Evening star., 1948-10-02
<a>~~ The Trial of Ilse Koch %~'~~fs
Former Counsel in War Crimes Cases Says AssembyLine
Technique Flouted Principles of Justice
To the Editor Of The Star:


published on your editorial page written by
Mr.. William benson, the prosecutor in her case,
must leave in the public mind q sense OF be-
wilderment as to the conduct Of these war
crimes cases. Your accompanying editorial
asking for better explanation than those SO
far supplied by ondcial sources has prompted
me to offer here my observations for whatever
public interest they may have Although the
Ilse Koch case happens to be one that has
| caught the vigilant eye OF the press it is
actually only one of many similar reductions
| in sentences of war criminals which have been
going on for many months as a normal activity
of the process Of review in the Army. Perhaps
can shed some light on the reasons for some
Of these reductions.
My role in the war crimes trials was, sup
pose, relatively minor one compared to Mr..
Densons impressive record of convictions EMU
merated in his letter to you. I prosecuted .
few cases, but unlike Mr.. benson. also de-
| Tended few. Thus I believe I was able to
observe these trials with some objectivity.
In my opinion, the Ilse Koch case becomes
unintelligible without some basic understanding
Of the entire war crimes picture in Germany.
The general public and many lawyers think of
the war crimes trials only in terms of the
International Tribunal located in Nuremberg.
The fact is, however, that the International
Tribunal has tried only small percentage Of
the war criminals. The vast majority of these
|, criminals, running into several Thousand, was
tried by an Army agency known as the Once
OF the Deputy Judge Advocate for War Crimes.
These trials were conducted in the former con-
| centration camp of Dachau. The courts there,
far from being International tribunals, were
purely military courts stated by United States
Army officers. Only one officer in each court,
IaW hoH oil i,l5i al froIr
ing. In Nuremberg the judges were professional
| jurists with a lifetime of judicial experience.
The Dachau judges, though perhaps highly
qualified as line or staff officers in the profess
sion OF arms, were hardly equipped to pass upon
hlstory-making issues of international law in q
field in which legal horizons were being ex-
panded and intricate problems of substantive
and procedural law were a daily occurrence.
These military judges were honest, competent
men trying their best to discharge an onerous
military duty, and trying to dispense justice to
the best Of their ability, often by rule of thumb
and trial and error.
Hearsay Evidence Admitted.
The rules Of procedure followed in these
courts roughly followed court martial lines
except that nearly all the safeguards and
guarantees which an accused enjoys in court
martial cases were either stripped away, or so
abridged as to render them useless. For ex-
ample the prohibition against the introduction
of hearsay evidence which has been of such
long standing in our system Of Anglo. American
jurisprudence as a protection against convic-
tions by gossip and rumor was discarded. Hear
say evidence was not only admitted by the
courts but formed the basis for a substantial
number of convictions. Documents and papers
of every kind and description were thus ad-
Sfal ,,Yo
copies, unsworn accusations by alleged victims,
all were presented to these relatively unframed
judges "for such probative value as the court
may see fit to give them" as the war crimes
trial manual euphemistically phrased it. That
some OF these courts saw fit to aScribe sub
stantial probatve value to this type of evidence,
which would have been rejected by any Amer
ican court, is attested to by the number of
convictions obtained at Dachau.
The physical facilities of the courts in Dachau
differed materially from those in Nuremberg
Holding these trials inside a former concen-
tration camp caused many Germans with
whom I spoke to be suspicious of the proceed
ings. The trials were IL miles from Munich
the nearest city Of any size. Visitors who were
not discouraged by this distance were escorted
under armed guard from the gate of the camp
to the courtroom and escorted out again at
necessary security measure, but 1t tended to
defeat one of the main purposes Of the trials
which was to encourage the general German
public 10 witness the administration Of Amer
ican justice. The courtrooms themselves We're
hastily improvised, furnished with homemade
wooden furniture. The corridors were dark,
dank and not too clean. 1t was more like
third-rate police court than like a tribunal
where far-reaching decision of international
jurisprudence were being established.
Prison Camp Atmosphere.
Adding to this dismal picture were the ON
inous and ubiquitous dark-unformed Polish
guards slightly reminiscent In appearance of
Gestapo men. They were for the most part
former inmates of concentration camps or
members of the free Polish Army. Naturally
the treatment which the German prisoners re-
ceived from these jailors, while not outwardly
brutal so far as could observe, certainly could
not be expected to be delicate This assignment
of former victims as jailors for their former
oppressors was perhaps poetic retribution, but
1t surely did not add to the feeling that justice
was being dispensed without thought Of revenge.
All these various factors contributed to an
atmosphere of oppressiveness which hung over
the Dachau trials. The early trials, of course,
were conducted under the emotional strains Of
recent combat and savored of the victors trying
the vanquiShed.. This was reflected by the far
more lenent sentences which later courts
assessed for similar ofienses. Another problem
was that Of obtaining impartial investigators.
These investigators, organized into field teams,
secured the countryside arresting suspects, in
terviewing witnesses. etc. Many of these men
who had the necessary linguistic qualifications
were former refugees from Germany who had
escaped Hitler's prosecutions, migrated to the
United States, obtained American citizenship
and returned with our armies as "avenging
angels" In Dachau we knew them as thirty
miners" because many of them had escaped
from Germany in 1899. AS any lawyer knows,
4 fair pre-trial investigation Is often as i'm
portant as fair trial. Much of the pre-trial
work which saw in completed form convinced