The Dora Trial , also the "Dora"-Nordhausen or Dachau Dora Proceeding ( German : Dachau-Dora Prozess ) was a war crimes trial conducted by the United States Army in the aftermath of the collapse of the Third Reich . It took place between August 7 and December 30, 1947, on the site of the former Dachau concentration camp , Germany.
129-585: In the proceedings, officially known as the United States of America vs. Kurt Andrae et al. (Case 000-50-37), 19 men were accused of war crimes committed in the operation of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, its many subcamps , and the Mittelwerk armaments plant located near Nordhausen , Germany. The main trial ended with 4 acquittals and 15 convictions, including 1 death sentence. Dora
258-524: A war of aggression , or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances. Because the definition of a state of "war" may be debated, the term "war crime" itself has seen different usage under different systems of international and military law. It has some degree of application outside of what some may consider being a state of "war", but in areas where conflicts persist enough to constitute social instability. The legalities of war have sometimes been accused of containing favoritism toward
387-573: A Dutch citizen serving with the U.S. Army, served as a translator during the liberation of the central camp complex. He also heard the testimony of the accused as a member of the investigative team. Aalmans produced a booklet entitled the "Dora"-Nordhausen Labor-Concentration Camps . The accused were defended by two American Army officers, Major Leon B. Poullada and Captain Paul D. Strader, and German legal advisers Konrad Max Trimolt, Emil Aheimer, and Louis Renner. From 31 October 1947, Milton Crook supported
516-517: A barn that was set on fire. Those who were not burned alive were shot by SS, Wehrmacht and men of the Volkssturm . Overall, although no reliable statistics on the number of deaths on these transports exist, estimates put the number of prisoners killed at up to 8,000. As most of the camps of the Mittelbau system were completely evacuated, there were not many prisoners left to be liberated by
645-455: A brutal and inhumane manner, working 14-hour days and being denied access to basic hygiene, beds, and adequate rations. Around one in three of the roughly 60,000 prisoners who were sent to Dora-Mittelbau died. Today, the site hosts a memorial and museum. In early summer 1943, mass production of the A4 (later better known as V-2, V standing for Vergeltung or retribution) ballistic rocket started at
774-523: A duty to prevent" criminal behaviour by a military force. Despite having argued that he had obeyed superior orders , von Hagenbach was convicted, condemned to death , and beheaded. The Hague Conventions were international treaties negotiated at the First and Second Peace Conferences at The Hague , Netherlands, in 1899 and 1907, respectively, and were, along with the Geneva Conventions, among
903-658: A legal basis and framework for the conduct of war under international law. Every single member state of the United Nations has currently ratified the conventions, which are universally accepted as customary international law , applicable to every situation of armed conflict in the world. The Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions adopted in 1977 containing the most pertinent, detailed and comprehensive protections of international humanitarian law for persons and objects in modern warfare are still not ratified by several states continuously engaged in armed conflicts, namely
1032-480: A military objective are governed under principles such as of proportionality and military necessity and can be permissible. Military necessity "permits the destruction of life of ... persons whose destruction is incidentally unavoidable by the armed conflicts of the war; ... it does not permit the killing of innocent inhabitants for purposes of revenge or the satisfaction of a lust to kill. The destruction of property to be lawful must be imperatively demanded by
1161-661: A pace that was kept up until February 1945. On 31 December 1943, construction of the above-ground camp, less than a kilometre from the tunnel B entrance was sufficiently completed for the workers to move in. The underground detainee accommodations ( Schlafstollen or "sleeping tunnels") were dismantled in May 1944. Besides the main camp Dora, housing an average of 15,000 prisoners, the main subcamps were Lager Ellrich (established 2 May 1944, averaging around 8,000 prisoners), Lager Harzungen (1 April 1944, 4,000 prisoners), Lager Rottleberode (13 March 1944, 1,000 prisoners) and
1290-474: A plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes". To date, the present and former heads of state and heads of government that have been charged with war crimes include: War crimes are serious violations of the rules of customary and treaty law concerning international humanitarian law , criminal offenses for which there is individual responsibility. Colloquial definitions of war crime include violations of established protections of
1419-678: A result, the Nazi leadership accelerated plans to move military construction to areas less threatened by Allied bombers. On 22 August 1943, Adolf Hitler ordered SS leader Heinrich Himmler to use concentration camp workers in future A4/V-2 production. One of the sites selected was at the mountain known as Kohnstein, near Nordhausen in Thuringia. Since 1936, the Wirtschaftliche Forschungsgesellschaft (WIFO) (English: Economic Research Company ) had been building
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#17327730950091548-549: A source of forced labor for the Reich armaments industry, but that its primary purpose was the deliberate killing of concentration camp prisoners by a systematic policy of extermination through labor ( German : Vernichtung durch Arbeit ). Berman went on to present evidence submitted at the arraignment of the defendants and placed it in the immediate context of war crimes by identifying specific camp operations targeted at human destruction. According to his argument, therefore, all
1677-548: A subterranean fuel depot for the Wehrmacht there. By late summer 1943, this was almost finished. To oversee the creation and operation of the new construction facility, Albert Speer , Himmler and Karl Saur agreed on the foundation of Mittelwerk GmbH [ de ] (the name referring to the works' location in Mitteldeutschland ). Its board consisted of Hans Kammler , who was head of Amtsgruppe C at
1806-436: A total of 14 secondary procedures planned, however 9 were cancelled for lack of witnesses and evidence. In addition, Case 004 (listed below) was begun but not pursued for the same reasons. After the verdict, the convicts were transferred to Landsberg Prison to serve out their sentences. Möser, the only defendant sentenced to death, was executed by hanging on November 26, 1948. All of the other convicts were released early, with
1935-452: A total of 17,500 slave labourers, almost 2,900 died at Dora. Another 3,000 who were very ill or dying were sent to Lublin-Majdanek and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. Few of them survived. At the end of 1943, the Dora work squads had "the highest death rate in the entire concentration camp system". By late 1943, production had started. On 10 December, Albert Speer and his staff visited
