THE MAUTHAUSEN WAR CRIMES TRIAL and AMERICAN MILITARY JUSTICE in GERMANY by Tomaz Jardim a Thesis Submitted in Conformity with T

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

THE MAUTHAUSEN WAR CRIMES TRIAL and AMERICAN MILITARY JUSTICE in GERMANY by Tomaz Jardim a Thesis Submitted in Conformity with T THE MAUTHAUSEN WAR CRIMES TRIAL AND AMERICAN MILITARY JUSTICE IN GERMANY by Tomaz Jardim A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of History University of Toronto © Copyright by Tomaz Jardim, 2009. Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaONK1A0N4 OttawaONK1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-81228-0 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-81228-0 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduce, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondares ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. ••• Canada Abstract The Mauthausen War Crimes Trial and American Military Justice in Germany By Tomaz Jardim PhD, 2009 Department of History, University of Toronto This dissertation examines the American military trial of sixty-one personnel from the notorious Nazi concentration camp Mauthausen in 1946. As one of nearly 500 war crimes cases brought before U.S. military courts at Dachau between 1945 and the end of 1947, the Mauthausen trial was part of a justice system designed to judge and punish Nazi crimes in the most expedient manner the law would allow. Drawing on trial and pre-trial records as well as interviews with surviving witnesses and trial participants, I reconstruct the arc of the prosecution process - from the investigation of crimes at Mauthausen in the days following its liberation, through to the trial and its aftermath. The investigation phase, I illustrate, was hampered by chronic understaffing and a lack of trained personnel. As a result, American war crimes investigators at Mauthausen came to depend on camp survivors to assist in virtually every step of the investigation, from the gathering of evidence to the arrest and interrogation of suspects. I argue that it was this remarkable relationship between liberator and liberated that gave fundamental shape to the Mauthausen investigation, and that influenced the vision of Nazi crimes presented by prosecutors in the courtroom. The ensuing trial, which lasted thirty-six days and resulted in the conviction of all sixty-one defendants, was efficient if also problematic. I argue that relaxed rules of evidence, questionable interrogation techniques, and the absence of an appeal procedure tipped the proceedings in favor of the prosecution and rendered the trial fundamentally flawed. Paradoxically ii however, I show that under the circumstances, this questionable legal framework allowed for the speedy punishment of dozens of indisputably guilty men who in all likelihood would otherwise have gone free. in Acknowledgments Essential to the completion of this dissertation was the generous intellectual, emotional and financial support extended to me. First, I am deeply indebted to the various institutions which provided me with the funds necessary to travel, to research, and to write. They are: The Ontario Graduate Scholarship, the Patricia and Alan Marchment Graduate Student Travel Award in History, the Special Supplemental Award and Dissertation Completion Grant from the Joint Initiative for German and European Studies, and the Diane and Howard Wohl Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (The statements made and the ideas expressed herein, however, are solely the responsibility of the author.) I am particularly thankful to the staff of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Study, and especially to Lisa Yavnai, whose suggestions helped both inspire and guide my research project. I am indebted also to the helpful staff at the National Archives in Washington, DC, at Yale University Library (Manuscripts and Archives), and at the Archiv der KZ- Gedenkstatte Mauthausen. I owe particular thanks to Christian Diirr. My greatest debt is owed to my dissertation supervisor, Michael Marrus, who could not have been more supportive or helpful throughout the course of my research and writing. In addition, the input of professors Doris Bergen, Derek Penslar, Jim Retallack, Rebecca Wittmann and Jennifer Jenkins was invaluable. Further, the ongoing support, encouragement and thoughtful reflection from Jacques Kornberg helped make the