Nazi General Anton Dostler Before His Execution, 1945

Nazi General Anton Dostler Before His Execution, 1945

He ordered and oversaw the unlawful execution of fifteen captured U.S. soldiers. The soldiers were sent behind the German lines with orders to demolish a tunnel that was being used by the German army as a supply route to the front lines.

They were captured and upon learning of their mission, Dostler ordered their execution without trial

As well German officers at the 135th Fortress Brigade contacted

Dostler in an attempt to achieve a delay of their execution. Dostler sent another telegram ordering Almers to carry out the execution. Two last attempts were made by the officers at the 135th to stop the execution, including some by telephone, because they knew that executing uniformed prisoners of war was a direct violation of the 1929 Geneva Convention

on Prisoners of War. These efforts were unsuccessful and the 15 Americans were executed on the morning of March 26, 1944, at Punta Bianca south of La Spezia, in the

municipality of Ameglia. Their bodies were buried in a mass grave that was then camouflaged.

In the first Allied War crimes trial, Anton Dostler was accused of carrying out an illegal order. In his defense,

Dostler maintained that he had not issued the order, but had only passed along an order to Colonel Almers from

supreme command, and that the execution of the OSS men was a lawful reprisal. Dostler's plea of superior orders failed because by ordering the execution, he had acted on his own outside the Führer's order.

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