2064-529: Is a legitimate ruse of war , though fighting in combat or assassinating individuals behind enemy lines while so disguised is not, as it constitutes unlawful perfidy . Attacking enemy troops while they are being deployed by way of a parachute is not a war crime. Protocol I, Article 42 of the Geneva Conventions explicitly forbids attacking parachutists who eject from disabled aircraft and surrendering parachutists once landed. Article 30 of
2193-419: Is called scorched earth policy for the military purpose of denying the use of ground for the enemy. The German troops retreating from Finnish Lapland believed Finland would be occupied by Soviet troops and destroyed many settlements while retreating to Norway under the command of Rendulic. He overestimated the perceived risk but argued that Hague IV authorized the destruction because it was necessary to war. He
2322-472: Is part of the command structure who orders any attempt to committing mass killings including genocide or ethnic cleansing , the granting of no quarter despite surrender, the conscription of children in the military and flouting the legal distinctions of proportionality and military necessity . The formal concept of war crimes emerged from the codification of the customary international law that applied to warfare between sovereign states , such as
2451-569: Is unlawful. For aerial strikes, pilots generally have to rely on information supplied by external sources (headquarters, ground troops) that a specific position is in fact a military target. In the case of former Yugoslavia , NATO pilots hit a civilian object (the Chinese embassy in Belgrade ) that was of no military significance, but the pilots had no idea of determining it aside from their orders. The committee ruled that "the aircrew involved in
2580-916: The Heeresanstalt Peenemünde on the Baltic island of Usedom as well as at the Raxwerke in Wiener Neustadt , Austria and at the Zeppelin works in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance . On 18 August 1943, a bombing raid by the Royal Air Force on Peenemünde (" Operation Hydra ") seriously damaged the facilities and ended construction of V-2s there. Other air raids had damaged the other two sites in June and August. As
2709-653: The Arbeitseinsatz-Dienststelle which coordinated the use of forced labour. Hans Schurz [ de ] became head of the Politische Abteilung (the local Gestapo office). On 3 and 4 April 1945, Nordhausen was attacked in two waves by several hundred Lancasters and Mosquitos of Nos 1 and 8 Groups of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. Around 75% of the town was destroyed, the medieval old town
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#17327730950092838-725: The Dachau subcamp of Kaufering . His successor, former Auschwitz commandant Richard Baer was arrested by West German authorities in 1960, but died of natural causes in 1963, before he was able to appear as a defendant in the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials . Helmut Bischoff , SS security chief for the V-weapons program and commander of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) detachment in Mittelbau-Dora,
2967-587: The Gardelegen Massacre resulted in the transfer of 22 suspects. The notebook of an American investigator indicates the possibility that due to unclear responsibilities among the Soviet investigators and their managers, they could not make a decision. Those Mittelbau-Dora suspects and evidence that were in U.S. custody were finally incorporated into the framework of the Dachau Trials . Prior to
3096-630: The Legal and Penal Administration under the Office of Military Government for Germany (OMGUS) . The indictment, which was served on the defendants on 20 June 1947, consisted of two main charges brought together under the title "Violation of the Customs and Laws of War". The content of the application covered war crimes committed in the operation of Mittelbau-Dora and its subcamps from 1 June 1943 to 8 May 1945 upon non-German civilians and prisoners of war . This
3225-939: The Lieber Code (1863) of the Union Army in the American Civil War and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 for international war. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the war-crime trials of the leaders of the Axis powers established the Nuremberg principles of law, such as that international criminal law defines what is a war crime. In 1949, the Geneva Conventions legally defined new war crimes and established that states could exercise universal jurisdiction over war criminals. In
3354-880: The Nuremberg Trials and Tokyo Trials have been convened. Recent examples are the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda , which were established by the UN Security Council acting under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter . Under the Nuremberg Principles , war crimes are different from crimes against peace . Crimes against peace include planning, preparing, initiating, or waging
3483-550: The SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA) and two of Speer's armaments managers, Karl Maria Hettlage [ de ] and Gerhard Degenkolb [ de ] , the former seconded from Commerzbank . To actually run the plant, Albin Sawatzki [ de ] , who had earlier been in charge of producing the " Tiger I " tank at Henschel , was appointed. Operational security for
3612-645: The U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 1820 , which noted that "rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide"; see also wartime sexual violence . In 2016, the International Criminal Court convicted someone of sexual violence for the first time; specifically, they added rape to a war crimes conviction of Congo Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo . War crimes also included deliberate attacks on citizens and property of neutral states , such as
3741-587: The laws of war , but also include failures to adhere to norms of procedure and rules of battle, such as attacking those displaying a peaceful flag of truce , or using that same flag as a ruse to mount an attack on enemy troops. The use of chemical and biological weapons in warfare are also prohibited by numerous chemical arms control agreements and the Biological Weapons Convention . Wearing enemy uniforms or civilian clothes to infiltrate enemy lines for espionage or sabotage missions
3870-761: The "Lieber Code." A small number of German military personnel of the First World War were tried in 1921 by the German Supreme Court for alleged war crimes. The modern concept of war crime was further developed under the auspices of the Nuremberg trials based on the definition in the London Charter that was published on August 8, 1945 (see Nuremberg principles ). Along with war crimes the charter also defined crimes against peace and crimes against humanity , which are often committed during wars and in concert with war crimes. Also known as
3999-698: The 1907 Hague Convention IV – The Laws and Customs of War on Land explicitly forbids belligerents to punish enemy spies without previous trial . The rule of war, also known as the Law of Armed Conflict , permits belligerents to engage in combat. A war crime occurs when superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering is inflicted upon an enemy. War crimes also include such acts as mistreatment of prisoners of war or civilians . War crimes are sometimes part of instances of mass murder and genocide though these crimes are more broadly covered under international humanitarian law described as crimes against humanity . In 2008,