process iv of writing both manageable and rewarding. The importance of the council of my colleague and friend Valerie Hebert cannot be overstated: Valerie's willingness to read draft chapters and to discuss with me the conclusions I reached along the way was nothing less than critical to the completion of this project. Thank you. Last but not least, I wish to thank my friends and family - too many to name - for their unwavering support and encouragement. It simply could not have been done without you. v Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgments iv Table of Contents vi List of Appendices vii Introduction 1 1. Precedents and Precursors 14 2. Investigating War Crimes at Mauthausen 62 3. Constructing the Mauthausen Parent Case 104 4. The Mauthausen Case Before the Court 137 5. Judgment at Dachau 197 Epilogue and Conclusion 236 Appendix: Mauthausen Trial Charge Sheet 254 Bibliography 256 vi List of Appendices 1. The Mauthausen Trial Charge Sheet Introduction Shortly after 9:00 a.m. on May 27, 1947, the first of forty-nine men condemned to death for war crimes at Mauthausen concentration camp mounted the gallows in the courtyard of Landsberg Prison near Munich. The mass-execution that followed resulted from an American military trial conducted at Dachau in the spring of 1946 - a trial that had lasted only thirty-six days and yet which produced more death sentences than any other in American history. To be sure, the crimes of the condemned men had been monstrous, laying bare the worst excesses of Hitler's twelve-year Reich. Yet despite meting out punishment to a group of incontestably guilty men, the Mauthausen trial reveals as much about the shortcomings of the American military trial program as it does about its unsung triumphs. This dissertation tells the story of the Mauthausen trial and the investigation that preceded it. Very little is known about the vast majority of war crimes cases tried by American authorities in the aftermath of the Second World War. Though the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (IMT) has received the benefit of extensive research, it represents only one of three distinct paths the United States followed in bringing Nazi perpetrators to justice in the wake of the Second World War. Under the jurisdiction of the London Charter signed by the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France, the IMT heard the cases of twenty- two of the highest-ranking figures of the Third Reich for war crimes, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and common plan or conspiracy. As a result of rapidly 1 2 decaying relations between the United States and the Soviet Union however, plans to bring other high-ranking Nazis before the IMT were shelved. Instead, the American administration decided to pursue further prosecutions at Nuremberg unilaterally. Known as the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings (SNP), this second path saw the trial of an additional 185 prominent Nazis from the SS, the military, the legal and medical professions, as well as from various government ministries and industry. The IMT and SNP were exceptional, however, as they dealt only with a small fraction of the 1,885 Nazi war crimes suspects tried in the American zone of occupation between 1945 and 1949. The overwhelming majority of U.S. war crimes prosecutions were instead conducted by American military commission courts in 462 trials held on the grounds of the former concentration camp Dachau between mid-1945 and the end of 1947. Having little in common with the proceedings at Nuremberg, these trials used the pre-existing mechanisms of military law to prosecute rapidly nearly 1700 war crimes suspects. The Mauthausen trial was among the largest of the military trials at Dachau, proceeding against sixty-one defendants including camp personnel, Kapos and civilian workers implicated in the atrocities committed there. Although Mauthausen has never had the notoriety of concentration camps like Auschwitz or Dachau, the role it played in the Nazi system of incarceration and terror was no less critical. Located only twenty kilometers from Hitler's boyhood home of Linz, Mauthausen and the dozens of sub- camps it spawned comprised the largest and most murderous penal institution in Austria. In the seven years it operated, some 100,000 dissidents, Soviet POWS, Jews, Gypsies and other "enemies" of the National Socialist state lost their lives there.
