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War crimes of the Wehrmacht

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A woman weeps during the deportation of Ionian Jews on March 25, 1944. The deportation was enforced by the German army. Almost all of the people deported were murdered on or shortly after April 11, 1944, when the train carrying them reached Auschwitz-Birkenau.[1][2]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Deportation of Jews of Ioannina March 1944.

War crimes of the Wehrmacht were those carried out by the German armed forces during World War II. While the principal perpetrators of the Holocaust amongst German armed forces were the Nazi German 'political' armies (the SS-Totenkopfverbände and particularly the Einsatzgruppen), the regular armed forces represented by the Wehrmacht committed war crimes of their own, particularly on the Eastern Front in the war against the Soviet Union. The Nuremberg Trials at the end of World War II judged that the Wehrmacht was not an inherently criminal organization, but that it had committed crimes during the course of the war.

War crimes

Some examples of the war crimes of the Wehrmacht committed include:

Invasion of Poland

See also: German AB-Aktion in Poland and Częstochowa massacre
AB-Aktion
A picture taken secretly by the Polish Underground of Nazi Secret Police rounding up Polish intelligentsia at Palmiry near Warsaw in 1940.
LocationPalmiry Forest and other locations in Occupied Poland.
DateSpring - summer 1940
TargetPolish intellectuals and the upper classes.
Attack type
Massacres
WeaponsAutomatic weapons
Deaths7,000
PerpetratorsGermany Nazi Germany

Wehrmacht units killed thousands of Polish civilians during the September 1939 campaign through executions and the terror bombing of cities. After the end of hostilities, during the Wehrmacht's administration of Poland, which went on until October 25, 1939, 531 towns and villages were burned, the Wehrmacht carried out 714 mass executions, alongside mass incidents of plunder, banditry and murder. Altogether, it is estimated that 16,376 Poles fell victim to those atrocities. Approximately 60% of these crimes were committed by the Wehrmacht.[3] Wehrmacht soldiers frequently engaged in the massacres of Jews on their own rather than just assisting in the rounding up of Jews for the SS.[4] In the summer of 1940, Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of the Reich Main Security Office (including the Gestapo) noted that "compared to the crimes, robberies and excesses committed by the army (Wehrmacht), the SS and the police don't look all that bad".[5]

Polish POWs

See also: Massacre in Ciepielów

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 where a further 300 POWs were killed. Polish POWs of Jewish origin were routinely selected and shot on the spot.[6] The prisoners of the POW camp in Żyrardów, captured after the Battle of the Bzura, were denied any food and starved for 10 days.[7] In many cases Polish POWs, were burned alive.[4][8] Units of the Polish 7th Infantry Division were massacred after being captured in several individual acts of revenge for their defense in combat. On September 11, Wehrmacht soldiers threw hand grenades into a school building where they kept Polish POWs.[4]

Mass rapes during the invasion of Poland

Rapes were committed by Wehrmacht forces on women and girls during the Invasion of Poland.[4]

Rapes were also committed against Polish women and girls during mass executions carried out primarily by the Selbstschutz, 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.[9]

Only one case of rape was prosecuted by a German court during the military campaign in Poland, the case of mass rape committed by three soldiers against the Jewish family of Kaufmann in Busko-Zdrój; however the German judge sentenced the guilty for Rassenschande - shame against the [German] race as defined by the racial policy of Nazi Germany and not rape.[10]

Destruction of Warsaw

See also: Battle of Warsaw (1939) and Warsaw Uprising
During World War II 85% of buildings in Warsaw were destroyed by German troops.

Up to 13,000 soldiers and between 120,000 and 200,000 civilians were killed by German-led forces during the Warsaw Uprising. At least 5,000 German regular soldiers assisted the SS in crushing Polish resistance, most of them reserve units.[11] Human shields were used by German forces during the fighting.[12]

Battle of France

Vinkt massacre

Main article: Vinkt Massacre

Between May 25 and May 28, 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 taken. In all, 86 civilians are known to have been executed.

Barbarossa Decree

Destruction of Adam Mickiewicz Monument in Cracow, Poland by German forces on August 17, 1940.

