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Commando Order
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==Aftermath== [[File:Anton Dostler 1945 a.jpg|thumb|General [[Anton Dostler]] was tried and executed for ordering the execution of American prisoners of war in accordance with the Commando Order.]] German officers who carried out executions under the Commando Order were found guilty of war crimes in postwar tribunals, including at the Nuremberg trials. Many claimed in their defence that they themselves risked execution if they had disobeyed the order, but this was disproved.<ref>{{cite book|author-link=Damien Lewis (filmmaker)|first=Damien|last=Lewis|title=SAS Band of Brothers|date=2020|publisher=Quercus|page=359|isbn=9781787475250}}</ref> * General [[Anton Dostler]], who ordered the execution of 15 U.S. soldiers of the [[Operations Ginny I and II#Ginny II|Ginny II operation in Italy]], was sentenced to death and executed on 1 December 1945. His defence that he had only relayed [[superior orders]] was rejected at trial. * The Commando Order was one of the specifications in the charge against ''[[Generaloberst]]'' Alfred Jodl, who was convicted and hanged on 16 October 1946. * Likewise, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel's endorsement of the Commando and [[Commissar Order]]s was one of the key factors in his conviction for war crimes; for the same reason, his request for a military execution (by [[Execution by firing squad|firing squad]]) was denied, and he was instead hanged like Jodl on 16 October 1946. * Another officer charged with enforcing the Commando Order at Nuremberg was Admiral Erich Raeder. Under cross-examination, Raeder admitted to passing on the Commando Order to the ''Kriegsmarine'' and to enforcing the Commando Order by ordering the summary execution of captured British Royal Marines after the Operation Frankton raid at Bordeaux in December 1942.<ref name="Goda, Norman page 139">{{Citation | last = Goda | first = Norman | title = Tales from Spandau | place = Cambridge | publisher = [[Cambridge University Press]] | year = 2007 | page = 139}}.</ref> Raeder testified in his defence that he believed that the Commando Order was a "justified" order, and that the execution of the two Royal Marines was no war crime in his own opinion.<ref name="Goda, Norman page 139"/> The International Military Tribunal did not share Raeder's view of the Commando Order, convicted him of war crimes for ordering the executions, and sentenced him to life imprisonment; he was released in 1955 and died in 1960. * Another war crimes trial was held in [[Braunschweig]], Germany, against ''Generaloberst'' [[Nikolaus von Falkenhorst]], Supreme Commander of German forces in Norway from 1940–44. The latter was held responsible, among other things, for invoking the Commando Order against survivors of the unsuccessful British commando raid against the [[Vemork]] [[heavy water]] plant at [[Rjukan]], Norway in 1942 (Operation Freshman). He was sentenced to death in 1946; the sentence was later commuted to 20 years' imprisonment, and he was released in 1953 for reasons of health. He died in 1968.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=bHVCAgAAQBAJ&dq=%22Nikolaus+von+Falkenhorst%22+commando+order&pg=PA964 ''The Oxford Companion to International Criminal Justice''], pp. 964–965</ref> * High-ranking<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.newstatesman.com/node/162216|title = The spying game}}</ref> intelligence officer [[Josef Kieffer]] was sentenced to death at a [[court-martial]] hearing for ordering the executions of five SAS prisoners and hanged in 1947. Two others, Karl Haug and Richard Schnur, were likewise executed for participating in the massacre on Kieffer's orders, while ''[[Obersturmführer]]'' Otto Ilgenfritz received fifteen years in prison.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=ekXlDwAAQBAJ ''SAS Band of Brothers''] pp. 363–368</ref>
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