Donovan's Devils

by Albert Lulushi

  Icardi wrote that, as soon as he arrived in Washington, army officers called him into a conference to relate his experience and the results of the investigations in Italy. Before returning to civilian life, army investigators questioned Icardi once more. Icardi recalled:

  They asked me to tell my story all over from the beginning. Numerous questions followed and the interview finished up with an explanation that all efforts to shed some light on the fate of Major Holohan had been fruitless. The numerous interrogations were designed to find some lead, which might assist in learning the whereabouts of Major Holohan. With apologies for the inconvenience I had been caused, the investigators told me that I was free to go home and become a civilian citizen again.11

  Like many returning veterans, Icardi used scholarship money from the GI Bill to go back to school. The American investigators in Italy, finding themselves at an impasse, left it to the Italian authorities to look for the thread that would unravel the Holohan mystery.

  CHAPTER 15

  Swift Justice for the Ginny Men

  In September 1945, the office of the judge advocate general began formal proceedings to try General Anton Dostler for the murder of the fifteen Americans of the Ginny mission. Major Frederick W. Roche of the JAG presented the formal charge to Dostler at his confinement area in Aversa, near Naples, on September 10, 1945. Roche would base the government case mostly on witness testimony; there was very little documentary or other type of evidence available. One group of witnesses included American officers who had knowledge of the mission or had conducted the investigations after the war. Other witnesses were a number of former Fascists and German officers, all prisoners of war, who had first-hand knowledge of the capture, interrogation, and execution of the fifteen Americans. The scant documentary evidence included a two-page document, which was a translation of the Führerbefehl of October 18, 1942. French intelligence had discovered the document in December 1944 and had shared it with the OSS at the beginning of January 1945. The document was a facsimile of the original order that Hitler had issued, but it did not include the supplement that provided further instructions on how the order was to be implemented.1

  On September 23, 1945, General Joseph T. McNarney, commanding general of the US Army forces in the Mediterranean theater, issued Circular Number 114, “Regulations for the Trial of War Crimes.” It laid out rules under which military commissions would conduct trials of war crimes and therefore was the legal foundation for Dostler’s trial. The circular began by defining what constituted a war crime. A large body of work would develop following Dostler’s trial regarding the definition of war crimes, and it continues to expand to these days. McNarney’s rules very laconically stated, “As used in these regulations the expression ‘war crime’ means a violation of the laws or customs of war.” Next, the circular made it clear that while a military commission had to follow procedures deemed necessary for a free and fair trial, it had wide latitude in defining these procedures and did not have to follow the rules prescribed for general courts-martial proceedings. In particular, technical rules of evidence would not apply. Any evidence was admissible if, in the opinion of the president of the commission, it had “any probative value to a reasonable man.” If witnesses were dead or otherwise unable to testify before the commission, the commission could “receive secondary evidence of statements made by or attributed to such witness.” Documents could be admitted as evidence without proof that they were signed or issued officially by proper authorities. Confessions did not require proof that they were made voluntarily. If the accused raised questions about the circumstances surrounding the taking of a confession, the commission might weigh those questions but the accused could not use such questions to prevent the confession from being admitted.

  Most importantly, the rules stated, “The fact that an accused acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility, but may be considered in mitigation of punishment if the commission determines that justice so required.”

  Thus, going into the trial, the rules laid out in Circular 114 guaranteed that the commission would find Dostler responsible for the execution of the Americans. He had admitted to ordering the execution of the fifteen Americans in compliance with the Führerbefehl and with orders from higher command. The only question that the trial would resolve was what sentence Dostler would receive. The circular listed the sentences that the military commission could impose: death by hanging or shooting, confinement for life or lesser term, or fine.

  On September 26, 1945, General McNarney issued Special Order 269, which appointed a military commission to try Dostler’s case. The president of the commission was Major General Lawrence C. Jaynes. The other members included Brigadier General Thoburn K. Brown, Colonel Harrison Shaler, Colonel James Notestein, and Colonel Franklin T. Hammond, Jr. Major Frederick W. Roche would be the trial judge advocate with First Lieutenant William T. Andress as his assistant. Colonel Claudius O. Wolfe was appointed as defense counsel with Major Cecil K. Emery as his assistant.

  The trial was set to begin on Monday, October 8, 1945, at the Palace of Justice in Rome. The members of the commission met in General Brown’s office the day before to review the set of rules under which they would conduct the trial, as defined in General McNarney’s Circular 114. They discussed the need to keep methods of operations of the OSS out of the trial as much as possible, given the secrecy that surrounded most of what the organization had accomplished during the war. Everyone was aware of the momentous precedent that the trial would set, since it was the first trial in Europe for crimes committed during the war. The trial would be open to the public and the press to serve as an example of fair justice for the new Italian and German societies being born from the ashes of World Word II. The venue of the trial itself was symbolic—Hall Number 4 of the Palace of Justice had housed Mussolini’s Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State, which had passed judgment on political prisoners and enemies of the Fascist regime.

