Proceedings
Unlike the International Military Trials in Nuremberg that prosecuted the major Nazi war criminals under the jurisdiction of the four Allied Occupying Powers, the Dachau tribunals were held exclusively by the United States Military between November 1945 and August 1948. The proceedings were similar to the 12 post-1946 Nuremberg trials that were also conducted solely by the United States.
All the hearings were held within Dachau because it was, at the time, the best known of the Nazi concentration camps and it would act as a backdrop for the trials by underlining the moral corruptness of the Nazi regime.
During almost three years, the American Military Tribunals tried 1,672 German alleged war criminals in 489 separate proceedings. In total 1,416 former members of the Nazi regime were convicted, of these, 297 received death sentences and 279 were sentenced to life in prison. All convicted prisoners were sent to War Criminals Prison #1 at Landsberg am Lech to serve their sentences or to be hanged.
Two of the most highly publicised trials concerned the activities of German forces during the Battle of the Bulge in late 1944. In the Malmedy massacre trial, 73 members of the Waffen-SS were found guilty of summarily executing 84 American prisoners of war during the attack. In another trial, former German commando Otto Skorzeny and 9 officers from the Panzer Brigade 150, were found not guilty of breaching the rules of war contrary to the The Hague conventions for wearing American military uniforms in a false flag operation (See Operation Greif).:
Read more about this topic: Dachau Trials
Famous quotes containing the word proceedings:
“And no one, it seemed, had had the presence of mind
To initiate proceedings or stop the wheel
From the number it was backing away from as it stopped:
It was performing prettily; the puncture stayed unseen....”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“From his proceedings in Congress, he appears demented, and his actings and doings inspire my pity more than anger.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)