# Dunkirk massacres



## merlin (Aug 4, 2008)

I have just completed: 'Dunkirk' by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, an excellent book, well written, and well researched.

What I didn't know previously though was the German treatment of prisoners, and indeed Belgian civilains! 

At Le Paradis 27 May '40, 97 British Pows were killed by members of the 1st Battlion, the SS Totenkopf Division's 2nd Infantry Regiment.

At Vinkt in Belgium, after a determined defense by the 1st Chasseurs Ardennais Division. The 1st Battlion of the 225 Division's 377th Regiment, was principally responsible for slaughtering seventy-eight civilians - 'including around forty in one short spell of frenzied killing in Vinkt's main street'!

Also at Wormhout, where after a long battle, again British Pows were killed. From the 1947 war Crimes interrogation Unit report -
"This report gives the known details of the wilful murder after capture by German soldiers of approximately 80 or 90 men of the 2nd Battlion, the Royal Warwickshire regiment, the Cheshire Regiment and the Royal Artillery on the 28th of May 1940 near the vilage of Wormhout in northern France."
It was the SS again - this time the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler Regiment.

So, it just happen on the barbarous Eastern Front, the SS regular German Army seemed to have got some practise in before hand. 

What was even more disturbing, was that it wasn't some isolated soldiers who just got 'carried away' but orchestrated by officers in a mad revenge for casualties incurred!


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## syscom3 (Aug 4, 2008)

Anyone who subscribed to the Nazi ideology was already a war criminal in waiting.


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## RabidAlien (Aug 4, 2008)

In the Nazi's eyes, they were the only "humans", so the indescriminate killing of others (POW's or civilians) was probably no more, to them, than stepping on a roach or poisoning a rat. Total and complete psychopaths, all of them (Nazi's that is).


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## Thorlifter (Aug 4, 2008)

It will never cease to amaze me how people can be so manipulated by others. Nazi's, Khmer Rouge, Jim Jones, etc.


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## Kurfürst (Aug 5, 2008)

merlin said:


> So, it just happen on the barbarous Eastern Front, the SS regular German Army seemed to have got some practise in before hand.



Read up a bit on Normandy. Executing PoWs was quite regularly done by Allied units as well. It was Allied 'practice' as well. 

Such incidents happened during - and even after - the war, on both sides. It is IMHO wrong to judge these by the results alone, without knowing all the details, and to make far-reaching conclusions about an entire army of several million men, without knowing if the criminals were punished later or it was accepted as a 'normal' conduct. Amongst a million men, there will always be a few hundred villains, no matter what side.


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## RabidAlien (Aug 5, 2008)

Agreed, Kurfurst. And if Germany had won, our troops would be the evil ones held up for all the world to see our barbaric ways. The SS seemed to draw all the nutzoid villains, though.


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## merlin (Aug 6, 2008)

I grant the likelyhood that in Normandy, Allied troops shot some Germans who were intending to surrender.
However, I think there is a distinction between what happened in the 'heat of battle' and what happened in the Dunkirk area. Where SS troops who had British troops in their custody - their surrender had been accepted, and later escorted them to a brick wall where a couple of machine guns mowned them down, to be followed by by the _coup de grace_ of a rifle-butt to the skull or pistol shot for the wounded.
The regular German Army on finding the bodies investigated, but the report got filed!


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## merlin (Aug 6, 2008)

For further information I will try to add the relevant links.
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinkt_massacre
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhoudt_massacre
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Paradis_massacre

Hope that helps.


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## trackend (Aug 6, 2008)

Imo you cannot exterminate millions on the scale of the Nazis/Germans with a few hundred villians here and there it was the Nazis/Germans who set out to deliberately exterminate entire races from the face of the planet and albeit very wrong for the war crimes metted out by the allies it never came close to the treatment handed out to the Jews,mentally ill, gypsies, Russians etc, etc, etc.


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## JugBR (Aug 6, 2008)

RabidAlien said:


> In the Nazi's eyes, they were the only "humans", so the indescriminate killing of others (POW's or civilians) was probably no more, to them, than stepping on a roach or poisoning a rat. Total and complete psychopaths, all of them (Nazi's that is).



if was only the nazis...


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## parsifal (Aug 6, 2008)

I have a book on the Dunkirk evacuation , "_Dunkirk - The British Evacuation, 1940_" Robert Jackson, Rigel Publications, 1974, 2002, revised 2004. It corroborates that the nazis were systematically murdering prisoners immediately after the finish of the battle. 

It is still a war crime to excecute a prisoner without the right to a trial. I think the difference between the allied and German episodes is the magnitude of the crime. there was never any order to summarily kill German POWs. In germany ther was, the infamous "kill the commandoes" order of 1942. But as these reports clearly demonstrate, it did not take an order from Hitler to reduce the german army to the most animalistic behaviour imaginable.


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## JugBR (Aug 6, 2008)

ill research about those massacres in dunkirk

what i know is that germans usually killed many russian soldiers that way, and russians did the same with germans.


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## pbfoot (Aug 6, 2008)

merlin said:


> I grant the likelyhood that in Normandy, Allied troops shot some Germans who were intending to surrender.
> However, I think there is a distinction between what happened in the 'heat of battle' and what happened in the Dunkirk area. Where SS troops who had British troops in their custody - their surrender had been accepted, and later escorted them to a brick wall where a couple of machine guns mowned them down, to be followed by by the _coup de grace_ of a rifle-butt to the skull or pistol shot for the wounded.
> The regular German Army on finding the bodies investigated, but the report got filed!


14% of Canadian Fatalities in Normandy was the killing of surrendered troops by the Germans some where abouts a 150


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## JugBR (Aug 6, 2008)

pb where i can find info about that ?


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## pbfoot (Aug 6, 2008)

JugBR said:


> pb where i can find info about that ?


Gateway | March Issue Story 2
this link looks pretty good
Gateway | March Issue Story 2


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## merlin (Aug 7, 2008)

merlin said:


> For further information I will try to add the relevant links.
> http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinkt_massacre
> http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhoudt_massacre
> http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Paradis_massacrehttp://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/le_Paradis_massacre
> ...



Sorry (well 'try' was the operative word), I'll have another go!!Vinkt massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wormhoudt massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Better luck this time.


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## Kurfürst (Aug 7, 2008)

parsifal said:


> there was never any order to summarily kill German POWs. In germany ther was, the infamous "kill the commandoes" order of 1942. But as these reports clearly demonstrate, it did not take an order from Hitler to reduce the german army to the most animalistic behaviour imaginable.



Ironic isn't it.

The _Kommandobefehl_ was specifically issued because British Commandoes did not take prisoners beforehand.

_1. For a long time now our opponents have been employing in their conduct of the war, methods which contravene the International Convention of Geneva. The members of the so-called Commandos behave in a particularly brutal and underhand manner; and it has been established that those units recruit criminals not only from their own country but even former convicts set free in enemy territories. From captured orders it emerges that they are instructed not only to tie up prisoners, but also to kill out-of-hand unarmed captives who they think might prove an encumbrance to them, or hinder them in successfully carrying out their aims. Orders have indeed been found in which the killing of prisoners has positively been demanded of them.

