German General Anton Dostler, involved in the execution of 15 American POWs, moments before his own execution by firing squad in 1945.

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  1. Context:

    Dostler’s trial, which marked the first Allied war crimes trial of the post-war period, centered on the deaths of 15 American soldiers who had been captured and executed on Dostler’s orders (at least in part) in 1944.

    > On 22 March 1944, 15 soldiers of the U.S. Army, including two officers, landed on the Italian coast about 15 kilometers north of La Spezia, 400 km (250 miles) behind the then established front, as part of Operation Ginny II. They were all properly dressed in the field uniform of the U.S. Army and carried no civilian clothes. Their objective was to demolish a tunnel at Framura on the important railway line between La Spezia and Genoa. Two days later the group was captured by a combined party of Italian Fascist soldiers and troops from the German Army. They were taken to La Spezia, where they were confined near the Headquarters of the 135th (Fortress) Brigade, which was under the command of German Col. Almers. His immediate superior was the commander of the 75th Army Corps—Dostler.

    > The captured American party was interrogated by Wehrmacht intelligence officers, and an officer revealed the mission. The information, including that it was a commando raid, was then sent to Dostler at the 75th Army Corps H.Q. The following day he informed his superior, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, Commanding General of all German forces in Italy, about the captured U.S. commandos and asked what to do with them. According to Dostler’s adjutant, Kesselring responded by ordering the execution. Later that day Dostler sent a telegram to the 135th (Fortress) Brigade passing on the order that the captured commando party was to be executed, in line with the Commando Order of 1942 issued by Adolf Hitler, which ordered the immediate execution without trial of all enemy commandos and saboteurs taken prisoner by the Wehrmacht in the field.

    > Colonel Almers at the 135th (Fortress) Brigade was uneasy with the execution order, and approached Dostler again to delay the execution command. In response Dostler dispatched another telegram ordering Almers to carry out the execution as previously ordered. Two last attempts were made by Colonel Almers to stop the execution, including some by telephone, as he knew that executing uniformed prisoners of war was in violation of the 1929 Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War.

    > His appeals were unsuccessful, and the 15 Americans of the commando raid were executed on the morning of 26 March 1944, at Punta Bianca, south of La Spezia, in the municipality of Ameglia. Their bodies were buried in a mass grave that was afterwards camouflaged. Alexander zu Dohna-Schlobitten, a member of Dostler’s staff who, unaware of the existence of Hitler’s “Commando Order”, had refused to sign the execution order for the American commandos, was dismissed from the Wehrmacht for insubordination.

    Dostler was prosecuted for his role in these executions in 1945, and was ultimately convicted and sentenced to death; he was executed by a 12-man US Army firing squad on the morning of December 1, 1945.

  8. Weird situation, considering most of the commanders responsible for killings of pows got off scot-free.

    For example Kurt Meyer, who was responsible for many more dead pows, didnt get executed, because the Canadian commander, who had to authorize the death sentence said:

    “There isn’t a general or colonel on the Allied side that I know of who hasn’t said, ‘Well, this time we don’t want any prisoners'”.

    So he just send Meyer to jail instead. This just doesnt seem like justice, but more like a farce.

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