War Crimes

PLEASE LIST:
* Any Incidences that we know of a war crime being committed on a small, undocumented scale-eg-Wehrmacht sergeant executes 2 Russian POWs.

* Any names and ranks of those involved if possible..oh, and dates

THANKS

 

Well, I think it is a bit hard to know all those little incidents. I actually know about one, quite bigger, but I think it is not adequate to tell it here.

 

Friedrich--it WOULD be alright to tell it here providing people keep an open mind about it. I know you had posted something before on this subject-but I never got to read it as it was deleted before I saw it.

Unfortunately--someone complained about the posting--someone who does NOT contribute anything here and seems to have not been making visits here lately.

 

I agree with Carl. Why can't we talk about this subject? If someone don't want to read it than he skip it. When we tell each other true stories without accusing or insulting people it's ok. The history of war has very much black pages. We must not shut our eyes for that!

 

Hi Volkbert. We can talk about them here its just that Friedrich had posted something on some war crimes and some guy from Isreal got online and blaster Friedrich for telling it. He also accused Friedrichs Opa for being a war criminal due to something that had happened when he and his unit were somewhere in Russia. Friedrichs Opa was a Wehrmacht Oberstleutnant.

 

SPOT ON EVERYONE!
I believe taht if we keep an open mind to it, we can address this topic. War is dark, and this is a side-subject of it, but we can't deny it happened. We should all be mature enough to accept such comments here...

 

Friedrich, I hope we convinced you that you can tell the storie(s). When someone comes up with accussing words I always think that's so easy. In our position it's so easy to say who was wrong and that we will never do it that way. We sit comfortable in our homes, computer on, drink on the table... What about us walking in Russia for years, friends died in battle and from disease, lots of fighting stress... I don't know what I would do.

 

Friedrich-

Do tell, War crimes are a part of war, unfortunately...

 

Well. Thanks for your support. I will do it, although it is a bit hard to tell, but it is also a very deep tale which makes you think about life.

Some months ago, I was reading my grandfather's war diaries, which he keeps in his room. That afternoon he was not at home and I was very curious to know more about his war experiences and real thoughts at the momment. Well, his tales are very good, but they always make me have some doubts. So, that afternoon I found a really hard chapter. I copied it, read it several times and thought a lot about that man who is more than a grandfather to me, like a father, he is the closest adult person to me and has contributed to form my own ideas and character.

I will tell the story, because I have not the diaries not the copy I made to write it literally. And I am sorry if there are some details missing, but that's what I can remember.

It happened in a wood near Kursk in the first two weeks of December 1941. I think on the 10th-12th or something. My grandfather, by then Hauptmann Gottfried von Hammerstein und Hartmann, commander of 3. Batallion, 280. Infanterieregiment, 95. Infanteriedivision, XLVIII Armeekorps, 2. Armee. By this time, it was snowing very hardly, the supplies were too few and the regiment had only half of its men. The morale of the men was very low. Then, my grandfather was called to the regimental headquarters and there the colonel in chief said that he had to take some 20 men and abfertigen (transaltion please...) of some Soviet POWs. My grandfather knew what was it all about. But he didn't complain, he knew it was an order and that it had to be done because there were not enough men watch out the Russians nor enough food to feed them. However, he thought for some hours before telling the men, he didn't find the appropiate words. In the afternoon, like at 6 o'clock he took a sergeant I and 25 men, along with the 150 Russian, unarmed and starving Russians. My grandfather was watching how were the prissoners; they came from every corner of the Soviet Union, you could clearly saw blonde Siberian boys, Kazakhztanian, from central Siberia, etc. All of them were only privates. No officers there. The officers had already been executed. They stopped in a clear, formed the POWs in the centre and then my grandafther hesitated some seconds and then he shouted: 'Feur!' Sub machine guns, rifles and pistols shot altogether and the prisoners started falling down. After some minutes all of them were on the ground, and the men under my grandfather started finishing the job with bayonets, shouting like mad men. They were letting all their anger go out; because of the horrible privations, their dead friends and comrades. My grandfather writes that he came close to a teenager, some 17-year-old with green eyes and kid's face who was still moving. His eyes were full of terror and there was a bit of blood on his mouth. My grandfather took his Luegger and put a bullet in his forehead. After that, the men took all the thick clothing of the corpses, even full of blood and put in on, they were bloody freezing. There was no need of burying some of the corpses, because the snow did.

At night my grandfather could clearly saw the faeces of his men; very, very sad, with a morale even lower than in the morning. They were not cold anymore, but they were all thinking about how beastial they were. He could see some men crying. After that, he went to his tent, cried a lot and then wrote this pityful chapter on his diary.

 

I have often thought what I would do if i were put in the place of German officers ordered to commit atrocities against civilians. Would i disobey orders or follow through with the act..?? Thought provoking post... Thanks...

 

I think that if they would have been civilians then it would have been the men the one who would have refused to do anything.

 

I understand that happens to be the case in your posting but I was talking of other incidents of which I have read. A good case study is Masters Of Death by Richard Rhodes. The killings which he expounds upon are primarily civilians in Eastern Europe/Russia. Its an interesting read because it delves into the psyche of the Einsatzgruppen and how they rationalized the murder of civilians. Not everyone made the prudent choice to disobey the order. So what made seemingly normal people commit such acts?? It was the answer to this question to which i was referring...

Once again, good post. Very thought provoking

 

I have always thought that I could easily carry out such orders, but it would be the aftermath of the incident, and the psychological impact it would have on me that I would be most confronted by...

