The Execution of Kurt Bruns: The First Nazi War Criminal Shot by U.S. Forces

On June 15, 1945—only five weeks after Germany’s surrender—a small group of American military police and riflemen assembled in a disused stone quarry outside the town of Braunschweig. Their task was unprecedented. They were about to carry out the first U.S. death sentence imposed on a German officer for a wartime atrocity.

The condemned man was Kurt Bruns, age 50, formerly a captain (Hauptmann) in the German Army. His crime, according to sworn testimony from his own soldiers, was the deliberate murder of two American prisoners of war during the Ardennes offensive.

But the significance of his execution went far beyond the act itself. It would set the tone for how the U.S. Army handled battlefield war crimes even before the major postwar tribunals began.

The Crime: The Murder of Two Jewish-American POWs

In December 1944, as the Battle of the Bulge raged in snow-covered forests, Bruns’s unit captured two American soldiers:

Pfc. Werner Drexel

Pfc. Richard C. “Ritchie” Stern

Both men were born in Germany, had fled persecution, and became Americans. They were serving in a U.S. intelligence unit attached to the 106th Infantry Division. When Bruns interrogated them and learned they were Jews, witnesses said he declared:

“Jews have no right to live in Germany.”

He then ordered the two Americans taken into nearby woods and shot.
Multiple German enlisted men later testified to hearing the shots and seeing the bodies.

It was a clear violation of:

the 1929 Geneva Convention

German military law

every accepted wartime norm surrounding the treatment of prisoners

And the fact that the victims were Jewish-American POWs underscored the lethal intersection of battlefield brutality and the racial ideology driving Nazi policy.

Investigation and Trial

When U.S. forces recaptured the area months later, Belgian civilians and German soldiers volunteered information to American authorities. The Graves Registration Service found the bodies exactly where witnesses said they would be.

Bruns was arrested in northern Germany.

He was tried by a U.S. military commission in May 1945.
The charges: the unlawful killing of two unarmed American prisoners of war.

The evidence was overwhelming:

admissions from his own men

consistent eyewitness testimony

physical evidence

Bruns’s own statements during interrogation

He did not deny giving the order.

The court-martial deliberated quickly.
The verdict: guilty.
The sentence: death by firing squad.

Why the Method of Execution Mattered

American military law allowed execution by:

firing squad

or hanging

Most war criminals during and after the war—including those tried at Nuremberg—were hanged. But the U.S. Army chose firing squad for Kurt Bruns.

Why?

Because Bruns’s crime did not involve planning, policy, or high-level orders.
It was a battlefield atrocity, committed directly, personally, and without coercion.

In the eyes of American commanders, the execution needed to:

be swift

be military in nature

demonstrate that frontline murder of POWs would be punished without delay

Bruns thus became the first Nazi war criminal executed by U.S. forces, and the first by firing squad.

The Execution: June 15, 1945

The quarry outside Braunschweig was chosen for privacy and security.
A chaplain was present.
Bruns was escorted to a wooden post and refused a blindfold.

Ten American soldiers raised their M1 rifles.
One rifle was loaded with a blank, as tradition dictated—so no man would know with certainty who had fired the fatal shot.

At the order, the volley cracked across the quarry.

Bruns fell.
A medical officer confirmed death.
The execution was recorded in standard military fashion and filed in U.S. Army legal archives.

There were no photographs, no spectators, no crowds—just a simple, stark proceeding marking the first act of immediate American wartime justice after the collapse of Nazi Germany.

Why Bruns’s Case Became Historically Important

Bruns’s execution is significant because:

1. It was the first U.S. wartime execution of a German officer for a war crime.

This occurred months before the Nuremberg Trials began.

2. It showed the U.S. would punish battlefield atrocities—even before larger tribunals.

His trial sent a message to German soldiers still being processed as POWs:
actions on the battlefield had consequences.

3. It established legal precedent.

The U.S. military commissions handling thousands of postwar allegations drew heavily on early cases like Bruns’s.

4. It involved the targeted murder of Jewish-American soldiers.

This made the case deeply symbolic for both U.S. troops and liberated survivors across Europe.

Aftermath and Legacy

Today, the Bruns case is often overshadowed by the far larger Nuremberg proceedings, but among military historians, it remains a critical moment in early U.S. war crimes jurisprudence.

It demonstrated:

that frontline killings would not be excused as “fog of war”

that rank did not protect perpetrators

that justice could be delivered quickly and fairly under military law

And for the families of Werner Drexel and Ritchie Stern—two German-born Americans who fled persecution only to die fighting for their adopted country—the verdict represented a measure of accountability.