The background behind the Barbarossa Decree was laid out by Adolf Hitler during a high level meeting with military officials on March 30, 1941[13], where he declared that war against Soviet Russia would be a war of extermination, in which both the political and intellectual elites of Russia would be eradicated by German forces, in order to ensure long lasting German victory.[13] Hitler underlined that executions would not be a matter for military courts, but for organised action of the military.[13] The decree, issued by Field Marshal Keitel a few weeks before Operation Barbarossa, 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. Prosecution of offenses against civilians by members of the Wehrmacht was decreed to be "not required" unless necessary for the maintenance of discipline. 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 annihilation of the attackers";
  • Every officer in the German occupation in the East of the future will be entitled to performing 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 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;
  • The German soldiers who committed crimes against humanity, the USSR and prisoners of war were to be exempted from criminal responsibility, even if they committed acts punishable according to German law [13][14]

Before Barbarossa, German troops were exposed to a violent anti-Semitic and anti-Slavic indoctrination via movies, radio, lectures, books and leaflets[15]. The lectures were delivered by "National Socialist Leadership Officers" who were created for that purpose and by their junior officers[16]. The German Army propaganda portrayed the Soviet enemy in the most dehumanized terms, depicting the Red Army as a force of Slavic Untermensch (sub-humans) and “Asiatic” savages engaging in “barbaric Asiatic fighting methods” commanded by evil Jewish commissars whom German troops were to grant no mercy.[17] Typical of the German Army propaganda was the following passage from a pamphlet issued in June 1941:

“Anyone who has ever looked into the face of a Red commissar knows what the Bolsheviks are. There is no need here for theoretical reflections. It would be an insult to animals if one were to call the features of these, largely Jewish, tormentors of people beasts. They are the embodiment of the infernal, of the personified insane hatred of everything that is noble in humanity. In the shape of these commissars we witness the revolt of the subhuman against noble blood. The masses whom they are driving to their deaths with every means of icy terror and lunatic incitement would have brought about an end of all meaningful life, had the incursion not been prevented at the last moment” [the last statement is a reference to the “preventive war” that Barbarossa was alleged to be]"[18]

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.[19] One German soldier wrote home to his father on August 4, 1941 that:

“The pitful hordes on the other side are nothing but felons who are driven by alcohol and the [commissars'] threat of pistols at their heads...They are nothing but a bunch of assholes!...Having encountered these Bolshevik hordes and having seen how they live has made a lasting impression on me. Everyone, even the last doubter knows today, that the battle against these sub-humans, who've been whipped into a frenzy by the Jews, was not only necessary but came in the nick of time. Our Führer has saved Europe from certain chaos".[20]

As a result of these views, the majority of the German Army worked enthusiastically with the SS in murdering Jews in the Soviet Union. The British historian Richard J. Evans wrote that juior officers tended to be especially zealous National Socialists with a third of them being Nazi Party members in 1941[21].

The order went in line with the interests of the Wehrmacht command which was eager to secure logistical facilities and routes behind the frontline for the division on the Eastern Front[14]. On May 24 1941, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch, the head of German Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres - OKH), slightly modified the assumptions of "Barbarossa Jurisdiction." His orders were to use the jurisdiction only in cases where the discipline of the army would not suffer. Contrary to what was claimed after the war, the Wehrmacht generals such as Heinz Guderian, did not intend to mitigate the records of the jurisdiction of an order, or in any way violated Hitler's intentions.[14] His command was intended solely to prevent individual excesses which could damage discipline within army ranks, without changing the extermination intentions of the order/[13]

Commissar Order

Main article: Commissar Order

The order cast the war against Russia as one of ideological and racial differences and provided for the immediate liquidation of political commissars in the Red Army. The order was formulated on Hitler's behalf in 1941 by the Wehrmacht command and distributed to field commanders.

