![Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-179-1575-08, Ioannina, Deportation von Juden](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-179-1575-08%2C_Ioannina%2C_Deportation_von_Juden.jpg)
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, the German
combined armed forces (
''Heer'', ''
Kriegsmarine'' and ''
Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...
'') committed systematic
war crimes, including
massacre
A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...
s,
mass rape
Mass sexual assault is the collective sexual assault of individuals in public by a group. Typically acting under the protective cover of large gatherings, victims have reported being groped, stripped, beaten, bitten, penetrated and raped.
Egy ...
,
looting, the exploitation of
forced labor
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...
,
the murder of three million Soviet prisoners of war, and participated in
the extermination of Jews. While the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
's own
SS forces (in particular the ''
SS-Totenkopfverbände'', ''
Einsatzgruppen'' and
Waffen-SS
The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscripts from both occup ...
) of
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
was the organization most responsible for the
genocidal
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
killing of
the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
, the regular armed forces of the ''
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...
'' committed many war crimes of their own (as well as assisting the SS in theirs), particularly on the
Eastern Front in the
war against the Soviet Union. According to a study by
Alex J. Kay and
David Stahel
David Stahel (born 1975 in Wellington, New Zealand) is a historian, author and senior lecturer in history at the University of New South Wales. He specialises in German military history of World War II. Stahel has authored several books on the mil ...
, the majority of the Wehrmacht soldiers deployed to the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
participated in war crimes.
Creation of the Wehrmacht
When the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
came to power, it was welcomed by almost the entire officer corps of the ''
Reichswehr
''Reichswehr'' () was the official name of the German armed forces during the Weimar Republic and the first years of the Third Reich. After Germany was defeated in World War I, the Imperial German Army () was dissolved in order to be reshape ...
'' as a way of creating the ''Wiederwehrhaftmachung'' (remilitarization) of Germany, namely the total militarization of German society in order to ensure that Germany did not lose the next war. As such, what both the Nazis and the German Army wanted to see was a totally militarized ''
Volksgemeinschaft
''Volksgemeinschaft'' () is a German expression meaning "people's community", "folk community", Richard Grunberger, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 44. "national community", or "racial community", ...
'' (people's community) that would be purged of perceived internal enemies like the Jews who it was believed had
"stabbed Germany in the back" in 1918. The Wehrmacht was created by
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
in 1935 with the passing of a law introducing conscription into the armed forces. It was composed of volunteers and conscripts.
Many officers therefore willingly embraced National Socialist ideology in the 1930s. Acting on his own initiative, the Defence Minister
Werner von Blomberg
Werner Eduard Fritz von Blomberg (2 September 1878 – 13 March 1946) was a German General Staff officer and the first Minister of War in Adolf Hitler's government. After serving on the Western Front in World War I, Blomberg was appointed chi ...
had purged the Army of all its Jewish personnel in February 1934. On December 8, 1938, the Army leadership instructed all officers to be thoroughly well versed in National Socialism and to apply its values in all situations. Starting in February 1939, pamphlets were issued that were made required reading in the Army. The content can be gauged by the titles: "The Officer and Politics", "Hitler's World Historical Mission", "The Army in the Third Reich", "The Battle for German Living Space", "Hands off Danzig!", and "The Final Solution of the Jewish Question in the Third Reich". The latter essay proclaimed: Attitudes like the ones expressed above colored all the instructions that came to Wehrmacht troops in the summer of 1939 as a way of preparing for the attack on Poland.
Criminal orders
During the planning for the invasion of the Soviet Union a number of orders were devised by the Wehrmacht leadership. The orders contravened international law and established codes of conduct and became known collectively as "
Criminal Orders". The orders were a declaration of war against the civilian population.
In November 1935, the psychological war laboratory of the War Ministry submitted a study about how best to undermine Red Army morale should a German-Soviet war break out.
Working closely with the émigré
Russian Fascist Party
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
* Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and pe ...
based in
Harbin, the German psychological warfare unit created a series of pamphlets written in Russian for distribution in the Soviet Union. Much of it was designed to play on Russian anti-Semitism, with one pamphlet calling the "Gentlemen commissars and party functionaries" a group of "mostly filthy Jews". The pamphlet ended with the call for "brother soldiers" of the Red Army to rise up and kill all of the "Jewish commissars".
Although this material was not used at the time, later in 1941 the material the psychological war laboratory had developed in 1935 was dusted off, and served as the basis not only for propaganda in the Soviet Union but also for propaganda within the German Army.
Before Barbarossa, German troops were exposed to violent anti-Semitic and anti-Slavic indoctrination via movies, radio, lectures, books and leaflets.
The lectures were delivered by "National Socialist Leadership Officers", who were created for that purpose, and by their junior officers.
German Army propaganda portrayed the Soviet enemy in the most dehumanized terms, depicting the Red Army as a force of Slavic ''
Untermensch
''Untermensch'' (, ; plural: ''Untermenschen'') is a Nazi term for non-Aryan "inferior people" who were often referred to as "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Serbs, and later also Russians). The ...
en'' (sub-humans) and "Asiatic" savages engaging in "barbaric Asiatic fighting methods" commanded by evil Jewish
commissars to whom German troops were to grant no mercy.
British historian
Richard J. Evans
Sir Richard John Evans (born 29 September 1947) is a British historian of 19th- and 20th-century Europe with a focus on Germany. He is the author of eighteen books, including his three-volume ''The Third Reich Trilogy'' (2003–2008). Evans was ...
wrote that junior officers tended to be especially zealous National Socialists with a third of them being Nazi Party members in 1941.
The Wehrmacht did not just obey Hitler's criminal orders for Barbarossa because of obedience, but rather because they shared Hitler's belief that the Soviet Union was run by Jews, and that it was necessary for Germany to completely destroy "
Judeo-Bolshevism
Jewish Bolshevism, also Judeo–Bolshevism, is an anti-communist and antisemitic canard, which alleges that the Jews were the originators of the Russian Revolution in 1917, and that they held primary power among the Bolsheviks who led the r ...
".
Commissar Order
The order cast the war against the Soviet Union as one of ideological and racial differences, and it provided for the immediate liquidation of
political commissars in the Red Army. The order was formulated in 1941 with the participation of the Army High Command (the
OKH) and issued by the Wehrmacht High Command (the
OKW). General
Franz Halder welcomed it, writing that "Troops must participate in the ideological battle in the Eastern campaign to the end".
On 17 July 1941, the OKW declared that the Wehrmacht was to:
ee itself from all elements among the prisoners of war considered Bolshevik driving forces. The special situation of the Eastern Campaign therefore demands ''special measures'' n euphemism for killingwhich are to be carried out free from bureaucratic and administrative influence and with a willingness to accept responsibility. While so far the regulations and orders concerning prisoners of war were based solely on ''military'' considerations, now the ''political'' objective must be attained, which is to protect the German nation from Bolshevik inciters and forthwith take the occupied territory strictly in hand.
As such, all Soviet POWs considered to be commissars together with all Jewish POWs were to be handed over to the ''Einsatzgruppen'' to be shot.
The OKW attached great importance to the killings of POWs believed to be commissars as it was believed that if the captured commissars reached POW camps in Germany that they would stage another German
Stab-in-the-back like that believed to have caused Germany's defeat in World War I. Between July–October 1941, between 580,000 and 600,000 POWs in Wehrmacht custody were turned over to the SS to be killed.
In September 1941, both
Helmuth James von Moltke and Admiral
Wilhelm Canaris
Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a German admiral and the chief of the ''Abwehr'' (the German military-intelligence service) from 1935 to 1944. Canaris was initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler, and the Nazi re ...
wrote memos pointing out to the OKW that the order of July 17, 1941 was illegal under international law.
In particular, both Moltke and Admiral Canaris noted that the German claim that Soviet POWs had no rights because the Soviet Union had not ratified the
Geneva Convention
upright=1.15, Original document in single pages, 1864
The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term ''Geneva Conve ...
was invalid, as Germany had ratified the Geneva Convention and thus under international law was obliged to provide humane treatment for the POWs in its care. In response, Field-Marshal
Wilhelm Keitel
Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel (; 22 September 188216 October 1946) was a German field marshal and war criminal who held office as chief of the '' Oberkommando der Wehrmacht'' (OKW), the high command of Nazi Germany's Armed Forces, duri ...
wrote: "These scruples accord with the soldierly concepts of a chivalrous war! Here we are concerned with the extermination of an ideology. That is why I approve and defend this measure".
In the summer of 1942, there was an illusory liberalization of the treatment of captured political officers. On 10 June, the Gestapo chief
Heinrich Müller Heinrich Müller may refer to:
* Heinrich Müller (cyclist) (born 1926), Swiss cyclist
* Heinrich Müller (footballer, born 1888) (1888–1957), Swiss football player and manager
* Heinrich Müller (footballer, born 1909) (1909–2000), Austrian ...
issued an order on the segregation of prisoners and ordered that commissars be isolated from the rest of the prisoners and sent to
Mauthausen-Gusen
Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany ...
concentration camp. However, this did not change the plight of commissars much, as Mauthausen was one of the worst
Nazi concentration camps
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as con ...
where they usually waited for a slow death. On 20 October 1942, Müller again ordered commissars captured in battle to be shot on the spot. Only those commissars who were identified as deserters were sent to Mauthausen. In the following months, reports continued to be filed regarding the executions of Soviet commissars.
[ The last known account of the liquidation of a political officer came from units of Army Group South in July 1943.][
The historian ]Jürgen Förster
Jürgen Förster (born 1940) is a German historian who specialises in the history of Nazi Germany and World War II. He is a professor of history at the University of Freiburg, the position he has held since 2005. Förster is a contributor to t ...
wrote that the majority of Wehrmacht officers sincerely believed that most Red Army commissars were Jews and that the best way to defeat the Soviet Union was to kill all of the commissars so as to deprive the Soviet soldiers of their Jewish leaders.