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4128-517: The Allies. Only some small subcamps, mostly containing Italian POWs, were not evacuated. The SS also left several hundred sick prisoners at Dora and in the Boelcke-Kaserne . They were freed when US troops (consisting of the 3rd Armored Division , the 104th Infantry Division , and the 9th Infantry Division ) reached Nordhausen on 11 April 1945. There were also around 1,300 dead prisoners at
4257-832: The American space program. The Soviets also hired some of the engineers. Like the rocket engineers, many construction engineers at Mittelwerk were able to continue with their careers. Very few were charged in connection with their role in the Nazi slave labour program. After liberation, the US forces and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) turned Dora and Harzungen camps into accommodations for displaced persons (DPs). In mid-May 1945, there were around 14,000 people living at Dora, several hundred liberated concentration camp inmates and many POWs as well as foreign civilian forced labourers. Repatriation
4386-642: The Blitz as well as the indiscriminate attacks on Allied cities with V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets , nor the Japanese for the aerial attacks on crowded Chinese cities. Controversy arose when the Allies re-designated German POWs (under the protection of the 1929 Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War ) as Disarmed Enemy Forces (allegedly unprotected by the 1929 Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War), many of which were then used for forced labor such as clearing minefields . By December 1945, six months after
4515-687: The Buchenwald system. With the creation of the Jägerstab (Fighter Staff), led by Speer, as an institution to oversee a boost to fighter plane production and the move of military production underground, facilities for the production of fighter planes for the Junkers company were to be created around Nordhausen – along with the necessary infrastructure. In addition, after the creation of the Geilenbergstab (named after Edmund Geilenberg ), over
4644-558: The Dora Trial and 5 in the collateral proceedings. Also, in relation to other Dachau concentration camp procedures, the number of defendants was rather low. The tendency for leniency in the Dora Trial was clear: In the main Dachau Trials , 36 of the 40 defendants were sentenced to death; in Dora, only one. Moreover, this last of the Dachau Trials occurred over three and a half years after the liberation of Mittelbau. By this time,
4773-883: The Field (Lieber Code) was written by Franz Lieber , a German lawyer , political philosopher , and veteran of the Napoleonic Wars . Lincoln made the Code military law for all wartime conduct of the Union Army . It defined command responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity as well as stated the military responsibilities of the Union soldier fighting the Confederate States of America . The Geneva Conventions are four related treaties adopted and continuously expanded from 1864 to 1949 that represent
4902-712: The German population, after the first shock of the concentration camp crimes, solidarity emerged with the welfare of the war criminals in Landsberg Prison. This was also reflected in the gradual mitigation of sentences and the premature commuting of sentences. Long after the Dachau Dora Trials were complete, violent crimes still extant in the body of facts resulted in new Mittelbau-Dora trials both in West Germany and East Germany . The most important
5031-482: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor . As the attack on Pearl Harbor happened while the U.S. and Japan were at peace and without a just cause for self-defense, the attack was declared by the Tokyo Trials to go beyond justification of military necessity and therefore constituted a war crime. War crimes are significant in international humanitarian law because it is an area where international tribunals such as
5160-437: The June 1945 Fedden Mission investigation of conditions at Dora, the trial "The United States of America versus Arthur Kurt Andrae et al." trial commenced on 7 August 1947 at the Dachau internment camp against 19 defendants. Otto Förschner was not a defendant in the Dora Trial, since he had already been executed after being convicted in the Dachau camp trial . The court convicted 15 Dora SS guards and Kapos (one of them
5289-586: The Mittelbau and its sub-camps had already been forcibly evacuated by the SS-Totenkopfverbände on April 6, 1945. During the "evacuation", approximately 36,500 prisoners were sent on death marches and over 8,000 died from starvation, exposure and summary executions . In one infamous example, about 400 prisoners led by Erhard Brauny left the Rottleberode subcamp on 4 April 1945 in a plan to move them to Neuengamme concentration camp , which
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5418-527: The Mittelbau camps between August 1943 and March 1945. The precise number of people killed is impossible to determine. The SS files counted around 12,000 dead. In addition, an unknown number of unregistered prisoners died or were murdered in the camps. Around 5,000 sick and dying were sent in early 1944 and in March 1945 to Lublin and Bergen-Belsen. Of those killed, around 350 were hanged (including 200 for sabotage). The rate of executions notably accelerated after
5547-475: The Mittelbau-Dora complex wound up in the Soviet occupation zone . On September 3, 1946, an exchange of detainees and evidence failed, as no Soviet military representatives appeared at a previously agreed meeting point on the frontier. Corresponding demands to the Soviet military administration remained mostly unanswered. Why Soviet authorities did not cooperate on Dora was unclear, since evidence presented to them on
5676-508: The SS construction units III and IV (totaling around 3,000 prisoners, distributed among several small camps along a newly constructed railway line between Nordhausen and Herzberg am Harz . More subcamps were added once Mittelbau was officially independent. By spring 1945, the number of inmates totaled over 40,000 in around 40 camps. From spring/summer 1944, the camp became the centre of a subcamp system of its own. Originally, these still were part of
5805-605: The Soviet Union, Poland or France) died from hunger, thirst, cold and overwork. During the first months, most of the work done was heavy construction and transport. Only in January 1944, when production of the A4/V-2 began, were the first prisoners moved to the new above-ground camp on the south side of the mountain. Many had to sleep in the tunnels until May 1944. In these initial months, from October 1943 to March 1944, out of
5934-736: The Tokyo Trial, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal or simply as the Tribunal, it was convened on May 3, 1946, to try the leaders of the Empire of Japan for three types of crimes: "Class A" (crimes against peace), "Class B" (war crimes), and "Class C" (crimes against humanity), committed during World War II . On July 1, 2002, the International Criminal Court (ICC), a treaty-based court located in The Hague , came into being for
6063-399: The U.S. Army in the liberation of Mittelbau-Dora and then worked for the prosecution in the Dora Trial. In the beginning of July 2004, all the documents were given over to the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial ( German : Gedenkstätte Mittelbau-Dora ). The documents, many of which were previously unknown, are an extremely valuable addition to the collection. Many are now on display at
