84
197.
With regard to this category, reference can be made to the Georg Otto Sandrock et
al. case (also known as the Almelo Trial). 233 There a British court found that three Germans
who had killed a British prisoner of war were guilty under the doctrine of “common
enterprise”. It was clear that they all had had the intention of killing the British soldier,
although each of them played a different role. They therefore were all co-perpetrators of the
crime of murder. 234 Similarly, in the Hoelzer et al. case, brought before a Canadian military
court, in his summing up the Judge Advocate spoke of a “common enterprise” with regard
to the murder of a Canadian prisoner of war by three Germans, and emphasised that the
three all knew that the purpose of taking the Canadian to a particular area was to kill him. 235
198.
Another instance of co-perpetratorship of this nature is provided by the case of
Jepsen and others. 236 A British court had to pronounce upon the responsibility of Jepsen
(one of several accused) for the deaths of concentration camp internees who, in the few
weeks leading up to the capitulation of Germany in 1945, were in transit to another
concentration camp. In this regard, the Prosecutor submitted (and this was not rebutted by
the Judge Advocate) that:
[I]f Jepsen was joining in this voluntary slaughter of eighty or so people, helping the
others by doing his share of killing, the whole eighty odd deaths can be laid at his door
and at the door of any single man who was in any way assisting in that act.237
233
Trial of Otto Sandrock and three others, British Military Court for the Trial of War Criminals, held at the
Court House, Almelo, Holland, on 24th -26 th November, 1945, UNWCC, vol. I, p. 35).
234
The accused were German non-commissioned officers who had executed a British prisoner of war and a
Dutch civilian in the house of whom the British airman was hiding. On the occasion of each execution one of
the Germans had fired the lethal shot, another had given the order and a third had remained by the car used to
go to a wood on the outskirts of the Dutch town of Almelo, to prevent people from coming near while the
shooting took place. The Prosecutor stated that “the analogy which seemed to him most fitting in this case
was that of a gangster crime, every member of the gang being equally responsible with the man who fired the
actual shot” (ibid., p. 37). In his summing up the Judge Advocate pointed out that:
“There is no dispute, as I understand it, that all three [Germans] knew what they were doing and had
gone there for the very purpose of having this officer killed; and, as you know, if people are all present
together at the same time taking part in a common enterprise which is unlawful, each one in their (sic)
own way assisting the common purpose of all, they are all equally guilty in point of law” (see official
transcript, Public Record Office, London, WO 235/8, p. 70; copy on file with the International
Tribunal’s Library; the report in the UNWCC, vol. I, p. 40 is slightly different).
All the accused were found guilty, but those who had ordered the shooting or carried out the shooting were
sentenced to death, whereas the others were sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment (ibid., p. 41).
235
Hoelzer et al., Canadian Military Court, Aurich, Germany, Record of Proceedings 25 March-6 April 1946,
vol. I, pp. 341, 347, 349 (RCAF Binder 181.009 (D2474); copy on file with the International Tribunal’s
Library).
236
Trial of Gustav Alfred Jepsen and others, Proceedings of a War Crimes Trial held at Luneberg, Germany
(13-23 August, 1946), judgement of 24 August 1946 (original transcripts in Public Record Office, Kew,
Richmond; on file with the International Tribunal’s Library).
237
Ibid., p. 241.
Case No.: -94-1-A
15 July 1999