HITLER, STALIN & MUSSOLINI: THE TOTALITARIAN AGE

“CLEAN HANDS”: THE GERMAN ARMY ON THE EASTERN FRONT
Hitler considered the German armed forces to be the most important tool for achieving his
foreign policy objectives. However, the Wehrmacht [German armed forces] was not a fully
Nazified institution. Its senior leadership had been trained and employed by the Imperial and
Weimar governments long before Hitler’s rise to power. Hitler himself rejected the formal
Nazification of the armed forces when he purged the SA [Nazi Party militia] in 1934. Following
the Second World War, it was generally accepted in Germany and in the West that the
Wehrmacht had remained apolitical during the conflict: the German army had fought an
honourable war distinct from the criminality of the Nazi Party and the SS, which took
responsibility for the exploitation of occupied Europe and the execution of the Holocaust. The
Wehrmacht exited the war supposedly with “clean hands.”
Scholarship over the past decades has brought into question this portrayal of a “clean
Wehrmacht,” especially in relation to the eastern front of the Second World War. The Germans
launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, on 22 June 1941. The eastern
front immediately became the focal point of the war, not only because of the numbers of men
employed in operations, but because the Soviet Union was a primary target of Hitler’s ideology.
Hitler’s anti-communism and anti-Semitism, combined with his concept of Lebensraum [living
space], gave Nazi policies in the east a particularly sinister character. With Operation
Barbarossa, the Holocaust escalated from the ghettoization of Jews to their mass murder by
the Einsatzgruppen, paving the way for the establishment of extermination camps in 1942.
During the war, more than 3 million Soviet prisoners of war and 15 million Soviet civilians died
as the result of Nazi starvation policies or repression measures. In many respects, the brutal
confrontation in the east between the Nazi and Soviet brands of totalitarianism was the
culminating point of the totalitarian age.
Over the course of the term, through a series of three assignments, you will re-examine the
“clean hands” thesis and evaluate the extent of the German army’s involvement in the Nazi
regime’s criminal policies in occupied Soviet territory. Each assignment builds upon the other,
simulating the methods that historians use to conduct research. In the first assignment, you will
use library databases to gather reliable sources for research into the topic of the German
army’s role on the eastern front. In the second assignment, you will read, summarize, and
evaluate an article-length secondary source on the topic. The third assignment will provide you
with primary source material, permitting you to draw your own conclusions in a research-style
essay.
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HISTORY 1404E
HITLER, STALIN & MUSSOLINI: THE TOTALITARIAN AGE
ASSIGNMENT #3: PRIMARY SOURCE ESSAY
Learning Objectives
After completing this assignment, you should be able to:
• Read primary sources critically and analytically
• Evaluate primary sources based on their potential bias and perspective
• Interpret primary source evidence to develop your own thesis
• Weave together evidence from primary and secondary sources, incorporating historiography
into your analysis
Instructions

Read the guiding questions and documents listed below.
Develop a thesis that best explains the contrasting views presented in the documents.
Write an essay of 1,500–2,000 words that supports your thesis with evidence from the
documents.
Submit a digital copy of the assignment via OWL.
Technical Requirements
• Format: use a standard 12-point font; standard margins (1 inch/2.5 cm); double-spaced.
• Title Page: include a separate title page at the front of your assignment.
• Word limit: your essay must fall between 1,500 and 2,000 words.
• Sources: the primary sources below should make up the bulk of the evidence for your paper;
you are not expected to use all the sources provided, but you should refer to at least ten of
them within your essay. To situate your argument within its historiographic context and to guide
your interpretation and analysis, you must draw upon at least two quality academic secondary
sources. These can be the same sources that you used in the previous two assignments, but you
may feel free to choose alternative sources.
• Citations: citations to the provided primary documents may be made in text. For example:
“Guderian claimed that his troops never carried out the ‘commissar order’ (doc. 1).” Citations to
all other sources should be made in footnotes according to the Chicago Manual of Style.
A bibliography or list of works cited is not required.
• Submission: digital submissions should be in Word, PDF, or plain text format (submit only one
and be sure to include the file extension).