In the summer of 1942, there was an illusory liberalization of the treatment of captured political officers. On June 10, 1942, the Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller 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 concentration camp. However, this did not change the situation of commissars much, as Mauthausen was one of the worst German concentration camps where they usually waited for a slow death. On October 20 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.[13]

In the following months reports continued to be filed regarding the executions of Soviet commissars.[13] The last known account of the liquidation of a political officer came from units of Army Group South in July 1943.[13].

Mass Rapes

Rapes were allowed in practice by the German military in eastern and southeastern Europe, while northern and western countries were spared.[22] Historian Szymon Datner wrote in his work about the fate of POWs taken by the Wehrmacht, that thousands of Soviet female nurses, doctors and field medics fell victim to rape when captured, and had often been murdered afterwards.[13] Ruth Seifert in War and Rape. Analytical Approaches wrote: "in the Eastern territories the Wehrmacht used to brand the bodies of captured partisan women - and other women as well - with the words "Whore for Hitler's troops" and to use them accordingly."[23]

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.[24] If a soldier who committed a rape was subsequently convicted by a court-martial, he would usually be sentenced to four years in prison.[25] The German penal code was also valid for soldiers in war.[26]

Rapes were rarely prosecuted in practice; in Denmark German rapes were not widespread, even though German officials promised to punish them.[22]

Rape by Germans of non-German women was not taken seriously, nor was it punishable by death, especially in the eastern European territories.[27]

In Soviet Russia rapes were only a concern if they undermined military discipline[24]. The German military command viewed them as another method of crushing Soviet resistance. [27] Since 1941, rape was theoretically punishable with the death sentence, however this only concerned the rapes of German women and was intended to protect German communities.[27]

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 rapes”.[27] There were rape cases in the east where the perpetrators were sentenced if the rape was highly visible, damaging to the image of the German Army and the courts were willing to pass a condemning verdict against the accused.[27]

According to the historian Regina Mühlhäuser the Wehrmacht also used sexual torture and undressing in numerous cases of interrogations.[28]

Estimates regarding the rapes of Soviet women by the Wehrmacht reached up to 10,000,000 cases, with between 750,000 and 1,000,000 children born as a result.[27][29][30][31]

Wehrmacht brothel system

Main article: German military brothels in World War II

The Wehrmacht also ran brothels where women were forced to work.[23][32] The reason for establishing these brothels was the German officials fear of veneral diseases and onanism (masturbation). The Oberfeldarzt der Wehrmacht (Chief Field Doctor of the Wehrmacht) drew attention to "the danger of [the] spread of homosexualism".[10][33]

On May 3, 1941 the Foreign Ministry of the Polish Government in Exile 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.[10]

In the Soviet Union women were kidnapped by German forces for prostitution; one report by the International Military Tribunal stated that "in the city of Smolensk 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."[34]

Nuremberg Trials

The Nuremberg trials did not prosecute anyone for rape or other sexual violence; rape was defined as a crime against humanity, but prosecution was not included because such crimes had "no nexus to war". [27]

POW maltreatment

POW Camps

See also: Prisoner of war and Geneva Convention (1929)

The Third Geneva Convention (1929) 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 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 conditions 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 like typhus 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.

Between the launching of Operation Barbarossa in the summer of 1941 and the following spring, 2.8 million of the 3.2 million prisoners taken died while in German hands.[35] 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.[35]

A grand total of 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.[36]

Massacres

The killing of POWs by Wehrmacht soldiers started during the September 1939 campaign in Poland. 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 commandos whether uniformed or not.

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.[37]

After the Italian armistice 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 at Kefalonia is the most infamous.

On March 26 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 and executed by firing squad in December 1945.[38][39]


Night and Fog Decree

Commemorative plaque of the French victims at Hinzert concentration camp, using the expressions "Nacht und Nebel" and "NN-Deported"

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 to make them disappear without a 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."

Reprisal actions

See also: Partisan (military)
A German soldier in front of a sign erected after the razing of Kandanos, Crete 1941. The sign roughly translates to "Kandanos was destroyed in reprisal of the brutal murders of paratrooper and pioneer convoys in an ambush by armed men and women."
Murder of Greek civilians in Kondomari, Crete by German Paratroopers 1941

In Yugoslavia and Greece, many villages were razed and their inhabitants murdered during anti-partisan operations. Examples in Greece include the massacres of Kondomari, Distomo, Kommeno, Drakeia and Kalavryta, the razing of Kandanos and the holocaust of Viannos.

