Justice at Dachau: The Trials of an American Prosecutor - Joshua M Greene

Justice at Dachau: The Trials of an American Prosecutor Joshua M Greene ISBN 9781634256650

The world remembers Nuremberg, where a handful of top Nazi leaders faced justice—but few recall the Dachau trials, where hundreds of guards, officers, and doctors were held accountable for their direct roles in the torture and murder of prisoners at Dachau, Mauthausen, Flossenburg, and Buchenwald. In Justice at Dachau, Joshua M. Greene, creator of the award-winning documentary Witness: Voices from the Holocaust, brings these trials vividly to life, telling the story of William Denson, a soft-spoken young lawyer from Alabama, swept from teaching law at West Point into leading the largest series of Nazi prosecutions in history.

In a makeshift courtroom inside Hitler’s first concentration camp, Denson faced the daunting task of building a legal team from scratch, training lawyers unfamiliar with war crimes, and framing charges for atrocities that courts had never before addressed. Among the accused were Dr. Klaus Schilling, whose “research” for a malaria cure caused hundreds of deaths; Edwin Katzen-Ellenbogen, a Harvard psychologist turned Gestapo informant; and Ilse Koch, the infamous “Bitch of Buchenwald,” whose fascination with tattooed human skin and bone artifacts shocked the world.

At just 32, and with only one criminal trial under his belt, Denson led a brilliant and effective prosecution. Yet the toll was immense: his marriage ended, his weight dropped to 116 pounds, and he collapsed from exhaustion. Even more harrowing was the pressure from army superiors to expedite the trials, as Cold War priorities began to overshadow the pursuit of justice. Undeterred, Denson worked to create a meticulous record of accountability for Holocaust crimes. In a final, dramatic twist, he risked his career to resist clandestine reversals and commutations that sought to release convicted Nazis, determined that justice would not be undone.

Originally published in 2001 and now available in paperback for the first time, this new edition commemorates the 70th anniversary of the Dachau trials and shines a long-overdue light on one of history’s forgotten heroes.

Justice at Dachau: The Trials of an American Prosecutor Joshua M Greene ISBN 9781634256650, 978-1634256650 & 9781634256667

Author
Joshua M Greene