Barbarossa Decree
The background behind the Barbarossa Decree was laid out by Hitler during a high-level meeting with military officials on 30 March 1941,[ where he declared that war against ]Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
Russia would be a war of extermination
Extermination or exterminate may refer to:
* Pest control, elimination of insects or vermin
* Genocide, extermination—in whole or in part—of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group
* Homicide or murder in general
* "Exterminate!", t ...
, in which both the political and intellectual elites of Russia would be eradicated by German forces, in order to ensure a long-lasting German victory. Hitler underlined that executions would not be a matter for military courts, but for the organised action of the military.[
The decree, issued by Field Marshal Keitel a few weeks before ]Operation Barbarossa
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 after ...
, exempted punishable offenses committed by enemy civilians (in Russia) from the jurisdiction of military justice. Suspects were to be brought before an officer who would decide if they were to be shot.
The order specified:
* "The partisans are to be ruthlessly eliminated in battle or during attempts to escape", and all attacks by the civilian population against Wehrmacht soldiers are to be "suppressed by the army on the spot by using extreme measures, till heannihilation of the attackers;
* "Every officer in the German occupation in the East of the future will be entitled to perform execution(s) without trial, without any formalities, on any person suspected of having a hostile attitude towards the Germans", (the same applied to prisoners of war);
* "If you have not managed to identify and punish the perpetrators of anti-German acts, you are allowed to apply the principle of collective responsibility
Collective responsibility, also known as collective guilt, refers to responsibilities of organizations, groups and societies. Collective responsibility in the form of collective punishment is often used as a disciplinary measure in closed insti ...
. 'Collective measures' against residents of the area where the attack occurred can then be applied after approval by the battalion commander or higher level of command";
* German soldiers who commit crimes against humanity, the USSR and prisoners of war are to be exempted from criminal responsibility, even if they commit acts punishable according to German law.
Contrary to what was claimed after the war, the Wehrmacht generals such as Heinz Guderian
Heinz Wilhelm Guderian (; 17 June 1888 – 14 May 1954) was a German general during World War II who, after the war, became a successful memoirist. An early pioneer and advocate of the "blitzkrieg" approach, he played a central role in th ...
, did not intend to mitigate the records of the jurisdiction of an order, or in any way violate Hitler's intentions.[ His command was intended solely to prevent individual excesses which could damage discipline within army ranks, without changing the extermination intentions of the order.][ As part of the policy of harshness towards Slavic "sub-humans" and to prevent any tendency towards seeing the enemy as human, German troops were ordered to go out of their way to mistreat women and children in Russia.]
Guidelines for the Conduct of the Troops in Russia
The "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 by the OKW on 19 May 1941 declared "Judeo-Bolshevism" to be the most deadly enemy of the German nation, and that "It is against this destructive ideology and its adherents that Germany is waging war". The guidelines went on to demand "ruthless and vigorous measures against Bolshevik inciters, guerrillas, saboteurs, Jews, and the complete elimination of all active and passive resistance." Influenced by the guidelines, in a directive sent out to the troops under his command, General Erich Hoepner
Erich Kurt Richard Hoepner (14 September 1886 – 8 August 1944) was a German general during World War II. An early proponent of mechanisation and armoured warfare, he was a Wehrmacht army corps commander at the beginning of the war, leading hi ...
of the Panzer Group 4 stated:The war against Russia is an important chapter in the German nation's struggle for existence. It is the old battle of the Germanic against the Slavic people, of the defence of European culture against Muscovite-Asiatic inundation and of the repulse of Jewish Bolshevism. The objective of this battle must be the demolition of present-day Russia and must therefore be conducted with unprecedented severity. Every military action must be guided in planning and execution by an iron resolution to exterminate the enemy remorselessly and totally. In particular, no adherents of the contemporary Russian Bolshevik system are to be spared.
Other orders
In the same spirit, General Müller, who was the Wehrmacht's senior liaison officer for legal matters, in a lecture to military judges on June 11, 1941, advised the judges present that "...in the operation to come, feelings of justice must in certain situations give way to military exigencies and then revert to old habits of warfare ... One of the two adversaries must be finished off. Adherents of the hostile attitude are not to be conserved, but liquidated". General Müller declared that, in the war against the Soviet Union, any Soviet civilian who was felt to be hindering the German war effort was to be regarded as a "guerrilla" and shot on the spot. The Army's Chief of Staff, General Franz Halder, declared in a directive that in the event of guerrilla attacks, German troops were to impose "collective measures of force" by massacring villages.
Typical of the German Army propaganda was the following passage from a pamphlet issued in June 1941:
German Army propaganda often gave extracts in newsletters concerning the missions for German troops in the East:"It is necessary to eliminate the red subhumans, along with their Kremlin dictators. German people will have a great task to perform the most in its history, and the world will hear more about that this task will be completed till the end.
As a result of this sort of propaganda, the majority of the '' Wehrmacht Heer'' officers and soldiers tended to regard the war in Nazi terms, seeing their Soviet opponents as so much sub-human trash deserving to be trampled upon. One German soldier wrote home to his father on 4 August 1941 that:
The order was in line with the interests of the Wehrmacht command, which was eager to secure logistical facilities and routes behind the front line for the divisions on the Eastern Front.[
In October 1941, the commander of the 12th Infantry Division sent out a directive saying "the carrying of information is mostly done by youngsters in the ages of 11–14" and that "as the Russian is more afraid of the truncheon than of weapons, flogging is the most advisable measure for interrogation".] The Nazis at the beginning of the war banned sexual relations between Germans and foreign slave workers. In accordance to these new racial laws issued by the Nazis; in November 1941, the commander of the 18th Panzer Division warned his soldiers not to have sex with "sub-human" Russian women, and ordered that any Russian women found having sex with a German soldier was to be handed over to the SS to be executed at once.
A decree ordered on 20 February 1942 declared that sexual intercourse between a German woman and a Russian worker or prisoner of war would result in the latter being punished by the death penalty. During the war, hundreds of Polish and Russian men were found guilty of " race defilement" for their relations with German women and were executed.
The Night and Fog Decree, issued by Hitler in 1941 and disseminated along with a directive from Keitel, was operated within the conquered territories in the West (Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands). The decree allowed those "endangering German security" to be seized and made to disappear without trace. Keitel's directive stated that "efficient intimidation can only be achieved either by capital punishment or by measures by which the relatives of the criminal and the population do not know his fate."
Poland
Wehrmacht attitudes towards Poles were a combination of contempt, fear, and a belief that violence was the best way to deal with them.
Mass murder of Polish civilians
The Wehrmacht responded brutally to acts by alleged insurgents during the invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
in 1939 and was responsible for indiscriminate shootings of prisoners of war and civilians. Any act of defiance was met with the most ruthless violence, although the Army leadership did seek to discourage so-called "wild" shootings where Wehrmacht troops would shoot civilians on their own initiative or participate in murders conducted by the SS. Court-martial proceedings were begun against some of the junior officers who had led these shootings, but this was nullified on 4 October 1939, when Hitler pardoned all military personnel who had been involved in war crimes in Poland. After the end of hostilities, during the Wehrmacht's administration of Poland, which went on until 25 October 1939, 531 towns and villages were burned; the Wehrmacht carried out 714 mass executions, alongside many incidents of plunder, banditry and murder. Altogether, it is estimated that 16,376 Poles fell victim to these atrocities. Approximately 60% of these crimes were committed by the Wehrmacht. Wehrmacht soldiers frequently engaged in the massacre of Jews on their own, rather than just assisting in rounding them up for the SS.
In the summer of 1940, Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( ; ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust.
He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (inclu ...
, the chief of the Reich Security Main Office (including the Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
), noted that: "...compared to the crimes, robberies and excesses committed by the army art of the Wehrmacht the SS and the police don't look all that bad". Even when the German Army was not involved in war crimes, all of the top military leaders were aware of what was happening in Poland. None objected on moral principles; the few who did object did so due to concerns about discipline. Moreover, the general who objected the loudest to war crimes in Poland, General Johannes Blaskowitz
Johannes Albrecht Blaskowitz (10 July 1883 – 5 February 1948) was a German ''Generaloberst'' during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. After joining the Imperial German Army in ...
, was opposed to the Army committing war crimes with the SS, not the idea of atrocities against Poland. The Israeli historian Omer Bartov
Omer Bartov (Hebrew: עֹמֶר בַּרְטוֹב; pronounced .html" ;"title="oˈmer ˈbartov/nowiki>">oˈmer ˈbartov/nowiki>; born 1954) is the John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History and Professor of History and Profe ...
wrote that Blaskowitz was actually "legitimizing murder" by expressing approval of SS massacres while demanding that the Army be kept out of the massacres as damaging to discipline. Bartov wrote that once officers and troops saw that murder was "legitimate" in Poland, the effect was that the Army tended to copy the SS.
Up to 13,000 soldiers and between 120,000 and 200,000 civilians were killed by German-led forces during the Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led ...
. At least 5,000 German regular soldiers assisted the SS in crushing Polish resistance, most of them reserve units. Human shields were used by German forces during the fighting.
Throughout the campaign Wehrmacht engaged in widespread theft and plunder of Polish citizens' property. Until 3 November 1939 the Wehrmacht sent to the Nazi Germany 10,000 train wagons with stolen property including agricultural machinery, furniture and food.
In one of the Germany military's first acts of World War II the German air force, the ''Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...
