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Franklin Roosevelt Administration: Statement on the Sentence of Nazi Saboteurs

(August 8, 1942)

Eight Nazi saboteurs landed by submarine on the Long Island shores on June 13 and 17, 1942, and were captured and tried. The White House issued the following statement on their sentence.


The President completed his review of the findings and sentences of the Military Commission appointed by him on July 2, 1942, which tried the eight Nazi saboteurs.

The President approved the judgment of the Military Commission that all of the prisoners were guilty and that they be given the death sentence by electrocution.

However, there was a unanimous recommendation by the Commission, concurred in by the Attorney General and the Judge Advocate General of the Army, that the sentence of two of the prisoners be commuted to life imprisonment because of their assistance to the Government of the United States in the apprehension and conviction of the others.

The commutation directed by the President in the case of Burger was to confinement at hard labor for life. In the case of Dasch, the sentence was commuted by the President to confinement at hard labor for thirty years.

The electrocutions began at noon today. Six of the prisoners were electrocuted. The other two were confined to prison.

The records in all eight cases will be sealed until the end of the war.


Sources: ibiblio