Technical Sergeant Adrian Robertson, a photographer with the U.S. Army Air Corps, identifies photographs from the liberation of Buchenwald as a witness for the prosecution at the trial of former camp personnel and prisoners from the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Overview
- Caption
- Technical Sergeant Adrian Robertson, a photographer with the U.S. Army Air Corps, identifies photographs from the liberation of Buchenwald as a witness for the prosecution at the trial of former camp personnel and prisoners from the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Court personnel pictured from left to right are: U.S. Chief Prosecutor William Denson; Technical Sergeant Robertson; defense attorney Dr. Richard Wacker; and interpreter Herbert Rosenstock. - Photographer
- Dean L Dennis
- Date
-
1947 May 09
- Locale
- Dachau, [Bavaria] Germany
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
- Event History
- On March 4, 1947, American forces at Dachau charged 28 former camp personnel, 2 former kapos, and 1 former prisoner with participating in the operation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Among those charged were former camp doctors and SS officers, including Hermann Pister, who was commandant of the camp from 1942 to 1945; Josias Erbprinz zu Waldeck-Pyrmont, who was SS-Obergruppenfuehrer and head of judicial matters; and Ilse Koch, a former Aufseherin and the wife of Karl Koch, who was Buchenwald commandant from 1937 to 1941. The trial began on April 11 and the sentences were handed down on August 14, 1947. Altogether, 22 of the defendants were sentenced to death by hanging, 5 were sentenced to life in prison, and 4 received shorter sentences. Pister was sentenced to death and died in an American prison. Waldeck-Pyrmont was sentenced to life, but was released in December 1950 for health reasons. Ilse Koch was sentenced to life but was released in 1949. After strong pressue by the US Senate, a Greman court sentenced to life again in 1951.
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007145.
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
Copyright: Public DomainSource Record ID: 111-SC-289329 (Album 1473)
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- William Dowdell Denson (1913-1998), U.S. Chief Prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at the concentration camp trials of Dachau, Mauthausen, Flossenbuerg and Buchenwald, held in Dachau, Germany. Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Denson came from a family that had distinguished itself both in military and judicial service. After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1934, Denson attended Harvard Law School, finishing in 1937. He then returned to Birmingham, where he started a private law practice. In 1942 Denson was invited back to West Point to serve as both a law instructor and the Assistant Staff Judge Advocate to the Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy. In January 1945 Denson accepted the position of Judge Advocate General (JAG) in Europe and was assigned to Third Army headquarters in Germany. While stationed in Freising, Germany, Denson read about the liberation of Dachau in the army newspaper, Stars and Stripes. After taking part in more than 90 trials against Germans who had committed atrocities against downed American pilots, Denson was promoted to lieutenant colonel, and in August 1945 was called to serve as the Chief Prosecutor for the U.S. government at the Dachau concentration camp war crimes trial. As a result of his success in handling the trial, he was asked to serve as chief prosecutor for a series of concentration camp trials, including Mauthausen, Flossenbuerg, and Buchenwald. When these trials came to an end in early 1947, Denson returned to Birmingham, but soon moved to Washington, DC, to accept a position as co-chief legal counsel to the Atomic Energy Commission. In 1949 Denson married Countess Constance von Francken-Sierstorpff of Southampton, Long Island, with whom he had three children. In 1958 the family relocated to New York, where Denson went to work for a major law firm. Later, in 1980 he became senior litigator in a small firm in Mineola, N.Y. Denson remained in New York until his death at the age of 85.
[Sources: Denson, William. "Justice in Germany: Memories of the Chief Prosecutor." Mineola, N.Y., Meltzer, Lippe, et al. P.C., 1995; Greene, Joshua. "Justice at Dachau." New York, Broadway Books, 2003, pp.17-20; 320-356.]
- Record last modified:
- 2004-11-09 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1040607