'', bombed the Polish town of Wieluń and later went on to bomb cities across the country, including Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
, Frampol
Frampol is a town in Poland, in Biłgoraj County, Lublin Voivodeship. It has 1,431 inhabitants (December 2021), and lies in eastern Lesser Poland, near the Roztocze Upland. Frampol is surrounded by the ''Szczebrzeszyn Landscape Park'' and the ...
and various other cities. Collectively the bombings killed tens of thousands of Polish civilians. However, no positive
Positive is a property of positivity and may refer to:
Mathematics and science
* Positive formula, a logical formula not containing negation
* Positive number, a number that is greater than 0
* Plus sign, the sign "+" used to indicate a posi ...
or specific customary
Custom, customary, or consuetudinary may refer to:
Traditions, laws, and religion
* Convention (norm), a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted rules, norms, standards or criteria, often taking the form of a custom
* Norm (social), a r ...
international humanitarian law
International humanitarian law (IHL), also referred to as the laws of armed conflict, is the law that regulates the conduct of war ('' jus in bello''). It is a branch of international law that seeks to limit the effects of armed conflict by pro ...
with respect to aerial warfare existed prior to and during World War II which means that at the time, strategic bombing
Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale, its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations, or both. It is a systematica ...
s were not officially war crimes. For this reason, no German officers were prosecuted at the post-World War II Allied war crime trials for aerial raids.
Massacres of Polish POWs
Numerous examples exist in which Polish soldiers were killed after capture; for instance, at Śladów, where 252 prisoners of war (POW)s were shot or drowned, at Ciepielów, where some 300 POWs were killed, and at Zambrów
Zambrów is a town in northeastern Poland with 21,166 inhabitants (2020). It is the capital of Zambrów County. Situated in the Podlaskie Voivodeship (since 1999), previously in Łomża Voivodeship (1975–1998).
History
The name of the town ...
, where a further 300 were killed. Polish POWs of Jewish origin were routinely selected and shot on the spot.
The prisoners in the POW camp in Żyrardów
Żyrardów is a town and former industrial hub in central Poland with approximately 41,400 inhabitants (2006). It is the capital of Żyrardów County situated in the Masovian Voivodeship (since 1999); previously, it was in Skierniewice Voivodes ...
, captured after the Battle of the Bzura
The Battle of the Bzura (or the Battle of Kutno) was the largest Polish counter-attack of the German invasion of Poland and was fought from 9 to 19 September.''The Second World War: An Illustrated History '', Putnam, 1975, Google Print snippet ...
, were denied any food and starved for ten days. In many cases Polish POWs were burned alive. Units of the Polish 7th Infantry Division
The 7th Infantry Division (, 7 DP) was the name of several units of the Polish Army.
Second Polish Republic
The original division was formed on 14 May 1919 near Częstochowa. At that time it consisted of two infantry brigades (13th and 14th), ...
were massacred after being captured in several individual acts of revenge for their resistance in combat. On September 11, ''Wehrmacht'' soldiers threw hand grenades into a school building where they kept Polish POWs. According to German historian Jochen Böhler, the Wehrmacht mass murdered at least 3,000 Polish POWs during the campaign.
The killing of POWs by ''Wehrmacht'' soldiers started during the September 1939 Poland campaign. In many cases large groups of Polish soldiers were murdered after capture. Hitler's Commando Order, issued in 1942, provided "justification" for the shooting of enemy commando
Royal Marines from 40 Commando on patrol in the Sangin">40_Commando.html" ;"title="Royal Marines from 40 Commando">Royal Marines from 40 Commando on patrol in the Sangin area of Afghanistan are pictured
A commando is a combatant, or operativ ...
s, whether uniformed or not.
Belgium
Between 25 and 28 May 1940, the ''Wehrmacht'' committed several war crimes in and near the small Belgian village of Vinkt. Hostages were taken and used as human shields. As the Belgian Army continued to resist, farms were searched and looted, and more hostages were taken. In all, eighty-six civilians were executed. Besides Vinkt, other massacres and shootings happened with estimates of 600 victims.
France
During the rout of the French Army, in June 1940, the Großdeutschland Regiment massacred African soldiers and their White officers it had taken prisoner near the Bois d'Eraine. Ten more Black Frenchmen were murdered near Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, third-largest city and Urban area (France), second-largest metropolitan area of F ...
.
The same month, 9th Infantry Division massacred Black soldiers of the 4th North African Infantry Division
The 4th North African Infantry Division was a French Army formation established in 1937.
During the Battle of France in May 1940 the division was made up of the following units:
The Division was created in August 1938 and was dissolved in May 19 ...
they had captured near Erquivillers. A German officer is cited in French reports as explaining "an inferior race does not deserve to do battle with a civilized race such as the Germans."
In September 1944, during the retreat from France, the garrison of Brest
Brest may refer to:
Places
*Brest, Belarus
**Brest Region
**Brest Airport
**Brest Fortress
* Brest, Kyustendil Province, Bulgaria
* Břest, Czech Republic
*Brest, France
** Arrondissement of Brest
**Brest Bretagne Airport
** Château de Brest
*Br ...
executed civilians and looted and destroyed civilian property during the Battle for Brest
The Battle for Brest was fought in August and September 1944 on the Western Front during World War II. Part of the overall Battle for Brittany and the Allied plan for the invasion of mainland Europe called for the capture of port facilities, ...
. The commander of the garrison, ''Generalleutnant'' Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke
Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke (24 January 1889 – 4 July 1968) was a German general of paratroop forces during World War II. He led units in Crete, North Africa, Italy, the Soviet Union and France, and was captured by American forces at the concl ...
, was convicted of war crimes relating to these actions in 1951.
The massacres include that of at least 1500 black French POWs of West African origin and was preceded by propaganda depicting the Africans as savages. From October 1942 onwards, the ''Wehrmacht'' carried out the 'Commando Order' calling for the summary execution of all captured commandos, even if in uniform. After the Italian armistice
The Armistice of Cassibile was an armistice signed on 3 September 1943 and made public on 8 September between the Kingdom of Italy and the Allies during World War II.
It was signed by Major General Walter Bedell Smith for the Allies and Brigad ...
in 1943, many POWs were executed on several occasions when Italian troops resisted their forcible disarmament by the Germans. The massacre of the Acqui Division
The massacre of the Acqui Division, also known as the Cephalonia massacre, was the mass execution of the soldiers of the Italian 33rd Infantry Division "Acqui" by German soldiers on the island of Cephalonia, Greece, in September 1943, following t ...
at Kefalonia is the most infamous.
The Balkans
Following the Yugoslav coup d'état on 27 March 1941, Hitler considered this act to be a personal insult and called for the immediate destruction of Yugoslavia via Führer Directive 25. Commencing on 6 April 1941, Führer Directive 25 was enacted with a large scale bombing of Belgrade occurring in the early hours of the invasion. Indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets lead to the deaths of between 1,500 and 17,000 civilians. Following the end of the war, ''Generaloberst
A ("colonel general") was the second-highest general officer rank in the German ''Reichswehr'' and ''Wehrmacht'', the Austro-Hungarian Common Army, the East German National People's Army and in their respective police services. The rank was ...
'' Alexander Löhr
Alexander Löhr (20 May 1885 – 26 February 1947) was an Austrian Air Force commander during the 1930s and, after the annexation of Austria, he was a Luftwaffe commander. Löhr served in the Luftwaffe during World War II, rising to commander o ...
was found guilty of war crimes including his part in the bombing of Belgrade. He was executed in 1948.
In Serbia and Greece, many villages were razed and their inhabitants murdered during anti-partisan operations. Examples in Greece include Alikianos, Chortiatis, Kaisariani, Kalavryta
Kalavryta ( el, Καλάβρυτα) is a town and a municipality in the mountainous east-central part of the regional unit of Achaea, Greece. The town is located on the right bank of the river Vouraikos, south of Aigio, southeast of Patras and ...
, Kali Sykia, Kallikratis, Kleisoura, Kondomari, Kommeno
Kommeno ( el, Κομμένο) is a village and a former community in the Arta regional unit, Epirus, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Nikolaos Skoufas, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal u ...
, Lyngiades, Malathyros, Mesovouno, Mousiotitsa, Paramythia and Skourvoula;[Cooke, Philip. ''Hitler's Europe Ablaze: Occupation, Resistance, and Rebellion during World War II'', Skyhorse Publishing, 2014, .] the razings of Kandanos
Kandanos or Kantanos ( el, Κάνδανος or Κάντανος), also Candanos, is a town and former municipality in the Chania regional unit, Crete, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Kantanos-Selino, ...
, Anogeia
Anogeia (Ανώγεια) is a municipality in the Rethymno (regional unit), Rethymno regional unit, Crete, Greece. The municipality has an area of ., excluding the former municipal departments Axos and Zoniana. Population 2,379 (2011).
When exact ...
and Vorizia;[Beevor, Antony. ''Crete: The Battle and the Resistance'', John Murray Ltd, 1991. Penguin Books, 1992, .] the Viannos massacres
The Viannos massacres ( el, Σφαγές της Βιάννου / Ολοκαύτωμα της Βιάννου) were a mass extermination campaign launched by German forces against the civilian residents of around 20 villages located in the areas of ...
; and numerous incidents of smaller scale.
Italy
On 26 March 1944, 15 uniformed US Army officers and men were shot without trial at La Spezia, in Italy, after orders of the commander of the German 75th Army Corps, General Anton Dostler, despite the opposition of his subordinates of the 135th Fortress Brigade. Dostler was sentenced to death by an American military tribunal
Military justice (also military law) is the legal system (bodies of law and procedure) that governs the conduct of the active-duty personnel of the armed forces of a country. In some nation-states, civil law and military law are distinct bod ...
and executed by firing squad in December 1945.
Soviet Union
Some German officers had considered Communism in the Soviet Union to be a Jewish plot even before the Third Reich. In 1918, Karl von Bothmer, the German Army's plenipotentiary in Moscow called the Bolsheviks "a gang of Jews" and expressed the desire "to see a few hundred of these louts hanging on the Kremlin wall". Evaluations of the Red Army by the visiting ''Reichswehr'' officers during the period of German-Soviet co-operation in the 1920s often show anti-Semitism with comments about the "Jewish slyness" of General Lev Snitman or the "Jewish blood" of General Leonid Vajner being very typical.