In occupied Poland and the USSR, hundreds of villages were wiped out and their inhabitants murdered. In the USSR, captured Soviet and Jewish partisans were used to sweep fields of land mines.

In a number of occupied countries, the Wehrmacht's response to partisan attacks by resistance movements was to take and shoot hostages. Examples are Putten, Oradour-sur-Glane, Telavåg and Lidice. As many as 100 hostages were murdered for every German killed. In 1944, prior to and after the D-Day invasion, the French Resistance and the Maquis increased their activities against all German organisations, including the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS.

In issuing orders for hostage-taking, Keitel stated that "it is important that these should include well-known personalities or members of their families." A Wehrmacht commander in France stated that "the better known the hostages to be shot, the greater will be the deterrent effect on the perpetrators." Author William Shirer stated that over 30,000 hostages are believed to have been executed in the West alone.[citation needed] The Wehrmacht's hostage policy was also pursued in Greece, Yugoslavia, Scandinavia, and Poland.

Postwar views

At the end of the war in 1945, several Wehrmacht generals made a statement that defended the actions against partisans, the executions of hostages and the use of slave labor as necessary to the war effort. The generals contended that the Holocaust was committed by the SS and its partner organizations, and that the Wehrmacht command had been unaware of these actions in the death camps. The statement said that the armed forces had fought honorably and left the impression that the Wehrmacht had not committed war crimes.

However, a number of high-ranking Wehrmacht officers stood trial for war crimes. The OKW commander-in-chief Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and chief of operations staff Alfred Jodl were indicted and tried for war crimes by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1946. Both 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 respect to the Wehrmacht General Staff and High Command. The accused were members of the Nazi Party itself and were executing the parties beliefs through their rank. The German Wehrmacht along with Allied Armies committed what are classified as war crimes. The SS and political "Armed" groups committed what is classified as crimes against humanity.

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 soldiers and officers 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 of today which minimize the number of soldiers who took part in Nazi crimes.[40] 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.[citation needed]

In his 2004 essay "Celluloid Soldiers" about post-war German films, the Israeli historian Omer Bartov 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[41]. The 08/15 film trilogy of 1954-55 concerns a sensitive young German soldier who rather be playing the piano who fights on the Eastern Front without understanding why, and no mention is made of genocidal aspects of Germany's war in East[42]. The last of the 08/15 films ends with Germany occupied by a gang of American soldiers portrayed as bubble-gum chewing, slack-jawed morons and uncultured louts, totally inferior in every respect to the heroic German soldiers shown in the 08/15 films[43]. The only exception is the Jewish American officer, who is shown as both hyper-intelligent and very unscrupulous, which Bartov noted seems to imply that the real tragedy of World War II was the Nazis did not get a chance to exterminate all of the Jews, who have now returned with Germany's defeat to once more exploit the German people[44].