 

This is truly a subject that´s hard to handle.We know lots of it happened and probably by people who were perfectly normal.Yet capable of doing these horrible crimes whether during combat or in einsatzgruppen or other.

Thanx Friedrich for sharing, it makes me sad to read these things happen, but the war in Russia was more cruel than anything else anywhere else.Mercy was not given or taken.Life was not worth a penny. It is also strange how some men can adapt to this situation. Like Guy Sajer´s book ( in some instances accepted as official history ) or one by an Estonian SS man " I survived " the killing is daily business, and all the horrible things just happen, you become a machine. Then in some books the war is totally awful, every scratch makes you shiver to the bone.

I don´t know if it was Rhodes´s book I read on those killings in Poland, where jews were executed. This was in 1942-43 when 50% of Jews were killed in Europe.Most of these German soldiers were family men according to the book, aged 35-55, and were ordered to do this awful thing. Day after day they took jews to the forests all around Poland and shoot them, and even though the jews knew what was happening, they did not resist too much as having lost their hope all the way? The Germans were not forced to do this, but as an act of "courage" they were forced to do it. Many shot 2-3 times, and left the group, if I remember right some 10-20% did not shoot even once. It was sorta you lost your face if you did not go and do it.Some people went nuts over this killing, and as they were ordered to keep the bayonet between shoulder blades ( the bones either side of upper body ) and thus not shooting in the head and getting the brains all over them, some just kept shooting and their clothes were in blood and pieces of brain. They could not take it. Rather understandable.later on they made Estonian shooting squads and Germans would bring the jews for the killing, and the psychological part would be left away from the Germans. The Estonians would get all the alcohol they needed and shot the jews as long as they could, and after they sobered enought more jews would be brought again. probably they used other nationalities as well, not just Estonian, but the Estonian were known for their ruthfulness, in SS for the Russians as well. Later on Zyklon B was used as the psychological effect was lowered even more.
Many of the Jews were German origin, so as they executed these people they also felt they were doing wrong.They were killing Germans, they thought.

I mentioned as well the Finnish Waffen-SS soldiers and having read a diary by one. It was nothing nice to read, as they were going through villages in 1942 and "killing everyone" everywhere. This is the problem with the partisan war, as they were tired of comrades being killed in ambushes etc.They tried to prevent this by killing those capable of it.It was merely a question "you-or-me".I have no doubt we would do the same in their boots.I don´t think the Russians had any doubt about their doings either. The only thing that could have stopped this was the Hitler´s attitude towards the Russians as by friedly relationship they could have brought the Stalinism down, I think.the Russians would have turned against communism, like many did during the war.But more were against the Germans.

There are moments in war that one might lose his temper and kills POW´s, which is not right, and the person should be put into court.The eastern front was different, the murdering was official and orders were given to fulfill these ideas of destroying bolshevism.Quite horrible, like it turned out to be.

 

Yes sounds like Rhode's take on the matter Kai. The analysis on how such orders were able to be carried out i think proved to be most telling(ie. alcohol, anti-semitic propoganda, fears of communist reprisal etc...) Also, it proved striking to see how people reconciled in their own minds the acts they were commiting.

 

My grandfather did not take part in many atrocities against civilians but he did describe many against the Soviet prisoners. One incident that sticks to my mind was a sweep against civilians outside the city of Minsk. My grandfather was assigned as a staff officer to the 2nd SS. He was pulled out and sent to a sight where the Heeres (yes that is correct) was executing civilians by shooting. This is why it sticks out because many of the Army Generals have denied having units participate in such incidents. Nevertheless, the Army needed a representative of the SS to sign off that the sweep was performed in accordance to orders. There were no Einsatzgruppen in the area, which is why the Army was doing this and the 2nd SS was the closest SS unit. I guess in the eyes of the Army, Waffen SS and SS were all the same. My grandfather signed off on the deaths of 6,000 Jewish civilians. He was an SS Obersturmfuhrer at the time.

 

Kai: You should read about the Pacific Theater sometime if you want to see true horror. War crimes were not limited to the Russians and Germans, US troops were guilty of them also.

 

Somewhat of a note. My grandfather stated that the killing of prisoners started for him in the winter of 41 and went on until he got injured in the retaking of Kharkov. What started it was the execution of German prisoners in the most gruesome manner. German speaking Russians yelling at how they were testing the German superiority and such. After the first instance, my grandfather and his colleagues made a pact not to take prisoners. According to him, they did not unless they had other officers with them. If he was in command, he took part only when there were tortures committed by the Russians in the immediate area. other than that, he left it to the enlisted men. This is a huge contrast to the way it was during the beginning stages of Barbarossa when they just pointed to the rear and left the prisoners on their own.

[ 23 September 2002, 02:51 PM: Message edited by: PzJgr ]

 

And lastly, there was only one incident that happened in the West during the fighting in and around Caen. I do not know and do not think this is what started it but he said that a neighboring regiment came across some bodies that were obvious in the manner of how they were killed. There was a survivor that lasted long enough to relay what happened. Apparently it seemed that the Canadians were angry at the losses inccured by one machine gun nest and brought in some other prisoners captured earlier and started to shot them in specific spots for effect. They did this by the roadside where they were sure to be found. At this time, my grandfather had a cossack short sword that he used a lot in Russia. He let the teens use it against the Canadians captured in the local area. Later on, the order was given to cease all "youthful exuberance".

[ 23 September 2002, 04:22 PM: Message edited by: PzJgr ]

 

Thanks for sharing these stories guys.

It must be hard for people to live with such memories. Without the war they had probably lived their lifes as we do.