Rare photograph of 32 (out of 40) Nazi war criminals, commanders of the Dachau camp, at the start of the "Dachau Trials" that took place in the camp itself. November 16, 1945.
The Dachau Trials, which began in November 1945, were conducted within the grounds of the Dachau concentration camp and were fully run by members of the United States Armed Forces. They included a long series of trials that took place over nearly three years until August 1948, in which 1,672 defendants were prosecuted for war crimes in 489 separate trials. All proceedings of the Dachau Trials took place within the Dachau concentration camp grounds, as at that time it was the most publicly known Nazi concentration camp, and the Americans sought to emphasize the moral depravity that had spread through the Nazi regime which formed the background of the legal proceedings.
The photograph before us documents the opening of the first Dachau Trial, in which 40 Nazi war criminals involved in running the Dachau camp itself were prosecuted. Of these, 36 defendants were sentenced to death on December 13, 1945. 23 defendants were hanged on May 28 and 29, 1946, including the Dachau concentration camp commander Martin Gottfried Weiss and camp doctor Claus Schilling. In the other trials held at the camp, Nazi war criminals who operated the Mauthausen, Flossenbürg, Mühldorf, and Dora-Mittelbau camps were prosecuted. In total, across all the trials, 1,416 defendants, members of the Nazi regime, were found guilty, of whom 297 were sentenced to death and 279 were sentenced to life imprisonment. All prisoners were sent to Landsberg Prison to serve their sentences or be executed.
Size: 23x18 cm. Very good condition.