2. In this connection it has already been notified in an Appendix to Army Orders of 7.10.1942. that in future, Germany will adopt the same methods against these Sabotage units of the British and their Allies; i.e. that, whenever they appear, they shall be ruthlessly destroyed by the German troops.

3. I order, therefore:

From now on all men operating against German troops in so-called Commando raids in Europe or in Africa, are to be annihilated to the last man. This is to be carried out whether they be soldiers in uniform, or saboteurs, with or without arms; and whether fighting or seeking to escape; and it is equally immaterial whether they come into action from Ships and Aircraft, or whether they land by parachute. Even if these individuals on discovery make obvious their intention of giving themselves up as prisoners, no pardon is on any account to be given. On this matter a report is to be made on each case to Headquarters for the information of Higher Command.

4. Should individual members of these Commandos, such as agents, saboteurs etc., fall into the hands of the Armed Forces through any means - as, for example, through the Police in one of the Occupied Territories - they are to be instantly handed over to the S.D.

To hold them in military custody - for example in P.O.W. Camps, etc., - even if only as a temporary measure, is strictly forbidden.

5. This order does not apply to the treatment of those enemy soldiers who are taken prisoner or give themselves up in open battle, in the course of normal operations, large scale attacks; or in major assault landings or airborne operations. Neither does it apply to those who fall into our hands after a sea fight, nor to those enemy soldiers who, after air battle, seek to save their lives by parachute.

6. I will hold all Commanders and Officers responsible under Military Law for any omission to carry out this order, whether by failure in their duty to instruct their units accordingly, or if they themselves act contrary to it.

A Hitler_

In Normandy, Micheal Raynolds in 'Steel Inferno' describes that there were cases of Canadians used Germans PoWs tied up onto tanks as human shields. IIRC Reynolds also describes one Canadian(?) Sgt. that no prisoners were taken (though my memory is a bit hazy on the latter).

George Hopp also had a rather eye opening post at TOCH - to quote him:

_'In Normandy, where the Poles and Canadians fought side-by-side, the Poles would simply march German PoWs in front of a table, behind which an officer sat, declare them war criminals and shoot them. End of story. This was watched by a friend of mine in the Canadian Army.'_

Pretending it happened only on one side, or that even it happened it was an exceedingly rare even is to kid ourselves. War is not clean, its brutal. I will even risk that we, sitting confortably in our armchairs, sipping cofee in our air conditioned offices, have very little right to judge those men 60 years ago, fighting for their very life. 

How does it works in practice that in one moment, you are being fired at and fight for your life, the next moment you are to forget about the taboo, built up in decades in your civil life that stabbing the other human being in the stomach with a bayonett is forbidden, and the next moment if he raised his hand he is a human being again and you are not to stab in him in the stomach all the sudden...?

I feel increasingly unpleasant with judging people without ever becoming close to experiencing what they had lived through...


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## Njaco (Aug 7, 2008)

> I feel increasingly unpleasant with judging people without ever becoming close to experiencing what they had lived through...



I agree. Its called war for a reason.

from "The Rise of the Luftwaffe" by Herbert Molloy Mason Jr., pg 354...

"There was another side of the coin, however. Squadron Leader "Bull" Halahan, commanding No. 1 Hurricane Squadron, which had been in France since September, was forced down in Belgium following a combat in which he destroyed an Bf 109 and an Arado observation plane. One of Halahan's pilots, Paul Richey, recalled; _"He had witnessed some rough scenes in Belgium, among which he described four regiments of French Sengalese troops proceeding to the front at a trot, looking neither right nor to the left, with implacable expressions on their faces. A Heinkel force-landed in a field beside the road and a selection of Sengalese doubled across to it, dragged the German crew of four out and promptly decapitated them on the spot. Then they resumed their progress, without a word or change of expression."_


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## RabidAlien (Aug 7, 2008)

Kurfürst said:


> Pretending it happened only on one side, or that even it happened it was an exceedingly rare even is to kid ourselves. War is not clean, its brutal. I will even risk that we, sitting confortably in our armchairs, sipping cofee in our air conditioned offices, have very little right to judge those men 60 years ago, fighting for their very life.
> 
> How does it works in practice that in one moment, you are being fired at and fight for your life, the next moment you are to forget about the taboo, built up in decades in your civil life that stabbing the other human being in the stomach with a bayonett is forbidden, and the next moment if he raised his hand he is a human being again and you are not to stab in him in the stomach all the sudden...?
> 
> I feel increasingly unpleasant with judging people without ever becoming close to experiencing what they had lived through...





I think this statement does an incredible job of summing it all up. We weren't there, we can't say anything. 'Nuff said. Incredibly well-thought post, Kurfurst!


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## parsifal (Aug 7, 2008)

I maintain that there is a world of difference between so-called battlefield massacres, and cold blooded murder. The differnce between the german order, and the commandoes is that what the hell were the commandoes supposed to do with any prisoners that they took. Same rule applied in new guinea. Ever wondered why so few prisoners were taken there. Some of it has to do with the bushido code that prevented the Japanese from surrendering, however this does not explain why so few of the Korean labourers also failed to turn up in the prisoner returns. Part of the answer is far more sinister than Australians care to admit. But what do you do with prisoners where there are no defined front lines, and the enemy is all around you. This is an unfortunate traversty of war, and all sides engaged in it.

however the germans took this to many times that level of barbarity. Murders continued even long after the battles were finished. The commando order shows a particular barbarity because unlike the Commandoes, the germans were in a position to take prisoners and to observe the geneva convention. The fact that Hitler, and the german army chose to ignore those conventions is all the greater indictment against a regime that had perhaps the most abominable human rights record in history, except perhaps Japan.

I worked many years ago for a vet who had served in the 6 Aus Div and had been captured at Crete. He would up in Schweinfurt, and linked up with a Belgian who was feeding intelligence reports on the effects of the bombings by the US air force. Les's (that was his name) job was to count the numbers of trains arriving and departing from the marshalling yard, where he was forced to work as slave labour. The Germans got some clue that espionage was occurring, but didnt know exactly who, or how. The killings and the murders started. According to my old boss, hundreds of Russian and Polish prisoners were just taken out and shot. For the allies, there were lesser numbers involved, but the methods used were all the more chilling. Les watched 6 of his closest mates get strung up by piano wire, in front of the whole company. This was a common occurrence according to Les 

I hardly think that kind of cold blooded calculated terror cvan be compare3d to the heat of battle murders that occurred on the allied side.


