German war crimes

The governments of the German Empire and Nazi Germany ordered, organized and condoned a substantial number of war crimes, first in the Herero and Namaqua genocide and then in the First and Second World Wars. The most notable of these is the Holocaust in which millions of Jews and Romani were systematically murdered. Millions of civilians and prisoners of war also died as a result of German abuse, mistreatment, and deliberate starvation policies in those two conflicts. Much of the evidence was deliberately destroyed by the perpetrators, such as in Sonderaktion 1005, in an attempt to conceal the crimes.

Women and children removed from a bunker by SS men during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising for deportation to a death camp

Pre-World War I
Main article: Herero and Namaqua genocide

Considered to have been the first genocide of the 20th century, the Herero and Namaqua Genocide was perpetrated by the German Empire between 1904 and 1907 in German South West Africa (modern-day Namibia), during the Scramble for Africa.[1][2][3][4][5] On January 12, 1904, the Herero people, led by Samuel Maharero, rebelled against German colonialism. In August, General Lothar von Trotha of the Imperial German Army defeated the Herero in the Battle of Waterberg and drove them into the desert of Omaheke, where most of them died of thirst. In October, the Nama people also rebelled against the Germans only to suffer a similar fate.

In total, from 24,000 up to 100,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama died.[6][7][8][9][10] The genocide was characterized by widespread death by starvation and thirst because the Herero who fled the violence were prevented from returning from the Namib Desert. Some sources also claim that the German colonial army systematically poisoned wells in the desert.[11][12]

World War I
Aerial photograph of a German gas attack on the Eastern Front of World War I. Lethal poison gas was first introduced by Germany and subsequently utilized by the other major belligerents in violation of the Hague Convention IV of 1907

Documentation regarding German war crimes in World War I was seized and destroyed by Nazi Germany during World War II, after occupying France, along with monuments commemorating their victims.[13]

Chemical weapons in warfare
Main article: Chemical weapons in World War I

Poison gas was first introduced as a weapon by Imperial Germany, and subsequently used by all major belligerents, in violation of the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases and the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare, which explicitly forbade the use of "poison or poisoned weapons" in warfare.[14][15]

Belgium
Main article: Rape of Belgium
Depiction of the execution of civilians in Blégny by Évariste Carpentier

In August 1914, as part of the Schlieffen Plan, the German Army invaded and occupied the neutral nation of Belgium without explicit warning, which violated a treaty of 1839 that the German chancellor dismissed as a "scrap of paper" and the 1907 Hague Convention on Opening of Hostilities.[16] Within the first two months of the war, the German occupiers terrorized the Belgians, killing thousands of civilians and looting and burning scores of towns, including Leuven, which housed the country's preeminent university, mainly in retaliation for Belgian guerrilla warfare, (see francs-tireurs). This action was in violation of the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare provisions that prohibited collective punishment of civilians and looting and destruction of civilian property in occupied territories.[17]

Bombardment of English coastal towns
Main article: Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby

The raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, which took place on December 16, 1914, was an attack by the Imperial German Navy on the British seaport towns of Scarborough, Hartlepool, West Hartlepool, and Whitby. The attack resulted in 137 fatalities and 592 casualties. The raid was in violation of the ninth section of the 1907 Hague Convention which prohibited naval bombardments of undefended towns without warning,[18] because only Hartlepool was protected by shore batteries.[19] Germany was a signatory of the 1907 Hague Convention.[20] Another attack followed on 26 April 1916 on the coastal towns of Yarmouth and Lowestoft but both were important naval bases and defended by shore batteries.

Unrestricted submarine warfare
Main article: U-boat Campaign (World War I)

Unrestricted submarine warfare was instituted in 1915 in response to the British naval blockade of Germany. Prize rules, which were codified under the 1907 Hague Convention—such as those that required commerce raiders to warn their targets and allow time for the crew to board lifeboats—were disregarded and commercial vessels were sunk regardless of nationality, cargo, or destination. Following the sinking of the RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915 and subsequent public outcry in various neutral countries, including the United States, the practice was withdrawn. However, Germany resumed the practice on 1 February 1917 and declared that all merchant ships regardless of nationalities would be sunk without warning. This outraged the U.S. public, prompting the U.S. to break diplomatic relations with Germany two days later, and, along with the Zimmermann Telegram, led the U.S. entry into the war two months later on the side of the Allied Powers.