Recommended publications
  • 20 Dokumentar Stücke Zum Holocaust in Hamburg Von Michael Batz
    „Hört damit auf!“ 20 Dokumentar stücke zum Holocaust in „Hört damit auf!“ „Hört damit auf!“ 20 Dokumentar stücke Hamburg Festsaal mit Blick auf Bahnhof, Wald und uns 20 Dokumentar stücke zum zum Holocaust in Hamburg Das Hamburger Polizei- Bataillon 101 in Polen 1942 – 1944 Betr.: Holocaust in Hamburg Ehem. jüd. Eigentum Die Versteigerungen beweglicher jüdischer von Michael Batz von Michael Batz Habe in Hamburg Pempe, Albine und das ewige Leben der Roma und Sinti Oratorium zum Holocaust am fahrenden Volk Spiegel- Herausgegeben grund und der Weg dorthin Zur Geschichte der Alsterdorfer Anstal- von der Hamburgischen ten 1933 – 1945 Hafenrundfahrt zur Erinnerung Der Hamburger Bürgerschaft Hafen 1933 – 1945 Morgen und Abend der Chinesen Das Schicksal der chinesischen Kolonie in Hamburg 1933 – 1944 Der Hannoversche Bahnhof Zur Geschichte des Hamburger Deportationsbahnhofes am Lohseplatz Hamburg Hongkew Die Emigration Hamburger Juden nach Shanghai Es sollte eigentlich ein Musik-Abend sein Die Kulturabende der jüdischen Hausgemeinschaft Bornstraße 16 Bitte nicht wecken Suizide Hamburger Juden am Vorabend der Deporta- tionen Nach Riga Deportation und Ermordung Hamburger Juden nach und in Lettland 39 Tage Curiohaus Der Prozess der britischen Militärregierung gegen die ehemalige Lagerleitung des KZ Neuengam- me 18. März bis 3. Mai 1946 im Curiohaus Hamburg Sonderbehand- lung nach Abschluss der Akte Die Unterdrückung sogenannter „Ost“- und „Fremdarbeiter“ durch die Hamburger Gestapo Plötzlicher Herztod durch Erschießen NS-Wehrmachtjustiz und Hinrichtungen
    [Show full text]
  • 16. the Nuremberg Trials: Nazi Criminals Face Justice
    fdr4freedoms 1 16. The Nuremberg Trials: Nazi Criminals Face Justice On a ship off the coast of Newfoundland in August 1941, four months before the United States entered World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill agreed to commit themselves to “the final destruction of Nazi tyranny.” In mid-1944, as the Allied advance toward Germany progressed, another question arose: What to do with the defeated Nazis? FDR asked his War Department for a plan to bring Germany to justice, making it accountable for starting the terrible war and, in its execution, committing a string of ruthless atrocities. By mid-September 1944, FDR had two plans to consider. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. had unexpectedly presented a proposal to the president two weeks before the War Department finished its own work. The two plans could not have been more different, and a bitter contest of ideas erupted in FDR’s cabinet. To execute or prosecute? Morgenthau proposed executing major Nazi leaders as soon as they were captured, exiling other officers to isolated and barren lands, forcing German prisoners of war to rebuild war-scarred Europe, and, perhaps most controversially, Defendants and their counsel in the trial of major war criminals before the dismantling German industry in the highly developed Ruhr International Military Tribunal, November 22, 1945. The day before, all defendants and Saar regions. One of the world’s most advanced industrial had entered “not guilty” pleas and U.S. top prosecutor Robert H. Jackson had made his opening statement. “Despite the fact that public opinion already condemns economies would be left to subsist on local crops, a state their acts,” said Jackson, “we agree that here [these defendants] must be given that would prevent Germany from acting on any militaristic or a presumption of innocence, and we accept the burden of proving criminal acts and the responsibility of these defendants for their commission.” Harvard Law School expansionist impulses.
    [Show full text]
  • Déportés À Auschwitz. Certains Résis- Tion D’Une Centaine, Sont Traqués Et Tent Avec Des Armes
    MORT1943 ET RÉSISTANCE BIEN QU’AYANT rarement connu les noms de leurs victimes juives, les nazis entendaient que ni Zivia Lubetkin, ni Richard Glazar, ni Thomas Blatt ne survivent à la « solution finale ». Ils survécurent cependant et, après la Shoah, chacun écrivit un livre sur la Résistance en 1943. Quelque 400 000 Juifs vivaient dans le ghetto de Varsovie surpeuplé, mais les épi- démies, la famine et les déportations à Treblinka – 300 000 personnes entre juillet et septembre 1942 – réduisirent considérablement ce nombre. Estimant que 40 000 Juifs s’y trouvaient encore (le chiffre réel approchait les 55 000), Heinrich Himmler, le chef des SS, ordonna la déportation de 8 000 autres lors de sa visite du ghetto, le 9 janvier 1943. Cependant, sous la direction de Mordekhaï Anielewicz, âgé de 23 ans, le Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa (ZOB, Organisation juive de combat) lança une résistance armée lorsque les Allemands exécutèrent l’ordre d’Himmler, le 18 janvier. Bien que plus de 5 000 Juifs aient été déportés le 22 janvier, la Résistance juive – elle impliquait aussi bien la recherche de caches et le refus de s’enregistrer que la lutte violente – empêcha de remplir le quota et conduisit les Allemands à mettre fin à l’Aktion. Le répit, cependant, fut de courte durée. En janvier, Zivia Lubetkin participa à la création de l’Organisation juive de com- bat et au soulèvement du ghetto de Varsovie. « Nous combattions avec des gre- nades, des fusils, des barres de fer et des ampoules remplies d’acide sulfurique », rapporte-t-elle dans son livre Aux jours de la destruction et de la révolte.