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## parsifal (Aug 7, 2008)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Commando Order was a secret order issued by Adolf Hitler on October 18, 1942 stating that all commandos found in Europe and Africa should be killed immediately, even if in uniform or if they attempted to surrender. Any commando or small group of commandos or a similar unit, agents, and saboteurs not in uniform, who fell into the hands of the German military forces by some means other than direct combat (through the police in occupied territories, for instance) were to be handed over immediately to the Sicherheitsdienst (SD or Nazi security service). The order made it clear that failure to carry out these orders by any commander or officer would be considered to be an act of negligence punishable under German military law.

Shortly after World War II, at the Nuremberg Trials, the Commando Order was found to be a direct breach of the laws of war, and German officers who carried out illegal executions under the Commando Order were found guilty of a war crime.

Background
The Commando Order alleged violations of the Geneva Conventions by Allied commando troops and cites these violations as justification for the order. It is widely believed that an occurrence at Dieppe and on a small raid on the Channel Island of Sark by the Small Scale Raiding Force (with some men of No. 12 Commando) brought Hitler's rage to a head.

Sark Raid
On the night of 3-4 October, 1942, ten men of the British Small Scale Raiding Force and No. 12 Commando (attached) made an offensive reconnaissance raid on the isle of Sark, Operation Basalt. In line with standard procedure the acquisition of prisoners was required. The raiders broke into a local's house. The occupant of the house, Frances Pittard, proved very informative and advised there were about 20 Germans in the nearby Dixcart Hotel. She also declined an offer to be taken back to England.

In front of the hotel was a long hut like building, apparently unguarded. This annex comprised a corridor and five rooms wherein were five sleeping Germans, none found to be officers. The men were roused and taken outside where after the commandos decided to go on to the hotel and capture more of the enemy. To minimize the guard left with the captives, the commandos tied the prisoners' hands. One prisoner started shouting to alert those in the hotel and was shot dead with a .38 revolver. The enemy now alerted, incoming fire from the hotel became considerable and the raiders elected to return to the beach with the remaining four prisoners, all of whom had been silenced by stuffing their mouths, according to Anders Lassen, with grass. En route to the beach, three prisoners made a break. Whether or not some had freed their hands during the firefight has never been established, nor is it known whether all three broke at the same time. Two are believed to have been shot and one stabbed. The fourth was conveyed safely back to England and provided a gold mine of information. Officially sanctioned German military accounts of the time assert unequivocally that the dead German soldiers were found with their hands bound, and later German military publications make many references to captured Commando instructions ordering the tying of captives' hands behind them, and the use of a particularly painful method of knotting around the thumbs to enable efficient, coercive, single-handed control of the captive.


Dieppe Raid
On August 19, 1942 during this raid, a Canadian brigadier elected (against explicit orders) to take a copy of the operational order ashore.[2] The order was subsequently discovered on the beach by the Germans and found its way to Hitler. Among the dozens of pages of orders was an instruction to 'bind prisoners'. (The orders were for the Canadian forces participating in the raid, and not the commandos.)


German response and escalation
A few days after the Sark raid, the Germans issued a propaganda communiqué implying that at least one prisoner had escaped and two were shot while resisting having their hands tied. They also claimed this 'hand-tying' practice was used at Dieppe. Subsequently, on 9th October, Berlin announced that 1376 Allied prisoners (mainly Canadians from Dieppe), would henceforth be shackled. The British responded with a like shackling of German prisoners in Canada.

This tit-for-tat shackling continued until the Swiss achieved agreement with the British to desist on December 12, and with the Germans some time later after they received further assurances from the British. However, by this time many German camps had abandoned the pointless practice or reduced it to merely leaving a pile of shackles in a prison billet as a token.

On October 7, Hitler personally penned a note in the Wehrmacht daily communiqué:

_In future, all terror and sabotage troops of the British and their accomplices, who do not act like soldiers but rather like bandits, will be treated as such by the German troops and will be ruthlessly eliminated in battle, wherever they appear._ 

The order in effect
On October 18 after much deliberation by High Command lawyers, officers and staff, Hitler issued his Commando Order or Kommandobefehl in secret, with only 12 copies. The following day Army Chief of Staff Alfred Jodl, distributed copies too with an appendix stating that the order was "intended for commanders only and must not under any circumstances fall into enemy hands." The order itself stated that

_From now on all men operating against German troops in so-called commando raids, even if they are in uniform, whether armed or unarmed, in battle or in flight, are to be annihilated to the last man.... Even if these individuals on discovery ... give themselves up as prisoners, no pardon is on any account to be given. _

Allied Casualties
The Commando Order was invoked to order the death of an unknown number of Allied Special Forces and behind-the-lines operators of the OSS, SOE, and other special forces elements.[citation needed] "Commandos" of these types captured were turned over to German security and police forces and transported to concentration camps for execution. The Gazette citation reporting the awarding of the G.C. to Yeo-Thomas describes this process in detail. The first victims were seven officers of Operation Musketoon, who were shot in Sachsenhausen on the morning of 23rd October 1942. In December 1942 Royal Marine commandos captured during Operation Frankton were executed under this order and further executions were carried out through the remainder of the war.

Legality
The laws of war as accepted by all civilized countries in 1942 were unequivocal on this point: "..._ it is especially forbidden ... to declare that no quarter will be given_". This was established under the Article 23 of the IV Convention – The Laws and Customs of War on Land of the Hague Conventions of 1907.The Geneva Convention of 1929, that Germany had ratified, defined who should be considered a Prisoner of War on capture, that included enemy soldiers in uniform and how they should be treated. The German Commando Order was in direct and deliberate violation of both the customary laws of war and Germany's treaty obligations.

Hitler and his subordinates knew that the order was illegal - that is obvious by the fact it was prepared in only twelve copies and that special measures were ordered to keep it secret. He also knew the order would be unpopular with the professional military, in particular the part of the order that stated that the order would stand even if captured Commandos were in uniform (plainclothes commandos could be treated as insurgents or spies under International Law as the United States Supreme Court explained in ex parte Quirin, and was confirmed in the Hostages Trial). The order included measures designed to force them to obey despite their lack of enthusiasm.

Aftermath
After the war, German officers who carried out illegal executions under the Commando Order were found guilty at war crimes trials, including the Nuremberg Trials. The Commando Order was one of the specifications in the charge against Generaloberst (Colonel-General) Jodl, who was convicted and hanged. Another war crimes trial was held in Brunswick (Braunschweig), Germany, against Colonel-General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, Supreme Commander of German forces in Norway 1940-44. The latter was held responsible, among other things, for invoking the Commando Order against survivors of the unsuccessful British commando raid against the Vemork heavy water plant at Rjukan, Norway in 1942 (Operation Freshman). He was sentenced to death in 1946, the sentence was later commuted to 20 years' imprisonment, and he was released in 1953 for reasons of health.


