Drumhead court-martial

A drumhead court-martial is a court-martial held in the field to hear urgent charges of offences committed in action. The term is said to originate from the use of a drumhead as an improvised writing table, as an altar for religious services, or a traditional gathering point for a regiment for orders or decisions.

The earliest recorded usage is in an English memoir of the Peninsular War (1807). The term sometimes has connotations of summary justice, with an implied lack of judicial impartiality, as noted in the transcripts of the trial at Nuremberg of Josef Bühler.

According to Sir Arthur Wynne Morgan Bryant, such courts-martial have ordered lashings or hangings to punish soldiers (and their officers) who were cowardly, disobedient, or, conversely, acted rashly; and especially as a discouragement to drunkenness. It is also used as a reference to a kangaroo court in its derogatory form.

Since 1934 every division of the German army had a court martial. After the occupation of Poland the high command wished to introduce a system which allowed speedy trials to be performed, as it was believed that a fast process would be a more effective deterrent. In November 1939 a law was passed which permitted drumhead trials if it was deemed necessary during warfare. Every commander of a regiment could either decide to inform the court martial of his division or he could convene a drumhead trial when somebody was accused of a crime. The decision of a drumhead trial could be executed immediately. With the beginning of the year 1944 the high command formed a special police, the "High command Feldjäger", which were in command of special drumhead trials named fliegende Standgerichte, composed of motorized judges.

During the last two months of World War II, Adolf Hitler authorized the use of Fliegendes Sonder-Standgericht ("flying court martial" or "flying drumhead"), mobile courts-martial used by the German armed forces. The use of "flying" refers to their mobility and may also refer to the earlier "flying courts martial" held in Italian Libya. Italian military judges were flown by aircraft to the location of captured rebels where the rebels were tried in a court martial shortly after capture.

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Wikipedia