In Der Arzt von Stalingrad (1958) dealing with German POWs in the Soviet Union, Germans are portrayed as more civilized, humane and intelligent than the Soviets, who are showed for the most part as Mongol savages who brutalized the German POWs[45]. One of the German POWs successfully seduces the beautiful and tough Red Army Captain Alexandra Kasalniskaya (Eva Bartok) who prefers him to the sadistic camp commandant, which as Bartov comments also is meant to show that even in defeat, German men were more sexually virile and potent than their Russian counterparts[46]. Bartov wrote the portrayal of the Soviet guards as mostly Asian show disturbing affinities to war-time Nazi propaganda, where the Red Army was often described as “the Asiatic hordes”[47]. A recurring theme in Der Arzt von Stalingrad was that the German soldiers were being punished for crimes that they had not committed”[48]. 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 solider 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[49]. This period also saw a number of films that depicted the military resistance to Hitler. In Des Teufels General (The Devil's General) of 1954, a Luftwaffe general named Harras loosely modeled after Ernst Udet, appears at first to be cynical fool, but turns out to an anti-Nazi who is secretly sabotaging the German war effort by designing faulty planes[50]. 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 Germany society[51]. Bartov wrote no German film of the 1950s showed the deep commitment felt by many German soldiers to National Socialism, the utter ruthless way the German Army fought the war and the mindless nihilist brutality of the later Wehrmacht[52]. Bartov 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[53]. Likewise, Bartov commented that German films tended to dwell on the suffering on 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 in defense of their country[54]. Bartov wrote that as late as the 1991 film Mein Krieg (My War), featuring footage of six German veterans interviewed in 1991 juxposted with their amateur films the veterans shot during the war contains strong hints that the soldiers interviwed saw and/or were involved in war crimes with at one point a mass grave of civilians in Russia being glimpsed in the background during one of the amateur films, but the point is not pressed by the film-makers[55]. Only with Jenseits des Krieges (released in the U.S as East of War) in 1996, a documentary directed by Ruth Beckermann 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[56]. Some of German Army veterans in Jenseits des Krieges denied that German Army committed any war crimes at all while others express relief at long last the truth has been told[57].

Wehrmachtsausstellung

Main article: Wehrmachtsausstellung

Original exhibition, 1995–1999

The view of the "unblemished" Wehrmacht was challenged by an exhibition produced by the Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung (Hamburg Institute for Social Research) [2] titled Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941 bis 1944 ("War of Annihilation. Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941 to 1944"). The traveling exhibition, seen by an estimated 1.2 million visitors over the last decade, asserted with the support of written documents and photographs that the Wehrmacht was "involved in planning and implementing a war of annihilation against Jews, prisoners of war, and the civilian population". Historians Hannes Heer and Gerd Hankel had prepared it. The exhibition became controversial and required some changes when some allegations were made that a relatively small portion of the photographs presented did not in fact document what was alleged (these criticisms were subsequently addressed and the main thrust of the allegations were judged to be sound in an investigation; see below).

Criticism

After criticisms about the incorrect attribution and captioning of some of the images in the exhibition by Polish historian Bogdan Musial and Hungarian historian Krisztián Ungváry, the head and founder of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research, Jan Philipp Reemtsma, suspended the display pending a review of its content by a committee of historians. In 1999, the institute transferred the exhibition to a "Trägerverein". Hannes Heer resigned from his post as "Leiter"; in 2000 he resigned from the institute as well. Reports had surfaced about his extreme left-wing past during which he had been sentenced several times.[citation needed].

The committee's report [3] in 2000 stated that accusations of forged materials were not justified. It suggested some of the exhibition's documentation were inaccurate. Even so, the committee reaffirmed the reliability of the exhibition in general:

"The fundamental statements made in the exhibition about the Wehrmacht and the war of annihilation in 'the east' are correct. It is indisputable that, in the Soviet Union, the Wehrmacht not only 'entangled' itself in genocide perpetrated against the Jewish population, in crimes perpetrated against Soviet POWs and in the fight against the civilian population, but in fact participated in these crimes, playing at times a supporting, at times a leading role. These were not isolated cases of 'abuse' or 'excesses'; they were activities based on decisions reached by top level military leaders or troop leaders on or behind the front lines."[58]

The committee recommended that the exhibition be reopened in a revised form, presenting the material, and as far as possible, leaving the formation of conclusions to the exhibition's viewers. It said that "the key statements made in the exhibition about the Wehrmacht and the war of annihilation in 'the east' do not have to be revised, but must be safeguarded from misunderstandings."

Revised exhibition, 2001–2004

The revised exhibition was now named Verbrechen der Wehrmacht: Dimensionen des Vernichtungskrieges 1941–1944.(Crimes of the German Wehrmacht: Dimensions of a War of Annihilation 1941-1944).[59] It focuses on Public international law and travelled from 2001 to 2004. Since then, it has permanently been at the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin.

Movie

The documentary Der unbekannte Soldat ("The Unknown Soldier") by Michael Verhoeven was in cinemas from August 2006, it has been available on DVD since February 2007. It compares the two versions of the exhibition and brings out the background of its maker Jan Philipp Reemtsma, heir of the Reemtsma tobacco company which had held a reported 60% market share in Nazi Germany.