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## parsifal (Aug 7, 2008)

The Nazis also violated the Geneva Convention when, in early 1944, Hitler issued the Bullet Decree (Kugel Erlass). According to Robert E. Conot, author of "Justice at Nuremberg," the Bullet Decree stipulated that any officer or non-commissioned officer - except British or American - who escaped from a POW camp was to be shipped to Mauthausen concentration camp with the designation "Stufe III" (Third Degree). There they were either to be shot, or speedily starved and worked to death. To questions by the Red Cross or neutral powers, the Wehrmacht was directed to reply that the prisoners had "escaped and not been recaptured."

The Bullet Decree was soon amended to include British soldiers after the "Great Escape" on March 25, 1944 by 80 British, French, Greek, Norwegian, Polish, Belgian and Czech officers of the British Royal Air Force from a POW camp at Sagan in Silesia. It was not against international law for prisoners to escape from a POW camp, and in fact, it was the duty of a POW to try to escape. This was the first successful escape from the Sagan POW camp, although there had been as many as 100 escape tunnels dug in this camp by the prisoners.

On March 28, the order was issued as an adjunct to the Kugel Erlass. These officers retained by the Gestapo - in principle, though not necessarily in practice, "plotters and escape leaders" - were to be transported to Mauthausen concentration camp. "The camp commandant of Mauthausen is to be informed that the prisoners are being handed over under Operation Kugel."

In January 1946, Jean-Frederic Veith, a French prisoner at Mauthausen from April 22, 1943 until April 22, 1945 when he was taken out of the camp by the Red Cross, testified before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg regarding POWs who were killed at Mauthausen.

The following is a quote from his testimony at Nuremberg in answer to a question by the French prosecutor, M. Dubois:

_Certainly I saw prisoners of war. Their arrival at Mauthausen took place, first of all, in front of the political section. Since I was working at the Hollerith, I could watch the arrivals, for the offices faced the parade ground in front of the political section where the convoys arrived. My knowledge of Aktion K [referring to orders to execute all prisoners of war discovered attempting to escape, excluding Americans and British] is due to the fact that I was head of the Hollerith service in Mauthausen, and consequently all the transfer forms from the various camps._

According to a book about the escape, entitled "The Longest Tunnel," by Alan Burgess, the recaptured prisoners never reached Mauthausen. Four of them were sent instead to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp where they were held as hostages, but some of the others were murdered.

By April 13, 1944, fifty of the escapees, who had been recaptured, had been shot along the roadside as they were being transported to Mauthausen. Their bodies were taken to the nearest crematorium where they were cremated and the ashes were sent back to Sagan for burial. Their death certificates read "shot while trying to escape." Names of the 50 escapees were posted in the camp as a warning against future escapes.

Under international law, it is the duty of a POW to try to escape, but following this violation of the Geneva Convention by the Germans in the shooting of the escaped Sagan POWs, the British and American governments relieved their soldiers and airmen of the duty to attempt an escape.

Maurice Lampe, a French resistance fighter who was a prisoner at Mauthausen, testified at the Nuremberg IMT about how 47 British, American and Dutch airmen were brought to Mauthausen on September 6, 1944 and executed under the Kugel Erlass. Lampe told the tribunal that he had been assigned to work in the quarry where he witnessed the airmen being murdered by the SS guards.


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## parsifal (Aug 7, 2008)

The following quote from Lampe's testimony at Nuremberg tells the story:

_For all the prisoners at Mauthausen, the murder of these men has remained in their minds like a scene from Dante's Inferno. This is how it was done: at the bottom of the steps they loaded stones on the backs of these poor men and they had to carry them to the top. The first journey was made with stones weighing 25 to 30 kilos and was accompanied by blows. Then they were made to run down. For the second journey, the stones were even heavier; and whenever the poor wretches sank under their burden, they were kicked and hit with a bludgeon. Even stones were hurled at them....In the evening when I returned from the gang with which I was then working, the road which led to the camp was a bath of blood....I almost stepped on the lower jaw of a man. Twenty-one bodies were strewn along the road. Twenty-one had died on the first day. The twenty-six others died the following morning...._

Jean-Frederic Veith told a similar story. In answer to a question by M. Dubost, the French prosecutor at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, Veith testified as follows:

Q. Did you witness the execution of Allied officers who were murdered within 48 hours of their arrival in camp?

A. _I saw the arrival of the convoy of the 6th September. I believe that is the one you are thinking of; I saw the arrival of this convoy and the very same afternoon these 47 went down to the quarry dressed in nothing but their shirts and drawers. Shortly after we heard the sound of machine gunfire. I then left the office and passed at the back, pretending I was carrying documents to another office, and with my own eyes I saw these unfortunate people shot down. 19 were executed on the very same afternoon and the remainder on the following morning; later on all the death certificates were marked: "Killed while attempting to escape."_

The next day, Veith continued his testimony at Nuremberg, answering more questions put to him by M. Dubost:

Q. Will you give some additional information concerning the execution of the 47 Allied Officers whom you saw shot within 48 hours at camp Mauthausen where they had been brought?

A. _Those officers, those parachutists, were shot in accordance with the usual system used whenever prisoners had to be done away with. That is to say, they were forced to work to excess, to carry heavy stones. Then they were beaten, until they took heavier ones; and so on and so forth, until, finally driven to extremity, they turned towards the barbed wire. If they did not do it of their own accord, they were pushed there, or they were beaten until they did so, and the moment they approached it and were perhaps about one metre away from it, they were mown down by machine guns fired by the SS patrols in the miradors. This was the usual system for the "killing for attempted escape" as they afterwards called it.

These 47 men were killed on the afternoon of the 6th and morning of the 7th of September._
Q. How did you know their names?

A. _Their names came to me with the official list, because they had all been entered in the camp registers and I had to report to Berlin all the changes in the actual strength of the Hollerith Section. I saw all the rosters of the dead and of the new arrivals._

Q. Did you communicate this list to an official authority?

A. _This list was taken by the American official authorities when I was at Mauthausen. I immediately went back to Mauthausen after my liberation, because I knew where the documents were, and the American authorities then had all the lists which we were able to find.

Note that Veith described these POWs as "parachutists" indicating that they were "Commandos" who parachuted into territory that was behind enemy lines with the objective of carrying out sabotage. They were sent to Mauthausen under Hitler's infamous Commando Order, another example of Nazi barbarity and the disregard of the Geneva Convention.

According to William Shirer in his book "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," the Top-Secret Commando Order, dated October 18, 1942, was one of the documents found by the Allies after the war._

On October 7, 1942, the justification for this order was broadcast by the German Army over the radio, according to Robert E. Conot, who quoted from the broadcast in his book "Justice at Nuremberg":

"In the future all terrorist and sabotage units of the British and their associates who do not act like soldiers but like bandits will be mercilessly exterminated in battle." He (Hitler) directed (General) Jodl to draw up the appropriate order that commandos "regardless whether as soldiers and irrespective of the kind of uniform are to be annihilated to the last man without mercy," since their actions "differ from the basic rules of warfare and [they] thus place themselves outside the rules of warfare." If they gave up, they were to be shot on the spot. "Whoever performs acts of sabotage as a soldier with the idea of surrendering without a fight after the act is successfully completed does not conduct himself as an honorable warrior." Hitler, as he had done in the Commissar Order and similar instances, made himself the unilateral arbiter of the Geneva Convention and declared null and void whatever section was not convenient to him.