World War II
Main articles: War crimes of the Wehrmacht and Consequences of Nazism

Chronologically, the first German World War II crime, and also the very first act of the war, was the bombing of Wieluń, a town where no targets of military value were present.[21][22]

More significantly, The Holocaust of the Jews, the Action T4 killing of the disabled and the Porajmos of the Gypsies are the most notable war crimes committed by Nazi Germany during World War II. Not all of the crimes committed during the Holocaust and similar mass atrocities were war crimes. Telford Taylor (The U.S. prosecutor in the German High Command case at the Nuremberg Trials and Chief Counsel for the twelve trials before the U.S. Nuremberg Military Tribunals) explained in 1982:

The Holocaust: ghettos, concentration and extermination camps during World War II across Europe
Polish hostages preparing for mass execution 1940
Destruction of Adam Mickiewicz Monument in Cracow, Poland, by German forces on August 17, 1940
Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen photograph. Executions of Jews by German army mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) near Ivangorod, Ukraine, 1942.
Polish farmers killed by German forces, German-occupied Poland, 1943
Polish teachers from Bydgoszcz guarded by members of Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz before execution

as far as wartime actions against enemy nationals are concerned, the [1948] Genocide Convention added virtually nothing to what was already covered (and had been since the Hague Convention of 1899) by the internationally accepted laws of land warfare, which require an occupying power to respect "family honors and rights, individual lives and private property, as well as religious convictions and liberty" of the enemy nationals. But the laws of war do not cover, in time of either war or peace, a government's actions against its own nationals (such as Nazi Germany's persecution of German Jews). And at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the tribunals rebuffed several efforts by the prosecution to bring such "domestic" atrocities within the scope of international law as "crimes against humanity."

— Telford Taylor[23]

War criminals

Massacres and war crimes of World War II by location
Main articles: The Holocaust, Einsatzgruppen, and Nazi human experimentation