In 1932, Ewald Banse, a leading German professor and a member of the National Association for the Military Sciences (a group secretly financed by the ''Reichswehr'') wrote in a pamphlet calling for "intellectual world domination" by Germany wrote that the Soviet leadership was mostly Jewish who dominated an apathetic and mindless Russian masses. In 1935, Colonel Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel in a report about the military capacity of the Red Army wrote that the commissars were "mostly of the Jewish race".
Reprisals and the Holocaust
In the spring of 1941, Heydrich and General Eduard Wagner
Eduard Wagner (1 April 1894 – 23 July 1944) was a general in the Army of Nazi Germany who served as quartermaster-general in World War II. He had the overall responsibility for security in the Army Group Rear Areas, and thus bore responsibil ...
successfully completed negotiations for co-operation between the ''Einsatzgruppen'' and the German Army to allow the implementation of "special tasks". Following the Heydrich-Wagner agreement on 28 April 1941, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch
Walther Heinrich Alfred Hermann von Brauchitsch (4 October 1881 – 18 October 1948) was a German field marshal and the Commander-in-Chief (''Oberbefehlshaber'') of the German Army during World War II. Born into an aristocratic military family, ...
ordered when Operation Barbarossa began that all German Army commanders were to identify and register all Jews in the occupied areas in the Soviet Union at once and to co-operate fully with the '' Einsatzgruppen''. Each ''Einsatzgruppe'', in its area of operations, was under the control of the Higher SS and Police Leaders. In a further agreement between the Army and the SS concluded in May 1941 by General Wagner and Walter Schellenberg
Walter Friedrich Schellenberg (16 January 1910 – 31 March 1952) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. He rose through the ranks of the SS, becoming one of the highest ranking men in the '' Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD) and eventually a ...
, it was agreed that the ''Einsatzgruppen'' in front-line areas were to operate under Army command while the Army would provide the ''Einsatzgruppen'' with all necessary logistical support. Under the guise of "anti-bandit" ('' Bandenbekämpfung'') operations, the Wehrmacht in the Soviet Union massacred Jews and other civilians. Co-operation with the SS in reprisals and anti-Jewish operations was close and intensive.
In August 1941, following the protests by two Lutheran chaplains about the massacre of a group of Jewish women and children at Byelaya Tserkov, General von Reichenau wrote:The conclusion of the report in question contains the following sentence, "In the case in question, measures against women and children were undertaken which in no way differ from atrocities carried out by the enemy about which the troops are continually being informed".
I have to describe this assessment as incorrect, inappropriate and impertinent in the extreme. Moreover, this comment was written in an open communication which passes through many hands. It would have been far better if the report had not been written at all.
One SS man who saw the killings at Byelaya Tserkov described them as follows:I went to the woods alone. The Wehrmacht had already dug a grave. The children were brought along in a tractor. I had nothing to do with this technical procedure. The Ukrainians were standing around trembling. The children were taken down from the tractor. They were lined up along the top of the grave and shot so that they fell into it. The Ukrainians did not aim at any particular part of the body. They fell into the grave. The wailing was indescribable. I shall never forget the scene throughout my life. I find it very hard to bear. I particularly remember a small fair-haired girl who took me by the hand. She too was shot later ... The grave was near some woods. It was not near the rifle-range. The execution must had taken place in the afternoon at about 3.30 or 4.00. It took place the day after the discussions at the ''Feldkommandanten''...Many children were hit four or five times before they died.
In the summer of 1941, the SS Cavalry Brigade
The SS Cavalry Brigade (''SS-Kavallerie-Brigade'') was a unit of the German Waffen-SS during World War II. Operating under the control of the '' Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS'', it initially performed rear security duties in German-occupied Pola ...
commanded by Hermann Fegelein
Hans Otto Georg Hermann Fegelein (30 October 1906 – 28 April 1945) was a high-ranking commander in the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany. He was a member of Adolf Hitler's entourage and brother-in-law to Eva Braun through his marriage to her si ...
during the course of "anti-partisan" operations in the Pripyat Marshes killed 699 Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
soldiers, 1,100 partisans and 14,178 Jews. Before the operation, Fegelein had been ordered to shoot all adult Jews while driving the women and children into the marshes. After the operation, General Max von Schenckendorff
Max von Schenckendorff (24 February 1875 – 6 July 1943) was a general in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II. He was the commander of Army Group Rear Area behind Army Group Centre from March 1941 until his death. He is best known ...
, who commanded the Army Group Centre Rear Area
Army Group Centre Rear Area () was one of the three Army Group Rear Area Commands, established during the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union. Initially commanded by General Max von Schenckendorff, it was an area of military jurisdiction beh ...
ordered on 10 August 1941 that all Wehrmacht security divisions when on anti-partisan duty were to emulate Fegelein's example and organized between 24 and 26 September 1941 in Mogilev
Mogilev (russian: Могилёв, Mogilyov, ; yi, מאָלעוו, Molev, ) or Mahilyow ( be, Магілёў, Mahilioŭ, ) is a city in eastern Belarus, on the Dnieper River, about from the border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and from the bor ...
, a joint SS-Police-Wehrmacht training event on how best to murder "partisans", and by extension, Jews. The seminar, which became known as the Mogilev Conference, ended with the 7th Company of Police Battalion 322 of the Order Police shooting 32 Jews at a village called Knjashizy before the assembled officers as an example of how to "screen" the population for partisans. As the war diary of the Battalion 322 read:
Based on what they had learned during the Mogilev Conference, one Wehrmacht officer told his men "Where the partisan is, there is the Jew and where the Jew is, there is the partisan". The 707th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht put this principle into practice during an "anti-partisan" sweep that saw the division shoot 10,431 people out of the 19,940 it had detained during the sweep while suffering only two dead and five wounded in the process.
In Order No. 24 dated 24 November 1941, the commander of the 707th Division declared:
At Mirgorod
Myrhorod ( uk, Ми́ргород, ) is a city in the Poltava Oblast (province) of central Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Myrhorod Raion (district), the city itself is administratively incorporated as a city of oblast ...
, the 62nd Infantry Division executed "the entire Jewish population (168 people) for associating with partisans". At Novomoskovsk, the 444th Security Division reported that they had killed "305 bandits, 6 women with rifles (''Flintenweiber''), 39 prisoners-of-war and 136 Jews". In revenge for a partisan attack that had killed one German soldier, the ''Ersatz-Brigade'' 202 "as an act of retaliation shot 20 Jews from the villages of Bobosjanka and Gornostajewka and burnt down 5 Jew-houses". Even more extreme was the case in Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...
, where the majority of the Jews there were murdered by the Wehrmacht, not the SS.
At Šabac
Šabac (Serbian Cyrillic: Шабац, ) is a city and the administrative centre of the Mačva District in western Serbia. The traditional centre of the fertile Mačva region, Šabac is located on the right banks of the river Sava. , the city ...
in Dulag 183, a German transit camp for POWs in World War II Serbia, which opened in September 1941 (and closed in September 1944), Partisan POWs and members of their families were held. It is estimated that more than 5,000 persons were executed, not counting Jews and Roma people. "Central European Jewish refugees, mostly Austrians
, pop = 8–8.5 million
, regions = 7,427,759
, region1 =
, pop1 = 684,184
, ref1 =
, region2 =
, pop2 = 345,620
, ref2 =
, region3 =
, pop3 = 197,990
, ref3 ...
, were shot by troops of predominantly Austrian origin in retaliation for casualties inflicted by Serbian partisans on the German Army". The orders issued by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel in September 1941 called for the German Army to shoot 100 Serbs for every German soldier killed by the Serb guerrillas and did not call for Jews to be singled out. Due to rampant anti-Semitism in the German officer corps, Serbian Jews were scapegoated and targeted for mass retaliatory shootings. German historian Jürgen Förster
Jürgen Förster (born 1940) is a German historian who specialises in the history of Nazi Germany and World War II. He is a professor of history at the University of Freiburg, the position he has held since 2005. Förster is a contributor to t ...
, a leading expert on the subject of Wehrmacht war crimes, argued the Wehrmacht played a key role in the Holocaust and it is wrong to ascribe the Shoah as solely the work of the SS while the Wehrmacht were a more or less passive and disapproving bystander.
The Wehrmacht also worked very closely with the ''Einsatzgruppen'' in murdering members of the Jewish population of the Soviet Union. On October 10, 1941, General Walther von Reichenau
Walter Karl Ernst August von Reichenau (8 October 1884 – 17 January 1942) was a field marshal in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II. Reichenau commanded the 6th Army, during the invasions of Belgium and France. During Ope ...
drafted an order to be read to the troops under his command stating that: "the soldier must achieve full understanding of the necessity for a harsh but just vengeance against Jewish subhumanity." Upon hearing of Reichenau's Severity Order, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt
Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt (12 December 1875 – 24 February 1953) was a German field marshal in the '' Heer'' (Army) of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Born into a Prussian family with a long military tradition, Rundstedt entered th ...
, the commander of Army Group South
Army Group South (german: Heeresgruppe Süd) was the name of three German Army Groups during World War II.
It was first used in the 1939 September Campaign, along with Army Group North to invade Poland. In the invasion of Poland Army Group So ...
announced his "complete agreement" with it, and sent out a circular to all of the Army generals under his command urging them to send out their own versions of the Severity Order, which would impress upon the troops the need to exterminate Jews.
General Erich von Manstein
Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Manstein (born Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Lewinski; 24 November 1887 – 9 June 1973) was a German Field Marshal of the ''Wehrmacht'' during the Second World War, who was subsequently convicted of war crimes and ...