Grading
The assignment will be marked out of 100. You will be evaluated on the quality of your analysis, the
structure of your argument, and on the clarity of your writing.
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DOCUMENTS
“CLEAN HANDS”: THE GERMAN ARMY ON THE EASTERN FRONT
The following documents include a range of source types: memoirs; official reports,
correspondence, and directives; propaganda; private letters; even bugged conversations. A
small amount of background information has been provided before each source (in sans-serif
font). Addition technical information is available in the appendices that follow the documents.
You may need to refer to other secondary sources for further clarification. One of the exciting
parts of analyzing primary sources is the detective work involved in tracking down a name,
place, or event that is not familiar to you!
By now, you should be familiar with the topic and have an idea of how you want to approach it.
Nonetheless, you may find the following guiding questions helpful:
• To what extent was the German army involved in the Nazi regime’s criminal policies in
the east?
• How much did German commanders, officers, and soldiers know about these policies
and the activities of the SS?
• Did the regular army participate in war crimes?
• Why did the German high command, officers, and soldiers behave the way they did?
• Did they all behave the same way?
• If not, were there factors that help explain the differences?
Use these questions to guide you in developing your own thesis, but feel free to be creative.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Documents
The Memoirs of General Heinz Guderian, 1952
Halder’s Notes of Hitler’s Address to German Generals, 30 March 1941
The Barbarossa Decree, 13 May 1941
Guidelines for the Conduct of the Troops in Russia, 19 May 1941
The Commissar Decree, 6 June 1941
Watch Out!, 16 June 1941
General Jodl’s Order, 7 October 1941
Memorandum on Conduct of Troops in Eastern Territories, 10 October 1941
Von Manstein Order to Eleventh Army, 20 November 1941
Mitteilungen für die Truppe, June 1940
Mitteilungen für die Truppe, July 1941
Mitteilungen für das Offizierkorps, April 1942
A Letter from Sergeant Karl Fuchs to His Wife, 28 June 1941
A Letter from Sergeant Karl Fuchs to His Father, 4 August 1941
A Letter from Sergeant Karl Fuchs to His Mother, 15 October 1941
A Letter from Konrad Jarausch to His Wife, August 1941
A Letter from Konrad Jarausch to His Wife, 1 September 1941
A German NCO Writes Home, July 1942
A German NCO Writes Home, August 1942
A Conversation between Two German POWs, August 1944
Letter from Alfred Rosenberg to Wilhelm Keitel, 28 February 1942
Affidavit of SS Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf, 5 November 1945
A Conversation between German POWs, 28 December 1944
Testimony of Lieutenant Erwin Bingel, August 1945
Major von Gersdorff’s Report, 9 December 1941
Appendix
A. The German Army Chain of Command
B. List of Terms and Abbreviations
C. The German-Occupied East (map)
D. The Laws of War
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Document 1. The Memoirs of General Heinz Guderian, 19521
General Heinz Guderian was one of the German army’s most prominent theorists of
mechanized warfare. After participating in the invasions of Poland and France, he commanded
a Panzer Group during Operation Barbarossa. Following the failure to capture Moscow in
December 1941, Hitler relieved Guderian of his command. Guderian was not involved in the
plot of German generals to assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944. In the aftermath of the
attempted coup, he was appointed chief of staff of the OKH. He surrendered to the Americans
in 1945 and was never charged for war crimes. The following excerpts are taken from
Guderian’s memoirs, published in 1952.
On Criminal Orders:
Finally, an allusion must be made to an event which was to leave a deep stain on
Germany’s reputation.
Shortly before the opening of hostilities the OKW sent an order direct to all corps and
divisions concerning the treatment that was to be given to the civilian population and to prisoners
of war in Russia. It specified that in the event of excesses being committed against civilians or
prisoners, the responsible soldier was not automatically to be tried and punished according to
military law; disciplinary action was only to be taken at the discretion of the man’s immediate
unit commander. This order was obviously likely to have the most unfortunate effect on the
preservation of discipline. The Commander-in-Chief of the Army had apparently realised this
himself, for an appendix to the order, signed by Field-Marshal von Brauchitsch, stated that the
order would only be carried out if there was no danger of discipline suffering thereby. Since both
I and my corps commanders were immediately convinced that discipline must suffer if the order
were published, I forbade its forwarding to the divisions and ordered that it be returned to Berlin.
