Stowe Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, US
Died
October 12, 1968(1968-10-12) (aged 71)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US
Resting place
Arlington National Cemetery
Education
George Washington University (BA, MA) Georgetown University (LLB)
Occupation(s)
jurist, politician, naval officer and author
Political party
Republican (before 1932) Democratic (after 1932)
Michael Angelo Musmanno (April 7, 1897 – October 12, 1968) was an American jurist, politician, and naval officer. Coming from an immigrant family, he started to work as a coal loader at the age of 14. After serving in the United States Army in World War I, he obtained a law degree from Georgetown University. For nearly two decades from the early 1930s, he served as a judge in courts of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Entering the U.S. Navy during World War II, he served in the military justice system.
Following the war, in 1946, Musmanno served as military governor of an occupied district in Italy. Beginning in 1947, he served as a presiding judge for the Einsatzgruppen trial in U.S. military court at Nuremberg. In 1948, he conducted interviews with several people who had worked closely with Adolf Hitler. In 1950, he published a book based on his research, in which he argued that Hitler had indeed committed suicide in Berlin in 1945.
In 1951, Musmanno was elected as a justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, where he served until his death in 1968. He set a record for the number of dissenting opinions filed. In addition to his long judicial career and postwar contributions in Europe, he wrote sixteen books and many articles related to his court cases and professional career. In his writing he expressed sympathy for working men and deep interest in the Italians in the United States, himself having Italian ancestry.
Viewed as a "maverick on the court",[1] Musmanno was known for defending Sacco and Vanzetti, as well as for being anti-Communist, and for supporting civil rights.[2] In 1966, in response to new evidence of the Norse colonization of North America (c. 1000), he published a book in which he argued that Christopher Columbus was the first European to discover the Americas. He died on Columbus Day 1968. At the time of his death, he was regarded as "one of Pennsylvania's most respected and colorful figures".[3]
^Justice Musmanno, Reading Eagle, October 16, 1968
^Cite error: The named reference potter2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Musmanno is Buried at Arlington, Gettysburg Times, October 18, 1968
Michael Angelo Musmanno (April 7, 1897 – October 12, 1968) was an American jurist, politician, and naval officer. Coming from an immigrant family, he...
Musmanno is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: John Musmanno (born 1942), American judge MichaelMusmanno (1897–1968), American jurist...
The judges in this case, heard before Military Tribunal II-A, were MichaelMusmanno (presiding judge and Naval officer) from Pennsylvania, John J. Speight...
trial at Nuremberg MichaelMusmanno wrote in 1948, "There is not a shred of evidence to show that Hitler ever had a double." Musmanno further states that...
survival. Presiding judge at the Einsatzgruppen trial at Nuremberg MichaelMusmanno considered all such claims contrary to the evidence. Between 1948 and...
Chancellery in Berlin, which was based on the book Ten Days to Die (1950) by MichaelMusmanno. In 1956, Remarque wrote a drama Full Circle (Die letzte Station) for...
reaching the same conclusion put forward 45 years earlier by U.S. jurist MichaelMusmanno (presiding judge at the Einsatzgruppen trial) that the dictator's corpse...
Virginia (2010–present), Attorney General of Virginia (2009–2010) MichaelMusmanno, LL.B., 1918, associate justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania...
John L. Musmanno is a senior judge of the Pennsylvania Superior Court. Musmanno was born in Stowe Township, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Washington...
trial at Nuremberg MichaelMusmanno dismissed Ludwig's theory in an article stating his own definitive view that Hitler had died; Musmanno elaborated these...
Sacco-Vanzetti: The Murder and the Myth. New York: Devin-Adair, 1960. MichaelMusmanno, After Twelve Years. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1939. John Neville...
Joachimsthaler held a view similar to one published by U.S. jurist MichaelMusmanno 45 years earlier that Hitler's body was burnt to near-ashes and thus...
1947 First Italian American male (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania): MichaelMusmanno in 1951 First African American male (common pleas): Raymond Pace Alexander...
Michael Curtiz (1886–1962) was a Hungarian-born American film director whose career spanned from 1912 to 1961. During this period, he directed 178 films...
Democratic. Genevieve Blatt, Pennsylvania Secretary of Internal Affairs MichaelMusmanno, Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania since 1952 David B. Roberts...
November 14, 1946. The charges against Milch were summarized by Michael A. Musmanno (one of the tribunal judges) as follows: Erhard Milch is charged...
Police were hired during the national coal miner's strike in 1922. MichaelMusmanno, in 1929 a Pennsylvania state legislator, fought to banish the Coal...
to re join the group. Recording for Black Lives began with producer MichaelMusmanno at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles and ended in various studios in New...
mass murders in Eastern Europe. On April 9, 1948, Presiding judge MichaelMusmanno pronounced the tribunal's sentence on Strauch: "Defendant EDUARD STRAUCH...
Coal and Iron Police. Pennsylvania state legislator and former miner MichaelMusmanno was outraged by the case, and introduced a bill to banish this private...
their music videos out of their own pocket. The album was produced by MichaelMusmanno, and then mixed by Alan Moulder. Moulder also contributed some last...
Fields In Glass, featuring album outtakes and electro remixes by MichaelMusmanno, Davy Love and Will Carruthers. Exclaim! likened the sound to a mix...
of MichaelMusmanno (Outkast, Lilys, Arrested Development). The lead single “Hoeing Weeds Sowing Seeds”, was mixed by Grammy Award winner Michael Brauer...
Global Information