    [Show full text]
  • August Kratt (Vorne Bildmitte) War Von Oktober 1942 Bis Kriegsende Kommissarischer Bürgermeister Von Radolfzell
    Chronik_Radolfzell_Korr.qxd 01.09.2017 11:32 Uhr Seite 268 9 Markus Wolter: Die SS-Garnison Radolfzell 1937–1945 August Kratt (vorne Bildmitte) war von Oktober 1942 bis Kriegsende kommissarischer Bürgermeister von Radolfzell. 268 Chronik_Radolfzell_Korr.qxd 01.09.2017 11:32 Uhr Seite 269 9. Markus Wolter Die SS-Garnison Radolfzell 1937–1945 „Täter, Opfer, Zuschauer“ – Raul Hilberg „Zu Hitlers Verfügung“ – Die SS-Verfügungs- Schutzstaffel (SS) operierenden, in „Politischen truppe in Radolfzell 1937–1939 Bereitschaften“ zusammengefassten und ka- sernierten Einheiten wurden aus der SA ausge- Der von der Bevölkerung bejubelte, in einer gliedert und zu einer eigenständigen Partei- offiziellen Festveranstaltung an zwei Abenden organisation unter Führung von Reichsführer- gefeierte Einzug des dritten Bataillons der SS- SS Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) formiert. Die Standarte „Germania“ am 31. Juli 1937 bedeutet anfänglich drei, nach der Annexion Österreichs für die neuere Stadtgeschichte von Radolfzell 1938 vier SS-VT-Standarten verteilten sich mit eine tiefgreifende Zäsur. Als Bataillonsstandort ihren Regimentsstäben und Bataillonen schließ- der SS-Verfügungstruppe (VT) wurde die Klein- lich auf neun SS-Kasernen im Deutschen Reich: stadt am Bodensee zu einer von damals acht Berlin („Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler“), Mün- SS-Garnisonen im Deutschen Reich. Vor dem chen und Ellwangen (SS-Standarte 1 „Deutsch- Hintergrund der Entstehungsgeschichte und land“), Hamburg, Arolsen und Wolterdingen Struktur der SS-VT und der aus ihr hervorgehen- (1935)/Radolfzell (1937) (SS-Standarte 2 „Ger- den Waffen-SS war Radolfzell damit kein unbe- mania“); Wien, Graz und Klagenfurt (1938) (SS- deutender, in der „Topographie des Terrors“ die- Standarte „Der Führer“). 2 Ausgebildet nach ser Parteiorganisation sogar prominent zu nen- Heeresdienstvorschriften und für den Fall des nender Standort; mit weitreichenden, hier zu geplanten Krieges der Wehrmacht „zur Ver- behandelnden Folgen.