In his book, Conot included a quote from the British Handbook of Irregular Warfare, a book that was found on one of the Canadian Commandos who was captured on August 19, 1942 in a battle at Dieppe. According to Conot "Some of the German prisoners taken were handcuffed; and a few, who fell into the hands of the special forces, were trussed up in 'death slings.'" In other words, the German POWs were tied up by the Commandos with a noose around their necks which was attached to their legs, so that if the prisoner stretched out his legs, the noose would tighten and the man would be strangled.

The following quote from the British Handbook is from page 307 of Conot's book "Justice at Nuremberg":

This (book) instructed the commandos "never to give the enemy a chance; the days when we could practice the rules of sportsmanship are over. For the time being every soldier must be a potential gangster...The vulnerable parts of the enemy are the heart, spine and privates. Kick him or knee him as hard as you can in the fork...Remember you are out to kill."

William Shirer mentions the following incident in which British and American Commandos were murdered at Mauthausen, on page 956 of his book, "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich":

_Some fifteen members of an Anglo-American military mission - including a war correspondent of the Associated Press, and all in uniform - which had parachuted into Slovakia in January 1945 were executed in the Mauthausen concentration camp on the orders of Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the successor of Heydrich as head of the SD and one of the defendants at Nuremberg. Had it not been for the testimony of the camp adjutant who witnessed their execution, their murder might have remained unknown, for most of the files of the executions at this camp were destroyed_.

One of the US Navy Commandos who was captured after a sabotage mission and sent to Mauthausen under Hitler's Commando Order was Lieutenant Jack Taylor.

Lieutenant Taylor testified about the treatment which he and other American POWs received at Mauthausen. The following quote is from the testimony of Lt. Taylor at the Nuremberg IMT:

_In October '44, I was the first Allied officer to drop onto Austria. I was captured December 1st, by the Gestapo, severely beaten, ah, even though I was in uniform, severely beaten, and, and, considered as a non-prisoner of war. I was taken to Vienna prison where I was held for four months. When the Russians neared Vienna, I was taken to this Mauthausen concentration lager [camp], an extermination camp, the worst in Germany, where we have been starving and, and beaten and killed, ah, fortunately, my turn hadn't come. Ah, two American officers at least have been executed here. Here is the insignia of one, a U.S. naval officer, and here is his dog tag. Here is the army officer, executed by gas in this lager [camp]. Ah...there were..._

[Question: "How many ways did they execute them?"]

_Five or six ways: by gas, by shooting, by beating, that is beating with clubs, ah, by exposure, that is standing out in the snow, naked, for 48 hours and having cold water put on them, thrown on them in the middle of winter, starvation, dogs, and pushing over a hundred-foot cliff."_

Hard to argue or justify german attrocities on ther basis that they were matching Allied behviours, or in some way could be attributed to "heat of battle" pressures.


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## parsifal (Aug 7, 2008)

Lest we forget


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 7, 2008)

parsifal said:


> I hardly think that kind of cold blooded calculated terror cvan be compare3d to the heat of battle murders that occurred on the allied side.



I agree with you, but I do not think we can throw all German soldiers into the same pot. Yes more autrocities were conducted by the Germans (and Japanese and Russians as well), but these autrocities were still done by a minority of the Wehrmacht. And the SS was not the average German soldier.


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## RabidAlien (Aug 7, 2008)

Yep. There was a BIIIIIIIIG difference between your average Wermacht grunt and the SS.


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## Njaco (Aug 7, 2008)

and, of course, the winning side always has a say what goes in the history books.


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## parsifal (Aug 7, 2008)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> I agree with you, but I do not think we can throw all German soldiers into the same pot. Yes more autrocities were conducted by the Germans (and Japanese and Russians as well), but these autrocities were still done by a minority of the Wehrmacht. And the SS was not the average German soldier.



Agree completely

To their credit, both rommel and Kesselring would have nothing to do with either the secret commando orders, or with the Kugel orders. All prisoners were treated in accordance with the Rules of War and the Geneva Convention.

The majority opinion is that the commando order in its entirety was illegal, however, there are some war crimes legal opinions that maintain that the order was illegal because it was a secret protocol. It could have been legalised if all officers of the wehrmacht had been informaed of its existence, as well as the countr4ies of the opposing armies that were going to suffer under it. i find that interpretation of the law a bit hard to swallow, but it is an alternative view. But even under this scenario, the German treatment of prisoners was unlawful and barbaric. I am gennuinely sorry if I offend anyone by my views on this subject, but I for one never want to forget that part of the war. it was the reason, IMO why Germany had to be absolutely defeated in that war


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 7, 2008)

No offense taken.


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## Juha (Aug 7, 2008)

As to give more perspective
One German figure that I have seen puts the number of Soviet PoWs who died in German custody as 3 300 000 and the number of German PoWs who died in Soviet custody as 1 110 000. This is just one set of numbers but probably gives a good indication of the level killing and maltreatment.

Juha


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## Juha (Aug 7, 2008)

Almost forgot this
there was one British PoW camp in Northern Germany/Southern Denmark in which 56 SS PoWs died during summer/early Autumn 45 to hunger and matnutrion. That was such a scandal that there was a Parliament question on issue. Investication reveal that the CO of the camp was a drunk major who had left the running of the camp to his 2nd-in-C, who happened to be a Jew who had took a personal vendetta and denied enough food and shelter from the SS PoWs. There was a military court case against the 2 British officers but I cannot recall the verdict.

Juha


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 8, 2008)

Juha said:


> As to give more perspective
> One German figure that I have seen puts the number of Soviet PoWs who died in German custody as 3 300 000 and the number of German PoWs who died in Soviet custody as 1 110 000. This is just one set of numbers but probably gives a good indication of the level killing and maltreatment.
> 
> Juha



My Grandfather was in a Soviet POW camp. He was one of the lucky ones to come home.


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## Kurfürst (Aug 8, 2008)

Parsifal said:


> I maintain that there is a world of difference between so-called battlefield massacres, and cold blooded murder. The differnce between the german order, and the commandoes is that what the hell were the commandoes supposed to do with any prisoners that they took.



They were, as regular troops under international law, were supposed to ensure that their prisoners are protected from the time of their capture until their final repatriation.

There is simply no difference. Once you took them as prisoner, you are to maintain their safety. The Commandoes did not play by the rules. In response the Germans neither, when it came to Commandoes. Tough for Commandoes!

BTW, anybody remembers Band of Brothers? There is a brief wiki article of him, too. 


_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66pfbDceMe0_
Ronald Speirs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

IMHO there`s a huge resemblance between the character of Speirs and a typical Waffen SS menpower. A natural born killer and soldier, kinda predator-like. Neither gives nor asks for quarter. Such is the psychology of war...

