## Facts

- Karl Neumann was a German naval commander in charge of a submarine during World War I.
- Hospital ships were generally protected under the laws and customs of war, and German naval authorities initially recognized those protections.
- German authorities later claimed Allied hospital ships were being used for military purposes contrary to the rules governing hospital vessels.
- The German Admiralty issued orders authorizing submarine commanders to sink enemy hospital ships suspected of such misuse.
- Acting under those orders, Neumann torpedoed and sank an English hospital ship.
- After the war, Neumann was prosecuted in the Reichsgericht at Leipzig as part of Germany’s domestic war-crimes proceedings.

## Issues

1. Whether a subordinate naval commander incurs individual criminal liability for attacking a protected hospital ship when acting under orders issued by the competent military authority.
2. Whether the absence of knowledge (and absence of grossly negligent ignorance) that an order is unlawful defeats mens rea for a war-crimes conviction.

## Decision

- The Reichsgericht acquitted Neumann.
- The court treated the Admiralty directive as a binding order within the chain of command.
- The prosecution failed to prove Neumann knew the order was unlawful, or that he was culpably ignorant of its illegality.
- The court implied that responsibility for any unlawful policy lay primarily with those who issued the order rather than the subordinate who executed it in good faith.

## Legal Principles

- Obedience to a superior’s order can exclude criminal liability where the accused was bound to obey and did not know, and was not grossly negligent in failing to know, that the order was unlawful.
- The “superior orders” defense is not absolute; it does not apply where the illegality is manifest or where the subordinate knew or should have known the order was illegal.
- International-law protections (including for hospital ships) may be enforced through domestic criminal proceedings, with individual liability turning on proof of personal culpability.

## Conclusion

The court acquitted a submarine commander for sinking a hospital ship because he acted under a competent superior’s order and lacked culpable knowledge that the directive violated the laws and customs of war, while recognizing limits where illegality is evident or known.


In re Neumann, 16 Am. J. Int’l L. 704 (1922)