accused war criminals. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk said about the detainees in Malta: "...should any of the detainees either already brought or yet to be brought to Constantinople be executed, even at the order of the vile Constantinople government, we would seriously consider executing all British prisoners in our custody." By February 1921 the military court in Constantinople began releasing prisoners without trials. Response to the Ottoman trials Armenian historian Vahakn N. Dadrian commented that the Allied efforts at prosecution were an example of "a retributive justice [that] gave way to expedience of political accommodation". Peter Balakianreferring to the post-war Ottoman military tribunals, none of which were held in Maltacommented that "The trials represent a milestone in the history of war-crimes tribunals." Although they were truncated in the end by political pressures, and directed by Turkey's domestic laws rather than by an international tribunal, the Turkish Courts-Martial of 1919-20 were an antecedent to the Nuremberg Trials after World War II. US Military tribunal at Caserta On 8 October 1945, Wehrmacht General Anton Dostler became the first German officer to be prosecuted for war crimes after the end of the Second World War. The trial took place before an American military tribunal inside the Royal Palace of Caserta at Caserta, Italy. General Dostler stood accused of ordering the summary execution of 15 American POWs, who had been captured in March 1944. Like Morant and his co-defendants, Gen. Dostler admitted to ordering the shooting of the POWs but said that he could not be held criminally responsible because he only followed orders. General Dostler was able to prove that the killing of the 15 American prisoners of war was done in obedience to a direct order from Field Marshal Albert Kesselring and to Adolf Hitler's Commando Order, which demanded the summary execution of all Allied commandos who were captured by German forces. However, like the judges at Morant's Court-martial, the American judges rejected the Superior Orders defence and found Gen. Dostler guilty of war crimes. He was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad at Aversa on 1 December 1945. Nuremberg trials The Dostler case became the precedent for the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders beginning in November 1945, namely, that proof of superior orders does not excuse a defendant from the legal or moral responsibility for obeying commands that violate the laws and customs of war. This principle was codified in