Exhibition about the Wehrmacht in Poland in 1939

One criticism was that both exhibitions 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 and the Deutsches Historisches Institut in Warsaw, was presented on September 1 2004, in Poland, and in 2005 in a German version ([4] [5]). It was scheduled to be shown in Nuremberg at the Documentation Center of the Nazi Party Rallying Grounds from September 1, 2007 to early 2008. [6]

Analysis of photos and letters

German soldiers photographing the hanging of Soviet partisans

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, as taking them and making albums about the persecution of Jews was a popular custom among German soldiers. These pictures are not official propaganda of the German state and represent personal experience. Their overall attitude is antisemitic.[60] 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.[60] "This consent is the result of several factors, including the antisemitic ideology and prolonged, intensive indoctrination."[60] Archival evidence as to the reaction to policies of racial extermination can also be traced in various letters that survived the war.[60] Many letters from Wehrmacht soldiers were published in 1941 and entitled "German Soldiers See the Soviet Union"; this publication includes authentic letters from soldiers on the Eastern front. To give an example of the intensive indoctrination "that transcends the mere results of military service" researchers Judith Levin and Daniel Uziel quote a German soldier writing:

"The German people is deeply indebted to the Fuehrer, because if these animals, our enemies here, had reached Germany, murders of a nature not yet witnessed in the world would have occurred.... No newspaper can describe what we have seen. It verges on the unbelievable, and even the Middle Ages do not compare with what has transpired here. Reading Der Stuermer and observing its photos give only a limited impression of what we have seen here and of the crimes committed here by the Jews."

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.[60]

Other samples of German soldiers' letters were sent home and copied during the war by a special Polish Home Army cell that infiltrated the German postal system.[61] These letters have been analyzed by historians and the picture they paint is similar to views expressed by Judith Levin and Daniel Uziel. Many soldiers wrote openly about the extermination of Jews and were proud of it. Support for "untermensch" and "master race" concepts were also part of the attitude expressed by German soldiers.[61] Presented examples reflecting this trend include samples such as:

"I'm one of those who are decreasing [the] number of partisans. I put them against the wall and everyone gets a bullet in his head, [a] very merry and interesting job".
And:
"My point of view: this nation deserves only the knaut, only by it can they be educated; a part of them already experienced that; others still try to resist. Yesterday I had [the] possibility to see 40 partisans, something like that I had never encountered before. I became convinced that we are the masters, others are untermenschen."[61].

Much more evidence of such trends and thoughts among Wehrmacht soldiers exists and is subject to research by historians[60].