, in an order to his troops on 20 November 1941 stated: Jewry is the middleman between the enemy at our rear and the still fighting remnants of the Red Army and the Red leadership; more than in Europe, it ewryoccupies all key posts of the political leadership and administration, of trade and crafts and forms the nucleus for all disquiet and possible revolts. The Jewish-Bolshevist system must be exterminated once and for all.
On 6 July 1941 '' Einsatzkommando'' 4b of ''Einsatzgruppe
(, ; also 'task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the imple ...
'' C – which was operating in Tarnopol
Ternópil ( uk, Тернопіль, Ternopil' ; pl, Tarnopol; yi, טאַרנאָפּל, Tarnopl, or ; he, טארנופול (טַרְנוֹפּוֹל), Tarnopol; german: Tarnopol) is a city in the west of Ukraine. Administratively, Ternopi ...
at the time – sent a report which noted "Armed forces surprisingly welcome hostility against the Jews". On 8 September 1941 ''Einsatzgruppe'' D reported that relations with the German Army were "excellent". Franz Walter Stahlecker
Franz Walter Stahlecker (10 October 1900 – 23 March 1942) was commander of the SS security forces ('' Sicherheitspolizei'' (SiPo) and the ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD) for the '' Reichskommissariat Ostland'' in 1941–42. Stahlecker commanded '' ...
of ''Einsatzgruppe'' A wrote in September 1941 that Army Group North
Army Group North (german: Heeresgruppe Nord) was a German strategic formation, commanding a grouping of field armies during World War II. The German Army Group was subordinated to the ''Oberkommando des Heeres'' (OKH), the German army high comman ...
had been exemplary in co-operating with his men in murdering Jews and that relations with the Fourth Panzer Army commanded by General Erich Hoepner
Erich Kurt Richard Hoepner (14 September 1886 – 8 August 1944) was a German general during World War II. An early proponent of mechanisation and armoured warfare, he was a Wehrmacht army corps commander at the beginning of the war, leading hi ...
were "very close, almost cordial".
Soviet POW camps
The '' Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War'' had been signed by Germany and most other countries in 1929, while the USSR and Japan did not sign until after the war (the final version of the Third Geneva Convention
The Third Geneva Convention, relative to the treatment of prisoners of war, is one of the four treaties of the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War was first adopted in 1929, but significant ...
of 1949). This meant that Germany was legally obliged to treat all POWs according to it, while in turn, Germans captured by the Red Army could not expect to be treated in such a manner. The Soviet Union and Japan did not treat prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Convention. While the Wehrmacht's prisoner-of-war camps for inmates from the west generally satisfied the humanitarian requirement prescribed by international law, prisoners from Poland (which never capitulated) and the USSR were incarcerated under significantly worse conditions.
By December 1941, more than 2.4 million Soviet Red Army troops had been taken prisoner. These men suffered from malnutrition and diseases such as typhus
Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...
that resulted from the Wehrmacht's failure to provide sufficient food, shelter, proper sanitation and medical care. Prisoners were regularly subject to torture, beatings and humiliation. All Jews, commissars, "intellectuals" and Muslims serving in the Red Army were either executed by the Wehrmacht or handed over to the SS to be shot.
The Muslim POWs were shot because they were circumcised, and therefore might be Jewish; it was felt to be safer to simply shoot all circumcised POWs rather run the risk that a Jewish POW might escape execution by claiming to be a Muslim. Reflecting the close co-operation between the Wehrmacht and the SS was an ''Einsatzgruppen'' report, which read:In Borispol, following a demand by the Commandant of the local P/W camp, a platoon of ''Sonderkommando'' 4 shot 752 Jewish prisoners of war on 14 October and 356 on 16 October 1941 including several commissars and 78 wounded Jews handed over by the camp medical officer.
According to a RHSA report of 5 December 1941, the Wehrmacht had, since 22 June, handed over to the ''Einsatzgruppen'' 16,000 Soviet POWs to be liquidated.
Between the launching of Operation Barbarossa
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 after ...
in the summer of 1941 and the following spring, 2.8 million of the 3.2 million prisoners taken died while in German hands. The German failure to attain their anticipated victory in the East led to significant shortages of labor for German war production and, beginning in 1942, prisoners of war in the eastern POW camps – primarily Soviets – were seen as a source of slave labor to keep Germany's wartime economy running.
On 6 August 1941, the OKW declared that Soviet POWs capable of work were to receive 2,200 calories/day and those not capable of work 2,040 calories/day. On 21 October 1941, the OKW ordered a huge reduction in the food rations for Soviet POWs, with POWs incapable of work henceforth to receive only 1,490 calories/day. In a meeting of senior generals called at Orša on 13 November 1941, the Army's First quarter-master General Eduard Wagner
Eduard Wagner (1 April 1894 – 23 July 1944) was a general in the Army of Nazi Germany who served as quartermaster-general in World War II. He had the overall responsibility for security in the Army Group Rear Areas, and thus bore responsibil ...
stated "Non-working prisoners of war in the camps are to starve".
5.7 million Soviet soldiers were taken prisoner during the war, of whom at least 3.3 million (58 percent of the total) died in captivity.
According to the ''Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article ( ...
'', it was typical for camps devoted to armaments production to be run by the branch of the Wehrmacht that used the products. Many places used Luftwaffe guards in concentration camps
During World War II, the German Luftwaffe staffed dozens of concentration camps, and posted its soldiers as guards at many others. Camps created for the exploitation of forced labor for armaments production were often run by the branch of the '' ...
. In 1944, many Wehrmacht soldiers were transferred to the '' SS-Totenkopfverbände'' to alleviate personnel shortages in concentration camps.
North Africa
Newer research has exposed Wehrmacht war crimes in North Africa. This opposes the term "War without hate" which is used by some authors to describe the North African Campaign.
Giordana Terracina writes that: "On April 3, the Italians recaptured Benghazi and a few months later the Afrika Korps
The Afrika Korps or German Africa Corps (, }; DAK) was the German expeditionary force in Africa during the North African Campaign of World War II. First sent as a holding force to shore up the Italian defense of its African colonies, the ...
led by Rommel
Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel () (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944) was a German field marshal during World War II. Popularly known as the Desert Fox (, ), he served in the ''Wehrmacht'' (armed forces) of Nazi Germany, as well as servi ...
was sent to Libya and began the deportation of the Jews of Cyrenaica
Cyrenaica ( ) or Kyrenaika ( ar, برقة, Barqah, grc-koi, Κυρηναϊκή παρχίαKurēnaïkḗ parkhíā}, after the city of Cyrene), is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between ...
in the concentration camp of Giado and other smaller towns in Tripolitania
Tripolitania ( ar, طرابلس '; ber, Ṭrables, script=Latn; from Vulgar Latin: , from la, Regio Tripolitana, from grc-gre, Τριπολιτάνια), historically known as the Tripoli region, is a historic region and former province o ...
. This measure was accompanied by shooting, also in Benghazi, of some Jews guilty of having welcomed the British troops, on their arrival, treating them as liberators."
Jews from all around Cyrenaica and Benghazi were deported into Italy for forced labour. At the Giado concentration camp, a survivor by the name of Sion Burbea testifies that he witnessed Erwin Rommel inspecting their work at the camp.
Some historians directly connect Rommel with the war crimes of the Wehrmacht in North Africa. According to German historian Wolfgang Proske, Rommel forbade his soldiers from buying anything from the Jewish population of Tripoli
Tripoli or Tripolis may refer to:
Cities and other geographic units Greece
*Tripoli, Greece, the capital of Arcadia, Greece
* Tripolis (region of Arcadia), a district in ancient Arcadia, Greece
* Tripolis (Larisaia), an ancient Greek city in ...
, used Jewish slave labour and commanded Jews to clear out minefields by walking on them ahead of his forces. Proske also claims that Jews in Tripoli were later sent to Concentration Camps.
The Wehrmacht's persecution of Jews continued into 1942. According to the publication Jewish Communities of the World edited by Anthony Lerman, in 1942 during the German occupation, the Benghazi quarter that housed the Jewish population was plundered and 2000 Jews were deported across the desert, out of which circa a fifth of them had perished. Jews in Benghazi were also victims of a pogrom
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...
in 1942 The Moment Magazine reports: "on orders from the German military commander, the Axis forces, in 1942, plundered Jewish shops and deported 2,600 Benghazi Jews to Giado".
Robert Satloff writes in his book Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands that as the German and Italian forces retreated across Libya towards Tunisia, the Jewish population became victims upon which they released their anger and frustration. According to Satloff, Afrika Korps soldiers plundered Jewish property all along the Libyan coast. This violence and persecution only came to an end with the arrival of General Montgomery in Tripoli on January 23, 1943. German historian Clemens Vollnhals writes that the use of Jews by Afrika Korps as forced labour is barely known, but it did happen alongside persecution of Jewish population (although on smaller scale than in Europe) and some of the labourers were worked to death.
The persecution of Jews by the Wehrmacht continued into Tunisia
)
, image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa
, image_map2 =
, capital = Tunis
, largest_city = capital
, ...
. According to several historians, allegations and stories that associate Rommel and the Afrika Korps with the harassing and plundering of Jewish gold and property in Tunisia are usually known under the name "Rommel's treasure" or "Rommel's gold". Other historians, however, state that Rommel had nothing to do with the treasure, and that " Rauff's treasure would be a more appropriate name.
When the Wehrmacht entered Tunisia, they ordered the establishment of a Judenrat
A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in every c ...
and Jews were subject to forced labour. 2,000 Jewish men were forcefully conscripted, and a few thousand more would be conscripted later on. This forced labour was used in extremely dangerous situations near targets of bombing raids, facing hunger and violence.
