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View of the judges bench of the Dachau trial. A large American flag hangs behind them.

Photograph | Photograph Number: 61097
View of the judges bench of the Dachau trial. A large American flag hangs behind them. Interpreters for the defense sit at the table to the right of the judges. Among those pictured is Otto Ludwig Stein, third from the left, a 20 year old Sargeant in the US Army. Otto was a Jewish refugee that left Berlin in 1939 and immigrated to the United States. He joined the Army in 1944 and was given the choice of going to Europe or the Pacific, he chose Europe.

View of the judges bench of the Dachau trial. A large American flag hangs behind them.

Interpreters for the defense sit at the table to the right of the judges. Among those pictured is Otto Ludwig Stein, third from the left, a 20 year old Sargeant in the US Army. Otto was a Jewish refugee that left Berlin in 1939 and immigrated to the United States. He joined the Army in 1944 and was given the choice of going to Europe or the Pacific, he chose Europe.

Date
1945 November 15 - 1945 December 13
Locale
Dachau, [Bavaria] Germany
Photo Designation
PURSUIT OF JUSTICE -- Concentration Camp/Atrocity Trials -- US Army Trials -- Dachau
Photo Credit
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Vincent Paul Donaghue

About This Photograph

Event History
The Dachau concentration camp trial opened on November 2, 1945 in Dachau, Germany. Forty individuals who had participated in the operation of the Dachau concentration camp were charged with the murder and mistreatment of foreign nationals imprisoned there. Among those charged were Martin Gottfried Weiss, the camp commandant from 1942-1943; Dr. Klaus Karl Schilling, an SS physician who was brought to Dachau to find a method of immunizing people against malaria; and three former prisoners. The trial lasted from November 15 to December 13, 1945, with seventy witnesses called for the prosecution and fifty witnesses called for the defense. All forty defendants were found guilty, with thirty-six being sentenced to death by hanging (including Weiss and Schilling), one sentenced to hard labor for life, and three sentenced to hard labor for ten years. A few of the sentences were reduced after a review board determined the defendants were involved to a lesser degree than originally believed, but most were upheld. Those sentenced to death were hanged on May 28-29, 1946 at Dachau.
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007145.

Keywords and Subjects

Rights and Restrictions

Photo Source
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provenance: Vincent Paul Donaghue
Source Record ID: Collections: 2004.536
 
Record last modified: 2014-10-07 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1154698