    [Show full text]
  • Female Nazi Perpetrators Kara Mercure Female Nazi Perpetrators
    Undergraduate Research Journal Volume 19 Article 13 2015 Female Nazi Perpetrators Kara Mercure Female Nazi Perpetrators Follow this and additional works at: https://openspaces.unk.edu/undergraduate-research-journal Part of the European History Commons, and the History of Gender Commons Recommended Citation Mercure, Kara (2015) "Female Nazi Perpetrators," Undergraduate Research Journal: Vol. 19 , Article 13. Available at: https://openspaces.unk.edu/undergraduate-research-journal/vol19/iss1/13 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Office of Undergraduate Research & Creative Activity at OpenSPACES@UNK: Scholarship, Preservation, and Creative Endeavors. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Research Journal by an authorized editor of OpenSPACES@UNK: Scholarship, Preservation, and Creative Endeavors. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Female Nazi Perpetrators Kara Mercure Nazi women perpetrators have evolved in literary works as they have become more known to scholars in the last 15 years. However, public knowledge of women’s involvement in the regime is seemingly unfamiliar. Curiosity in the topic of women’s motivation as perpetrators of genocide and war crimes has developed in contrast to a stereotypical perception of women’s gender roles to be more domesticated. Much literature has been devoted to explaining Nazi ideology and how women fit into the system. Claudia Koonz’s, Mother’s in the Fatherland, demonstrates the involvement of women in support of National Socialism. The book focuses on women in support of the regime and how they supported the regime through domestic means. Robert G. Moeller’s, The Nazi State and German Society, also examines how women were drawn to National Socialism and how their ideals progressed through the regime.
    [Show full text]
  • Genocide and Belonging: Processes of Imagining Communities
    GENOCIDE AND BELONGING: PROCESSES OF IMAGINING COMMUNITIES ADENO ADDIS* ABSTRACT Genocide is often referred to as “the crime of crimes.” It is a crime that is very high on the nastiness scale. The purpose of the genocidaire is of course to destroy a community—a community that he regards as a threat to his own community, whether the threat is perceived as physical, economic or cultural. The way this takes place and the complicity of law in this process has been extensively explored by scholars. But the process of destroying a community is perversely often simultaneously an “exercise in community build- ing,” a process through which intra-communal bonds and belong- ing are sought to be strengthened. This aspect of genocide has been entirely neglected by scholars, especially the role of law in that pro- cess. This article makes and defends two claims about communities and belonging in relation to genocide. First, it argues that as per- verse as it sounds, genocide is in fact an exercise in community building and law is highly implicated in that process. It defends the thesis with arguments that are conceptual as well as empirical. The second, and more hopeful, claim is that the international response * W. R. Irby Chair and W. Ray Forrester Professor of Public and Constitutional Law, Tulane University School of Law. Previous drafts of the paper were presented at an international conference at the Guanghua Law School of Zhejiang University (China) and at Tulane Law School faculty symposium. I thank participants at those meetings for the many helpful questions and comments.
    [Show full text]
  • SS-Totenkopfverbände from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (Redirected from SS-Totenkopfverbande)
    Create account Log in Article Talk Read Edit View history SS-Totenkopfverbände From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from SS-Totenkopfverbande) Navigation Not to be confused with 3rd SS Division Totenkopf, the Waffen-SS fighting unit. Main page This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason Contents has been specified. Please help improve this article if you can. (December 2010) Featured content Current events This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding Random article citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2010) Donate to Wikipedia [2] SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), rendered in English as "Death's-Head Units" (literally SS-TV meaning "Skull Units"), was the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi SS-Totenkopfverbände Interaction concentration camps for the Third Reich. Help The SS-TV was an independent unit within the SS with its own ranks and command About Wikipedia structure. It ran the camps throughout Germany, such as Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Community portal Buchenwald; in Nazi-occupied Europe, it ran Auschwitz in German occupied Poland and Recent changes Mauthausen in Austria as well as numerous other concentration and death camps. The Contact Wikipedia death camps' primary function was genocide and included Treblinka, Bełżec extermination camp and Sobibor. It was responsible for facilitating what was called the Final Solution, Totenkopf (Death's head) collar insignia, 13th Standarte known since as the Holocaust, in collaboration with the Reich Main Security Office[3] and the Toolbox of the SS-Totenkopfverbände SS Economic and Administrative Main Office or WVHA.