Austria

Belarus
1941
  • 28 September – 17 October, Pleszczenice-Bischolin-Szack (Šacak)-Bobr-Uzda (White Ruthenia) massacre (1,126 children)
1942
  • 26 March – 6 April, Operation Bamberg (Hłusk, Bobrujsk; 4,396 people, including children)
  • 9 – 12 May, Kliczów-Bobrujsk massacre (520 people, including children)
  • Beginning of June, Słowodka-Bobrujsk massacre (1,000 people, including children)
  • 15 June Borki (powiat białostocki) massacre (1,741 people, including children)
  • 21 June Zbyszin massacre (1,076 people, including children)
  • 25 June Timkowiczi massacre (900 people, including children)
  • 26 June Studenka massacre (836 people, including children)
  • 18 July, Jelsk massacre (1,000 people, including children)
  • 15 July – 7 August, Operation Adler (Bobrujsk, Mohylew, Berezyna; 1,381 people, including children)
  • 14 – 20 August, Operation Greif (Orsza, Witebsk; 796 people, including children)
  • 22 August – 21 September, Operation Sumpffieber (White Ruthenia; 10,063 people, including children)
  • August, Bereźne massacre
  • 22 September – 26 September, Małoryta massacre; 4,038 people, including children)
  • 23 September – 3 October, Operation Blitz (Połock, Witebsk; 567 people, including children)
  • 11 – 23 October, Operation Karlsbad (Orsza, Witebsk; 1,051 people, including children)
  • 23 – 29 November, Operation Nürnberg (Dubrowka; 2,974 people, including children)
  • 10 – 21 December, Operation Hamburg (Niemen River-Szczara River; 6,172 people, including children)
  • 22 – 29 December, Operation Altona (Słonim; 1,032 people, including children)
1943
Mass murder of Soviet civilians near Minsk, 1943
  • 6 – 14 January, Operation Franz (Grodsjanka; 2,025 people, including children)
  • 10 – 11 January, Operation Peter (Kliczów, Kolbcza; 1,400 people, including children)
  • 18 – 23 January, Słuck-Mińsk-Czerwień massacre (825 people, including children)
  • 28 January – 15 February, Operation Schneehase; Połock, Rossony, Krasnopole; 2,283 people, including children); 54; 37
  • Until 28 January, Operation Erntefest I (Czerwień, Osipowicze; 1,228 people, including children)
  • Jaanuar, Operation Eisbär (between Briańsk and Dmitriev-Lgowski)
  • Until 1 February, Operation Waldwinter (Sirotino-Trudy; 1,627 people, including children)
  • 8 – 26 February, Operation Hornung (Lenin, Hancewicze; 12,897 people, including children)
  • Until 9 February, Operation Erntefest II (Słuck, Kopyl; 2,325 people, including children)
  • 15 February – end of March, Operation Winterzauber (Oświeja, Latvian border; 3,904 people, including children)
  • 22 February – 8 March, Operation Kugelblitz (Połock, Oświeja, Dryssa, Rossony; 3,780 people, including children)
  • Until 19 March, Operation Nixe (Ptycz, Mikaszewicze, Pińsk; 400 people, including children)
  • Until 21 March, Operation Föhn (Pińsk; 543 people, including children)
    Khatyn Memorial. The sculpture depicts Yuzif Kaminsky, the only adult to survive the massacre, holding his dead son Adam.
  • 21 March – 2 April, Operation Donnerkeil (Połock, Witebsk; 542 people, including children)
  • 1 – 9 May, Operation Draufgänger II (Rudnja and Manyly forest; 680 people, including children)
  • 17 – 21 May, Operation Maigewitter (Witebsk, Suraż, Gorodok; 2,441 people, including children)
  • 20 May – 23 June, Operation Cottbus (Lepel, Begomel, Uszacz; 11,796 people, including children)
  • 27 May – 10 June, Operation Weichsel (Dniepr-Prypeć triangle, South-West of Homel; 4,018 people, including children)
  • 13 – 16 June, Operation Ziethen (Rzeczyca; 160 people, including children)
  • 25 June – 27 July, Operation Seydlitz (Owrucz-Mozyrz; 5,106 people, including children)
  • 30 July, Mozyrz massacre (501 people, including children)
  • Until 14 July, Operation Günther (Woloszyn, Lagoisk; 3,993 people, including children)
  • 13 July – 11 August, Operation Hermann (Iwie, Nowogródek, Woloszyn, Stołpce; 4,280 people, including children)
  • 24 September – 10 October, Operation Fritz (Głębokie; 509 people, including children)
  • 9 October – 22 October, Stary Bychów massacre (1,769 people, including children)
  • 1 November – 18 November, Operation Heinrich (Rossony, Połock, Idrica; 5,452 people, including children)
  • December, Spasskoje massacre (628 people, including children)
  • December, Biały massacre (1,453 people, including children)
  • 20 December – 1 January 1944, Operation Otto (Oświeja; 1,920 people, including children)
1944
  • 14 January, Oła massacre (1,758 people, including children)
  • 22 January, Baiki massacre (987 people, including children)
  • 3 – 15 February, Operation Wolfsjagd (Hłusk, Bobrujsk; 467 people, including children)
  • 5 – 6 February, Barysz (near Buczacz) massacre (126 people, including children; see pl:Zbrodnie w Baryszu)
  • Until 19 February, Operation Sumpfhahn (Hłusk, Bobrujsk; 538 people, including children)
  • Beginning of March, Berezyna-Bielnicz massacre (686 people, including children)
  • 7 – 17 April, Operation Auerhahn (Bobrujsk; c. 1,000 people, including children)
  • 17 April – 12 May, Operation Frühlingsfest (Połock, Uszacz; 7,011 people, including children)
  • 25 May – 17 June, Operation Kormoran; (Wilejka, Borysów, Minsk; 7,697 people, including children)
  • 2 June – 13 June, Operation Pfingsrose (Talka; 499 people, including children)
  • June, Operation Pfingstausnlug (Sienno; 653 people, including children)
  • June, Operation Windwirbel (Chidra; 560 people, including children)

