War crimes trials in Shanghai

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The Shanghai war crimes trials were negotiations against Japanese people who had committed crimes against the customs of the war during the Pacific War . One case was directed against Germans residing in China. In these courts it was US - military courts ( military tribunals ).

organization

The national Chinese regime , which became more and more dependent on American arms aid during the course of the war, demonstrated its client position by allowing the Americans to hold trials on its territory. The American Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson had ordered the creation of a judge advocate section (China Forces ) in December 1944 , under the command of Colonel Edward H. Young, at the headquarters in Shanghai. As early as 1944, American personnel helped set up a Chinese department for the prosecution of war criminals, which then began its work in the UNWCC's Pacific Affairs sub-commission and which later became part of the Far Eastern Commission (FEC).

Investigations and arrests by and on behalf of American troops limited Chinese sovereignty, but were also tolerated, said China's national foreign minister Wang Shih-chieh , because allied law enforcement was considered more effective. American law enforcement agencies worked closely with other allies, particularly through the War Crimes Sections created in Singapore (Dec. 1945) and Tokyo (Feb. 1946) . British officers were also assigned to Shanghai and Tientsin to investigate crimes against British subjects for the South East Asian Command .

The January 1946 procedural guidelines closely followed those issued by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) for procedures in Yokohama . However, the waging of a war of aggression could not be prosecuted, and officers from third countries were not allowed to sit as judges as elsewhere. The judges of the tribunals were officers who had to be qualified to serve on a US court martial. Although one member was specifically to be appointed as a “law member”, none of the judges generally had any legal training. The office of the “law member” was important because he had the final and final word in questions of legal doubt. The tribunals normally had seven, but at least three members. The judgments of such tribunals did not have to be justified, so it is often not clear from the files why a particular judgment was pronounced in the respective form. The normally strict evidence assessment principles of the Anglo-Saxon legal system were not applied.

Processes

In January 1946, about 100 Japanese suspects were found in custody in Shanghai. The negotiations, usually public, took place on the converted top floor of the Shanghai prison on Ward Road .

Almost all of the trials dealt with the fate of US Air Force members captured by Japan in China. Japan passed a law in 1942 that defined bombing attacks as terrorist attacks on innocent civilians and provided for the death penalty for airmen who were captured , even though they should have been granted prisoner- of-war status under the rules of international martial law . Lawyers were not allowed.

Hankow Airmen Trial

The first trial began on January 16, 1946 against 18 members of the Japanese gendarmerie who were accused of mistreating and killing three airmen in Hankow . All but one sergeant were found guilty, with five death sentences as of March 1.

Doolittle Airmen Trial

Of utmost political importance was the Doolittle Airmen Trial, which began on February 27, 1946 and was expected to set the precedent for the pending trial of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East , which is why its chief prosecutor Joseph Berry Keenan arrived for observation.

Major General Sawada Shigeru was charged with allowing eight downed airmen to be denied prisoner-of-war status as commander of the 13th Army . They were the first to bomb Japan in April 1942. Two other defendants had sentenced three of these fliers to death as judges, and another had ordered their executions.

Sawada defended himself by saying that he acted on the direct orders of Prime Minister Tōjō Hideki . The aviators would have had a fair trial. They would have been denied defense counsel, but this was in accordance with Japanese law. Tōjō and Gen. Hata Shunroku confirmed in writing that Sawada had acted lawfully. Nonetheless, all of the defendants were found guilty on April 16. However, all were awarded extenuating circumstances. The surprisingly low prison sentences imposed (for forced labor) ranged from five (for Sawada) to nine years.

Files of the Investigative Records Repository (IRR) that have only been accessible since 2002 show that the order for the execution of the Doolittle Airmen was probably made by Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko . He was the uncle of Tennō and at that time the commander of the Home Guard, later the first premier after the surrender. From the chief of the secret service G-2 at SCAP , Gen.-Maj. Charles Willoughby , Shimoura Sadamu , who had issued the death sentence because he otherwise cooperated , was personally protected from charge .

Proceedings against Germans

Numerous Germans expelled from Japan and China were repatriated at the “General WM Black” in 1947, including the 21 convicted in Shanghai.

Between October 18 and December 13, 1945 around 360 German men were interned in a camp to clarify their party affiliation. In a process that lasted from August 1946 to January 1947, 27 Germans were charged with the accusation that between May 9 and September 3, 1945 (the respective capitulations of the German Reich and Japan ), in particular for collecting and passing on News of illegal activity against the US. In six cases the charges were put down or acquittals took place. The 21 convicts were repatriated as prisoners on the USAT General WM Black steamer , which had already transported Germans deported from Japan, and brought to the Landsberg prison, which is still in use today (then US War Criminal Prison No. 1 ). The procedure and its arbitrary conduct were viewed critically by the local observers, and the Chinese public defenders resigned their mandate in protest.

Lothar Eisträger (alias Ludwig Erhardt) was sentenced to life imprisonment for violating the laws of war , and there were two times thirty, four times twenty, once fifteen and eight and six times five and ten years imprisonment. Appeal was not allowed. The journalist Wolf Schenke was among those acquitted .

A retrial before the US Supreme Court resulted in all those still in prison being released in 1950 because no actual war crimes had been committed.

Revision

All judgments had to be submitted to the Theater Commander for review , who could either confirm or mitigate them.

Convictions

In a total of eleven trials against Japanese with a total of 75 defendants, there were 67 convictions, which led to 10 (14.9%) death sentences.

literature

  • Philip R. Piccigallo: The Japanese on Trial. Allied was crimes operations in the East. 1945–1951 . University of Texas Press, Austin TX et al. a. 1979, ISBN 0-292-78033-8 .
  • US Dept. of the Army (Ed.): Report of the Judge Advocate US Forces, China Theater… Jan. 1, 1945 - June 10, 1947. Washington DC

Individual evidence

  1. US Dept. of the Army, Report of the Judge Advocate US Forces, China Theater… Jan. 1, 1945 - June 10, 1947, p. 22, quoted. in Piccigallo p 69
  2. cf. Records of the Army Staff: The Investigative Records Repository (IRR) released under the provisions of the Japanese Imperial Government Disclosure Act of 2000
  3. ^ National Archives RG 319 Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2; Investigative Records Repository Name File B134, box 211, Shimoura Sadamu
  4. ^ Section after Schmitt-Englert, Barbara; Germans in China 1920–1950 Everyday life and changes; Gossenberg 2012; ISBN 978-3-940527-50-9 .
  5. Armbrüster, Georg; Exile Shanghai: 1938–1947; Jewish life in emigration; Teetz 2000, p. 86, footnote 31; ISBN 3-933471-19-2 .