Nazi war criminals executed by U.S. Army.

Nazi war criminals executed by U.S. Army. Guarded by military policemen of the 15th U.S Army, Matthias Gierens, German war criminal convicted of the murder of an inidentified U.S. airman, stands on the gallows at the military prison at Rheinbach, near Cologne, Germant, just before being executed on the morning of June 29, 1945. Gierens, a former railroad worker, was one of the three German civilians who paid with their lives fot thr murder of the American flier after their conviction by a 15th Army Military Government court. The were the first German civilians to be tried in the Reich as war criminals. The American airman who ha d safely parachuted to earth near Priest, Germany, was shot and beaten to death by the three Nazis on August 15, 1944.