This order, which was to play an important part in the post-war trials of German generals by our
former enemies, was consequently never carried out in my Panzer Group. At the time I dutifully
informed the Commander-in-Chief of the Army Group that I was not publishing or obeying this
order.
The equally notorious, so-called ‘Commissar Order’ never even reached my Panzer
Group. No doubt Army Group Centre had already decided not to forward it. Therefore the
‘Commissar Order’ was never carried out by my troops either.
Looking back, one can only deeply regret that neither the OKW nor the OKH blocked
these two orders in the first place. Many brave and innocent soldiers would have thus been saved
bitter suffering, and the good name of Germany would have been spared a great shame.
Regardless of whether the Russians had signed the Hague Agreement or not, whether or not they
had approved the Geneva Convention, German soldiers must accept their international
obligations and must behave according to the dictates of a Christian conscience. Even without
harsh orders the effects of war on the population of an enemy country are cruel enough, and the
Russian civilians were as innocent of causing this war as were our own. […]
1 Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader, trans. Constantine Fitzgibbon (1952; repr., London: Penguin, 2000), 152, 440–41,
446–48, 462–65.
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On Adolf Hitler:
He was, in the summer of 1940, unsure how he might lead his country back to peace. He
did not know how to deal with the English. His armed forces were ready. They could not remain
mobilised and inactive for an indefinite length of time. He felt an itch to act. What was to
happen? The old ideological enemy, against whom he had struggled throughout his career and
which, by opposing it, had brought him the mass of his supporters’ votes, stood intact on the
eastern frontier. He was tempted to make use of the time allowed him by the temporary lull on
the Western Front in order to complete the reckoning with the Soviets. He was clearly aware of
the threat that the Soviet Union and the communist urge to world hegemony offered both to
Europe and to the whole of Western civilisation: He knew that in this matter he was in agreement
with the majority of his fellow-countrymen and, indeed, with many good Europeans in other
lands. The question of whether these ideas of his could in fact be militarily executed was, of
course, quite another matter.
To begin with perhaps he only toyed with these ideas, but as time went on he began to
take them more and more seriously. His unusually vivid powers of imagination led him to underestimate the known strength of the Soviet Union. He maintained that mechanisation on land and
in the air offered fresh chances of success, so that comparison with the campaigns of Charles XII
of Sweden or Napoleon was no longer relevant. He maintained that he could rely with certainty
upon the collapse of the Soviet system as soon as his first blows reached their mark. He believed
the Russian populace would embrace his National-Socialist ideology. But as soon as the
campaign began almost everything was done to prevent any such thing from taking place. By
ill-treating the native populations in the occupied Russian territories that were administered by
high Party functionaries, and by reason of his decision to dissolve the Russian state and to
incorporate considerable areas into Germany, Hitler succeeded in uniting all Russians under the
banner of Stalin. They were now fighting for Holy Mother Russia and against a foreign invader.
In part responsible for this blunder was his habit of under-estimating other races and
nations. This had become evident before the war, within Germany, in his significantly shortsighted and irresponsibly harsh treatment of the Jews. It now assumed an even more sinister
aspect. If any single fact played a predominant part in the collapse of National-Socialism and of
Germany it was the folly of this racial policy.
Hitler wished to unite Europe. His failure to understand the characteristic differences of
the various nations, combined with his methods of centralised control, doomed this intention
from the start.
The Russian war soon showed the limitations of Germany’s strength. But Hitler did not
conclude from this that he must either break off the undertaking or at least choose more modest
objectives; on the contrary, he plunged into the unlimited. He was determined, by means
of reckless violence, to force defeat upon the Russians. With incomprehensible blindness he was
simultaneously courting war with the United States. It is true that Roosevelt’s order to his ships
that they might open fire on Germany’s naval vessels had produced a state of affairs that was
close to war. But between that and actual, open warfare there might have lain a very long road
had Hitler’s overweening arrogance not closed it.
