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