I am sure there are many others. Some I found involve American troops in the Ardennes. War is ugly stuff. 
Chenogne massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Parsifal said:


> Under international law, it is the duty of a POW to try to escape,...



I have never heard of that... kinda questionable IMHO. It would kinda defeat the whole purpose of the PoW conventions.



Juha said:


> As to give more perspective
> One German figure that I have seen puts the number of Soviet PoWs who died in German custody as 3 300 000 and the number of German PoWs who died in Soviet custody as 1 110 000. This is just one set of numbers but probably gives a good indication of the level killing and maltreatment.
> 
> Juha



German records for Soviet PoW deaths are about 1,600 million died in captivity. I seriously doubt there was much 'murder', many simply perished in 1941, when there were a lot of sudden influxes of several hundred thousends of prisoners at one time and they simply died of hunger, exposure to the harsh winter, the Germans having overtaxed their own supply lines at the time, and being unable to feed and cloth their own troops properly, it is somewhat understandable they had little inlcination to feed and cloth Prisoners (who were ideoligically considered inferior bolsheviks anyway) instead of their own troops.

Sorry guys but things are not as simple as we would like them to be. Things are not black and white, but different shades of grey.


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## JugBR (Aug 8, 2008)

i think this photos can illustrate how p*** off the russians was with germans invasion in ww2:

















in britain or usa or any other western museum, you dont see nazi flags shown like a trash, a tissue or cloth to clean the floor. you feel the angry and the contempt of russians for their enemy in ww2.

besides the stalinist regim, the russians fought with very angry and hate, because they was almost losing for germany until staligrade and because the german campaing in east was very brutal. its not just about stalin, its also the peoples angry.


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## parsifal (Aug 8, 2008)

I]_They were, as regular troops under international law, were supposed to ensure that their prisoners are protected from the time of their capture until their final repatriation_[/I].

International law is similar to most national codes in progressive democracies, the killing of prisoners whilst under the stress of combat is not classified as murder, or worse, a crime against humanity. It would most likely be classified as manslaughter, which carries a much lower sentence, and that because the courts understand that killing a man under those circumstances has some justification. If the prisoner is endangering the lives of his captors , by calling out, or by trying to escape, appropriate force, including the use of lethal force is justified. In the case of the captured commandos, no resistance was displayed. After they had surrendered, and with no threeat from other opposing forces, they were marched out and killed. That classifies as at least two breaches under International law, the laws of war, the Hague convention, and the Geneva convention. Suffice it to say that for the purposes of this discussion it is just murder


_There is simply no difference. Once you took them as prisoner, you are to maintain their safety. The Commandos did not play by the rules. In response the Germans neither, when it came to Commandos. Tough for Commandos_!

I know that you are wrong in terms of the International conventions that govern the rules of war. I also think that what you are saying is a moral travesty that in fact supports the criminal behaviours of the Nazis

As outlined above, the law recognizes that there is a difference between a crime committed in the heat of the moment, or with the fear of ones own life in mind, and the cold blooded, calculated act of murdering those that are under your charge, when there is no threat of danger, or emotion involved. This is the difference between murder, self defence, and manslaughter. 

It was not tough fpoor the commandos. It was simply a display of the barbaric and murderous nature of those that subscribe to the Nazi creed. The commando order was motivated by the roughhouse tactics of the commandos, WHILST IN COMBAT, and UNDER EXTREME COMBAT CONDITIONS. If these guys had been brought to trial, and the tribunal was a fair and balanced tribunal (which they were not completely), the expected outcome would at worst be a few years in Gaol, and a most likely a not guilty verdict. Those allied soldiers that simply took POWs out the back and shot them, without the threat of combat hanging over them, were guilty of a capital war crime 


_BTW, anybody remembers Band of Brothers? There is a brief wiki article of him, too. 


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66pfbDceMe0
Ronald Speirs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia_

Not interested in movies on a subject like this. Too serious to be trivialised like that

_IMHO there`s a huge resemblance between the character of Speirs and a typical Waffen SS manpower. A natural born killer and soldier, kinda predator-like. Neither gives nor asks for quarter. Such is the psychology of war..._

The Psychology of war is not about this at all. Tough for sure, able to put up with stresses for sure, but allowing ones personal emotions to interfere with judgment calls is about the worst thing a soldier can allow himself to do. He is ther to achieve the mission, and oby orders, the rules of war and the geneva convention that overrule any order that may be given by your own commanders that appear to contravene that higher order coming from the conventions. thats whay "I was just obeying orders" is no defence". 

Ever been under fire. I have (nothing to compare to WWII, but it was real, and it was dangerous, enough to give me some bad dreams for years afterwords). I can tell you that what you find admirable in the "typical SS officer" is about the worst traits you can have in a professional soldier. Any soldier in my unit displaying those sort of characteristics would have been immediately re-assigned. I would not want any gun toting John Wayne types looking after my a*rse 


_I have never heard of that... kinda questionable IMHO. It would kinda defeat the whole purpose of the POW conventions_.

Suggest you read the Hague Convention (1907), and the Rules of War that were developed from them. Finally you should read the Geneva Convention, all of which set out the rights and responsibilities of prisoners and their keepers

_German records for Soviet POW deaths are about 1,600 million died in captivity. I seriously doubt there was much 'murder', many simply perished in 1941, when there were a lot of sudden influxes of several hundred thousands of prisoners at one time and they simply died of hunger, exposure to the harsh winter, the Germans having overtaxed their own supply lines at the time, and being unable to feed and cloth their own troops properly, it is somewhat understandable they had little inclination to feed and cloth Prisoners (who were ideologically considered inferior Bolsheviks anyway) instead of their own troops_.

The German records you are relying on are clearly wrong. Estimates do vary, but they are conservatively placed at over 3 million (some say as high as 6-8 million). And the front line units actually took quite good care of new prisoners. The atrocities generally didn't start until they (the prisoners were handed over to the rear units. Most were starved alright, but right in the middle of Germany. They were also shot, burned, gassed, stoned, torn apart by dogs, used for target practice, worked to death, and a whole range of other detestable treatments. These are not my observations.. They are well documented and pr oven in courts and tribunals. Furthermore they are also admitted in the war guilt clauses of the various post war peace treaties that Germany signed in the late 40s and 1950s. Mind you, the Russians were no better in their treatment of German prisoners, perhaps just a little less smug about it. 

Facts are that persons working in the name of Germany committed the most heinous crimes against humanity. These crimes make any allied transgressions pale into insignificance. Even those of us who admire German military prowess and achievement ought never let ourselves forget, or try to belittle or justify that which cannot be defended, or written down as something insignificant. 


_Sorry guys but things are not as simple as we would like them to be. Things are not black and white, but different shades of grey_.


To me, with my legal background they are clear enough. There were war crimes by all belligerents, but the Germans and the Japanese) were the only countries to adopt it as national policy. The sheer scale of German atrocity is so large as to defy reason. The difference between German guilt and allied guilt is incomparably greater for the Germans.


