Commando Order - Aftermath

Aftermath

After the war, German officers who carried out executions under the Commando Order were found guilty at war crimes trials, including the Nuremberg Trials.

General Anton Dostler, who had ordered the execution of 15 American soldiers of the Ginny II operation in Italy, was sentenced to death and executed in December 1945. His defense, that he had only relayed superior orders, was rejected at trial.

The Commando Order was one of the specifications in the charge against Generaloberst Jodl, who was convicted and hanged. Another officer charged with enforcing the Commando Order at Nuremberg was the Commander of the Navy 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 two captured British Royal Marines after the Operation Frankton raid at Bordeaux in December 1942. Raeder testified in his defense 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. Another war crimes trial was held in Brunswick (Braunschweig), Germany, against Colonel-General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, Supreme Commander of German forces in Norway 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.