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Authors: Andrew Nagorski
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instead, Guth read out forty names of those who were slated to go on trial before an American military tribunal. He also told them they were free to choose their defense lawyers, the tab would be picked up by their captors, and they could not be compelled to testify if they did not want to. As Joshua Greene, Denson’s biographer, wrote: “The Germans could hardly believe their ears.”
When the trial opened on November 13, 1945, the courtroom was packed. The International Military Tribunal would only begin its deliberations in Nuremberg a week later, so the room was heavy with top brass like General Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s chief of staff, and Senator Claude Pepper of Florida. Many journalists were in the room as well, including luminaries like Walter Lippmann and Marguerite Higgins. But Lippmann and Higgins did not even stay the whole first morning, and by the end of the week almost all their colleagues had followed them to Nuremberg, which was the big draw and would generate the major headlines. Soon, the only reporters who could be counted on to cover all the Dachau proceedings were Heidenberger and a Stars and Stripes correspondent.
Just as the forty accused were startled by the way they were put on trial, the spectators were taken aback by Denson as he made his presentation as the chief prosecutor. “The German spectators, unfamiliar with American legal practice, were awed by the trial lawyer theatrics,” Heidenberger recalled. Denson approached the bench and started off his statements by declaring in his Southern accent, “May it please the court . . .” It wasn’t just the accent that captivated Denson’s audience. “He had a very pleasant way that was very effective presenting his case,” Heidenberger added.
The young German reporter was even more impressed when he walked into Denson’s office for the first time—and gratified that the American immediately accepted him as a full-fledged member of the journalistic community. “You know the American custom of having yourfeet on the desk,” he mused decades later. “He had his feet on his desk and he treated me like a newspaper guy.”
But Denson’s soothing demeanor masked an iron determination to win convictions against all the defendants. Unlike the Nuremberg defendants, those on trial at Dachau were not the architects of the policies; they could not be charged with plotting crimes against humanity. Instead, Denson set out to prove that the personnel who operated the concentration camp knew exactly what its purpose was, and that it was enough to prove that they were part of the “common design”—or “community of intention”—to commit those criminal acts. It was not necessary to prove what specific crimes had been committed by each of the accused.
In his opening statement, the lanky Alabaman spelled out the framework of his case:
May it please the court, we expect the evidence to show that during the time alleged a scheme of extermination was in process here at Dachau. We expect the evidence to bshow that the victims of this planned extermination were civilians and prisoners of war, individuals unwilling to submit themselves to the yoke of Nazism. We expect to show that these people were subjected to experiments like guinea pigs, starved to death, and at the same time worked as hard as their physical bodies permitted; that the conditions under which these people were housed were such that disease and death were inevitable . . . and that each one of these accused constituted a cog in this machine of extermination.
The defense attorneys argued strenuously against this “cog in the machine” accusation, but to no avail. Later, such a sweeping approach would be rejected, and most trials would focus on the particular deeds allegedly committed by individual defendants.
Unlike in Nuremberg where almost all the evidence produced by the prosecution was in the form of incriminating documents that the Germans had produced themselves,
When the trial opened on November 13, 1945, the courtroom was packed. The International Military Tribunal would only begin its deliberations in Nuremberg a week later, so the room was heavy with top brass like General Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s chief of staff, and Senator Claude Pepper of Florida. Many journalists were in the room as well, including luminaries like Walter Lippmann and Marguerite Higgins. But Lippmann and Higgins did not even stay the whole first morning, and by the end of the week almost all their colleagues had followed them to Nuremberg, which was the big draw and would generate the major headlines. Soon, the only reporters who could be counted on to cover all the Dachau proceedings were Heidenberger and a Stars and Stripes correspondent.
Just as the forty accused were startled by the way they were put on trial, the spectators were taken aback by Denson as he made his presentation as the chief prosecutor. “The German spectators, unfamiliar with American legal practice, were awed by the trial lawyer theatrics,” Heidenberger recalled. Denson approached the bench and started off his statements by declaring in his Southern accent, “May it please the court . . .” It wasn’t just the accent that captivated Denson’s audience. “He had a very pleasant way that was very effective presenting his case,” Heidenberger added.
The young German reporter was even more impressed when he walked into Denson’s office for the first time—and gratified that the American immediately accepted him as a full-fledged member of the journalistic community. “You know the American custom of having yourfeet on the desk,” he mused decades later. “He had his feet on his desk and he treated me like a newspaper guy.”
But Denson’s soothing demeanor masked an iron determination to win convictions against all the defendants. Unlike the Nuremberg defendants, those on trial at Dachau were not the architects of the policies; they could not be charged with plotting crimes against humanity. Instead, Denson set out to prove that the personnel who operated the concentration camp knew exactly what its purpose was, and that it was enough to prove that they were part of the “common design”—or “community of intention”—to commit those criminal acts. It was not necessary to prove what specific crimes had been committed by each of the accused.
In his opening statement, the lanky Alabaman spelled out the framework of his case:
May it please the court, we expect the evidence to show that during the time alleged a scheme of extermination was in process here at Dachau. We expect the evidence to bshow that the victims of this planned extermination were civilians and prisoners of war, individuals unwilling to submit themselves to the yoke of Nazism. We expect to show that these people were subjected to experiments like guinea pigs, starved to death, and at the same time worked as hard as their physical bodies permitted; that the conditions under which these people were housed were such that disease and death were inevitable . . . and that each one of these accused constituted a cog in this machine of extermination.
The defense attorneys argued strenuously against this “cog in the machine” accusation, but to no avail. Later, such a sweeping approach would be rejected, and most trials would focus on the particular deeds allegedly committed by individual defendants.
Unlike in Nuremberg where almost all the evidence produced by the prosecution was in the form of incriminating documents that the Germans had produced themselves,
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