At the end of the Second World War, there were a number of German generals who were
executed for their crimes against the allied nations.
Many had been guilty of carrying out illegal executions and orders which resulted in civilians
being slaughtered in their towns and cities.
These areas which were once very peaceful became firing ranges and execution sites,
but there were two German Generals who were shot by the Americans.
Other members of the military were sent to the gallows, but an execution by firing squad
was considered the honourable death for those soldiers who were guilty of war crimes.
But what is the story of the German generals shot by the Americans?
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Anton Dostler joined the German Army in 1910 and he served in the military for a long period
of time.
He would at the start of the Second World War be part of the Chief of Staff of the 7th
Army before rising to the top of the command.
He would also then be in charge of the 57th Infantry Division and the 163rd Infantry Division.
HE would then be moved across to Italy, and he was the commander of the Venetian Coast
and was in command of the 75th Army Corp.
He was clearly a well respected member of the German military, however he would be involved
in the executions of a number of US soldiers.
On the 22nd March 1944, 15 soldiers from the American Army landed on the Italian Close
near to La Spezia and they were dropped 250 miles behind the front lines.
They were involved in Operation Ginny 2, and their mission was to conduct sabotage behind
enemy lines.
The men were properly dressed in the field uniform of the American Army and they were
not wearing civilian clothes.
They were tasked with blowing up railway tunnels that would cut and disrupt German lines of
communication in central Italy,.
The first mission codenamed Ginny 1 took place and was aborted when they landed at the wrong
place and could not find the tunnel.
But Operation Ginny 2 would go badly wrong also.
Dressed in their American uniforms the team realised yet again that they were in the wrong
place, and they had landed 2 miles away from their intended target.
The group then had to hide out behind enemy lines, and the team tried to establish contact
with their PT boats.
They would hide their equipment under the trees and they started to move, but then they
were helped out by an Italian soldier who agreed to allow the men to shelter.
But then at some point an itlaian fisherman noticed the rubber boats that the men had
left near to coastline, and they then notified the Fascist militia.
They also found the explosives, and the local German command formed a search party and they
would scour the local area for the Americans.
But all 15 American soldiers who were staying in the barn were captured, and one of the
Americans revealed that the commando raid aimed to blow up the tunnels.
Anton Dostler was a General of the Infantry, and he acted as a middle man who was ordered
following the interrogations to carry out the executions of the Americans.
Field Marshal Albert Kesselring said to slaughter them, and Dostler then passed the order onto
the German firing squad that the captured men should be executed in accordance with
the commano order of 1942.
The colonel who was placed in charge of carrying out the shootings was not happy to do it,
and he asked Anton Dostler to delay but Dostler said the executions must go ahead.
The appeals were unsuccessful and with this the commandos were all executed and were shot,
before they were buried inside of a mass grave that was covered up.
Anton Dostler was taken as a prisoner of war by the Americans at the end of the war, and
he was then interrogated about the fate of the commando raiders and with this he was
placed on trial.
He was accused of war crimes and of carrying out an illegal order that resulted in the
executions of 15 American soldiers.
Dostler said he was only passing on orders from a superior, and he claimed that the men
were not in army uniform, meaning they were spies and that they would be liable to execution.
But they were in uniform, and Dostler asked for clemency.
But this was rejected.
It was legal at the time to execute spies and saboteurs who were disguised in civilian
clothes or in enemy uniform, but this was not the case.
The Americans were in uniform, meaning the trial found General Dostler guilty of war
crimes.
He was sentenced to death and was brought in front of a stake in Aversa on the 1st December
1945.
At 8am, he was led out to the execution stake and was secured and tied to it.
He was wearing his German uniform, and in front of him was a 12 man firing squad made
up of American soldiers.
They were armed with their rifles and when the priest and military policeman stepped
back,.
They were told to ready.
After this the firing squad shot straight into General Anton Dostler.
He was the first of only two German high ranking officerssignificant officers who were shot
by the Americans and executed.
The other was of Captain rank, and Curt Bruns was a man who joined the German Army in 1936,
and within 3 years he became an officer.
But he was considered a man who was a war criminal, and he was rather antisemitic.
Bruns would be responsible for ordering the executions of two American prisoners of war
during the Battle of the Bulge.
Between the 16th and 20th December 1944, the Americans captured around 30 German soldiers,
which included Corporal Heinrich Kauter.
Whilst Kauter and his other fellow prisoners were inside of American custody, they were
interrogated by American soldiers, two of which spoke German fluently.
But then 4 days later, the Americans had 300 of their own soldiers including the two interrogators
captured by the 2nd Battalion of the 293rd Volksgrenadier Regiment.
This German unit was commanded by Curt Bruns, and he marched the Americans to a customs
house, and Kauter who had been freed went ahead.
Bruns stood in front of the site when the POWs arrived.
But when they got there, two of the freed German POWs told Bruns that two of the Americans
spoke fluent German, and these were said to have been German Jews.
Curt Bruns then immediately ordered the two soldiers to be executed, and they were lined
up against the wall of the house by Sergeant Werner Hoffman.
Bruns then had all the other American POWs marched towards a different location.
Staff Sergeant Richard Jacobs and Technical 5th Grade Murray Zappler were stood against
the wall, and Bruns asked the pair if they had interrogated his men in German.
They admitted this and Bruns continued to question, and the pair admitted that they
were German Jews, to which Bruns responded with ‘The Jews have no right to live in
Germany.’
Following a quick conversation, Bruns then gathered a firing squad made up of 6 non commissioned
officers, that marched the two Americans down the road, and then they were immediately shot
dead.
The crime was exposed by Heinrich Kauter, who was a communist who was sent to a concentration
camp but drafted into the Wehrmacht to replace lost soldiers.
He claimed the men were shot standing to attention with their backs to the firing squad, and
Bruns was then identified as the culprit.
Bruns would maintain his innocence and world blame others for the executions, and the case
relied on the testimony of those who saw it.
A 19 year old woman also claimed she saw it, and others were told by Bruns that he had
executed the men.
Because of this, Captain Curt Bruns was also sentenced to death and he was to be executed.
He became the first Axis war criminal to be executed by the American military.
They usually executed by hanging, but the firing squad was seen as a more honourable
way to die.
He was taken to a gravel quarry in Denstorf on the 15th June 1945,and he was wearing his
German Uniform which had been stripped of its insignia.
He was then secured to a post and was facing the firing squad who were then told to ready
before instantly he was executed.
These two men became the only German military prisoners of war who were executed by firing
squad, as after the end of the Second World War, the majority of war criminals in American
custody were hanged on gallows at sites such as LAndsberg Prison.
Anton Dostler and Curt Bruns were responsible for the executions of American soldiers and
because of this they faced an execution squad made up of American soldiers.
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Captain Curt Bruns.