6192-399: The United States, Israel, India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, and others. Accordingly, states retain different codes and values about wartime conduct. Some signatories have routinely violated the Geneva Conventions in a way that either uses the ambiguities of law or political maneuvering to sidestep the laws' formalities and principles. The first three conventions have been revised and expanded, with
6321-402: The United States. Only interrogation logs from Rudolph and von Braun were available, both fully exonerating Rickhey. During this time the American authorities began to pursue a policy opposing the further prosecution of war crimes in order to utilize the expertise of the engineers in the Cold War . Denazification also lost importance as the Allies wanted to win over West Germany as an ally. In
6450-404: The accused were guilty of mass murder . Evidence presented by prosecutor Ludendorff attempted to prove the inherent criminality of the Mittelbau-Dora complex through the identified responsibility of individual defendants in the system as a whole, and by specific proof of the commission of or participation in excessive acts within that system. In addition to the living and working conditions in
6579-443: The approximately 15,000 prisoners from Mittelbau, about half were from the Soviet Union and Poland. Although not in good health, these men were much healthier than most of the prisoners in the Belsen main camp. When the British Army liberated Belsen on 15 April, many of the inmates turned on their former overseers at Mittelbau. About 170 of these " Kapos " were killed that day. Some of the SS personnel who had come from Auschwitz with
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#17327730950096708-407: The area, US specialists began to inspect the rocket works and seized materials, parts and documents. They were later joined by British experts. Eventually the Soviets took over. Apart from Rickhey, Rudolph, and von Braun, several dozen former Mittelwerk engineers and scientists quickly hired on with the US government. They first constructed rocket weapons or jet planes and then mostly went on to join
6837-461: The assembly lines. As a result, new prisoners were brought in from other concentration camps. From March 1944, the others were moved to newly created subcamps in the area around Nordhausen where they continued to be used for digging new tunnels or working at construction sites above ground. By late January, 56 rockets had been produced. By May, monthly output was 400 units. There were still defects, resulting in launch-pad and mid-air explosions. Output
6966-429: The attack should not be assigned any responsibility for the fact they were given the wrong target and that it is inappropriate to attempt to assign criminal responsibility for the incident to senior leaders because they were provided with wrong information by officials of another agency". The report also notes that "Much of the material submitted to the OTP consisted of reports that civilians had been killed, often inviting
7095-516: The barracks. War correspondents took pictures and made films of the dead and dying prisoners at Dora. Like the documentation of Nazi atrocities at Bergen-Belsen, these were published around the globe and became some of the best-known testimonies of Nazi crimes. Most of those inmates who survived the transports were freed in mid-April at Bergen-Belsen or at other camps. Some, however, remained prisoners until early May and were freed in Mecklenburg or Austria. In total, even conservative estimates put
7224-404: The building under the title Die Blutspur führt nach Bonn ("the blood trail leads to Bonn "), implying a historical continuity between the Nazi concentration camp and the government of West Germany . By contrast with Buchenwald , Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück , the communist government of the GDR never raised Dora to the status of Nationale Mahn- und Gedenkstätte (national memorial). In
7353-442: The camp averaged about 5,000. The camp was dissolved in July 1946. After that, the town of Nordhausen had the huts at Dora dismantled and re-erected at other locations in the district as emergency housing for the homeless. Only the camp's crematorium, the fire station and the camp prison remained. Nature reclaimed the area of the camp. The Soviets briefly continued to use parts of the tunnel network for manufacturing rockets. In 1947,
7482-559: The camp commander, was acquitted. In the Dachau Trials, Rudolf Heinrich Suttrop was sentenced to death for performing the same function. This trend is also evident at the Secondary Dora proceedings, where the indictments had been for a single, provable offense and not common design . In addition, neither Wernher von Braun nor Arthur Rudolph nor other important representatives of the Mittelwerk GmbH were indicted or required to appear in court to testify. They were, as Rickhey before them, sent away in Operation Paperclip for rocket research in
7611-421: The camp, the prosecution also referred to the death marches as evidence of collective criminality, with the Gardelegen Massacre a primary focus. In their arguments, the prosecution presented more than 70 camp survivors as witnesses. The witnesses reported on the appalling conditions, especially of inadequate food and clothing, poor hygiene and poor medical care, and the imposition of punishments. The testimony of
7740-429: The commander of Dora's SS guard battalion from October, 1943 to May, 1944, was executed in Kraków on January 28, 1948, following his conviction by Poland's Supreme National Tribunal in the First Auschwitz Trial . Former camp commandant Otto Förschner was executed by U.S. military authorities at Landsberg Prison on May 28, 1946, following his conviction for war crimes that occurred during his tenure as commander of
7869-418: The conclusion to be drawn that crimes had therefore been committed. Collateral casualties to civilians and collateral damage to civilian objects can occur for a variety of reasons." The Rendulic Rule is a standard by which commanders are judged. German General Lothar Rendulic was charged for ordering extensive destruction of civilian buildings and lands while retreating from a suspected enemy attack in what
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#17327730950097998-444: The course of fighting. The United Nations defines war crimes as described in Article 8 of the Rome statute , the treaty that established the International Criminal Court: Under the law of armed conflict (LOAC), the death of non-combatants is not necessarily a violation; there are many things to take into account. Civilians cannot be made the object of an attack, but the death/injury of civilians while conducting an attack on
8127-406: The death rate rose: Between January and early April 1945, around 6,000 inmates died, around 3,000 of them at the Boelcke -Kaserne (a former Luftwaffe barracks) at Nordhausen, which had been used by the SS after January 1945 as the main Sterbelager (camp for the dying) for the Mittelbau system. Also from January to April 1945, at least 1,700 V-2 and over 6,000 V-1 rockets were built. Along with
