13 May 1945 German deserter execution
The 13 May 1945 German deserter execution occurred five days after the capitulation of Nazi Germany along with the Wehrmacht armed forces in World War II, when an illegal court martial, composed of the captured and disarmed German officers kept under Allied guard in Amsterdam, Netherlands imposed a death sentence upon two of the former German deserters from the Kriegsmarine, Bruno Dorfer and. The mock trial occurred in an abandoned Ford Motor Company assembly plant outside Amsterdam, which at the time was a prisoner-of-war camp run by the Canadian Army.
The Nazi German prisoners of war formed a firing squad which carried out the sentence. They were supplied with captured German rifles and a three-ton truck by the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, and escorted by a platoon of Canadian soldiers led by Captain Robert K. Swinton.
In an analysis of the incident the historian Chris Madsen notes that the Canadian military authorities felt obliged to work with their German counterparts, faced with the huge task of disarming and evacuating the German armed forces in the Netherlands, under discipline, and without disorder. As a matter of mutual convenience the German command hierarchy was allowed to continue to function following the surrender, and this included the sentencing and execution of individuals such as Dorfer and Beck under the Allies.
