## Facts

- A U.S. General Military Government Court sitting in the U.S. occupation zone tried Martin Gottfried Weiss and 39 other Dachau concentration camp staff members.
- Proceedings occurred at Dachau, Germany, from November 15 to December 13, 1945, with post-trial review completed on January 24, 1946.
- The indictment alleged a shared plan by camp staff to subject detainees to killings, beatings, torture, starvation, abuses, and indignities between January 1, 1942, and April 29, 1945, at Dachau and subsidiary camps.
- The case covered two victim categories: civilian internees and captured members of enemy armed forces (prisoners of war or comparable detainees).
- During the charged period, Dachau experienced extreme overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and inadequate medical measures, including a typhus epidemic with significant mortality.
- Prisoners were subjected to forced labor with inadequate food, extended workdays, and harsh roll-calls and administrative routines.
- Weiss served as commandant of Dachau from September 1, 1942, to October 31, 1943, and was alleged to have exercised authority within the camp regime during a period of killings and transfers associated with lethal outcomes.

## Issues

1. Whether camp staff could be convicted of war crimes based on participation in a “common design” to operate a camp through systematic mistreatment, without proof that each defendant personally committed specific killings or tortures.
2. Whether the alleged killings, torture, starvation, forced labor under lethal conditions, and denial of sanitation and medical care constituted violations of the laws and usages of war as applied to civilian internees and prisoners of war.
3. Whether command and key administrative positions supported individual criminal liability for the overall regime of abuse based on authority, knowledge, and contribution to its operation.

## Decision

- The tribunal found all 40 defendants guilty.
- The tribunal accepted the prosecution’s “common design” theory, treating staff participation in operating the camp system as sufficient to establish responsibility for resulting atrocities.
- The tribunal imposed 36 death sentences and additional prison sentences; Weiss received a death sentence by hanging.
- On review, U.S. military authorities confirmed the findings and sentences, with some sentence reductions for certain defendants.

## Legal Principles

- Individuals may be held criminally liable for war crimes when they knowingly aid, abet, or participate in a collective plan to subject protected persons to cruel and inhuman treatment.
- Systematic camp conditions and practices—killings, torture, starvation, forced labor under deadly conditions, and deliberate denial of basic sanitation and medical care—constitute violations of the laws and usages of war when inflicted on civilians and prisoners of war.
- Proof of a defendant’s knowing participation in the operation and enforcement of an unlawful camp system can support conviction even absent proof of a particular individualized act of homicide or torture.
- Command and senior administrative roles support heightened responsibility where the accused had authority over camp policies or practices and contributed to, maintained, or tolerated the unlawful regime.

## Conclusion

The tribunal held Dachau personnel criminally responsible for war crimes on the basis that they collectively participated in a common plan to run the camp and its subcamps through systematic mistreatment of civilians and prisoners of war, resulting in mass suffering and death, and it imposed severe sentences that were largely sustained on military review.


United States v. Weiss, Case No. 000-50-2 (Gen. Mil. Gov’t Ct. (U.S. Zone) 1945)