8256-407: The defense asked for an acquittal because the allegations against him could not be proved. The chairman of the military court announced the verdicts on Christmas Eve, 1947 and delivered the corresponding sentences on December 30. Seven life sentences, seven fixed-term prison sentences, and one death penalty were handed down. Four defendants were acquitted, including Rickhey. A review of the verdicts
8385-416: The defense team after a request by Poullada. The defendants consisted of 14 members of the SS, 4 Kapos and 1 civilian: Georg Rickhey , Director-General of the Mittelwerk GmbH . SS- Obersturmführer Kurt Mathesius , who had commanded the subcamp of Boelke Kaserne , was slated to appear as the 20th defendant at trial, but committed suicide while in US custody in May, 1947. The highest-ranking defendant
8514-489: The dissolution of the so-called Zigeuner-Familienlager (Gypsy family camp) at Auschwitz-Birkenau , the SS transported many Roma and Sinti to Mittelbau between April and August 1944. The prisoners were subject to extreme cruelty. As a result, they often suffered injuries, including permanent disability and disfigurement, and death. Severe beatings were routine, as was deliberate starvation, torture and summary executions . In total, around 60,000 prisoners passed through
8643-401: The early 1970s, the local authorities turned the completely overgrown muster ground into an Ehrenplatz der Nationen with a rostrum, flag poles and an eternal fire. In 1988, an attempt was made to access one of the tunnels inside Kohnstein, but it was abandoned due to a lack of funds that same year. After reunification, the memorial was redesigned. A small portion of the original tunnel system
8772-422: The enemy. These men were subject to debriefing by the Soviet secret service and some of them were imprisoned once more and sent to the Gulag . Once the last forced labourers had left, Dora camp was used from December 1945 by German authorities as a holding camp for Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia . They were then distributed among various municipalities in northern Thuringia. The number of expelled housed in
8901-539: The entire responsibility for the inhumane conditions and forced labor on the late internment engineer Albin Sawatzki, who had died in American detention in 1945. Furthermore, he pointed to his cooperation with the U.S. Air Force (USAF) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base . In closing arguments, prosecutor Berman argued for the death penalty for all defendants, because if a consistent interpretation of Common Design were applied then they were all mass murderers. The defense did well in their closing arguments. They insisted on
9030-409: The entrances and some internal parts were blown up in accordance with the Allied agreement to destroy military facilities in Germany. Similar to what happened at Dora, most of the subcamps were soon dismantled and the wood used for heating or new construction. Local authorities decided in 1952 to demolish the Dora camp prison – in the face of protests by former detainees. By the early 1950s, most of
9159-434: The evacuation trains went on to Bergen-Belsen when Mittelbau was itself evacuated. A few of them, notably Franz Hössler , were prosecuted by the British military authorities at the Belsen trial in Lüneburg in September 1945. However, charges at this trial related only to crimes committed either at Auschwitz or at Bergen-Belsen, not at Mittelbau. Hössler was among those found guilty and executed on 13 December 1945. Following
9288-540: The exception of Erhard Brauny , who died in prison in 1950. The last defendant released was Otto Brinkmann on May 9, 1958. Brinkmann and three men who had been convicted in the Einsatzgruppen Trial were the last four inmates to be released from Landsberg Prison at the conclusion of the U.S. War Crimes program. As measured by the 2,400-strong staff of the Mittelbau-Dora complex, only a small number were actually charged: Only 19 defendants were indicted in
9417-593: The first formal statements of the laws of war and war crimes in the nascent body of secular international law . The Lieber Code was written early in the American Civil War and President Abraham Lincoln issued as General Order 100 on April 24, 1863, just months after the military executions at Mankato, Minnesota . General Order 100, Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in
9546-484: The fourth one added in 1949: Two Additional Protocols were adopted in 1977 with the third one added in 2005, completing and updating the Geneva Conventions: Just after WWI, world governments started to try and systematically create a code for how war crimes would be defined. Their first outline of a law was " Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field" —also known as
9675-654: The headlines of 8 August 1947 read: "Sensational Trial at Dachau. 19 defendants from the Death Camp of Nordhausen - The secret to producing the V-weapons in Dora". In the southern Harz region where Nordhausen was located, now in the Soviet Zone, this American trial was barely mentioned. The legal institution of common design was applied, but not as consistently as in the main Dachau concentration camp trials. For example, defendant Kurt Heinrich, former adjutant to
9804-492: The inhumane living conditions was attributed to former Protective Custody Camp Leader Hans Möser . The four prisoners who functioned as camp Kapos were also accused of abusing and sometimes killing fellow prisoners. German Civilian Georg Rickhey , as a former General Manager of Mittelwerk Gmbh, was held responsible for the disastrous working conditions. At the request of the prosecution, defendants Albin Sawatzki, Otto Brenneis, Hans Joachim Ritz and Stefan Palko were deleted from
9933-494: The inmates from Auschwitz arrived several hundred SS guards who joined the staff at Mittelbau, including Richard Baer , who succeeded Otto Förschner as overall Mittelbau commandant on 1 February 1945. Baer replaced most senior personnel with people from Auschwitz. Franz Hössler became commandant of the Häftlinglager Dora . Eduard Wirths became the new Standortarzt . Max Sell [ de ] became head of
10062-608: The inmates were forced to board box cars. Several trains, each with thousands of prisoners, left the area through 6 April for Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück . Others were forced to walk through the Harz hills towards the northeast. Those unable to keep up with these death marches were summarily shot by the guards. The worst atrocity occurred at Gardelegen, known as the Gardelegen massacre . More than 1,000 prisoners from Mittelbau and Neuengamme subcamps were murdered in
10191-526: The institution of the Common Design approach, specific criminal offenses did not have to be proven individually; rather, by participation in the operation of a concentration camp and membership in the criminal organization of the SS , a war crime had already been committed. The degree of individual responsibility in the Common Design was determined by acts of excess and rank of the accused. This also influenced
10320-679: The judges could only hearken back to indirect impressions of camp horrors, unlike the earlier trials. Moreover, witnesses who were needed to identify the accused were often nowhere to be found. In addition, by contrast to the Buchenwald Trial completed in the American Zone in August 1947, the Dora Trial received minimal public attention. Differences in newspaper coverage were obvious: In the Frankfurter Rundschau ,