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## parsifal (Aug 8, 2008)

Jug

Try losing 13.4 million people to an enemy and then show sympathetic you are to their military symbols. The Russians in my view have earnt the right to trash a few Nazi symbols


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## parsifal (Aug 8, 2008)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> My Grandfather was in a Soviet POW camp. He was one of the lucky ones to come home.



My stepfather was ther as well 371 st Infantry Div he was a Machine Gunner . Working in a weapon pit with his trusty hiwi in support, was shot in the arm by a Russian sniper, The Hiwi, a Ukrainian, and a huge man, just picked up the MG and mowed down his countrymen who were advancing. After the fighting stopped, he just looked at Max (my stepfather), made sure he was okay, and then just walked off, never to be see again.

Max was flown out of the cauldron the next day, AFIK. One of the few as well


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## JugBR (Aug 8, 2008)

parsifal said:


> Jug
> 
> Try losing 13.4 million people to an enemy and then show sympathetic you are to their military symbols. The Russians in my view have earnt the right to trash a few Nazi symbols



agreed. that what i think so. you see that images, you understand what happened there.

almost 180 divisions or 70% of german army, isnt that true ?

"they took the bull by the horns"

wasnt easy... wouldnt be easy for anybody else, but they defeat the most advanced and the most eficient army of ww2 in russian soil. and hitler orders was very clear, to exterminate soviet union, not just defeat them. the war in east europe was a genocide.

then they stopped the germans advance in staligrade and marched until berlin.

here in west, we dont give the appropriate value to this feat. maybe because stalin, cold war, iron curtain... etc. russia still considered more enemy than friend for many, even after the fall of soviet union.


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## Juha (Aug 8, 2008)

Kurfürst
Quote:"German records for Soviet PoW deaths are about 1,600 million died in captivity. I seriously doubt there was much 'murder', many simply perished in 1941, "

Well, first of all, partly true but there is for ex some callous comments of Göring on the situation of Soviet PoWs from 1941 which clearly shows that the attitude of at least Göring on the situation was clearly contrary to what international law required. And many of Soviet prisoners perished in camps far behind front line in 42-45, and your excuses didn't cover these cases.

And also the number of 1 110 000 is much higher than that of the official Soviet number but it incl for ex those shot out of hand and those shot during and right after their initial interrogations by NKVD or Soviet military intelligence and those who perish during long marches to PoW camps. IIRC the official Soviet/Russian figure is something like 430 000 German PoWs died in their captivity, most again of hunger and diseases.

Of course the situation wasn't purely black and white for ex what happened to many soldiers of the 6th SS Mountain Div early 45 was tragic but Germans and Soviets handling of PoWs were different from that of how Western Allied treated their PoWs. You seemingly wanted to think diffenrentry, that your choice.

Juha


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## Njaco (Aug 8, 2008)

> There were war crimes by all belligerents, but the Germans and the Japanese were the only countries to adopt it as national policy.



I think that there says alot about the difference between tragedies on both sides.


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## JugBR (Aug 10, 2008)

wasnt in crete, where allies shoots in german parachutists, when those was downing or trapped in trees ?


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## Juha (Aug 10, 2008)

JugBR
On Crete a platoon of German paratroopers put against wall surrendered men of a British HAA battery and shot them all (aronud 96). After that British didn't give a secret order that all paras should be shot because they didn't play by the rules but changed their ToE so that also men of HAA (heavy anti-aircraft) units got a personal weapon, before that HAA battery had only a Bren or 2 and a dozen or 2 rifles.

Juha


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 10, 2008)

On Crete (just like in all theatres of the war) attrocities were commited by both sides.

Germany committed great attrocities, but we can not lump all of the Wehrmacht into one pile. The great attrocities were conducted by a minority of the Wehrmacht. Not that it makes it any better. I am not trying to justify anything.

Japan was the same way, except I think it might be a bit worse because of the whole honor creed thingie...

Russia was just as bad as the Germans (even before the Germans invaded Russia), Stalin was committing atrocities against his own people as well as the Polish and his occupied territories, especially after the war was over. I think a lot of people forget that the Russians were pretty bad as well. 

The US and British as well comitted attrocities, certainly not on the scale the other 3 parties above did and it certainly was not per orders. Again a minority doing the bad things.


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## Juha (Aug 10, 2008)

Hello Adler
Quote: "Russia was just as bad as the Germans"

I don't agree with that, Soviet behaviour was bad, even very bad, but they didn't have extermination policies as Germans had. Now about 1/3 of Volgan Germans and of Chechens perished during they very brutal deportations to Siberia/Kazastan, no excuses for that, but they were not exterminated as races and SU could have done that if it had wished because it was a victor. Now if Germans had won, I would say that there would not have been many European Jews or Gipsies around in 1950. And my guess is that even in PoWs Germans treated Soviet PoWs worse than Soviets German PoWs, but that is only a guess and I admit that the difference wasn't very big.

And I know that if Finns had lost the Winter War the Katyn solution was reserved up some 40 000 Finns, out of population of 3,5 million. So most of our intelligence would have been destroyed.

Juha


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 10, 2008)

Juha said:


> Hello Adler
> Quote: "Russia was just as bad as the Germans"
> 
> I don't agree with that, Soviet behaviour was bad, even very bad, but they didn't have extermination policies as Germans had.



Seriously, I think you need to do some research...

I am talking about Russians being killed by Russians. Stalin exterminated his own people on a level very similiar to what Hitler did.

On top of that they also had brutal policies toward the Poles and other eastern european countries after they took it over.

An estimated 20 million people died due to Stalins policies including 6 million Russians, 2.5 million Ukranians, 1.5 million Poles and 1.5 million Kasakhs.

An estimated 3-4 million women were raped by soviet soldiers (this was not soviet policy but it was tolerated) including aprox 2 million Germans (my wifes grandmother was one of them, she was 7), 50,000 Hungarians, 1200 Yugoslavians, aprox 10,000 Slovkians, and aprox 100,000 Poles.

Lets see known mass graves in Russia (all of them people killed by Russian institutuions such as the NKVD):

Bykivnia - containing an estimated 120,000 - 225,000 corpses.
Kurapaty - estimations range from 30,000 to 200,000 bodies found.
Butovo - over 20,000 confirmed killed.
Sandarmokh - over 9,000 bodies discovered.

Russia certainly was just as bad as the Germans. Again I am not saying the German war crimes were not terrible or any less than the Russians, but to say the Russians were not as bad, is absured.


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## parsifal (Aug 10, 2008)

Russian treatment of prisoners and minorities was criminal as well. The only difference i would make, and its a rather academic one, is that the russians also treated their own soldiers pretty badly. Try deserting in the Russian army in WWII and see what happens to you. The Russians just had poor regard to all life, and all humanity, whereas the Nazis wanted to conquer the world, live like royalty and murder everyone except those that agreed with them. So at least the russians were not selective on who they killed (well not quite as selective)


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## parsifal (Aug 10, 2008)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> On Crete (just like in all theatres of the war) attrocities were commited by both sides.