    [Show full text]
  • Excerpt from Elizabeth Borgwardt, the Nuremberg Idea: “Thinking Humanity” in History, Law & Politics, Under Contract with Alfred A
    Excerpt from Elizabeth Borgwardt, The Nuremberg Idea: “Thinking Humanity” in History, Law & Politics, under contract with Alfred A. Knopf. DRAFT of 10/24/16; please do not cite or quote without author’s permission Human Rights Workshop, Schell Center for International Human Rights, Yale Law School November 3, 2016, 12:10 to 1:45 pm, Faculty Lounge Author’s Note: Thank you in advance for any attention you may be able to offer to this chapter in progress, which is approximately 44 double-spaced pages of text. If time is short I recommend starting with the final section, pp. 30-42. I look forward to learning from your reactions and suggestions. Chapter Abstract: This history aims to show how the 1945-49 series of trials in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice distilled the modern idea of “crimes against humanity,” and in the process established the groundwork for the modern international human rights regime. Over the course of the World War II era, a 19th century version of crimes against humanity, which might be rendered more precisely in German as Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit (crimes against “humane-ness”), competed with and was ultimately co-opted by a mid-20th- century conception, translated as Verbrechen gegen die Menschheit (crimes against “human- kind”). Crimes against humaneness – which Hannah Arendt dismissed as “crimes against kindness” – were in effect transgressions against traditional ideas of knightly chivalry, that is, transgressions against the humanity of the perpetrators. Crimes against humankind – the Menschheit version -- by contrast, focused equally on the humanity of victims. Such extreme atrocities most notably denied and attacked the humanity of individual victims (by denying their human rights, or in Arendt’s iconic phrasing, their “right to have rights”).
    [Show full text]
  • Nuremberg and Group Prosecution
    Washington University Law Review Volume 1951 Issue 3 1951 Nuremberg and Group Prosecution Richard Arens University of Buffalo Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview Part of the Legal History Commons, and the Military, War, and Peace Commons Recommended Citation Richard Arens, Nuremberg and Group Prosecution, 1951 WASH. U. L. Q. 329 (1951). Available at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol1951/iss3/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington University Law Review by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NUREMBERG AND GROUP PROSECUTION* RICHARD ARENSt INTRODUCTION The trial of the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity involved not only the indictment of individual defendants but also the indictment of the major Nazi organizations. 1 An aspect almost completely ignored in the welter of allega- gations concerning the ex post facto basis of the Nuremberg prosecutions2 is that concerning the infliction of collective or group sanctions through adjudication of group criminality. The question touching on the use of such sanctions for the maintenance of public order has become particularly acute in recent years in democratic society faced with the threat of global violence. An ominous resort to group or collective deprivations was highlighted in the Western world during World War II by deportation of West Coast Japanese-Americans to "relocation centers" in the name of security? A subsequent resort to the infliction of such deprivations has become apparent in the * This is the second of two studies on war crimes prosecutions prepared for the Quarterly by Professor Arens.
    [Show full text]
  • Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp System Varies Considerably from Source to Source