10449-405: The judgments according to the recommendations in the review process and pronounced them final on June 25, 1948. The 19 verdicts were in particular: During the Dora Trial, additional proceedings against five lower-level defendants occurred between late October 1947 and mid-December 1947. These were short-term trials agreed between the prosecution and the defense, each lasting a few days. There were
10578-531: The language of the Court was English. After the reading of the indictment, the defendants all pled "not guilty". All were accused of neglecting, abusing and killing prisoners. Some defendants were also accused of specific offenses in the context of death marches or in the course of the "evacuation of the camp". Former camp physician Heinrich Schmidt was accused of medical neglect of inmates, causing them to die of hunger, exposure, and disease. The main responsibility for
10707-527: The largest subcamp, Lager Ellrich-Juliushütte , that had been cut in half by the inner-German border. War crimes A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war , torture , taking hostages , unnecessarily destroying civilian property , deception by perfidy , wartime sexual violence , pillaging , and for any individual that
10836-476: The late 20th century and early 21st century, international courts extrapolated and defined additional categories of war crimes applicable to a civil war . In 1474, the first trial for a war crime was that of Peter von Hagenbach , realised by an ad hoc tribunal of the Holy Roman Empire , for his command responsibility for the actions of his soldiers, because "he, as a knight, was deemed to have
10965-406: The legal question of whether the expected incidental harm is excessive may be very subjective. For this reason, States have chosen to apply a "clearly excessive" standard for determining whether a criminal violation has occurred. When there is no justification for military action, such as civilians being made the object of attack, a proportionality analysis is unnecessary to conclude that the attack
11094-524: The list of the accused. Defense counsel Poullada unsuccessfully made several requests as to the Military Court's jurisdiction. He petitioned for the removal of the words "and other non-German nationals" in the indictment, arguing that U.S. military courts were not responsible for the prosecution of war crimes committed by German citizens upon nationals of Allies of the Third Reich . This request
11223-587: The nearby tunnels in the Kohnstein and for manufacturing the V-2 rocket and the V-1 flying bomb . In the summer of 1944, Mittelbau became an independent concentration camp with numerous subcamps of its own. In 1945, most of the surviving inmates were sent on death marches or crammed in trains of box-cars by the SS . On 11 April 1945, US troops freed the remaining prisoners. The inmates at Dora-Mittelbau were treated in
11352-489: The necessities of war." For example, conducting an operation on an ammunition depot or a terrorist training camp would not be prohibited because a farmer is plowing a field in the area; the farmer is not the object of attack and the operations would adhere to proportionality and military necessity. On the other hand, an extraordinary military advantage would be necessary to justify an operation posing risks of collateral death or injury to thousands of civilians. In "grayer" cases
11481-596: The new permanent exhibition at the former camp site, opened in April 2006. Mittelbau-Dora Mittelbau-Dora (also Dora-Mittelbau and Nordhausen-Dora ) was a Nazi concentration camp located near Nordhausen in Thuringia , Germany. It was established in late summer 1943 as a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp , supplying slave labour from many Eastern countries occupied by Germany (including evacuated survivors of eastern extermination camps), for extending
11610-434: The non-application of Common Design and asked the court to consider only those crimes that could be individually proven. Poullada appealed that the military court use the "high standards of Anglo-American jurisprudence". In this view, the accused should not be judged differently than American citizens in a court of law and therefore should be acquitted if the evidence against them was not unequivocal. For Rickhey in particular,
11739-405: The number of people who did not survive being sent to Mittelbau-Dora at over 20,000. Thus, around one in three of those confined here did not survive. Transports from Mittelbau arrived at Bergen-Belsen between 8 and 11 April 1945. Several thousand men were housed in the so-called Kasernenlager around 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) north of the main camp, which was already overflowing with prisoners. Of
11868-403: The number of workers had risen to over 3,000, by late October to 6,800 and by Christmas 1943 to more than 10,500. Since there were initially no huts, the prisoners were housed inside the tunnels – in specially designated Schlafstollen with four levels of beds stacked over each other. There were no sanitary facilities except for barrels that served as latrines. Inmates (the majority of them from
11997-576: The owner of a recycling company in Kerkrade , Netherlands found an extensive set of documents from the Dora Trials as well as original photographs of the initial liberation of Mittelbau-Dora and its auxiliary camps. It was not possible to identify how these documents came to be in the waste container. However, it is clear they were from the estate of William Aalmans, the Dutch citizen who served with
12126-407: The perpetrators. By May 25, 1945, the investigations were complete and a report was sent to General Simpson , Supreme Commander of United States 9th Army . Many of the suspects were quickly captured and interned. Recorded testimony and photographic evidence formed the basis of the indictments. The process became complicated after the withdrawal of American forces from Thuringia on July 1, 1945, when
12255-519: The personnel from Auschwitz arrived: in February and March 1945, the SS on some days hanged 30, on one occasion even 50 prisoners. On 1 January 1944, the Mittelwerk delivered its first three rockets, all of which suffered from serious production defects. The SS considered those prisoners who had expanded the tunnels in autumn and winter of 1943/44 as unusable in actual production work, because they were either too weakened or not qualified for work on
12384-473: The prisoners spent almost all day on the south wall sunning themselves." As sole representative of the Mittelwerk Gmbh, Georg Rickhey was at the center of the Court proceedings on forced labor in the plant. Rickhey was alleged to have been responsible for the disastrous working conditions, cooperating closely with the SS and Gestapo , and being present during executions. The proof for this war crime
12513-411: The project was overseen by SS-Oberstürmbannfuhrer Helmut Bischoff , a former Gestapo official and a member of Kammler's staff. The initial contract for Mittelwerk was for 12,000 rockets, valued at 750 million Reichsmark for a standard price per unit, once production reached 5,000 units, of 50,000 Reichsmark per rocket. Especially for Kammler, this became a prestige project. Only ten days after
12642-539: The prosecution of war crimes committed on or after that date. Several nations, most notably the United States, China, Russia, and Israel, have criticized the court. The United States still participates as an observer. Article 12 of the Rome Statute provides jurisdiction over the citizens of non-contracting states if they are accused of committing crimes in the territory of one of the state parties. The ICC only has jurisdiction over these crimes when they are "part of
