hess showed aptitude in science and mathematics, and expressed interest in becoming an astronomer. However, his father wished him to continue the family business, Hess & Co., and in 1911 convinced Hess to study business for a year in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, at the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce.

Kazimierz Smoleń, or Kazimierz Smolen (19 April 1920 – 27 January 2012), was a Polish political prisoner of KZ Auschwitz and latterly a long term director of Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

Smoleń was a law student when he was arrested by the Gestapo on 15 April 1940 for his activity in the Polish conspiracy in Chorzow and an attempt to join the Polish army abroad. On 6 July 1940 he was transported to Auschwitz concentration camp with one of the first transports of Polish political prisoners to arrive from prison in Sosnowiec.

Smoleń was given the KZ Auschwitz number 1327, and at first was given work in the construction workgang; then he worked as a writer in the camp's administration office. Altogether Smoleń was an Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner for almost five years. On 18 January 1945 Smoleń was deported in one of Auschwitz Death marches to Ebensee concentration camp, a subcamp of Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. Smoleń was liberated in Ebensee concentration camp on 6 May 1945.