Former U.S. Army sergeant Kenneth Ahrens (sitting at right) testifies at the trial of 74 former SS men charged with the Malmedy massacre.
Overview
- Caption
- Former U.S. Army sergeant Kenneth Ahrens (sitting at right) testifies at the trial of 74 former SS men charged with the Malmedy massacre.
Among those pictured is former SS General Joseph (Sepp) Dietrich (number 11 in the defendants' dock, at the front left).
The inscription on the back of the photograph reads, "Witness and SS prisoners (General Joseph Sepp Dietrich #11). Malmedy War Trial Dachau, Germany May 1946." - Date
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1946 June 05
- Locale
- Dachau, [Bavaria] Germany
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Marvin Edwards
- Event History
- On May 16, 1946 in Dachau, Germany, the trial of 74 SS members who had taken part in the Malmedy massacre began. All of the defendants were charged with violation of the laws and usages of war and with deliberately participating in the killing, shooting, and torturing of U.S. soldiers and unarmed civilians. The prosecution's case was made up mainly of sworn statements from eyewitnesses, which the defense later claimed were forced to testify under duress. The defense's case rested on testimony from a few witnesses, mostly ex-SS men, including Colonel Joachim Peiper who had headed the division charged with the massacre. The most stunning defense witness was the American soldier Hal McCown, who testified that, as a prisoner of Peiper, he received fair treatment, as did the other American POWs, and that he never saw murdered Americans. Neither Peiper's nor McCown's testimony helped, however, as the seventy-three defendants (one had been released to French custody during the trial) were all found guilty on July 11. On July 16, 1943, forty-three were sentenced to death by hanging (including Peiper) and twenty-two were sentenced to life in prison, with the rest receiving either ten, fifteen, or twenty year prison terms. Those associated with the case soon began to have their doubts about how the case was handled, however, specifically the eyewitness statements used by the prosecution. Some also expressed concern that US soldiers had carried out similar acts without being punished. One year after the trial ended, an Army office carried out a review of the trial and made large changes in the original sentences. Although no prisoner was released, twenty-five of the forty-three death sentences were reduced to life imprisonment, seventeen defendants had their life sentences reduced and those with shorter prison terms had them made even shorter. Many of these changes were made, the reviewing body said, because of the youthfulness of the defendants at the time. The charges with these changes were also reviewed a year later by the War Crimes Review Board, which, after declaring the pre-trial investigation flawed and saying the court had favored the prosecution, recommended to a higher body a further reducing of sentences. This higher body, the Military Governor of the American Zone, took some of the Review Board's suggestions into account, and its changes led to thirteen defendants being freed, and only twelve still facing execution. Still later, the Governor reduced the number sentenced to death to 6. As the end of the Malmedy affair approached, American military authorities reduced to life imprisonment the death sentences for the 6 remaining defendants.
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007145.
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Marvin Edwards
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Joseph (Sepp) Dietrich (1892-1966) commanded the Sixth SS Panzer Army during World War II. Born into a Bavarian peasant family on May 28, 1892 in Hawangen, Dietrich spent his early years working in hotels and public houses. He joined the police after service in World War I as a paymaster sergeant. He even spent a stint with the Oberland Freikorps. In 1923, Dietrich joined the SA. He joined the NSDAP in 1928 and by 1930 he was a Reichstag representative for Lower Bavaria. Soon afterwards he was made an SS-Brigadefuehrer. Dietrich was responsible for setting up the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (LAH), the Berlin SS guard staff charged with protecting Hitler. He was promoted to SS-Obergruppenfuehrer for his participation in executions of high SA officers in Munich during "cleansing" actions. The LAH joined with units of the Waffen-SS to form a combat unit. On July 4, 1934 he was made General of the Waffen-SS and assigned to the Prussian State Council. Hitler looked highly upon Dietrich for his ruthlessness, military valor, and punishing character. He served as commanding general of the First SS Panzerkorps serving in Poland, France, Greece, Russia, Austria, and Hungary. He was awarded the Diamond Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords on December 31, 1941 and the Brillianten to Oak Leaves in 1944, but Dietrich proved to be a mediocre military strategist at best. While serving as Commander of the Sixth SS Panzer Army he shared responsibility for the Malmedy massacre of almost a hundred US prisoners of war during the Ardennes Offensive. He was also held responsible for atrocities in the Kharkov-Kherson district in 1941-43 while acting as a divisional commander. In May of 1945, the American Seventh Army captured Dietrich. Because of questions of procedure raised by his defense, his life sentence was reduced to twenty-five years. He was secretly pardoned on October 22, 1955, but he was soon sentenced to eighteen months for his role in the murder of Ernst Roehm. He was released in February of 1959 due to health concerns and died of a heart attack in 1966 while in Ludwigsburg.
[Sources: Wistrich, Robert. "Who's Who in Nazi Germany." MacMillan, 1982; Zentner, Christian. "Encyclopedia of the Third Reich." MacMillan, 1991.]
- Record last modified:
- 2016-09-09 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa30100
