In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

122 MURDER AND MARTIAL JUSTICE CHAPTER 11 Judgment The first PoW murder trial, that of the Beyer Five, had been held at Camp Gruber, oklahoma, in January 1944. This was where the crime had occurred. The seven-day-long court-martial had been attended by a prominent diplomat from the swiss Legation, a “high-ranking officer of the Provost marshal General’s office,” and several other Washington functionaries.1 The seven sailors from Papago Park, however, were tried in an isolated corner of southern Arizona, in secret. They would be condemned in less than two days. it took Cpl. erwin Gruenebaum a week to travel by rail from central California to southern Arizona. He dragged all his possessions in two duffel bags because he thought “it was a permanent transfer.” An NCo who descended from another car of the train with only “a shaving kit dangling off his little finger,” asked him if he was “in the prisoner of war trial,” too. it would only last a couple of days, said sgt. Held. That was Gruenebaum’s first inkling of his new assignment. He spent the next four days wilting in the heat, drinking sodas, and changing his clothes every two hours.2 He finally met the defense counsel, maj. Taylor, at “the same time i met the prisoners, when the trial opened” on August 15. He was immediately suspicious. “even the stupid person could tell that it was nothing but a fake,” he said fifty years later. “it looked fishy, it felt fishy. it smelled fishy. it bothered me all these years and i repressed it. i pushed it back like the concentration camps out of my mind.” He soon found himself feeling “sorry for these kids,” the defendants. He was surprised by their intelligence and their youth. “They were all give or take 20, 21, or 19. . . . They were Germans, they were enemies, they were—heck, . . . they were all kids. . . . i had no reason to love them, really. After all, my grandmother died, then my uncle died, then my aunts died.” still, he knew 122 JUDGMENT 123 “those kids” were not Nazis. He also thought his own job was unnecessary because they “could speak english as well as you and i.”3 These “kids” did not face a jury of their peers, but a board of judges. The president, infantry Col. Cassius Poust from the Presidio in san Francisco, was also Law member, the only judge required to have any legal knowledge. His colleagues on the bench were five more colonels, two majors, and five captains.4 “i never saw that many high-ranking officers,” Gruenebaum said. He insisted that Poust was not a colonel but “definitely a general,” and that maj. William Taylor, the defense, was only a “stupid lieutenant” who was “panic stricken when he saw the court. . . . He was scared spitless. . . . All the brass arrayed against him! A whole united states Army . . . you know he was awed.” Furthermore, Taylor “was the most inept person i say they could possibly have. . . . i don’t even think he was a lawyer.” His clients were not “overly impressed” by their defender, either. Gruenebaum sat at the defense table with Taylor, translating whatever was said in court to the prisoners immediately behind him. He was sure that none of the judges knew German. They relied entirely on the official court translator , Capt. oscar s. schmidt. “He was a bastard, that one. . . . i was under the impression that he was an enforcer. . . . The way he spoke was all muscle. . . . i don’t know, i just didn’t like him.”5 He and schmidt were sworn in together. Next, Trial Judge Advocate Walsh asked each of the accused “whom he desired to introduce as counsel.” Having no alternative, each named Taylor. The man they might have challenged with great cause, Capt. schmidt, had already been installed. After the court was sworn and Walsh had taken his oath as Trial Judge Advocate (TJA), he asked Col. Poust to warn everyone that the trial was secret . Then he set about establishing the corpus delicti: the fact that Drechsler had indeed been murdered. He entered into evidence a map of the camp, the noose, and photographs of the corpse and his bunk. on cross-examination, Taylor quibbled about the measurements of the shower room and the height of the bench beneath the noose. Walsh called Capt. Hebbelthwaite, who described how he had taken custody of Drechsler at train side on march 12, fingerprinted his...

Share