Wednesday, June 05, 2013
Summary Execution
Two of the Nazis have their hands up, but one in the middle has his arms crossed and his body language seems to ask, "What are you going to do if I don't raise my hands, shoot me?"
In defense of this indefensible action, this was at Dachau on April 29, 1945 when the infamous concentration camp was liberated by soldiers of the Rainbow Division (42nd Infantry). Lt. William Walsh began shooting prisoners and set up this machine gun firing squad which killed 17 before a clearer thinking, higher officer stopped it. The slight irony is that these Waffen SS troops were not the camp guards (who had fled), but were troops transferred from the eastern front specifically to surrender the camp to the Americans.
Courts martial were instigated but the charges quashed and kept fairly secret until the 1980s. No American was punished for these executions, called the Dachau Massacre.
Labels: Americans Shooting Nazis, WWII history: European Theater; War Crimes
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Do the Right Thing
General Anton Dostler being tied to a stake for execution by firing squad on Dec. 1, 1945 in Aversa, Italy. Dostler had been convicted of war crimes by an American tribunal. He had ordered the execution of 15 captured Americans soldiers who, in uniform, landed behind German lines in order to blow up a train tunnel. You can view a video of his execution here. This was the first Allied war crime trial. Dostler's defense, Superior Orders, was that he was only passing along an order of another general. This "I was only following orders" was here seriously undercut by the fact that an officer under him, Alexander, Prince of Dohna-Schlobitten, one of the last Germans flown out of Stalingrad, had refused to sign the execution order and was dismissed from the Wehrmacht for insubordination. Dohna lived to be 97, dying in 1997. Dostler didn't make it to 1946.
We never gave the Superior Orders defense much weight in any of the war crime tribunals dealing with WWII war crimes. It is never a lawful order to commit a war crime. It's a tough choice for those being ordered to do such things, however. Since Nuremburg, however, the Superior Orders defense has been at times more effective, as with Lt. Calley after the 1968 massacre at Me Lei.
Labels: WWII history: European Theater; War Crimes
