superior orders defence. Peter von Hagenbach was found guilty of war crimes and executed by beheading at Breisgach on 4 May 1474. Despite the fact there was no explicit use of the term command responsibility, the trial of Peter von Hagenbach is seen as the first war crimes prosecution based on this principle. Leipzig War Crimes Trials During the Leipzig War Crimes Trials, however, which prosecuted alleged German war crimes after the end of World War I, the defense attorney's claim that an alleged war criminal "only followed orders" () was taken very seriously and resulted in both acquittals and light sentences. The Dover Castle trial Kapitänleutnant Karl Neumann of U-boat , who had torpedoed and sunk the British hospital ship Dover Castle in the Mediterranean Sea on 26 May 1917, stood accused of war crimes on the high seas. Neumann was able to prove, however, that he had acted under orders from his superiors in the Imperial German Navy. The Imperial German Government had accused the Allies of using hospital ships for military purposes and had announced on 19 March 1917 that U-boats could sink hospital ships under certain conditions. The court ruled that Neumann had believed the sinking to be a lawful act and found him not guilty of war crimes. The Llandovery Castle trial Oberleutnants Ludwig Dithmar and John Boldt also stood accused of war crimes on the high seas. They were two officers of the submarine SM U-86, which had not only torpedoed and sunk the Canadian hospital ship Llandovery Castle, but had also machine-gunned the survivors in the lifeboats. The sinking had taken place off the coast of Ireland on 27 June 1918 and was the deadliest Canadian maritime disaster of the First World War. 234 doctors, nurses, members of the Canadian Army Medical Corps, as well as Canadian soldiers and sailors died in the sinking and in the subsequent machine-gunning of survivors and ramming of the lifeboats by U-86's crew. Only 24 people, the occupants of a single life-raft, survived. After the war, three officers from U-86, Kapitänleutnant Helmut Brümmer-Patzig, and Oberleutnants Ludwig Dithmar and John Boldt, were charged with committing a war crime on the high seas. On 21 July 1921, Dithmar and Boldt were found guilty in one of the Leipzig War Crimes Trials and were both sentenced to four years in prison. The sentences of Dithmar and Boldt were later overturned