Dachau International Military Tribunal

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The Dachau Military Tribunal was set up after World War II by the Judge Advocate Department of the U.S. Third Army to conduct proceedings against minor war criminals found in the United States sectors of occupation in Germany and Austria, and those accused of committing war crimes against American citizens and military personnel.

Less well known than the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg which tried major German war criminals, the American Military Tribunal at Dachau tried 1,672 German alleged war criminals in 489 separate proceedings. Unlike the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg which consisted of judges from 4 different nations, the Dachau trials were overseen exclusively by the United States. In this sense, the Dachau trials were not "international" in nature and are therefore more closely analogous to the 12 Subsequent Nuremberg Trials which also were overseen by the United States.

The location of the court, within the Dachau concentration camp, is one of best known of the Nazis' infamous concentration camps, underline the moral corruptness of the regime under which those found guilty of war crimes had operated. The most highly publicised trials at the time and the best remembered are the Malmedy massacre trial when seventy-three Waffen-SS soldiers were found guilty of shooting eighty-four American soldiers during the second day of the Battle of the Bulge; and the trial of Otto Skorzeny and 9 others, all officers in the 150th Panzer Brigad, who were found not guilty of war crimes, arising from members of the brigade who had dressed themselves in American military uniforms to confuse the enemy during the same battle^[1].

Some other notable trials by the U.S. military court at Dachau included^[2]:

The Buchenwald Camp Trial, In this trial, during April, August, 1947, 31 members of the staff of the Buchenwald camp were found guilty of atrocities and 22 were sentenced to death; the rest to imprisonment.
The Dachau Camp Trials: Forty officials were tried; 36 of the defendants were sentenced to death (13 December 1945), of whom 23 were hanged on either the 28 May or 29 May 1946, including the former commandant Gottfried Weiss and the camp doctor Schilling. Smaller groups of Dachau camp officials and guards were included in several subsequent trials by the U.S. court at Dachau. On 21 November 1946 it was announced that, up to that date, 116 defendants of this category had been convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment.
The Dora-Nordhausen Camp Trial, Twenty-two ex-officials of this camp were placed on trial on 31 July 1947
The Flossenburg Camp Trial, Fifty-two officials and guards of this camp were tried between 12 June 1946 and 19 January 1947. Forty of the defendants were found guilty; 15 of these were sentenced to be hanged, and 25 to terms of imprisonment.
The Mauthausen Camp Trial, Sixty-one officials of this camp were tried by a U.S. military court at Dachau in March/April, 1946; 58 defendants were sentenced to death (11 May 1946) and were executed, including the commandant of the Todtenkopf guard.
The Muehldorf Concentration Camp Trial, 5 officials of this camp were sentenced to death by a U.S. war crimes court at Dachau on 13 May 1947 and 7 others to imprisonment.
Viktor Zoller: Ex-commander of the guards at Mauthausen concentration camp. Tried and Sentenced to death in April, 1946; hanged 21 May 1947.
Josef Kisch: SS. Gruppenführer. Former official of Mauthausen camp. Tried and sentenced to death 15 September 1947 for murders of Allied paratroops.
Hans Moeser: Former commandant of Nordhausen concentration camp. Tried and sentenced to death on 30 December, 1947.
Kurt Mathesius: Former commandant of Nordhausen. Hanged himself while awaiting trial by a U.S. court at Dachau, May, 1947.

[edit] Notes

↑ The trial of Otto Skorzeny and others in the General Military Government Court of the U.S. Zone of Germany.
↑ Some Noteworthy War Criminals Source: History of the United Nations War Crimes Commission and the Development of the Laws of War. United Nations War Crimes Commission. London: HMSO, 1948