War crimes of the Wehrmacht
During World War II, the German Wehrmacht (combined armed forces - Heer, Kriegsmarine, and Luftwaffe) committed systematic war crimes, including massacres, mass rape, looting, the exploitation of forced labour, the murder of three million Soviet prisoners of war, and participated in the extermination of Jews. While the Nazi Party's own SS forces (in particular the SS-Totenkopfverbände, Einsatzgruppen and Waffen-SS) was the organization most responsible for the genocidal killing of the Holocaust, the regular armed forces of the Wehrmacht committed many war crimes of their own (as well as assisting the SS in theirs), particularly on the Eastern Front.
Estimates of the percentage of Wehrmacht soldiers who committed war crimes vary greatly, from the single digits to the vast majority. Historians Alex J. Kay and David Stahel argue that, including crimes such as rape, forced labour, wanton destruction, and looting in addition to murder, "it would be reasonable to conclude that a substantial majority of the ten million Wehrmacht soldiers deployed at one time or another in the German-Soviet War were involved or complicit in criminal conduct".[3] The German Wehrmacht is regarded as being a "crucial factor in the most horrendous crime perpetrated by any nation in modern history" in regard to genocides committed by the regime.[4]
France[edit]
In the course of fighting in the north of France in May 1940, Wehrmacht troops of the 267th Infantry Division killed 124 civilians in the Oignies and Courrières massacre. An estimated 500 civilians are believed to have been murdered by German forces in the Nord-Pas de Calais region.[57]
During the rout of the French Army, in June 1940, the Großdeutschland Regiment massacred African soldiers and their European officers it had taken prisoner near the Bois d'Eraine.[58] Ten more African Frenchmen were murdered near Lyon.[59]
The same month, 9th Infantry Division massacred African soldiers of the 4th North African Infantry Division they had captured near Erquivillers. A German officer is cited in French reports as explaining "an inferior race does not deserve to do battle with a civilized race such as the Germans."[58]
On 20 June 1940, 50 African soldiers were executed outside of Lyon in the Chasselay massacre.[60]
In September 1944, during the retreat from France, the garrison of Brest executed civilians and looted and destroyed civilian property during the Battle for Brest. The commander of the garrison, Generalleutnant Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke, was convicted of war crimes relating to these actions in 1951.[61]
The massacres include that of at least 1500 African French POWs of West African origin and was preceded by propaganda depicting the Africans as savages.[62] From October 1942 onwards, the Wehrmacht carried out the 'Commando Order' calling for the summary execution of all captured commandos, even if in uniform. After the Italian armistice 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.[63]
Italy[edit]
On 26 March 1944, 15 uniformed US Army officers and men were shot without trial at La Spezia, in Italy, after orders of the commander of the German 75th Army Corps, General Anton Dostler, despite the opposition of his subordinates of the 135th Fortress Brigade. Dostler was sentenced to death by an American military tribunal and executed by firing squad in December 1945.[73][74]
Whilst commanding the 65th Infantry Division, Lieutenant General Gustav Heistermann von Ziehlberg ordered the illegal executions of four SAS men between September and October 1943. On one occasion, he also took 34 Italian civilians hostage and requested permission to execute them in reprisal for suspected partisan attacks, which was denied. Von Ziehlberg was executed in February 1945, for allowing a conspirator in the 20 July plot to escape.[75][76]
North Africa[edit]
Newer research has exposed Wehrmacht war crimes in North Africa. This opposes the term "War without hate" which is used by some authors to describe the North African Campaign.[108]
Giordana Terracina writes that: "On April 3, the Italians recaptured Benghazi and a few months later the Afrika Korps led by Rommel was sent to Libya and began the deportation of the Jews of Cyrenaica in the concentration camp of Giado and other smaller towns in Tripolitania. This measure was accompanied by shooting, also in Benghazi, of some Jews guilty of having welcomed the British troops, on their arrival, treating them as liberators."[109]