Belgium
1940
1944

Czechoslovakia
The relatives and helpers of Czech resistance fighters Jan Kubiš and Josef Valčík executed en masse on October 24, 1942

Estonia
1941
  • 2 November, Mass murder of children in Pärnu synagogue (34 children)
1942

France
Burned out cars and buildings still litter the remains of the original village in Oradour-sur-Glane, as left by Das Reich SS division

Germany
Hartheim Euthanasia Centre, where over 18,000 people were killed in Action T4
1945

Greece
Main article: List of massacres in Greece
Massacre of Kondomari in Greece, June 1941

In addition, more than 90 villages and towns are recorded from the Hellenic network of martyr cities.[25] During the triple German, Italian and Bulgarian, occupation about 800,000 people lost their lives in Greece (see World War II casualties).

Italy
A body lies in the via Rasella, Rome, during the round up of civilians by Italian collaborationist soldiers and German troops after the partisan bombing on 13 March 1944.
Main article: German war crimes in Italy during World War II

Latvia
Latvian-Jewish women and children photographed before being murdered at Liepaja in December 1941.
1941

Lithuania
The anti-Jewish pogrom in Kaunas, in which thousands of Jews were killed in the last few days of June 1941
1941

Netherlands
1940
  • 14 May, Rotterdam bombing (nearly 1,000 people were killed and 85,000 made homeless.)
1944

Norway

Poland
Main articles: World War II crimes in Poland and Nazi crimes against ethnic Poles
Man showing corpse of a starved infant in the Warsaw ghetto, 1941
A column of Polish civilians being led by German troops through Wolska Street in early August 1944.
German police shooting women and children from the Mizocz Ghetto, 14 October 1942
1942
1943
1944
Film footage taken by the Polish Underground showing the bodies of women and children murdered by SS troops in Warsaw, August 1944.