    Mauthausen-Gusen concentrationCoordinates: 48°15camp′32″N 14°30′04″E From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Mauthausen Concentration Camp (known from the summer of 1940 as Mauthausen- Gusen Concentration Camp) grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of the city of Linz. Initially a single camp at Mauthausen, it expanded over time to become one of the The Mauthausen parade ground – a view largest labour camp complexes in German- towards the main gate controlled Europe.[1][2] Apart from the four main sub-camps at Mauthausen and nearby Gusen, more than 50 sub-camps, located throughout Austria and southern Germany, used the inmates as slave labour. Several subordinate camps of the KZ Mauthausen complex included quarries, munitions factories, mines, arms factories and Me 262 fighter-plane assembly plants.[3] In January 1945, the camps, directed from the central office in Mauthausen, contained roughly 85,000 inmates.[4] The death toll remains unknown, although most sources place it between 122,766 and 320,000 for the entire complex. The camps formed one of the first massive concentration camp complexes in Nazi Germany, and were the last ones to be liberated by the Western Allies or the Soviet Union. The two main camps, Mauthausen and Gusen I, were also the only two camps in the whole of Europe to be labelled as "Grade III" camps, which meant that they were intended to be the toughest camps for the "Incorrigible Political
    [Show full text]
  • LCSH Section W
    W., D. (Fictitious character) William Kerr Scott Lake (N.C.) Waaddah Island (Wash.) USE D. W. (Fictitious character) William Kerr Scott Reservoir (N.C.) BT Islands—Washington (State) W.12 (Military aircraft) BT Reservoirs—North Carolina Waaddah Island (Wash.) USE Hansa Brandenburg W.12 (Military aircraft) W particles USE Waadah Island (Wash.) W.13 (Seaplane) USE W bosons Waag family USE Hansa Brandenburg W.13 (Seaplane) W-platform cars USE Waaga family W.29 (Military aircraft) USE General Motors W-cars Waag River (Slovakia) USE Hansa Brandenburg W.29 (Military aircraft) W. R. Holway Reservoir (Okla.) USE Váh River (Slovakia) W.A. Blount Building (Pensacola, Fla.) UF Chimney Rock Reservoir (Okla.) Waaga family (Not Subd Geog) UF Blount Building (Pensacola, Fla.) Holway Reservoir (Okla.) UF Vaaga family BT Office buildings—Florida BT Lakes—Oklahoma Waag family W Award Reservoirs—Oklahoma Waage family USE Prix W W. R. Motherwell Farmstead National Historic Park Waage family W.B. Umstead State Park (N.C.) (Sask.) USE Waaga family USE William B. Umstead State Park (N.C.) USE Motherwell Homestead National Historic Site Waahi, Lake (N.Z.) W bosons (Sask.) UF Lake Rotongaru (N.Z.) [QC793.5.B62-QC793.5.B629] W. R. Motherwell Stone House (Sask.) Lake Waahi (N.Z.) UF W particles UF Motherwell House (Sask.) Lake Wahi (N.Z.) BT Bosons Motherwell Stone House (Sask.) Rotongaru, Lake (N.Z.) W. Burling Cocks Memorial Race Course at Radnor BT Dwellings—Saskatchewan Wahi, Lake (N.Z.) Hunt (Malvern, Pa.) W.S. Payne Medical Arts Building (Pensacola, Fla.) BT Lakes—New Zealand UF Cocks Memorial Race Course at Radnor Hunt UF Medical Arts Building (Pensacola, Fla.) Waʻahila Ridge (Hawaii) (Malvern, Pa.) Payne Medical Arts Building (Pensacola, Fla.) BT Mountains—Hawaii BT Racetracks (Horse racing)—Pennsylvania BT Office buildings—Florida Waaihoek (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) W-cars W star algebras USE Waay Hoek (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa : USE General Motors W-cars USE C*-algebras Farm) W.
    [Show full text]
  • 7. Early October 1945
    Chapter 7 Early October 1945 fter my assignment to Dachau, Gen. Frank Keating, CO of A the 102nd Division, advises Gen. Lucian Truscott, CO of the Third Army—through a hand-carried message—that I will be delayed in arrival due to my trying a murder case. The order states that I will report to Dachau on October 1, 1945. I see the judge advocate general (JAG) of the Third Army head- quarters in Munich and am told I will replace a lieutenant colonel who has left for home. The JAG is Col. Edward Cheever, about 50, my size, a quiet speaker who gets quickly to the point. I am only a captain in the JAGD, and I ask how I can replace a higher-ranking officer. He says this will be no problem because the ten officer-lawyers on the staff at Dachau are lieutenants. He notes the ob- vious: rank and qualifications do not always coincide in a war-time army. 91 Witness to Barbarism He looks at my personnel file, then says my experience with courts-martial law in Europe—war-crimes investigation for the Ninth Army, my assisgnment as trial judge advocate for the XVI Corps head- quarters and the resulting Bronze Star Medal, as well as my six years as a felony prosecutor before enlistment—qualifies me for this post. He says he will communicate my background to the staff at Dachau and that my title will be chief prosecutor, as used by my predecessor. He personally takes me to Dachau, introduces me to the staff, and sees to my living quarters, a mansion formerly occupied by the German camp kommandant.
    [Show full text]