Jews from all around Cyrenaica and Benghazi were deported into Italy for forced labour. At the Giado concentration camp, a survivor by the name of Sion Burbea testifies that he witnessed Erwin Rommel inspecting their work at the camp.[110]
Some historians directly connect Rommel with the war crimes of the Wehrmacht in North Africa. According to German historian Wolfgang Proske, Rommel forbade his soldiers from buying anything from the Jewish population of Tripoli, used Jewish slave labour and commanded Jews to clear out minefields by walking on them ahead of his forces.[111] Proske also claims that Jews in Tripoli were later sent to Concentration Camps.[112]
The Wehrmacht's persecution of Jews continued into 1942. According to the publication Jewish Communities of the World edited by Anthony Lerman, in 1942 during the German occupation, the Benghazi quarter that housed the Jewish population was plundered and 2000 Jews were deported across the desert, out of which approximately one fifth had perished.[113] Jews in Benghazi were also victims of a pogrom in 1942.[114] The Moment Magazine reports: "on orders from the German military commander, the Axis forces, in 1942, plundered Jewish shops and deported 2,600 Benghazi Jews to Giado".[115]
Robert Satloff writes in his book Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands that as the German and Italian forces retreated across Libya towards Tunisia, the Jewish population became victims upon which they released their anger and frustration. According to Satloff, Afrika Korps soldiers plundered Jewish property all along the Libyan coast. This violence and persecution only came to an end with the arrival of General Montgomery in Tripoli on January 23, 1943.[116] German historian Clemens Vollnhals writes that the use of Jews by Afrika Korps as forced labour is barely known, but it did happen alongside persecution of Jewish population (although on smaller scale than in Europe) and some of the labourers were worked to death.[117]
The persecution of Jews by the Wehrmacht continued into Tunisia. According to several historians, allegations and stories that associate Rommel and the Afrika Korps with the harassing and plundering of Jewish gold and property in Tunisia are usually known under the name "Rommel's treasure" or "Rommel's gold".[118][119][120] Other historians, however, state that Rommel had nothing to do with the treasure, and that "Rauff's treasure would be a more appropriate name.[121][122]
When the Wehrmacht entered Tunisia, they ordered the establishment of a Judenrat and Jews were subject to forced labour.[123] 2,000 Jewish men were forcefully conscripted, and a few thousand more would be conscripted later on. This forced labour was used in extremely dangerous situations near targets of bombing raids, facing hunger and violence.[124]
Rape[edit]
Eastern Front[edit]
German soldiers used to brand the bodies of captured partisan women – and other women as well – with the words "Whore for Hitler's troops" and rape them.[125] Following their capture some German soldiers vividly bragged about committing rape and rape-homicide.[126]
Susan Brownmiller argues that rape played a pivotal role in the Nazis' aim to conquer and destroy people they considered inferior, such as Jews, Russians, and Poles.[127] An extensive list of rapes committed by German soldiers was compiled in the so-called "Molotov Note" in 1942. Brownmiller points out that Nazis used rape as a weapon of terror.[128]
Examples of mass rapes in Soviet Union committed by German soldiers include:
Throughout the war Germany engaged in numerous experiments on human prisoners and POWs. The Wehrmacht had full knowledge of those experiments, and performed some of its own. It provided assistance regarding:
In many cases the test subjects, even if they survived, were murdered afterwards to study any changes within their bodies that happened during the experiment.[154]
Examples of experiments conducted by the Wehrmacht include:
Biological warfare[edit]
During the war members of the Wehrmacht attempted to influence Hitler's decision to study biological warfare only regarding defense. The head of the Science Division of the Wehrmacht, Erich Schumann, urged the Führer that "America must be attacked simultaneously with various human and animal epidemic pathogens, as well as plant pests."[161] Laboratory tests were prepared for the use of plague, anthrax, cholera and typhoid. The possibility of using foot and mouth disease against Britain was also studied.[162]