Rape
Eastern Front
German soldiers used to brand
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create ...
the bodies of captured partisan women – and other women as well – with the words "Whore for Hitler's troops" and rape them.[ Following their capture some German soldiers vividly bragged about committing rape and rape-homicide.
Susan Brownmiller argues that rape played a pivotal role in the Nazis' aim to conquer and destroy people they considered inferior, such as Jews, Russians, and Poles. An extensive list of rapes committed by German soldiers was compiled in the so-called "Molotov Note" in 1942. Brownmiller points out that Nazis used rape as a weapon of terror.][Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape Susan Brownmiller, page 55]
Examples of mass rapes in Soviet Union committed by German soldiers include:
* Smolensk
Smolensk ( rus, Смоленск, p=smɐˈlʲensk, a=smolensk_ru.ogg) is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest ...
: German command opened a brothel for officers in which hundreds of women and girls were driven by force, often by arms and hair.
* Lviv
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukrain ...
: 32 women working in a garment factory were raped and murdered by German soldiers, in a public park. A priest trying to stop the atrocity was murdered.
* Lviv
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukrain ...
: German soldiers raped Jewish girls, who were murdered after getting pregnant.
It is estimated that over a million children were born to Russian women, fathered by German soldiers.
Author Ursula Schele, estimated in the Journal "''Zur Debatte um die Ausstellung Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941–1944''" that one in ten women raped by German soldiers would have become pregnant, and therefore it is probable that up to ten million women in the Soviet Union could have been raped by the Wehrmacht.
Other sources estimate that rapes of Soviet women by the ''Wehrmacht'' range up to 10,000,000 incidents, with between 750,000 and 1,000,000 children being born as a result.
In Soviet Russia rapes were only a concern if they undermined military discipline. Since 1941, rape was theoretically punishable with the death sentence, although rapes were rarely prosecuted in practice and rapes by Germans of non-German women were not taken seriously, nor was it punishable by death, especially in the eastern European territories.[ In October 1940 the laws on rape were changed, making it a "petitioned crime" – that is a crime for which punishment had to be requested. Historian Christa Paul writes that this resulted in "a nearly complete absence of prosecution and punishment for rape".][ There were rape cases in the east where the perpetrators were sentenced if the rape were highly visible, damaging to the image of the German Army and the courts were willing to pass a condemning verdict against the accused.][
According to the historian Regina Mühlhäuser, the ''Wehrmacht'' also used sexual violence and undressing in numerous cases of interrogations.] Mühlhäuser adds that the number of illegitimate children born in the occupied regions did not exceed the prewar time. She comes to the conclusion that rapes on the Eastern front were not singular cases but has to admit that the state of source material is very poor.
There were rapes committed by soldiers of the ''Wehrmacht'' forces against Jewish women and girls during the Invasion of Poland. Rapes were also committed against Polish women and girls during mass executions carried out primarily by the ''Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz
The ''Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz'' was an ethnic German self-protection militia, a paramilitary organization consisting of ethnic German (''Volksdeutsche'') mobilized from among the German minority in Poland. The ''Volksdeutscher Selbstschut ...
'', which were accompanied by ''Wehrmacht'' soldiers and on territory under the administration of the German military, the rapes were carried out before shooting the female captives.
Only one case of rape was prosecuted by a German court during the military campaign in Poland, the case of gang rape committed by three soldiers against women of the Jewish Kaufmann family in Busko-Zdrój; however, the German judge sentenced the guilty for ''Rassenschande
''Rassenschande'' (, "racial shame") or ''Blutschande'' ( "blood disgrace") was an anti-miscegenation concept in Nazi German racial policy, pertaining to sexual relations between Aryans and non-Aryans. It was put into practice by policies like ...
'' – shame against the erman Erman Rašiti may refer to:
Given name
* Erman Bulucu (born 1989), Turkish footballer
* Erman Eltemur (born 1993), Turkish karateka
* Erman Güraçar (born 1974), Turkish footballer
* Erman Kılıç (born 1983), Turkish footballer
* Erman Kunter (b ...
race as defined by the racial policy of Nazi Germany – and not rape.
Western Front
Rape, while officially forbidden, was allowed in practice by the German military in eastern and southeastern Europe, while northern and western countries were relatively spared. In Occupied Denmark
At the outset of World War II in September 1939, Denmark
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, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Soverei ...
, which initially agreed to collaborate with Nazi Germany, rapes were not widespread, and German officials promised to punish them. By contrast thousands of Soviet female nurses, doctors and field medics fell victim to rape when captured, and were often murdered afterwards.
In France, there were some rapes in 1940 immediately after the invasion and then very few cases until 1944, when the number of cases spiked. The German command initially worked to reduce the number of rapes committed, because rapes during World War I had harmed the reputation of the German army. In 1944 the rapes were increasingly tolerated by the German hierarchy and occurred alongside massacres and looting, typically during anti-partisan operations. A photograph of a woman being gang-raped was included in the "Hitler's Crimes" exhibit displayed in Paris in 1945.
Military justice
Birgit Beck, in her work ''Rape: The Military Trials of Sexual Crimes Committed by Soldiers in the Wehrmacht, 1939–1944'', describes the leniency in punishing sex crimes by German authorities in the East, at the same time pointing out heavy punishments applied in the West. If a soldier who committed a rape was subsequently convicted by a court-martial, he would usually be sentenced to four years in prison The German penal code was also valid for soldiers in war. Until 1944 5,349 soldiers of the Wehrmacht on all fronts were sentenced because of indecency offence "Sittlichkeitsvergehen" or rape "Notzucht". Historian Mühlhäuser believed that sexual assault was not an exception but common, and that the actual number of rapes committed by German soldiers are without question much greater.
''Wehrmacht'' brothel system
Under the German occupation, a widespread system of sexual slavery (forced prostitution) was instituted.[ The ''Wehrmacht'' also ran brothels where women were forced to work.] The reason for establishing these brothels was the German officials' fear of venereal disease
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the older term venereal diseases, are infections that are Transmission (medicine), spread by Human sexual activity, sexual activity, especi ...
and onanism ( masturbation). The ''Oberfeldarzt der Wehrmacht'' (Chief Field Doctor of the Wehrmacht) drew attention to "the danger of hespread of homosexualism".
On 3 May 1941, the Foreign Ministry of the Polish Government in Exile in London issued a document describing the mass raids carried out in Polish cities with the aim of capturing young women, who were later forced to work in brothels attended by German officers and soldiers.
In the Soviet Union women were kidnapped by German forces for prostitution; one report by the International Military Tribunal
International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations".
International may also refer to:
Music Albums
* ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011
* ''International'' (New Order album), 2002
* ''International'' (The T ...
stated that "in the city of Smolensk
Smolensk ( rus, Смоленск, p=smɐˈlʲensk, a=smolensk_ru.ogg) is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest ...
the German Command opened a brothel for officers in one of the hotels into which hundreds of women and girls were driven; they were mercilessly dragged down the street by their arms and hair."
Trials
The Nuremberg trials
The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II.
Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded m ...
did not prosecute anyone for rape or other sexual violence; rape was defined as a crime against humanity, but prosecutors deemed that such crimes had "no nexus to war".[
]
Human experimentation
Throughout the war Germany engaged in numerous experiments on human prisoners and POWs. The ''Wehrmacht'' had full knowledge of those experiments, and performed some of its own. It provided assistance regarding:
* High altitude tests
* Drinking seawater
* Freezing of the human body
* typhus research.
In many cases the test subjects, even if they survived, were murdered afterwards to study any changes within their bodies that happened during the experiment.
Examples of experiments conducted by the ''Wehrmacht'' include:
* Experiments on homosexuals: ''Wehrmacht'' doctors wanted to "cure" homosexuality by hormone treatments and putting homosexuals into battle.
* Experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau by doctor Emil Kaschub. Kaschub came from Upper Silesia and was an ensign in the ''Wehrmacht'' (he was not a member of the SS). He performed experiments on the limbs of middle-aged and young prisoners; they would deliberately be infected with various toxic substances, which caused sores, abscesses and pain. The condition of the patients would be photographed by Kaschub every few days and liquid from their wounds collected. The probable motive for those experiments was to find out how soldiers made themselves sick in order to escape service in the ''Wehrmacht''.
* In August 1941, the staff doctor assigned to the Sixth Army, Gerhart Panning, learned about captured Russian dumdum bullets by using Jewish POWs. To determine the effects of this type of ammunition on German soldiers, he decided to test them on other human beings after asking SS-'' Standartenführer'' (Colonel) and a member of the SD Paul Blobel for some "guinea pigs", (Jewish POWs).
Biological warfare
During the war members of the ''Wehrmacht'' attempted to influence Hitler's decision to study biological warfare only regarding defense. The head of the Science Division of the ''Wehrmacht'', Erich Schumann, urged the Führer
( ; , spelled or ''Fuhrer'' when the umlaut is not available) is a German word meaning "leader" or " guide". As a political title, it is strongly associated with the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Nazi Germany cultivated the ("leader princip ...
that ''"America must be attacked simultaneously with various human and animal epidemic pathogens, as well as plant pests."'' Laboratory tests were prepared for the use of plague
Plague or The Plague may refer to:
Agriculture, fauna, and medicine
*Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis''
* An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural)
* A pandemic caused by such a disease
* A swarm of pe ...
, anthrax, cholera and typhoid
Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by ''Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several d ...
. The possibility of using foot and mouth disease
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) or hoof-and-mouth disease (HMD) is an infectious and sometimes fatal viral disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic and wild bovids. The virus causes a high fever lasting two to six days, follow ...
against Britain was also studied.
Postwar views
Evolving analysis
High-ranking ''Wehrmacht'' officers stood trial for war crimes. The ''Oberkommando der Wehrmacht'' (OKW) commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, and chief of operations staff Alfred Jodl were both indicted and tried for war crimes by the International Military Tribunal
International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations".
