Peter von Hagenbach
Peter von Hagenbach, also Pierre de Hagenbach, Pietro di Hagenbach, Pierre d'Archambaud, or Pierre d'Aquenbacq, was a Burgundian knight from Alsace, German military and civil commander, and convicted war criminal. In 1474, Hagenbach was tried for war crimes, specifically for rapes and murders committed by his soldiers during a military occupation of Breisach. He was found guilty and executed on May 9th. The trial of Hagenbach was the first known trial of a war crime in history.
Biography
Hagenbach was born into an Alsatian-Burgundian family, originally from Hagenbach, where they owned a castle. He was instated as bailiff of Upper Alsace by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, to administer the territories and rights on the Upper Rhine which had been mortgaged by Duke Sigmund of Further Austria for 50,000 florins in the Treaty of St. Omer in 1469. There he coined the term Landsknecht—from German, Land + Knecht. It was originally intended to indicate soldiers of the lowlands of the Holy Roman Empire as opposed to the Swiss mercenaries. As early as 1500 the misleading spelling Lanzknecht became common because of the phonetic and visual similarity between Lands and Lanze.Following a rebellion by towns of the Upper Rhine against his tyranny, Hagenbach was put on trial for the atrocities committed during the occupation of Breisach. His trial, which was held by an ad hoc tribunal of the Holy Roman Empire in 1474, was the first "international" recognition of commanders' obligations to act lawfully. He was convicted of crimes, specifically murder, war rape, and perjury, among other crimes, that "he as a knight was deemed to have a duty to prevent". He defended himself by arguing that he was only following orders from the Duke of Burgundy, to whom the Holy Roman Empire had given Breisach. The ad hoc tribunal, however, refused to accept this as a defense. Hagenbach was found guilty of murder, rape, and perjury, and was beheaded at Breisach.