The Hostages Trial (The United States of America v. Wilhelm List, et al., 8 July 1947–19 February 1948) was the seventh of the twelve war-crime trials held by the U.S. Judge Advocate General Corps. in the American zone of occupation in Nuremberg. U.S. military tribunals held The twelve Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT) in the Palace of Justice, and are informally known as the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials. The Hostages Trial is also known as the Southeast Case, because the defendants had been Wehrmacht generals commanding troops in south-east Europe during the Balkans Campaign (0000) which was fought in the countries of Greece, Albania, and Yugoslavia. The generals were charged with ordering the taking civilian hostages; ordering the wanton shooting of hostages; ordering the reprisal killings of civilians; and ordering the summary execution of captured partisans, from 1941 onwards. The defendant Lothar Rendulic also was charged with ordering the scorched-earth destruction of every town and settlement and the destruction of civil infrastructure in the Finnmark county of Norway, in the winter 1944. The judges of the Hostages Trial were Military Tribunal V, Charles F. Wennerstrum (presiding judge), George J. Burke, and Edward F. Carter. The Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution was Telford Taylor, the chief prosecutor was Theodore Fenstermacher. The indictment was filed on 10 May 1947 and lasted from 8 July 1947 until 19 February 1948. One of the twelve defendants, Franz Böhme, committed suicide before his arraignment, and Maximilian von Weichs was severed from the trial for ill health; of the remaining ten defendants, two were acquitted and eight were imprisoned with sentences ranging from seven years to perpetual prison. Indictment The accused faced four charges of having committed war crimes and crimes against humanity: Mass murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Greece, Albania, and Yugoslavia by having ordered hostage taking and reprisal killings. Plundering and wanton destruction of villages and towns in Norway, Greece, Albania, Yugoslavia. Murder and ill-treatment of prisoners of war, and arbitrarily designating combatants as "partisans", denying them the status of prisoners of war, as well as their killing. Murder, torture, deportation, and sending to concentration camps of Greek, Albanian, and Yugoslav civilians. All defendants were indicted on all counts and all pleaded "not guilty". Judges The judges were all from the American Midwest and represented a more conservative perspective on the Nuremberg trial proceedings from that