70
years ago on this date, December 1, 1945, a German General, Anton Dostler was
executed by firing squad in Aversa, Italy. The trial found General Dostler
guilty of war crimes, rejecting the defense of Superior Orders. I will post information
about this War Criminal from Wikipedia, in accordance
to the same date of his execution.
Anton Dostler |
Anton Dostler
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Anton Dostler
(right) with his interpreter, Albert O. Hirschman, at his trial, 1945
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Birth
name
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Anton Dostler
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Born
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Died
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Allegiance
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Service/branch
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Years of
service
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1910–45
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Rank
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Commands
held
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Battles/wars
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Anton Dostler
(Munich, May 10, 1891 – Aversa, December 1, 1945) was a general of the infantry
in the regular German Army during World War II. In the first Allied war trial
after the war, Dostler was found guilty of war crimes and executed by a firing squad.
Military
career
Anton
Dostler joined the German Army in 1910 and served as a junior officer during World War I. From the start of World War II
to 1940, he served as chief of staff of the 7th Army.
Subsequently, he commanded the 57th
Infantry Division (1941–1942), the 163rd
Infantry Division (1942) and after some temporary stand-ins at
corps, was appointed commander of 75th Army Corps (Jan-July 1944) in Italy and
then as commander of the Venetian Coast (Sept to Nov 1944) when its name was
changed to 73rd Army Corps, at which he finished the war.
Execution
of U.S. soldiers
Main
article: Operations Ginny I and II
On
March 22, 1944, fifteen soldiers of the U.S. Army,
including two officers, landed on the Italian coast about
15 kilometres 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 railroad line between La Spezia and Genoa. Two days
later, the group was captured by a party of Italian
Fascist soldiers and members of the German Heer. 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 Colonel Almers. The immediate, superior
command was that of the 75th Army Corps, commanded by Dostler.
The
captured U.S. soldiers were interrogated and one of the U.S. officers revealed
the story of the mission. The information, including that it was a commando raid,
was then sent to Dostler at the 75th Army Corps. The following day (March 25),
Dostler 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
officer, Kesselring responded by ordering the execution. Later that day,
Dostler sent a telegram to the 135th Fortress Brigade ordering that the
captured soldiers be executed. This order was an implementation of Hitler's
secret Commando Order of 1942 which required
the immediate execution without trial of commandos and saboteurs.
German officers at the 135th Fortress Brigade contacted Dostler in an attempt
to achieve a delay of their execution. Dostler then sent another telegram
ordering Almers to carry out the execution. Two last attempts were made by the
officers at the 135th to stop the execution, including some by telephone,
because they knew that executing uniformed prisoners
of war was a direct violation of the 1929 Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War.
These efforts were unsuccessful and the fifteen Americans were executed on the
morning of March 26, 1944, at Punta Bianca south of La Spezia, in the municipality
of Ameglia.
Their bodies were buried in a mass grave that was then camouflaged.
Alexander zu
Dohna-Schlobitten, a member of Dostler's staff who was unaware of the
secret Commando Order and who had refused to sign the execution order, was
dismissed from the Wehrmacht for insubordination.
Dostler tied to a stake before the execution
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Trial,
execution, and notoriety
Dostler
became a prisoner of the Americans on 8 May 1945 and was put before a military
tribunal at the seat of the Supreme Allied Commander, the Royal
Palace in Caserta, on 8 October 1945. In the first Allied war
trial, he was accused of carrying out an illegal order. In his defense, he
maintained that he had not issued the order, but had only passed along an order
to Colonel Almers from supreme command, and that the execution of the OSS men
was a lawful reprisal.
Dostler's plea of Superior Orders failed
because ordering the execution, he had acted on his own outside the Führer's
order. The military commission also rejected his plea, declaring that Dostler's
execution of U.S. soldiers was in violation of Article 2 of the 1929 Geneva
Convention on Prisoners of War, which prohibited acts of reprisals against
prisoners of war. The commission stated that "No soldier, and still less a
Commanding General, can be heard to say that he
considered the summary shooting of prisoners of war legitimate
even as a reprisal."
Under
the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare, it
was legal to execute spies and saboteurs disguised in civilian clothes or enemy
uniforms but excluded those who were captured in proper uniforms. Since fifteen
U.S. soldiers were properly dressed in U.S. uniforms behind enemy lines and not
disguised in civilian clothes or enemy uniforms, they were not to be treated as
spies but prisoners of war, which Dostler violated.
The
trial found General Dostler guilty of war crimes, rejecting the defense of
superior orders. He was sentenced to death and executed by a 12 man firing squad at 0800 hours on December 1, 1945 in Aversa. The
execution was photographed on black and white still
and movie cameras. Immediately after the execution Dostler's body was lifted
onto a stretcher, shrouded inside a white cotton mattress cover and driven away
in an army truck. His remains were subsequently buried in Grave 93/95 of
Section H at Pomezia
German War Cemetery.
Socialism does not work. I hope to heaven the U.S.A never accepts socialism.
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