Criminal orders is the collective name given to a series of orders, directives and decrees given during the
invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...
in World War II by the
Wehrmacht High Command. The criminal orders went beyond established codes of conduct and led to widespread atrocities on the Eastern Front.
The orders
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Barbarossa Decree
During World War II, the Barbarossa decree was one of the Wehrmacht criminal orders given on 13 May 1941, shortly before Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The decree was laid out by Adolf Hitler during a high-level meeting w ...
, issued 13 May 1941
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Guidelines for the Conduct of the Troops in Russia Guidelines for the Conduct of the Troops in Russia was a " criminal order" issued on June 4th, 1941, during World War II. The guidelines detailed the expected behaviour of German troops during the Invasion of the Soviet Union. Civilians were include ...
, issued 19 May 1941
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Commissar Order
The Commissar Order (german: Kommissarbefehl) was an order issued by the German High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW) on 6 June 1941 before Operation Barbarossa. Its official name was Guidelines for the Treatment of Political Commissars ...
, issued 6 June 1941
* Orders Concerning the Deployment of the Security Police and the Security Service within Military Formations, issued 28 April 1941
* Orders relating to the treatment of prisoners of war, issued June to December 1941
See also
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Commando Order
The Commando Order () was issued by the OKW, the high command of the German armed forces, on 18 October 1942. This order stated that all Allies of World War II, Allied commandos captured in Europe and Africa should be summary execution, summarily ...
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Severity Order
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War crimes of the Wehrmacht
During World War II, the German combined armed forces ( ''Heer'', ''Kriegsmarine'' and ''Luftwaffe'') committed systematic war crimes, including massacres, mass rape, looting, the exploitation of forced labor, the murder of three million Sov ...
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Myth of the clean Wehrmacht
The myth of the clean ''Wehrmacht'' is the negationist notion that the regular German armed forces (the ''Wehrmacht'') were not involved in the Holocaust or other war crimes during World War II. The myth, heavily promoted by German authors ...
References
Bibliography
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{{Army Group Rear Area (Wehrmacht)
Military history of Germany during World War II
Military history of the Soviet Union during World War II
Eastern Front (World War II)
Orders by Adolf Hitler
Germany–Soviet Union relations
Nazi war crimes
War crimes of the Wehrmacht
1941 documents
Nazi war crimes in Russia