  * * *

  The trial began on October 8, 1945, at 1000 hours. The courtroom was packed with reporters and members of the public. The US Army Signal Corps had set up cameras to record the proceedings. Dostler arrived dressed in the Wehrmacht uniform of the general of infantry, stripped of all insignia and marks of rank. He was accompanied by his defense lawyers and General Frido von Senger, whom Dostler had asked to assist during the trial given his knowledge of English.

  Major Roche, as trial judge advocate, swore in the members of the military commission, the prosecution team, and the defense team. Then, he began the trial by reading the charges and specifications against Dostler, accusing him of violating the law of war by issuing the order that lead to the execution of fifteen members of the United States Army. At this point, defense counsel Colonel Wolfe entered several pleas challenging the jurisdiction of the commission to try the case and asking that the trial be conducted in accordance with the rules of evidence and procedure applicable to courts-martial or United States federal courts. General Jaynes overruled each objection and the trial continued with the deposition of the prosecution witnesses.

  The first prosecution witness was Captain Albert R. Materazzi, the executive officer of the Italian OGs, who had mounted the Ginny mission and had personally trained the fifteen Americans for the mission. Materazzi provided a description of the operation as he had experienced it and established that the men had been on a military mission assigned by the Special Operations section, G-3, of the Allied Forces Headquarters. They had worn regulation field uniforms and the insignia of rank with the exception of the two officers who had left their insignia with Materazzi and wore their jackets inside out. On cross-examination, Wolfe tried to get Materazzi to expand on the fact that he and his men were part of the OSS, whose primary mission was espionage, sabotage, and “cloak and dagger” operations, but the commission quickly stopped that line of questions. “Let us not put into the record any such terms,” Jaynes said. “Let us keep it military.”
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br />   The next witness, Giobatta Bianchi, one of the Bonassola Fascists who had captured the Ginny team, described how they had seized the Americans, taken them to the village, and handed them over to the Germans. Georg Sessler, the German naval intelligence officer who interrogated the OGs in La Spezia, followed Bianchi on the witness stand. He described the interrogation sessions on March 24 and 25 at the 135th Fortress Brigade headquarters, how he had gotten the information about the mission from Russo, and how he, Klaps, and Koerbitz had tried to prevent the execution of the men. During Sessler’s deposition Roche introduced into evidence the Führerbefehl, Hitler’s order for the execution of saboteurs and commandos. He asked why, despite knowing about the Führerbefehl, Sessler had joined Klaps and Koerbitz in protesting the order to execute the Americans. Sessler said, “As an intelligence officer … I am of the opinion that a man from a commando raid or from a team like this one, of the two officers and thirteen men, is better than any other soldier.” He explained that the German Army and Navy considered a saboteur a man put behind enemy lines in civilian clothes but not in the uniform of his country.

  Copy of the Führerbefehl of October 18, 1942, ordering the killing of captured Allied commandos.

  The next witness was Friedrich Klaps, Sessler’s superior in the German naval intelligence organization at La Spezia. Klaps described his understanding at the time that the American men were military personnel in uniform and his doubts that they fell under the definition of saboteurs or commandos of the Führerbefehl. Klaps described his efforts to rescind the execution order that had arrived from the 75th Army Corps, including his “camouflaged” telephone conversations with Dostler, and the telegrams he had sent to Dostler’s headquarters and Kesselring’s headquarters to that effect. Klaps also told of the order from Kesselring’s headquarters to destroy all the records about the events, which came two weeks after the Americans had been shot. Klaps was the last witness for the day and the commission recessed until 1000 hours the next day.

  The trial resumed on October 9, 1945, with Wolfe introducing in the record the fact that Dostler had requested as witnesses Colonel Almers, commanding officer of the 135th Fortress Brigade, and three members of his staff in March 1944: Colonel Kraehe, chief of staff, Major Koepper, staff officer, and Captain Fuerst zu Dohna, intelligence officer. Roche explained that he had done every effort to locate the witnesses Dostler had asked for, but General von Senger, present at the trial, was the only one he had been able to locate. Almers had been in custody but had escaped from a prisoner of war camp in early July and had not yet been apprehended. There was no trace of the other three officers in the Mediterranean or European theaters of operations.

  Next, Hans-Georg Schultz, an aide to Colonel Almers, appeared in front of the commission. He was a key witness for the prosecution because as part of his duties he read all the incoming and outgoing messages between the 135th Fortress Brigade and the 75th Army Corps. Schultz was the only one who had actually seen the first order for the execution of the Americans that the Corps sent to the Almers brigade in the morning of March 25, 1944. But he could not remember whether the order was sent by Dostler himself or by Kraehe, his chief of staff. Shultz also had listened in on the conversation that Almers had with Kraehe and Dostler in the evening of March 25, which he described as follows:

  Colonel Almers tried to have the order of execution which had been received by telegram postponed or delayed. He talked about it with Colonel Kraehe. Communications were poor and I listened in in parts. He talked about the fact that after the capture it was impossible to execute the men. On the other end of the line, the conversation was taken up by General Dostler who said briefly, “Almers, we cannot change anything. You know the Führerbefehl. The execution is to be carried out. You know that the Führerbefehl contains a clause according to which officers who do not execute the order are to be tried by courts-martial.” Further attempts were without result and the conversation came to an end.