12771-520: The raid on Peenemünde, on 28 August 1943, the first 107 concentration camp inmates from Buchenwald arrived with their SS guards at the Kohnstein. The official name of the new subcamp of Buchenwald was Arbeitslager Dora . Another 1,223 Buchenwald prisoners followed on 2 September and workers from Peenemünde came in mid-October. Over the next months, many more prisoners were brought to the area in almost daily transports from Buchenwald. By late September,
12900-760: The remaining 9 cases dropped for lack of evidence or available witnesses. Violent crimes still extant in the body of the facts resulted in several more trials of individual cases in both West Germany and East Germany . The most public and important occurred in Essen between 1968 and 1970, resulting in 2 convictions. Of the more than 60,000 prisoners who passed through the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp complex, with its catastrophic working and living conditions, at least 20,000 died of hunger, exposure, disease and abuse. When American troops reached Mittelbau on 11 April 1945, they found nearly 2,000 dead bodies. Only several hundred prisoners were found alive, mostly sick or dying, as
13029-403: The scene of the crimes. The defense offered 65 witnesses, and the military court was provided with 9 additional written statements for the defense. On the living conditions in subcamp Boelcke Kaserne, where about half of the concentration camp prisoners captured did not survive, the camp doctor stated: "The weather in March 1945 was at that time very sunny and warm. In accommodation Blocks 6 and 7
13158-702: The start of the Dora Trial, 12 former members of the SS administration at Mittelbau-Dora had already been convicted of war crimes under British military jurisdiction in the Belsen Trial . There, 4 defendants were sentenced to imprisonment and 5 acquitted. Protective Custody Camp Leader Franz Hößler , commander of the Kleinbodungen subcamp Franz Stofel and his deputy Wilhelm Dörr were all sentenced to death and executed by hanging on 13 December 1945 in Hamelin prison [ de ] . Josef Kollmer ,
13287-610: The subsequent functioning of the Mittelwerk Assembly Plant formed a second priority in this context. Executions of camp prisoners due to alleged rebellion and sabotage were also portrayed. Of the 19 accused, 13 took advantage of their right to testify in their own behalf, the rest referenced their own interrogation logs. The defendants either downplayed their actions, stated they were only following orders (the Führerprinzip ), or claimed they were not present at
13416-483: The summer of 1944 more underground construction was requested for the German petroleum industry. Demand for workers for these projects was satisfied with concentration camp prisoners, but also with foreign forced labourers, POWs and drafted Germans. The SS administration separated Mittelbau-Dora from Buchenwald at the end of September 1944 and Dora became the center of it. In effect, the new camp became officially operational on 1 November 1944 with 32,471 prisoners. By
13545-503: The testimony of one former engineer was incriminating. Witnesses offered by the prosecution made only vague statements about his activities in camp operations because they had generally not personally witnessed it. Written evidence of Rickhey's guilt was also lacking; only after the end of the trial were documents found showing his culpability in the inhumane working conditions in the Mittelwork. Rickhey testified on his own behalf and put
13674-514: The time Dora became operational in November 1944, the decline of Mittelbau-Dora was already beginning. With the subcamps overcrowded and the weather turning colder, conditions in all camps deteriorated and the death rate rose significantly. After peaking in March 1944 at 750, this had declined to 100 to 150 per month by the summer. From November it picked up and in December 1944 the official tally
13803-457: The traces of the central Dora camp had disappeared. Whilst the prison was being demolished, some people from Nordhausen began to turn the area around the crematorium into a memorial and cemetery. In 1964, the local district SED created the Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Dora and had a sculpture by the artist Jürgen von Woyski erected in front of the crematorium. In 1966, a permanent exhibition opened inside
13932-410: The trial, East German lawyer Friedrich Karl Kaul was counsel for the plaintiffs by summons. Bischoff's participation in the proceedings on 5 May 1970 had to be suspended because of ill health and were postponed until 1974. On 8 May 1970, Busta was sentenced to eight and a half years and Sander sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. In the spring of 2004, while emptying a container of waste paper,
14061-842: The tunnels, observing the terrible conditions and finding them littered with corpses. Some members of Speer's staff were so shocked that they had to take an extra period of leave. A week later, Speer wrote to Kammler, congratulating him on his success "in transforming the underground installation ... from its raw condition two months ago into a factory, which has no equal in Europe and which is unsurpassed even when measured against American standards. I take this opportunity to express my appreciation for this really unique achievement and to ask you also in future to support Herr Degenkolb in this wonderful way." Inmates came from almost all countries of Europe; many of them had been arrested for political reasons. After May 1944, Jews were also brought to Mittelbau. With
14190-682: The verdict and degree of punishment. Colonel Frank Silliamn III took over the chairmanship of a Military tribunal consisting of seven American officers, including Colonel Joseph W. Benson, Colonel Claude O. Burch, Lieutenant Colonel Louis S. Tracy, Lieutenant Colonel Roy J. Herte, Major Warren M. Vanderburgh, and the lawyer Lieutenant Colonel David H. Thomas. The prosecution consisted of Chief Prosecutor William Berman, Captain William F. McGarry, Captain John J. Ryan, Lieutenant William F. Jones, and investigators Jacob F. Kinder and William J. Aalmans. Aalmans,
14319-417: The war had ended, it was estimated by French authorities that 2,000 German prisoners were still being killed or maimed each month in mine-clearing accidents. The wording of the 1949 Third Geneva Convention was intentionally altered from that of the 1929 convention so that soldiers who "fall into the power" following surrender or mass capitulation of an enemy are now protected as well as those taken prisoner in
14448-563: The winners (" Victor's justice "), as some controversies have not been ruled as war crimes. Some examples include the Allies ' destruction of Axis cities during World War II , such as the firebombing of Dresden , the Operation Meetinghouse raid on Tokyo (the most destructive single bombing raid in history), and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . In regard to the strategic bombing during World War II , there
14577-490: The witnesses regarding forced labor at the complex were essentially descriptions of working and living conditions during the construction phase of the camp during winter of 1943–1944. This phase, also known as the "Hell of Dora", was marked by exhausting work in digging tunnels into the Kohnstein Mountain to create a subterranean V-weapons ( German : Vergeltungswaffen ) rocket factory. Statements referring to