The historians responsible for the exhibition assume that the antisemitic climate and propaganda in Nazi Germany had an immense impact on the entire population and emphasize the importance of the indoctrination.[60]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and Museum, The Holocaust in Ioannina URL accessed January 5, 2009
  2. ^ Raptis, Alekos and Tzallas, Thumios, Deportation of Jews of Ioannina, Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and Museum, July 28, 2005 URL accessed January 5, 2009
  3. ^ Lukas, Richard C. Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation 1939-1944. Davies, Norman. Hippocrene Books. ISBN 0-7818-0901-0.
  4. ^ a b c d Datner, Szymon (1967). 55 Dni Wehrmachtu w Polsce (in Polish). Warsaw: Wydawn, Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej. pp. 67–74. OCLC 12624404. {{cite book}}: Check |first= value (help); Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help) Cite error: The named reference "Datner" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  5. ^ Jochen Bohler, "Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu w Polse" (Wehrmacht's crimes in Poland), Znak, 2009, pg. 260
  6. ^ S. Krakowski, The Fate of Jewish Prisoners of War in the September 1939 Campaign, YVS 1977, vol 12, p. 300
  7. ^ * Böhler, Jochen (2006). Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg; Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939 (in German). Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. p. 189. ISBN 3-596-16307-2.
  8. ^ Boehler, pp. 183-184
  9. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20071029144245/http://www.kki.net.pl/~museum/rozdz3,2.htm
  10. ^ a b c Numer: 17/18/2007 Wprost "Seksualne Niewolnice III Rzeszy"
  11. ^ "Most Wehrmacht regular units were held back in reserve, since this was to be an SS-run 'special action'." Forczyk, Robert and Dennis, Peter: Warsaw 1944: Poland's Bid for Freedom. Osprey Publishing, 2009, page 51. ISBN 1846033527
  12. ^ Marilouise Kroker, "Critical digital studies: a reader", University of Toronto Press, 2008, pg. 260, [1]
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu na jeńcach wojennych w II Wojnie Światowej Szymon Datner Warsaw 1961 page 215,pages 97-117, 137
  14. ^ a b c Geoffrey P. Megargee: Front Wschodni 1941. Wojna na wyniszczenie. Warszawa: Świat Książki, pages 65, 70-71 2009
  15. ^ Evans, Richard In Hitler's Shadow,New York: Pantheon, 1989 page 59.
  16. ^ Evans, Richard In Hitler's Shadow,New York: Pantheon, 1989 page 59.
  17. ^ Förster 2004, p 126
  18. ^ Förster 2004, p 127
  19. ^ Förster 2004, p 127
  20. ^ Förster 2004, p 127
  21. ^ Evans, Richard In Hitler's Shadow,New York: Pantheon, 1989 page 59.
  22. ^ a b Surviving Hitler and Mussolini: daily life in occupied Europe Robert Gildea, Olivier Wieviorka, Anette Warring page 90 Berg Publishers, 2006
  23. ^ a b Ruth Seifert. "War and Rape. Analytical Approaches1". Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Retrieved March 12, 2010.
  24. ^ a b Gender and the World Wars: An Integrated Epoch of Change
  25. ^ Beck 2002, p. 263
  26. ^ Birgit Beck: Vergewaltigungen. Sexualdelikte von Soldaten vor Militärgerichten der deutschen Wehrmacht, 1939-1944, in: Karen Hagemann/Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (Hrsg.): Heimat-Front. Militär und Geschlechterverhältnisse im Zeitalter der Weltkriege, Frankfurt 2002, p. 259
  27. ^ a b c d e f g Gertjejanssen, Wendy Jo. 2004. “Victims, Heroes, Survivors: Sexual Violence on the Eastern Front during World War II.” PhD diss., University of Minnesota.
  28. ^ Alison, Miranda; Bergoffen, Debra; Bos, Pascale; du Toit, Louise; Mühlhäuser, Regina; Zipfel, Gaby (May 2010). ""My plight is not unique" Sexual violence in conflict zones: a roundtable discussion". Mittelweg 36. Eurozine.
  29. ^ A 1942 Wehrmacht document suggested that the Nazi leadership considered implementing a special policy for the eastern front through which the estimated 750,000 babies born through sexual contact between German soldiers and Russian women (an estimate deemed very conservative), could be identified and claimed to be racially German. (It was suggested that the middle names Friedrich or Luise be added to the birth certificates of male and female babies.) Although the plan was not implemented, such documents suggest that the births that resulted from rapes and other forms of sexual contact were deemed beneficial, increasing the “Aryan” race rather than as adding to the inferior Slavic race. The underlying ideology suggests that German rape and other forms of sexual contact may need to be seen as conforming to a larger military strategy of racial and territorial dominance. (Pascale R . Bos, Feminists Interpreting the Politics of Wartime Rape: Berlin, 1945; Yugoslavia, 1992–1993 Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2006, vol. 31, no. 4, p.996-1025)
  30. ^ Jews, Germans, and Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied Germany Atina Grossmann page 290
  31. ^ http://www.gegenwind.info/175/sonderheft_wehrmacht.pdf
  32. ^ Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (PDF). Vol. 7. Nuremberg, Germany oclc = 300473195: International military tribunal - Nuremberg. 1947. p. 456. {{cite book}}: Missing pipe in: |location= (help)CS1 maint: location (link)
  33. ^ Do burdelu, marsz! Joanna Ostrowska, Marcin Zaremba November 4, 2009 Polityka
  34. ^ War crimes against women: prosecution in international war crimes tribunals Kelly Dawn Askin page 72
  35. ^ a b Davies (2006), p. 271
  36. ^ Evans (2008), p. 185
  37. ^ Scheck, R. (2006). Hitler's African Victims. Cambridge University Press. Excerpt.
  38. ^ The Dostler Case
  39. ^ Dostler defense
  40. ^ Guilt, Suffering, and Memory: Germany Remembers Its Dead of World War II Gilad Margalit page 3 Indiana University Press 2009
  41. ^ Bartov 2004, pages 134-135.
  42. ^ Bartov 2004, page 136.
  43. ^ Bartov 2004, page 136.
  44. ^ Bartov 2004, page 136.
  45. ^ Bartov 2004, page 137.
  46. ^ Bartov 2004, page 137.
  47. ^ Bartov 2004, page 137.
  48. ^ Bartov 2004, page 137.
  49. ^ Bartov 2004, page 138.
  50. ^ Bartov 2004, pages 132-133.
  51. ^ Bartov 2004, page 133
  52. ^ Bartov 2004, page 135.
  53. ^ Bartov 2004, page 139.
  54. ^ Bartov 2004, page 139.
  55. ^ Bartov 2004, pages 140-141.
  56. ^ Bartov 2004, page 141
  57. ^ Bartov 2004, page 142
  58. ^ "Crimes of the German Wehrmacht: Dimensions of a War of Annihilation 1941-1944: An outline of the exhibition" (PDF). Hamburg Institute for Social Research. Retrieved March 12, 2006.
  59. ^ "Verbrechen der Wehrmacht. Dimensionen des Vernichtungskrieges 1941—1944". Retrieved March 12, 2006.
  60. ^ a b c d e f g Ordinary Men, Extraordinary Photos" Judith Levin and Daniel Uziel Yad Vashem Institute Yad Vashem Studies, No. 26
  61. ^ a b c Niemieckie listy ze wschodu Polityka - nr 51 (2483) December 18, 2004; Jerzy Kochanowski, Marcin Zaremba

