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Author Jardim, Tomaz, 1974-

Title The Mauthausen trial : American military justice in Germany / Tomaz Jardim
Published Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2012

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Description 1 online resource (276 pages)
Contents Machine generated contents note: 1. War Crimes Trials and the U.S. Army -- 2. American Investigators at Mauthausen -- 3. Prosecution Crafts Its Case -- 4. Defendants in the Dock -- 5. Judgment at Dachau
Summary Shortly after 9:00 a.m. on May 27, 1947, the first of forty-nine men condemned to death for war crimes at Mauthausen concentration camp mounted the gallows at Landsberg prison near Munich. The mass execution that followed resulted from an American military trial conducted at Dachau in the spring of 1946--a trial that lasted only thirty-six days and yet produced more death sentences than any other in American history. The Mauthausen trial was part of a massive series of proceedings designed to judge and punish Nazi war criminals in the most expedient manner the law would allow. There was no doubt that the crimes had been monstrous. Yet despite meting out punishment to a group of incontestably guilty men, the Mauthausen trial reveals a troubling and seldom-recognized face of American postwar justice--one characterized by rapid proceedings, lax rules of evidence, and questionable interrogations. Although the better-known Nuremberg trials are often regarded as epitomizing American judicial ideals, these trials were in fact the exception to the rule. Instead, as Tomaz Jardim convincingly demonstrates, the rough justice of the Mauthausen trial remains indicative of the most common--and yet least understood--American approach to war crimes prosecution. The Mauthausen Trial forces reflection on the implications of compromising legal standards in order to guarantee that guilty people do not walk free
The Nuremberg trials are regarded as models of postwar justice, but the Mauthausen trial was the norm and reveals the troubling face of American military proceedings. This rough justice, with its lax rules of evidence and questionable interrogations, compromised legal standards in order to guarantee that guilty people did not walk free
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-262) and index
Notes In English
Print version record
In Druckausg.: Jardim, Tomaz. Mauthausen trial
Subject Mauthausen (Concentration camp)
SUBJECT Mauthausen (Concentration camp) fast
Mauthausen (Oberösterreich) -- Konzentrationslager Mauthausen. (DE-588c)4199122-9. swd
Subject War crime trials -- Germany -- Dachau
Trials (Genocide) -- Germany -- Dachau
World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Austria
LAW -- International.
LAW -- Military.
Atrocities
Trials (Genocide)
War crime trials
Mauthausen-Hauptprozess
Kriegsverbrecherprozess
Austria
Germany -- Dachau
Dachau
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780674063129
0674063120