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.
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.
Jürgen Stroop (center, in field cap) with his men in the burning Warsaw Ghetto, 1943
Dachau concentration camp
Dachau was one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany and the longest running one, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler's political opponents, which consisted of communists, social democrats, and other dissidents. It is located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory northeast of the medieval town of Dachau, about 16 km (10 mi) northwest of Munich in the state of Bavaria, in southern Germany. After its opening by Heinrich Himmler, its purpose was enlarged to include forced labor, and eventually, the imprisonment of Jews, Romani, German and Austrian criminals, and, finally, foreign nationals from countries that Germany occupied or invaded. The Dachau camp system grew to include nearly 100 sub-camps, which were mostly work camps or Arbeitskommandos, and were located throughout southern Germany and Austria. The main camp was liberated by U.S. forces on 29 April 1945.
U.S. soldiers guarding the main entrance to Dachau just after liberation, 1945
Aerial photo of the Dachau complex with the actual concentration camp on the left
The camp commander gives a speech to prisoners about to be released as part of a pardoning action near Christmas 1933.
Two Dachau crematoria