Shortly after 9:00 a.m. on May 27, 1947, the first of forty-nine
men condemned to death for war crimes at Mauthausen concentration
camp mounted the gallows at Landsberg prison near Munich. The mass
execution that followed resulted from an American military trial
conducted at Dachau in the spring of 1946 a trial that lasted only
thirty-six days and yet produced more death sentences than any
other in American history.
The Mauthausen trial was part of a massive series of proceedings
designed to judge and punish Nazi war criminals in the most
expedient manner the law would allow. There was no doubt that the
crimes had been monstrous. Yet despite meting out punishment to a
group of incontestably guilty men, the Mauthausen trial reveals a
troubling and seldom-recognized face of American postwar justice
one characterized by rapid proceedings, lax rules of evidence, and
questionable interrogations.
Although the better-known Nuremberg trials are often regarded
as epitomizing American judicial ideals, these trials were in fact
the exception to the rule. Instead, as Tomaz Jardim convincingly
demonstrates, the rough justice of the Mauthausen trial remains
indicative of the most common and yet least understood American
approach to war crimes prosecution. The Mauthausen Trial forces
reflection on the implications of compromising legal standards in
order to guarantee that guilty people do not walk free.
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