Commando Order significant person Anton Dostler
General Anton Dostler, who ordered the execution of 15 American soldiers of the Ginny II operation in Italy, was sentenced to death and executed on 1 December 1945. His defence that he had only relayed superior orders was rejected at trial.
The Commando Order was one of the specifications in the charge against Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, who was convicted and hanged on 16 October 1946.
Likewise, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel's endorsement of the Commando and Commissar Orders was one of the key factors in his conviction for war crimes; for the same reason, his request for a military execution (by firing squad) was denied, and he was instead hanged like Jodl on 16 October 1946.
Another officer charged with enforcing the Commando Order at Nuremberg was the Commander of the Navy Erich Raeder. Under cross-examination, Raeder admitted to passing on the Commando Order to the Kriegsmarine and to enforcing the Commando Order by ordering the summary execution of captured British Royal Marines after the Operation Frankton raid at Bordeaux in December 1942. Raeder testified in his defence that he believed that the Commando Order was a "justified" order, and that the execution of the two Royal Marines was no war crime in his own opinion. The International Military Tribunal did not share Raeder's view of the Commando Order, convicted him of war crimes for ordering the executions, and sentenced him to life imprisonment; he was released in 1955 and died in 1960.
Another war crimes trial was held in Braunschweig, Germany, against Colonel-General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, Supreme Commander of German forces in Norway 1940–44. The latter was held responsible, among other things, for invoking the Commando Order against survivors of the unsuccessful British commando raid against the Vemork heavy water plant at Rjukan, Norway in 1942 (Operation Freshman). He was sentenced to death in 1946; the sentence was later commuted to 20 years' imprisonment, and he was released in 1953 for reasons of health. He died in 1968.
High-ranking intelligence officer Josef Kieffer was sentenced to death at a court-martial hearing for ordering the executions of five SAS prisoners and hanged in 1947. Two others, Karl Haug and Richard Schnur, were likewise executed for participating in the massacre on Kieffer's orders, while Obersturmführer Otto Ilgenfritz received fifteen years in prison.