Russia
A victim of starvation in besieged Leningrad in 1941

Serbia
1941

Slovenia
1942
1945

Ukraine
1941
1943
1944

See also

Notes
  1. Olusoga, David and Erichsen, Casper W (2010). The Kaiser's Holocaust. Germany's Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism. Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-23141-6
  2. Levi, Neil; Rothberg, Michael (2003). The Holocaust: Theoretical Readings. Rutgers University Press. p. 465. ISBN 0-8135-3353-8.
  3. Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2001, p. 12
  4. Allan D. Cooper (2006-08-31). "Reparations for the Herero Genocide: Defining the limits of international litigation". Oxford Journals African Affairs.
  5. "Remembering the Herero Rebellion". Deutsche Welle. 2004-11-01.
  6. Colonial Genocide and Reparations Claims in the 21st Century: The Socio-Legal Context of Claims under International Law by the Herero against Germany for Genocide in Namibia, 1904–1908 (PSI Reports) by Jeremy Sarkin-Hughes
  7. Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation and Subaltern Resistance in World History (War and Genocide) (War and Genocide) (War and Genocide) A. Dirk Moses -page 296(From Conquest to Genocide: Colonial Rule in German Southwest Africa and German East Africa. 296, (29). Dominik J. Schaller)
  8. The Imperialist Imagination: German Colonialism and Its Legacy (Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany) by Sara L. Friedrichsmeyer, Sara Lennox, and Susanne M. Zantop page 87 University of Michigan Press 1999
  9. Walter Nuhn: Sturm über Südwest. Der Hereroaufstand von 1904. Bernard & Graefe-Verlag, Koblenz 1989. ISBN 3-7637-5852-6.
  10. Marie-Aude Baronian, Stephan Besser, Yolande Jansen, "Diaspora and memory: figures of displacement in contemporary literature, arts and politics", pg. 33 Rodopi, 2007,
  11. Samuel Totten, William S. Parsons, Israel W. Charny, "Century of genocide: critical essays and eyewitness accounts" pg. 51, Routledge, 2004,
  12. Dan Kroll, "Securing our water supply: protecting a vulnerable resource", PennWell Corp/University of Michigan Press, pg. 22
  13. France: the dark years, 1940–1944 page 273 Julian Jackson Oxford University Press 2003
  14. Telford Taylor (November 1, 1993). The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-3168-3400-9. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
  15. Thomas Graham, Damien J. Lavera (May 2003). Cornerstones of Security: Arms Control Treaties in the Nuclear Era. University of Washington Press. pp. 7–9. ISBN 0-2959-8296-9. Retrieved 5 July 2013.
  16. Robinson, James J., ABA Journal 46(9), p. 978.
  17. Spencer C. Tucker, Priscilla Mary Roberts (October 25, 2005). World War I: A Student Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. pp. 1074. ISBN 1-8510-9879-8.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  18. Logan Marshall (1915). Horrors and atrocities of the great war: Including the tragic destruction of the Lusitania: A new kind of warfare: Comprising the desolation of Belgium: The sacking of Louvain: The shelling of defenseless cities: The wanton destruction of cathedrals and works of art: The horrors of bomb dropping: Vividly portraying the grim awfulness of this greatest of all wars fought on land and sea: In the air and under the waves: Leaving in its wake a dreadful trail of famine and pestilence. G. F. Lasher. p. 240. Retrieved 5 July 2013. German Navy December 1914 Hague Convention bombardment.
  19. Chuter, David (2003). War Crimes: Confronting Atrocity in the Modern World. London: Lynne Rienner Pub. p. 300. ISBN 1-58826-209-X.
  20. Willmore, John (1918). The great crime and its moral. New York: Doran. p. 340.
  21. Kulesza, Witold (2004). ""Wieluń polska Guernica", Tadeusz Olejnik, Wieluń 2004 : [recenzja]" ["Wieluń Polish Guernica", Tadeusz Olejnik, Wieluń 2004 : [review]] (PDF). Rocznik Wieluński (in Polish). 4: 253–254.
  22. David Gilbertson (14 August 2017). The Nightmare Dance: Guilt, Shame, Heroism and the Holocaust. Troubador Publishing Limited. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-78306-609-4.
  23. Telford Taylor "When people kill a people" in The New York Times, March 28, 1982
  24. "Home - Veterans Affairs Canada". Vac-acc.gc.ca. 2012-03-29. Archived from the original on 2006-11-21. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
  25. Δήμος Λαμιέων: Δίκτυο μαρτυρικών πόλεων & χωριών της Ελλάδος | Δήμος Λαμιέων, accessdate: 19. Oktober 2015
  26. Buzzelli, S.; De Paolis, M.; Speranzoni, A. (2012). La ricostruzione giudiziale dei crimini nazifascisti in Italia: questioni preliminari. G. Giappichelli. p. 119. ISBN 9788834826195. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  27. "Crimini di guerra". criminidiguerra.it. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  28. Biacchessi, D. (2015). I carnefici. SPERLING & KUPFER. ISBN 9788820092719. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  29. "www.anpi.it/storia/212/strage-di-boves". anpi.it. Archived from the original on 2 February 2016. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  30. "L'eccidio di Pietransieri - Rai Storia". raistoria.rai.it. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  31. "Complete tabulation of executions carried out in the Einsatzkommando 3 zone up to 1 December 1941". Holocaust-history.org. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
  32. "Gesamtaufstellung der im Bereich des EK. 3 bis zum 1. Dez. 1941 durchgeführten Exekutionen". Holocaust-history.org. 2002-09-28. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
  33. Muzeum Powstania otwarte, BBC Polish edition, 2 October 2004, Children accessed on 13 April 2007
  34. O Powstaniu Warszawskim opowiada prof. Jerzy Kłoczowski, Gazeta Wyborcza – local Warsaw edition, 1998-08-01. Children accessed on 13 April 2007
  35. "24 Октября 1943 г." www.army.lv (in Russian). Retrieved 2018-04-20.
  36. "19 Октября 1943 г." www.army.lv (in Russian). Retrieved 2018-04-20.

References
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