  Shultz described the second telegram that came from Dostler’s headquarters in the early hours of March 26, ordering the execution, “The carrying out of the Führerbefehl is indispensable. The execution is to be reported by seven o’clock.” Shultz was also the only officer who had witnessed the destruction of the records related to the matter in compliance with the order they received two weeks later from Kesselring’s headquarters.

  The next prosecution witness was Rudolph Bolze, who had chosen the execution spot and arranged the burial detail for the fifteen Americans. Although Bolze described in detail the events before and after the shots were fired, he denied having seen the actual execution of the men. It was the next witness, Wilhelm Knell, who provided that piece of the puzzle. Knell was a corporal in Bolze’s company who was out to fetch coffee in the morning of March 26, 1944, when he was stopped by Bolze at a bend of the road in Punta Bianca. Soon after, he saw two trucks arrive and American prisoners climb out of them. Knell remembered noticing an officer who was without his shirt and shoes and “rubbed his wrists quite probably because he had been tied.” When Roche asked what made him think the men was an officer, Knell said, “I assumed that from his looks,” and he pumped his chest out to show a figure of authority in charge of the situation.

  There were about twenty to twenty-five German soldiers in the execution detail, Knell recalled. They split the Americans in two groups and lined up the first seven along the road on the side of the mountain. Captain Rehfeld and Lieutenant Seidenstuecker stood next to the execution squad, turned their backs to the soldiers, and one of them gave the command to fire. After the first volley was fired, Bolze ordered Knell and other soldiers from his detail to move the bodies aside, cover them with planks, and throw sand on the blood.

  “Did you do that?” Roche asked.

  “Yes,” Knell said. “I did that, but before that every one of the Americans was given a security shot.”

  “What do you mean by a security shot?”

  “I have never assisted before in an execution, but I believe it is done to make sure that the soldier is really dead,” Knell explained. During the interrogations, he had said that some of the men were still alive, yelling in pain, and all seven had received security shots.

  “In what part of the bodies of these soldiers was the security shot fired?”

  “I have seen several cases where the shots were given in the neck,” said Knell, pointing behind his right ear at the base of the skull.

  It was Lieutenant Seidenstuecker who had administered the security shots. The second group of Americans was executed in the same manner, four to five minutes after the first group had been shot. In the end, Knell saw the bodies loaded on a truck and driven down to the village where they were buried.

  Up to this point, Roche had established the chain of events from the moment the men of the Ginny team left Bastia on the night of March 22, 1944, to the moment they were executed and buried. Next he introduced into evidence the testimony of Captain Albert G. Lanier who had conducted the initial investigation into the fate of the men and returned to Washington by the time the trial started. Together with Lanier’s testimony, Roche introduced into the evidence the identification report that Lanier had prepared at the time the bodies were exhumed.

  Major Clifford M. Bassett testified next. He had been one of the two medical doctors present in the exhumation of the bodies who had done the first examination. Bassett reiterated the findings in the exhumation report that they had not been able to find bullet wounds and attributed that to the advanced stage of decomposition of the bodies. There was also an explanation now for the splintered skulls they had seen, after Corporal Knell’s testimony earlier about the security shots applied to each man after the execution. Throwing the bodies into a grave fifteen feet deep would have only added to the injuries on the bones and the skull. Major Bassett’s testimony concluded the proceedings for the second day of the trial.

  When the trial resumed the next morning, the prosecution presented as witnesses the two investigators
who had interrogated Anton Dostler between June 9 and 12, Captains Alexander Golodetz and Robert Blythin. Golodetz was sworn in under the assumed name of Alexander Kennedy to protect his identity. Golodetz and Blythin described Dostler’s unease and state of discomfort at certain points during the interrogations, such as when he was shown that he had issued the first execution order on his own initiative and without waiting for higher headquarters’ decision. On cross-examination, Wolfe established that neither Golodetz nor Blythin had warned Dostler before beginning the interrogation that as a prisoner of war under the Geneva Convention he did not have to provide any information beyond his name, organization, and serial number. Wolfe also established the fact that Dostler had signed only a brief statement in German recounting the basic events. The other interrogation reports introduced in evidence were summaries in English prepared by the interrogating officers.

  The last witness for the prosecution was General Gustav von Zangen. With a firm and authoritative voice, he reaffirmed that he had first heard of the execution of fifteen Americans in his area during the interrogations in June 1945. He remembered only having received a very short report on an act or attempt of sabotage near La Spezia around March 1944, after the matter was closed, upon his return from one of his numerous trips away from his headquarters. “If the report had mentioned the execution of American soldiers, fifteen of them, and in American uniform, I would have a recollection of that fact,” von Zangen said. When Roche asked whether he had ordered the execution of the fifteen Americans, von Zangen very firmly said, “No, I could not have possibly done that.”