The ‘Dachau Trials’
From 1945 to 1948, U.S. Army
Courts (military commissions and special or general military courts)
tried 1672 individuals in 489 proceedings.*
Specific authority for these proceedings is found in Joint Chiefs of
Staff Directive 1023/10 of July 8, 1945, which placed responsibility
for certain war crimes trials in Germany on the Commander, USFET
(United States Forces, European Theater).
The Commander, in turn,
empowered the commanding general of the Western Military District
(territory occupied by the U.S. 3d Army (Bavaria)) to appoint
military courts, predominantly at the site of the former
concentration camp Dachau, for the trial of war criminals not heard
at Nuernberg. This was done in a letter on the subject of "Trial of
War Crimes and Related Cases" of July 16, 1945.The commanding
general of the Eastern Military District (territory occupied by the
U.S. 7th Army (Hesse, Baden-Wuerttemberg and Bremen)) was
similarly authorized to commence war crimes trials, mainly at
Ludwigsburg.
In order to streamline
operations, the Commander, USFET, revoked this division of authority
in a letter of October 14, 1946, and assigned responsibility to
prosecute war criminals to the Deputy Judge Advocate for War Crimes,
USFET. Henceforth, all cases were tried at the site of the former
concentration camp Dachau because centralization of war crimes
appeared necessary in view of the large body of cases and
investigations.
The 489 cases tried by the
U.S. Army in Germany can be divided roughly into four categories:
main concentration camp cases, subsequent concentration camp cases,
flier cases and miscellaneous cases.
The first category comprises
6 cases with about 200 defendants, mainly staff members and guards
at Dachau, Buchenwald, Flossenburg, Mauthausen, Nordhausen and
Muehldorf concentration camps.
The second category includes
about 250 proceedings against approximately 800 guards and staff
members of the outcamps and branch camps of the major camps.
The third category
encompasses more than 200 cases in which about 600 persons, mostly
German civilians, were prosecuted for the killing of some 1200 U.S.
nationals, mostly airmen.
The fourth category consists
of a few cases, including the Malmedy Massacre Case, in which 73 SS
men were tried for murdering large groups of surrendered U.S.
prisoners of war; the Hadamar Case, in which a number of Hadamar
Asylum staff members stood trial for the killing of about 400
Russian and Polish nationals; and the Skorzeny Case, in which some
members of the German Armed Forces were charged with wearing U.S.
Army uniforms while participating in the Ardennes offensive.
U.S. Army Trial Reviews
and Recommendations
A review and recommendation
is a summary of the records of a trial, examined by reviewers to
verify that the trial was conducted in a legal manner and that the
rights of the accused had not been violated. These reviews
automatically followed all U.S. Army-conducted trials.
Until mid October 1946,
trials were conducted by the U.S. Armies in Europe, within each
Army's area of jurisdiction. While the vast majority were conducted
by the 3rd and 7th Army Commands, a few of the
early trials were conducted by the 1st and 15th
Armies and the United States Forces in Austria.
During the 1945-1946 period,
reviews and recommendations were prepared from the trial record by
the posttrial units of the Army Commands convening the courts. They
were reviewed by the pertinent Army staff judge advocates, and the
commanding generals. Death sentences required a last review by the
European Theater Commander.
From October 1946 to July
1948, the conduct of U.S. war crimes trials was centralized under
the Deputy Judge Advocate for War Crimes and the trials held at the
site of the former concentration camp Dachau. During this period
reviews and recommendations were prepared by the Deputy Judge
Advocate for War Crimes. They were reviewed by the Judge Advocate
and, for death sentences, the Theater Commander.
Records Description
A typical review and
recommendation contains paragraphs for the following subjects: trial
data and charges, summaries of evidence, personal information
regarding the accused, evidence presented by prosecution and defence
counsel, and petitions for clemency; the conclusions of the reviewer
and the recommendation, either of an Army staff judge advocate or
the Deputy Judge Advocate for War Crimes, complete the record.
The case files to which the
first 227 reviews and recommendations pertain were filed and are
arranged by a two-number mail and records system employed by the
European and Washington Offices of the War Crimes Branch, Office of
the Judge Advocate General. The same system is used for the reviews
and recommendations. The first number designates a country, and the
second number identifies the case within the country. In Case 5-37,
for example, the first number represents Austria, the country in
which the crime was alleged to have been committed; and the second
number identifies the case among the other Austrian cases tried or
investigated between 1945 and 1948. All of the case files in this
publication arranged by the two-number system have one of the
following five country designations: 5 - Austria, 6 - Belgium, 8 -
Czechoslovakia, 11 - France, or 12 - Germany.
The remaining reviews and
recommendations are arranged by one of two modified mail and records
systems. One system consists of a sequence of numbers beginning with
a triple zero, 000, followed by the number 50, 000-50. These
two-number sequences indicate concentration camp cases. A third
number in this sequence stands for a main camp case. Thus 000-50-2
is for the Dachau Concentration Camp Case, 000-50-5 is for the
Mauthausen Case, 000-50-9 is for the Buchenwald Case, 000-50-37 is
for the Nordhausen Case, 000-50-16 is for the Flossenburg Case, and
000-50-136 is for the Muehldorf Concentration Camp Case.
The subsequent proceedings to these main cases were designated
either by adding a fourth number to the sequence such as 000-50-2-1,
indicating the first subsequent proceeding to the Dachau main
concentration camp case; or using a triple zero followed by the name
of the main camp and the number of the subsequent proceeding,
000-Buchenwald-1. The apparent difference between these two methods
of identifying subsequent concentration camp cases is that the
charges under the first method were substantially the same as in the
main case; whereas in the second method the accused were tried under
additional charges.
* The number
of accused listed here (→
Name List of Accused) is 1916, the number of cases (→ List of Tried
Cases) 458. The discrepancy in the number of persons is explained by
the fact that the Name List as produced here contains a number of
persons whose name appear more than once, as well as the names of
persons who were not tried, but who were listed as accused.
The discrepancy in case numbers is explained by the fact that in a
number of cases the Review & Recommendations concerned more than one
proceeding (cf. e.g. US173).
For various
forms of assistance over time concerning the Dachau Trial Project,
our thanks goes out to Dr. Elisabeth Yavnai, Prof. Dr. Michael S.
Bryant & Nicole Haney.