International may also refer to:
Music Albums
* ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011
* ''International'' (New Order album), 2002
* ''International'' (The T ...
at Nuremberg
Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
through 1945–1946. They were convicted of all charges, sentenced to death and executed by hanging, although Jodl was acquitted post-mortem seven years later. While the tribunal declared that the ''Gestapo'', '' SD'' and ''SS'' (including the ''Waffen-SS'') were inherently criminal organizations, the court did not reach the same conclusion with the ''Wehrmacht'' General Staff and High Command.
The Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II.
Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded m ...
at the end of World War II initially considered whether the ''Wehrmacht'' high command structure should be tried. However, the '' Oberkommando der Wehrmacht'' (OKW – High Command of the Armed Forces) was judged not to be a criminal organization under the legal grounds that because of very poor co-ordination between the German Army, Navy and Air Force high commands, which operated as more or less separate entities during the war, the OKW did not constitute an "organization" as defined by Article 9 of the constitution of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) which conducted the Nuremberg trials.[ Wette, Wolfram: ''The Wehrmacht History, Myth, Reality'', Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007, pp. 210–12. ] This matter of legal definition has been misconstrued by German World War II veterans and others to mean that the IMT ruled that the OKW was not a " criminal organization" because the Wehrmacht committed no war crimes.
The prosecution of war crimes lost momentum during the 1950s as the Cold War intensified; both German states needed to establish armed forces and could not do so without trained officers and soldiers that had served in the ''Wehrmacht''. German historiography in the 1950s viewed war crimes by German soldiers as exceptional rather than ordinary; soldiers were seen as victims of the Nazi regime. Traces of this attitude can still be seen in some German works today, which minimize the number of soldiers who took part in Nazi crimes. This was especially the case as the German public in the immediate post-war period were more interested in seeing themselves rather than others as victims. Thus the subject of Red Army atrocities against German civilians in 1944–45 received vastly more popular and historical interest in the 1950s than did the subject of Wehrmacht atrocities against Soviet civilians in 1941–44.
Beyond that, Operation Barbarossa had been portrayed in Germany as a "preventive war" forced on Germany by Soviet attack alleged to be planned for July 1941. This claim was widely believed in the ''Reich'' during the war, and indeed was so popular that as late as the 1950s some West German historians were still arguing Operation Barbarossa was a "preventive war". As a result of this view of Operation Barbarossa, for many Germans, violence inflicted by the Wehrmacht on Soviet civilians and POWs was seen as something that the Soviets had brought down on themselves, hence the absence of any guilt on the part of many Germans. Cold War priorities and taboos about revisiting the most unpleasant aspects of World War II meant that the ''Wehrmacht''s role in war crimes was not seriously re-examined until the early 1980s.[
In their memoirs, German Army generals claimed that the war had been a "clean war" on their part with the Army fighting because of the noble Prussian-German traditions, patriotism and a deep sense of honour and duty and that National Socialism had virtually no influence on the Army.] In this version, almost all German war crimes were the work of the SS and any "excesses" committed by the Army were only the product of a long and bitter war and were no different from Allied war crimes. Very typical were the claims of one Infantry commander, who stated in his memoirs that all of the battles fought by his men were "always fairly conducted, though tough and bitter." Such claims were widely believed not only in Germany but abroad, with the British military historian Captain Basil Liddell Hart writing that "the German Army in the field on the whole observed the rules of war better than in 1914–18".
On 11 December 1979, the West German television show ''Report'' aired a documentary entitled "Crimes of the Wehrmacht in World War Two". The public's reaction was almost overwhelmingly negative, with World War II veterans leading a campaign to have the producer of ''Report'' fired for the "defamation" of German soldiers. This despite the fact – as the German historian Jürgen Förster
Jürgen Förster (born 1940) is a German historian who specialises in the history of Nazi Germany and World War II. He is a professor of history at the University of Freiburg, the position he has held since 2005. Förster is a contributor to t ...
was to write in 1989 – that the producers of the documentary had gone out of their way to be fair and unbiased.
In 1986, the German historian Hans Mommsen
Hans Mommsen (5 November 1930 – 5 November 2015) was a German historian, known for his studies in German social history, and for his functionalist interpretation of the Third Reich, especially for arguing that Adolf Hitler was a weak dictator. ...
wrote about the role of the Wehrmacht under National Socialism:The leadership of the Wehrmacht rather willingly made themselves into accomplices in the policy of extermination. It did this by generating the "criminal orders" and implementing them. By no means did they merely passively support the implementation of their concept, although there was a certain reluctance for reasons of military discipline and a few isolated protests. To construct a "causal nexus" over all this amounts in fact to steering away from the decisive responsibility of the military leadership and the bureaucratic elites.
British historian Ian Kershaw
Sir Ian Kershaw (born 29 April 1943) is an English historian whose work has chiefly focused on the social history of 20th-century Germany. He is regarded by many as one of the world's leading experts on Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, and is pa ...
wrote that the genocide and extreme brutality used by the Nazis was their way of ensuring the ''Lebensraum
(, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imper ...
'' ("living space") for the people who met the strict requirements of being part of Hitler's Aryan '' Herrenvolk'' ("Aryan master race") and the elimination of the Slavic people:
In 1989, the British historian Richard J. Evans
Sir Richard John Evans (born 29 September 1947) is a British historian of 19th- and 20th-century Europe with a focus on Germany. He is the author of eighteen books, including his three-volume ''The Third Reich Trilogy'' (2003–2008). Evans was ...
wrote that right from the beginning of the war against the Soviet Union, the Wehrmacht fought a genocidal war of "extreme brutality and barbarism". Evans noted that the Wehrmacht officers regarded the Russians as "sub-human", were from the time of the invasion of Poland in 1939 telling their troops that war was caused by "Jewish vermin", and explained to the troops that the war against the Soviet Union was a war to wipe out what were variously called "Jewish Bolshevik subhumans", the "Mongol hordes", the "Asiatic flood" and the "red beast".
Such views helped to explain why 3,300,000 of the 5,700,000 Soviet POWs taken by the Germans died in captivity. In 1992, Omer Bartov noted that the three leaders of the "new revisionism" in German history that sparked the ''Historikerstreit
The ''Historikerstreit'' (, "historians' dispute") was a dispute in the late 1980s in West Germany between conservative and left-of-center academics and other intellectuals about how to incorporate Nazi Germany and the Holocaust into German hist ...
'' of the late 1980s were all in some ways seeking to promote the image of the Wehrmacht as a force for the good, and seeking to portray the Wehrmacht as a victim of the Allies rather the victimizer of the peoples of Europe, writing of "the bizarre inversion of the Wehrmacht's roles proposed by all three exponents of the new revisionism, whereby overtly or by implication the Army is transformed from culprit to saviour, from an object of hatred and fear to one of empathy and pity, from victimizer to victim". Specifically, Bartov noted that:
* Michael Stürmer
Michael Stürmer (born September 29, 1938) is a conservative German historian best known for his role in the '' Historikerstreit'' of the 1980s, for his geographical interpretation of German history and for an admiring 2008 biography of the Russia ...
's geographical interpretation of German history meant that Germany's "mission" in Central Europe was to serve as a bulwark against the Slavic menace from the East in both World Wars.
* Ernst Nolte
Ernst Nolte (11 January 1923 – 18 August 2016) was a German historian and philosopher. Nolte's major interest was the comparative studies of fascism and communism (cf. Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism). Originally trained in philosophy, he was ...
's argument about a "causal nexus" with the National Socialist genocide as a logical, if extreme response to the horrors of Communism led to Wehrmacht crimes in the Soviet Union being portrayed as essentially justified. This was even more the case as Nolte insisted that Operation Barbarossa was as Hitler claimed a "preventive war", which meant that for Nolte, Wehrmacht war crimes were portrayed as a defensive response to the threat posed to Germany by the "Asiatic hordes".
* Andreas Hillgruber
Andreas Fritz Hillgruber (18 January 1925 – 8 May 1989) was a conservative German historian who was influential as a military and diplomatic historian who played a leading role in the ''Historikerstreit'' of the 1980s. In his controversial book ...
's call for historians to "identity" and "empathize" with German troops fighting on the Eastern Front in 1944–45 implicitly devalued the lives of those suffering and dying in the Holocaust, which was allowed to continue in part because the German troops held out for so long.
Bartov wrote that all three historians had in varying ways sought to justify and excuse Wehrmacht war crimes by depicting the Wehrmacht as engaging in a heroic battle for Western civilization, often using the same language as the Nazis such as referring to the Red Army as the "Asiatic hordes". Bartov ended that these sorts of arguments reflected a broader unwillingness of the part of some Germans to admit to what their Army did during the war. In 1998, the historian Jürgen Förster
Jürgen Förster (born 1940) is a German historian who specialises in the history of Nazi Germany and World War II. He is a professor of history at the University of Freiburg, the position he has held since 2005. Förster is a contributor to t ...
wrote that for too long most people have accepted at face value the self-serving claims made by generals like Erich von Manstein
Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Manstein (born Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Lewinski; 24 November 1887 – 9 June 1973) was a German Field Marshal of the ''Wehrmacht'' during the Second World War, who was subsequently convicted of war crimes and ...
and Siegfried Westphal
__NOTOC__
Siegfried Carl Theodor Westphal (18 March 1902 – 2 July 1982) was a German general in the Wehrmacht during World War II. He served as operations officer under Rommel and chief of staff under Kesselring and Rundstedt. He was a recipi ...
whose memoirs promoted the 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 autho ...
, the notion the Wehrmacht had been a highly professional, apolitical force and its generals were victims of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
rather than his followers.
