Dachau trials

This article is about the 1945–1947 series of trials held in Germany. For the 1947–1949 trials held in Slovenia, see Dachau trials (Slovenia). For the first trial against Dachau camp officials, see Dachau camp trial.
Ex-SS-Sturmbannführer Friedrich Wetzel, who was the officer in charge of distributing food and clothing in the Dachau concentration camp, testifies during the Dachau camp trial.

The Dachau trials, also known as the Dachau Military Tribunal, handled the prosecution of almost every war criminal captured in the U.S. military zones in Allied-occupied Germany and in Allied-occupied Austria, and the prosecutions of military personnel and civilian persons who committed war crimes against the American military and American citizens. The war-crime trials were held within the compound of the former Dachau concentration camp by military tribunals authorized by the Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Third Army.

The Nazi war criminals were held and tried at the Dachau concentration camp since the camp had buildings adequate to housing the many personnel required for and involved in the legal proceedings of a war-crimes trial, and since the Dachau prison camp had many jail cells in which to hold the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS officers and soldiers accused of war crimes. The American Military Tribunal for the war-crime trials at Dachau featured the JAG attorney William Denson as the chief prosecutor,[1] and the attorney Lt. Col. Douglas T. Bates Jr., an artillery officer, as the chief defense counsel.[1]

  1. ^ a b Greene, Joshua (2003). Justice At Dachau: The Trials Of An American Prosecutor. New York: Broadway. p. 400 pp. ISBN 0-7679-0879-1.