Order Establishing a Military Commission to Try Eight Captured German Saboteurs

The Military Order:

By Virtue of the authority vested in me as President and as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, under the Constitution and statutes of the United States, and more particularly the Thirty-eighth Article of War (U.S. C. Title 10, Sec. 1509), I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, do hereby appoint as a Military Commission the following persons:

Major General Frank R. McCoy, President
Major General Walter S. Grant
Major General Blanton Winship
Major General Lorenzo D. Gasser
Brigadier General Guy V. Henry
Brigadier General John T. Lewis
Brigadier General John T. Kennedy

The prosecution shall be conducted by the Attorney General and the Judge Advocate General. The defense counsel shall be Colonel Cassius M. Dowell and Colonel Kenneth Royall.

The Military Commission shall meet in Washington, D.C., on July 8th, 1942 or as soon thereafter as is practicable, to try for offenses against the Law of War and the Articles of War, the following persons:

Ernest Peter Burger
George John Dasch
Herbert Hans Haupt
Henry Harm Heinck
Edward John Kerling
Hermann Otto Neubauer
Richard Quirin
Werner Thiel

The Commission shall have power to and shall, as occasion requires, make such rules for the conduct of the proceedings, consistent with the powers of Military Commissions under the Articles of War, as it shall deem necessary for a full and fair trial of the matters before it. Such evidence shall be admitted as would, in the opinion of the President of the Commission, have probative value to a reasonable man. The concurrence of at least two-thirds of the Members of the Commission present shall be necessary for a conviction or sentence. The record of the trial including any judgment or sentence shall be transmitted directly to me for my action thereon.