The Evening Star (December 12, 1945)
Dachau commandant and 39 others found guilty of atrocities
Defendants will receive sentences tomorrow for regime of horror
DACHAU (AP) – An American military government court today convicted Martin Weiss and 39 fellow defendants on a charge of committing atrocities at the Dachau concentration camp.
They will be sentenced tomorrow. Hanging is the penalty prescribed by American Army headquarters for any sentenced to death for the regime of starvation, torture and murder at the Nazi horror center overrun April 30.
The eight-officer court, headed by Brig. Gen. John M. Lentz, received the case at noon. It deliberated only 90 minutes before reaching the verdict.
The defense wound up the 24-day trial with pleas for mercy for several defendants, most of whom were SS guards, although five were camp doctors and three were prisoners used in official capacities.
Receive verdict stoically
Gen. Lentz first announced that the 40 would be sentenced later. Then the court decided that the sentences would be passed tomorrow morning.
The defendant received the verdict stoically. There was no visible reaction from German civilians and others in the audience of more than 300.
Of the five doctors on trial, 74-year-old Dr. Klaus Schilling was in charge of medical experiments at the camp and was accused of killing hundreds of inmates in malaria experiments. He had begged on the witness stand to be allowed to go on with the paper work on the results, saying he needed only a desk and a chair.
Two of the other camp physicians, Fritz Hintermeier and Paul Walter, were charged with conducting “pressure” experiments on prisoners for the benefit of the German Air Force.
Troops of the American 42nd and 45th Divisions freed 32,000 tortured and emaciated men and 350 women when they overran Dachau in the April advances. It has been estimated that at least 5,000 Jews were killed in the Landsberg section of the camp alone.
Hanging penalty reinstated
Weiss, an SS officer, and scores of his men were taken into custody as the Americans swept into the camp with tank and bulldozer support.
Decapitation had been regarded as the probable fate of any of the Dachau war criminals sentenced to death, but American Army instructions have reinstated hanging, as in the case of common criminals. It was explained that the Germans consider hanging “a more ignominious death” than beheading.
The court retired to consider sentences after hearing defense pleas for mercy for several defendants, most of whom were SS guards at the camp.
Defense Chief Lt. Col. Douglas Bates of Centerville, Tennessee, declared that if the defendants were guilty “of a common design of extermination” so was every German “who contributed to waging total war.”
In another atrocity action, Richard Drauz, a minor Nazi party leader, was sentenced by a military government court today to be hanged for the slaying of a handcuffed captive American flyer.
The unidentified victim was one of six captive fliers murdered March 24, 1945. The chief witness against Drauz was Heins Endres, previously sentenced to death for killing four of the aviators.