I'm not a lawyer, but it does seem to me that several parts of this look quite a lot like a railroad.

It would, therefore, be necessary for the authorities instituting the proceedings to notify the representative of the protecting Power (Art. 60), the representative of the protecting Power would have the right to attend the hearing of the case (Art. 62, para. 3), the alleged war criminal would have the right of appeal against any sentence against him in the same manner as persons belonging to the armed forces of the detaining Power (Art. 64), sentences pronounced against prisoners of war would have to be communicated immediately to the protecting Power (Art. 65) and, if sentence of death were passed on a prisoner of war, a communication setting forth in detail the nature and the circumstances of the offence would have to be addressed to the representative of the protecting Power for transmission to the Power in whose armed forces the prisoner served (Art. 66, para.1) ; and it would, finally, be forbidden to carry out the sentence before the expiration of a period of at least three months from the date of the receipt of this communication by the protecting Power (Art. 66, para. 2).

The Military Commission in the Dostler trial decided that the provisions of Art. 63 of the Geneva Convention were not applicable to the case. As is customary, the reasons of the Military Commission were not given.

That part, from the conclusions at the end, says that the Military Commission was under obligation to contact the German government, notify them of the sentence, and allow them a chance to appeal.

It was a crazy time for America, and all the propaganda that was used at the time to inspire "fighting spirit" in our people practically required people to be used as scapegoats. And, right or wrong, we took out that aggression on the German military officers.