Prisoner of War
After Gimpel's capture, the spies were handed over to US military authorities on the instructions of the Attorney General. In February 1945 they stood trial before a Military commission, accused of conspiracy and violating the 82nd Article of War. They were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, but for Gimpel, this was delayed by the unexpected death of the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt due to a custom not to hold any executions during a period of State Mourning. Later, after the war ended, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
Gimpel was sent to Alcatraz, where he played chess with Machine Gun Kelly. After ten years, Gimpel was released in 1955 and returned home to West Germany. He later would make his home in South America.
Read more about this topic: Erich Gimpel
Famous quotes containing the words prisoner of, prisoner and/or war:
“I am prisoner of a gaudy and unlivable present, where all forms of human society have reached an extreme of their cycle and there is no imagining what new forms they may assume.”
—Italo Calvino (1923–1985)
“There is a doctrine uttered in secret that man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“Haven’t you heard, though,
About the ships where war has found them out
At sea, about the towns where war has come
Through opening clouds at night with droning speed
Further o’erhead than all but stars and angels
And children in the ships and in the towns?”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)