Adler, I will have to check more carefully, but i thought the murdersw of german paratroopers on the island were mostly carried out by th cretan civialns. What they (the cretans) did, was horrific. Im trying to remember exactly what.

Shooting at a paratropper whilst he is still airborne, but armed is not a warcrime, its just war. I also believe that several groups of Paratroopers were shot, because there were not enogh transports to take them. This would qualify for manslaughter. The Germans were pressuring the allies, and the allies responded with something illegal, but understandable. I will grant you it depends on the circumstances. If the British that shot the Germans were not under immediate threat, and they went ahead and shot the prisoners anyway, they committed murder.....


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 10, 2008)

parsifal said:


> Adler, I will have to check more carefully, but i thought the murdersw of german paratroopers on the island were mostly carried out by th cretan civialns. What they (the cretans) did, was horrific. Im trying to remember exactly what.
> 
> Shooting at a paratropper whilst he is still airborne, but armed is not a warcrime, its just war. I also believe that several groups of Paratroopers were shot, because there were not enogh transports to take them. This would qualify for manslaughter. The Germans were pressuring the allies, and the allies responded with something illegal, but understandable. I will grant you it depends on the circumstances. If the British that shot the Germans were not under immediate threat, and they went ahead and shot the prisoners anyway, they committed murder.....



Oh I am not argueing that...


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## Njaco (Aug 10, 2008)

> I don't agree with that, Soviet behaviour was bad, even very bad, but they didn't have extermination policies as Germans had. Now about 1/3 of Volgan Germans and of Chechens perished during they very brutal deportations to Siberia/Kazastan, no excuses for that, but they were not exterminated as races and SU could have done that if it had wished because it was a victor.



How many Germans were taken prisoner at Stalingrad and how many returned?


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## Juha (Aug 10, 2008)

Hello Adler
Quote: ” Seriously, I think you need to do some research...”

Frankly, I have passed 3 university courses on history of the Baltic states with excellent knowledge and one was History of Baltic States from 1918 to 1950. I’m well aware what the Soviet rule meant. And because Baltic people had had rather high standard of living and had had many contacts to West during their independence 1918-40 and were non-Slavs they were handled more harshly than many other people under Soviet rule. On the other hand they have not been Soviet citizen during the worst years of terror.

“Lets see known mass graves in Russia (all of them people killed by Russian institutuions such as the NKVD)”

We are here in Finland rather well aware of those mass graves, especially of those near St Petersburgh and in Karelia.

“Russia certainly was just as bad as the Germans. Again I am not saying the German war crimes were not terrible or any less than the Russians, but to say the Russians were not as bad, is absured.”

Now I was thinking WWII years and even looking longer period I would say that it isn’t absurd to claim that Russians were not as bad as Germans it is just on depends one’s POV how one judges those 2 most barbaric European systems of 20th century. Ie how to value the liquidation of races and other minorities (homosexuals, handicap and mentally ill at least) vs liquidation of certain classes (bourgeois, wealthy farmers etc), especially because liquidation of a class doesn’t necessary mean the need of kill all members of the class. I myself am a bit ambivalent on which was worst but tended to think that Nazism was worse mostly because of its tendency to exterminate “foreign” subjects and also because I think it more irrational with all those master race, Führer principle etc. But if somebody judges differently, I can understand that.

Juha


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## Juha (Aug 10, 2008)

Njaco
on Stalingrad PoWs, I cannot remember maybe it 86 000 German PoWs of which 15 000 or 5 000 returned to Germany. But as I wrote earlier one German study estimated that 3,3 million Soviet PoWs died in German captivity and 1 110 000 Germans in Soviet captivity.

Juha


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## JugBR (Aug 10, 2008)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Seriously, I think you need to do some research...
> 
> I am talking about Russians being killed by Russians. Stalin exterminated his own people on a level very similiar to what Hitler did.
> 
> ...



yes, agree with you, also, remember the ribbentrop-molotov pact wheres was estipulated that poland should be shared between ussr and germany, 50% for each. not just germany invaded poland. russians invaded poland in sptember 17.

also, before germany invades poland, thats true that ussr already had invaded other eastern coutries, but nobody declared war against russia.

then comes the barbarossa operation and germany almost could wipe out stalin regim, but at that time ussr was already an allie of britons and americans. the defeats at staligrate and kursk, among others was very decisive for the change of the war in europe and for the fall of hitler, in the logic of that time, the red army violations againt german POW´s, was a grant of a more easy victory against germany. and wasnt easy at all anyway !


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 10, 2008)

Juha said:


> Hello Adler
> Quote: ” Seriously, I think you need to do some research...”
> 
> Frankly, I have passed 3 university courses on history of the Baltic states with excellent knowledge and one was History of Baltic States from 1918 to 1950. I’m well aware what the Soviet rule meant. And because Baltic people had had rather high standard of living and had had many contacts to West during their independence 1918-40 and were non-Slavs they were handled more harshly than many other people under Soviet rule. On the other hand they have not been Soviet citizen during the worst years of terror.
> ...



You see it does not matter who is being exterminated. Genocide is genocide...


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## renrich (Aug 10, 2008)

The mortality rate of American POWs in German prison camps was around 5%. In Japanese prison camps it was around 40%. The highest mortality rate in one month in a Civil War prison was in February 1863, at camp Douglas, near Chicago where 10% of the Confederate prisoners held died. At Midway, captured US pilots were interrogated and then thrown overboard, some weighted so they would sink. In Omar Bradley's book, he plainly stated that few prisoners were taken in the early going in Normandy. Recently read a book by Rick Atkinson on the Italian campaign and there were several instances of US troops escorting both Italian and German POWs to the rear, shooting them down in cold blood. My uncle in USN in the Pacific from the beginning said it was common practise to send a ship with depth charges to kill Japanese survivors in the water. That may have been because they would not surrender and be taken on board. I have seen film of Japanese swimmers being machine gunned. Certainly does not excuse systematic murder by Japanese and Nazis but does put our treatment of terrorists at Abu Graib and Gitmo in perspective though.


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## Juha (Aug 10, 2008)

Adler
Quote: "You see it does not matter who is being exterminated. Genocide is genocide..."

Of course!

Renrich
IIRC there were at least 2 courtmartial cases because of killing of PoWs by US troops in Sicily. In one case a Lt got one year and was stripped from his rank and in other a sergeant got 4 years and was stripped from his rank. When the punisments were made public there was a outcry in States because of the NCO had got heavier punushment than the officer, the cases were different ie 2 separate cases of killing PoWs. Now the solution was that the punishment of the NCO was amended to one year in prison. He was later KIA in Europe after serving his term.

Juha


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## renrich (Aug 11, 2008)

Thanks Juha, that may have been for the incidents in Atkinson's book.


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