In reality, the Wehrmacht played a key role in the Holocaust in Eastern Europe and other war crimes. The claims promoted after the war that the Wehrmacht had been an "untarnished shield" with the Army somehow standing apart from the regime it served so loyally was a myth that no serious historian had taken seriously since the 1980s.[
In 2019 the historian David W. Wildermuth noted that while the myth of the "clean Wehrmacht" has been largely dispelled among historians, it retains a following with the general public. He suggested that a reason for this is that few case studies have been published which identify specific units which were involved in war crimes.
]
Portrayal on film
In his 2004 essay "Celluloid Soldiers" about post-war German films, the Israeli historian Omer Bartov
Omer Bartov (Hebrew: עֹמֶר בַּרְטוֹב; pronounced .html" ;"title="oˈmer ˈbartov/nowiki>">oˈmer ˈbartov/nowiki>; born 1954) is the John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History and Professor of History and Profe ...
wrote that German films of the 1950s showed the average German soldier as a heroic victim: noble, tough, brave, honourable and patriotic, while fighting hard in a senseless war for a regime that he did not care for. The ''08/15'' film trilogy of 1954–55 concerns a sensitive young German soldier named Asch (Joachim Fuchsberger
Joachim "Blacky" Fuchsberger (pronounced ; 11 March 1927 – 11 September 2014) was a German actor and television host, best known to a wide German-speaking audience as one of the recurring actors in various Edgar Wallace movies (often a Detecti ...
). No mention is ever made of the genocidal aspects of Germany's war in the East with instead the German soldiers being shown as the victims of a war that they can not fathom the reasons for. Bartov commented that given the intense indoctrination in the Wehrmacht about how the war against the Soviet Union was a war to destroy "Judeo-Bolshevism" that Asch would most definitely have known what they were fighting for.
The war on the Eastern Front was portrayed in a manner that suggested that all who fought in the war were equally victims, but since the focus in the ''08/15'' films is on the unit commanded by Asch inevitably the impression is given that it was German soldiers who were the primary victims of the war. The term 08/15 refers to a type of German machine gun used in World War I that was manufactured in such quantities that "08/15" (german: Nullachtfünfzehn) became German Army slang for anything was standard issue, which implied that Asch and the soldiers under his command were Everyman characters of the war on the Eastern Front. In ''Der Arzt von Stalingrad'' (''The Doctor from Stalingrad'') of 1958, dealing with German POWs in the Soviet Union, the Germans are portrayed as more civilized, humane and intelligent than the Soviets, who are shown for the most part as Mongol savages who brutalized the German prisoners.
Bartov wrote that the portrayal of the Soviet guards as mostly Asian shows disturbing affinities to war-time Nazi propaganda
The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of Nazi polici ...
, where the Red Army was often described as "the Asiatic horde". A recurring theme in ''Der Arzt von Stalingrad'' was that the German soldiers were being punished for crimes that they had not committed. In the 1959 film ''Hunde, wolt ihr ewig leben?'' (''Dogs, do you want to live forever?''), which deals with the Battle of Stalingrad, the focus is on celebrating the heroism of the German soldiers in that battle, who are shown as valiantly holding out against overwhelming odds with no mention at all of what those soldiers were fighting for, namely National Socialist ideology or the Holocaust. Bartov noted that the clear impression that these films give is that the average German soldier who fought on the Eastern Front was a hero worthy of the highest admiration.
This period also saw a number of films that depicted the military resistance to Hitler. In ''Des Teufels General
''The Devil's General'' (german: Des Teufels General) is a 1955 black and white West German film based on the play of the same title by Carl Zuckmayer. The film features Curd Jürgens as General Harras, Marianne Koch, Viktor de Kowa, Karl John ...
'' (''The Devil's General'') of 1954, Bartov commented that in this film, the German officer corps is shown as a group of fundamentally noble and honourable men who happened to be serving an evil regime made up of a small gang of gangsterish misfits totally unrepresentative of German society, which served to exculpate both the officer corps and by extension German society.
Bartov also wrote that German film-makers liked to show the heroic last stand of the 6th Army at Stalingrad, but none has so far showed the 6th Army's massive co-operation with the '' Einsatzgruppen'' in murdering Soviet Jews in 1941 during its march across the Ukraine. Likewise, Bartov commented that German films tended to dwell on the suffering of the 6th Army during the Battle of Stalingrad and its aftermath without reflecting on the fact that it was the Germans who invaded the Soviet Union and that the Russians were fighting to defend their country.
Only with ''Jenseits des Krieges'' (released in the US as ''East of War'') in 1996, a documentary directed by Ruth Beckermann
Ruth Beckermann (born 1952, Vienna) is an Austrian filmmaker and writer.
Beckermann lives and works as an author and filmmaker in Vienna and Paris. Her films have been shown at prestigious festivals (most of them premiered at the Berlin Intern ...
dealing with the public's reaction to the exhibition "War of Extermination" in Vienna in 1995, did a German film admit to ''Wehrmacht'' war crimes being commonplace instead of an exception to the rule. Some veterans in ''Jenseits des Krieges'' denied that the German Army committed any war crimes at all while others express relief at long last that the truth has been told. One critic wrote of the veterans in ''Jenseits des Krieges'' that "Some are sorry for their brutality, while others rationalize such acts as shooting POWs, raping women and butchering Jewish people as part of what soldiers were expected to do".
''Wehrmachtsausstellung''
The ''Wehrmachtsausstellung'' (german: German Army exhibition) was the name for two exhibitions focusing on war crimes of the Wehrmacht committed on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1944. They ran from 1995 to 1999 in the original form, and 2001 to 2004 in a revised form. The exhibitions were arranged by Hannes Heer
Hans Georg Heer (known as ''Hannes'') (born 16 March 1941) is a German historian, chiefly known for the ''Wehrmachtsausstellung'' (German: "Wehrmacht Exhibition") in the 1990s. While controversial at that time, the exhibition is nowadays widely c ...
and travelled to over 33 German and Austrian cities. They were instrumental in breaking down the 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 autho ...
in Germany.
Exhibition about the ''Wehrmacht'' in Poland in 1939
The ''Wehrmachtsausstellung'' only covered the German presence in the Soviet Union between 1941 and 1945 and excluded the German occupation of Poland after September 1939. The Polish exhibition "''Größte Härte ... Verbrechen der Wehrmacht in Polen September/Oktober 1939''", a cooperative effort of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance
The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...
and the German Historical Institute Warsaw was presented on 1 September 2004, in Poland. A German version was presented in 2005. It was scheduled to be shown in Nuremberg
Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
at the Documentation Center of the Nazi Party Rallying Grounds from 1 September 2007 to early 2008.
Analysis of photos and letters
The attitude of German soldiers towards atrocities committed on Jews and Poles in World War II was also studied using photographs and correspondence left after the war. Photographs serve as a valuable source of knowledge; taking them and making albums about the persecution of Jews was a popular custom among German soldiers. These pictures are not the official propaganda of the German state but represent personal experience. Their overall attitude is antisemitic.
German soldiers as well as police members took pictures of Jewish executions, deportations, humiliation and the abuse to which they were also subjected. According to researchers, pictures indicate the consent of the photographers to the abuses and murders committed. "This consent is the result of several factors, including the anti-Semitic ideology and prolonged, intensive indoctrination
Indoctrination is the process of inculcating a person with ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or professional methodologies (see doctrine).
Humans are a social animal species inescapably shaped by cultural context, and thus some degree ...
". Archival evidence as to the reaction to policies of racial extermination can also be traced in various letters that survived the war. Many of these archived letters from ''Wehrmacht'' soldiers often reflect the intensive indoctrination soldiers underwent. The following quote is from a letter written by a noncommissioned officer in the Wehrmacht who wrote home from the Russian front in 1941:
Judith Levin and Daniel Uziel state that this type of writing and opinion was very common in correspondence left by German soldiers, especially on the Eastern Front.
Other samples of German soldiers' letters were sent home and copied during the war by a special Polish Home Army
The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) est ...
cell that infiltrated the German postal system. These letters have been analyzed by historians and the picture they paint is similar to views expressed by Levin and Uziel. Many soldiers wrote openly about the extermination of Jews and were proud of it. Support for "''untermensch
''Untermensch'' (, ; plural: ''Untermenschen'') is a Nazi term for non-Aryan "inferior people" who were often referred to as "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Serbs, and later also Russians). The ...
''" and "master race
The master race (german: Herrenrasse) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology in which the putative " Aryan race" is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as "''Herrenmenschen''" ("master humans").
T ...
" concepts were also part of the attitude expressed by German soldiers. Presented examples reflecting this trend include samples such as:
Much more evidence of such trends and thoughts among ''Wehrmacht'' soldiers exists and is subject to research by historians.
The historians responsible for the exhibition assume that the anti-Semitic climate and propaganda in Nazi Germany had an immense impact on the entire population and emphasize the importance of the indoctrination.
See also
* Chronicles of Terror
Chronicles of Terror is a digital internet archive established by the in August 2016. Initially, it provided access to the depositions of Polish citizens who after World War II were interviewed as witnesses before the Main Commission for the Inve ...
* Clean Wehrmacht myth
* Command responsibility
Command responsibility (superior responsibility, the Yamashita standard, and the Medina standard) is the legal doctrine of hierarchical accountability for war crimes.
* German war crimes
The governments of the German Empire and Nazi Germany (under Adolf Hitler) ordered, organized and condoned a substantial number of war crimes, first in the Herero and Namaqua genocide and then in the First and Second World Wars. The most nota ...
* Nazi crime
Nazi crime or Hitlerite crime ( pl, Zbrodnia nazistowska or ''zbrodnia hitlerowska'') is a legal concept used in the Polish legal system, referring to an action which was carried out, inspired, or tolerated by public functionaries of Nazi Germany ...
* Nazi concentration camps
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as con ...
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:War Crimes Of The Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
Military history of Germany during World War II
Nazi war crimes
Wartime sexual violence in World War II