14706-440: Was 570, of whom 500 died at Lager Ellrich . At the end of 1944, the SS began to evacuate the inmates of Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen before the advancing Red Army . Many of them were transported to the Mittelbau. Through March 1945, up to 16,000 prisoners arrived, including women and children. Although many died in transit, this raised the number of Jews at Mittelbau. Those who survived were often extremely weak or sick. Once again,
14835-495: Was a decisive change from other Dachau Trials, because it now covered not only war crimes committed against Allied nationals, but also against stateless persons, Austrians, Slovaks and Italians. German perpetrators of crimes on German victims remained long unpunished and were usually only later heard in German courts. All the defendants were charged in a Common Design of unlawfully and intentionally participating in abuses and killings of prisoners of war and non-German civilians. By
14964-469: Was arrested by Soviet occupation forces in January, 1946 and held in military detention in East Germany , and later Siberia , until 1955. Karl Kahr , the former SS Camp Physician, was not charged due to his relatively good reputation among the prisoners. He became a witness for the prosecution in the Dora Trial. The legal basis of the proceedings was established in March 1947 with the adoption of
15093-533: Was completed on 23 April 1948 by the Deputy Judge Advocate for War Crimes, which were all confirmed with one exception: regarding the offender Oskar Helbig, the sentence of twenty years in prison was reduced to ten. The United States War Crimes Board of Review then conducted a second review of the recommendations. The military Governor of the American occupation zone , Lucius D. Clay , confirmed all
15222-418: Was executed), four defendants were acquitted. The trial also addressed the question of liability of the engineers and scientists — former Generaldirektor of Mittelwerk Georg Rickhey was acquitted. Arthur Rudolph (recruited in 1945 under Operation Paperclip and later exiled from the US in 1984) was not even charged. A related trial was also held 1959–1961 in Essen . Immediately after taking control of
15351-491: Was fairly quick for those from Western Europe, but many from Eastern Europe had to wait months before they were able to return home. In early July, Thuringia passed from American to Soviet control. The Red Army now used Dora as a repatriation camp for former Polish and Soviet slave labourers. The Soviet authorities treated their citizens who had been forced to work for the Germans with suspicion, blaming them for collaborating with
15480-461: Was hit particularly hard. Out of 40,000 inhabitants, roughly 8,800 people died, 20,000 lost their homes. Among the dead were also an estimated 1,300-1,500 Mittelbau prisoners, who were confined at the Boelcke-Kaserne at the time. In early April 1945, as US troops were advancing towards the Harz , the SS decided to evacuate most of the Mittelbau camps. In great haste and with considerable brutality,
15609-474: Was important, as Rickhey – unlike the other defendants – could not be blamed for the catastrophic living conditions in the concentration camps or the execution of the death marches. The basis of the prosecution was his participation in the underground missile production of the V-1 and V-2 rockets, which required the use of forced labor. Rickhey was exonerated by statements of past employees and written interrogations of his engineering colleagues – only
15738-402: Was no international treaty or instrument protecting a civilian population specifically from attack by aircraft, therefore the aerial attacks on civilians were not officially war crimes. The Allies at the trials in Nuremberg and Tokyo never prosecuted the Germans, including Luftwaffe commander-in-chief Hermann Göring , for the bombing raids on Warsaw , Rotterdam , and British cities during
15867-543: Was not granted as the court decided that the crimes against non-German victims would therefore go unpunished. In addition, Poullada repeatedly requested removal of the legal institution of the Common Design , because in his opinion the court's decision process should not be based on Common Design but upon individually verifiable crimes. This application was refused as well. In his opening argument, chief prosecutor Berman explained that Mittelbau-Dora not only provided
15996-641: Was reopened and has been accessible to visitors since 1995. Since 2000, the Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora runs the memorial, financed by the Thuringian state and the federal government. The GDR era memorial installations were left intact as a documentation of the way the Communist regime treated the Nazi past. A new permanent exhibition opened in a new museum building in 2006. Some work has also been done at
16125-480: Was still far below the goal of 1,000 units per month. Wernher von Braun visited the Nordhausen plant on 25 January 1944 and again on 6 May 1944, when he met Walter Dornberger , Arthur Rudolph and Albin Sawatzki, discussing the need to enslave another 1,800 skilled French workers. On 8 September 1944, the first V-2 built at Mittelbau was successfully launched at London. That month, production hit 600 units,
16254-491: Was still operational. When the transport reached the town of Gardelegen , the prisoners were joined by additional "evacuation transports". The prisoners, now numbering over 1000, could be moved no further due to damaged railway lines. There they were simply murdered by their captors at Isenschnibber Barn on 13 April 1945. Investigating Team 6822 , part of the U.S. War Crimes Program to create legal standards and judicial systems to prosecute Nazi crimes, quickly began to identify
16383-710: Was the Essen Trial, held on 17 November 1967 before the District Court at Essen , West Germany . In these proceedings, former camp guard Erwin Busta , Gestapo official Ernst Sander and chief of security for the V-weapons program Helmut Bischoff were tried. Among the charges were summary executions of prisoners who had attempted escape or who were accused of sabotage. Furthermore, the murder of 58 suspected resistance fighters and deadly abuses in "enhanced interrogation" of prisoners were subject to proceedings. During
16512-552: Was the former camp physician, SS-Hauptsturmführer Heinrich Schmidt . The Dora Defendants in June, 1947 The trial began on 7 August 1947 before the "General Military Government Court" at the US Army Dachau Internment Camp, within the walls of the former Nazi Dachau concentration camp , and was open to the public. An interpreter translated between the Court and the accused in English and German, as
16641-566: Was the last of a sequence of proceedings which took place in the context of the Dachau Trials relating to wide-ranging war crimes uncovered by the United States in its zone of occupation at the end of World War II . Those convicted in the Dora Trial served their sentences at Landsberg Prison . Additional Dora-related proceedings were held both during and after the Dora Trial. Between late-October and mid-December 1947, short trials were held against 14 lower-level defendants, mostly SS-TV Guards. These resulted in 4 convictions and 1 acquittal, with
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