The Dachau Trials

How can justice be achieved? Who is responsible for mass crimes and how can they be brought to justice? What legal standards and examples could be applied to the mass crimes at Dachau and the other camps liberated by the U.S. Army? These are the questions the American liberators of German concentration camps faced in 1945.The U.S. Army encountered an apocalyptic situation in and around the Dachau concentration camp: corpses were piled high, while thousands of survivors were physically and psychologically close to death.
Salvaged Nazi documents, eyewitness testimonies of survivors, and comprehensive questioning of suspects laid the foundation for the Dachau Trials (1945–1948). Crimes committed against captured Allied soldiers and civilians outside the camps were also investigated and the perpetrators put on trial.
The special exhibition “Dachau Trials – Crimes, Proceedings, and Responsibility” shows where these crimes were committed, provides detailed information on the legal foundations, introduces court personnel, defendants and witnesses and gives an overview of the individual trials and their repercussions including those for the jurisdiction of the Federal Republic of Germany. The broad media coverage is also addressed. The exhibition deals with one of the largest Nazi trial complexes, which still stands in the shadow of the better-known Nuremberg trials. The questions about justice and dealing with the past that were discussed at the time are still relevant today.
The exhibition catalog presents the content of the whole exhibition as edited essays with references to sources and literature. Furthermore, the catalogue offers insights into the concept and design of the exhibition and provides more detailed information on the freestanding exhibits. In addition, a further two essays discuss the prosecution of the crimes committed at Dachau and its subcamps in West Germany and the impact of the Dachau trials on international criminal law.