References

  • Bartov, Omer (1986). The Eastern Front, 1941-45 : German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare. New York: St. Martin’s Press. ISBN 0312224869.
  • Bartov, Omer (1991). Hitler’s Army : Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195068793.
  • Bartov, Omer (2004). "Celluloid Soldiers: Cinematic Images of the Wehrmacht (pages 130-143)". In Ljubica & Mark Erickson (ed.). Russia War, Peace and Diplomacy. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0297849131.
  • Beck, Birgit (2002). "Vergewaltigungen. Sexualdelikte von Soldaten vor Militärgerichten der deutschen Wehrmacht, 1939-1944". In Karen Hagemann/Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (Hrsg.) (ed.). Heimat-Front. Militär und Geschlechterverhältnisse im Zeitalter der Weltkriege. Frankfurt: Campus. ISBN 9783593368375.
  • Davies, Norman (2006). Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory. London: Pan Books. ISBN 9780330352123.
  • Evans, Richard J. (2008). The Third Reich at War. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 9780713997422.
  • Förster, Jürgen (2004). "The German Military's Image of Russia (pages 117-129)". In Ljubica & Mark Erickson (ed.). Russia War, Peace and Diplomacy. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0297849131.
  • Fritz, Stephen G. (1997). Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier in World War II. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-0943-4.
  • Heer, Hannes (ed.) (1995). Vernichtungskrieg: Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941-1944 (War of Annihilation: Crimes of the Wehrmacht). Hamburg: Hamburger Edition HIS Verlag. ISBN 3-930908-04-2. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |other= ignored (|others= suggested) (help)
  • Rossino, Alexander B. (2005). Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity. Modern War Studies. ISBN 0-7006-1392-7.
  • Scheck, Raffael (2006). Hitler's African Victims: The German Army Massacres of Black French Soldiers in 1940. ISBN 0-521-85799-6.
  • Wheeler-Bennett, Sir John (2005). The Nemesis of Power: German Army in Politics, 1918-1945. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
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