On this day 80 years ago in the liberated concentration camp of Dachau, Germany, the first of some 465 military trials began with the prosecution of Austrian Nazi war criminal Franz Strasser.

The Dachau trials, which ultimately resulted in more than 1,400 convictions, are well-established history.

What is perhaps less well known is the strong Delaware County connection to that first trial in the form of one Lt. Col. Raymond E. Zickel Sr., a Glenolden native who served as one of seven men that would convict Strasser and condemn him to death.

“Maybe 15 years ago I looked into this, because we never knew the full story,” said Joe Brophy, Zickel’s grandson, who was born 10 years after Zickel’s death in 1951. “We always had this picture and we were told originally it was from different place

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