This frightening gesture on his part coincided with our first decisive defeat on the
battlefields before Moscow. Hitler’s strategy, lacking in consistency, and subject to continual
vacillation in its execution, had crashed. From now on ruthlessly harsh treatment of his own
troops was to make up for a failure of capability on the part of the controlling mind. For a time
this proved successful. But in the long run it was not enough simply to remind his soldiers of the
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sacrifices made by Frederick the Great’s grenadiers on the orders of that powerful king and
commander. It was not enough that he should identify himself with the German people and thus,
because he was prepared for privation, that he should simply ignore the population’s basic
requirements. […]
On Himmler and the SS:
The most impenetrable of all Hitler’s disciples was the National Leader of the SS,
Heinrich Himmler. An inconspicuous man with all the marks of racial inferiority, the impression
he made was one of simplicity. He went out of his way to be polite. In contrast to that of Goering
his private life might be described as positively Spartan in its austerity.
His imagination was all the more vivid, and even fantastic. He seemed like a man from
some other planet. His racial doctrine was fallacious and led him to commit terrible crimes. His
attempt to educate the German people in National-Socialism resulted only in concentration
camps. As late as 1943, long after Stalingrad, he still believed that Russia should be colonised by
Germans as far as the Urals, On one occasion, when I said to him that it was already impossible
to find volunteer colonists for the east, he insisted that the land as far as the Urals must be
Germanised by compulsory colonisation if necessary and by planting the land with German
peasants conscripted for that purpose.
As for the consequences of Himmler’s racial theories, I have, from personal observation
and experience, nothing to say. Hitler and Himmler succeeded in keeping this part of their
programme strictly secret.
Himmler’s ‘methods of education,’ as practised in the concentration camps, have
meanwhile become sufficiently well known. During his lifetime the general public knew only a
little about this. The atrocities carried out in those camps were made known to most people, as to
myself, only after the collapse. The way the concentration camp methods were kept secret can
only be described as masterly.
After 20th July2 Himmler became filled with military ambition: this led him to have
himself appointed commander of the Training Army and even commander of an army group. In
military matters Himmler proved an immediate and total failure. His appreciation of our enemies
was positively childish. His decisions when in command of Army Group Vistula, in 1945, were
dictated by fear. Despite this he retained Hitler’s confidence almost up to the end.
Himmler’s most notable creation was the SS. After the collapse this organisation was
accused and condemned in root and branch. And that was unjust.
The SS originated as Hitler’s bodyguard. A desire to supervise not only the uninitiated
mass of the populace but also the Party organisation led to its increase in strength. After the
concentration camps were set up Himmler made the SS responsible for their control. This marks
the point at which the SS was subdivided into two main groups: the Waffen-SS, or Armed SS, a
primarily military organisation, and the Allgemeine-SS, or General SS. The man entrusted with
the Waffen-SS was the former army general, Hausser, formerly chief of staff of my old division
at Stettin. General Hausser was a first-class officer, a brave and clever soldier and a man
outstandingly upright and honourable character. […]
I can therefore assert that to my knowledge the SS divisions were always remarkable for
a high standard of discipline, of esprit de corps, and of conduct in the face of the enemy. They
2 On 20 July 1944, a group of German army officers tried to assassinate Hitler and stage a coup in Berlin. The
attempt failed. In its aftermath, Hitler purged the officer corps of the Wehrmacht and granted more military
authority to Himmler’s SS.
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fought shoulder to shoulder with the panzer divisions of the Army, and the longer the war went
on the less distinguishable they became from the Army.
There can, of course, be no doubt that Himmler had quite other ends in view when he
arranged for the expansion of the Waffen-SS. Both Hitler and he distrusted the Army, for their
intentions were dark and there always existed the danger for them that if the Army recognised
them in time it might resist. […]
A far different judgment must be passed on the Allgemeine-SS. Here, too, there were
doubtless idealists to be found, who originally believed that they had joined an order with special
responsibilities and therefore entitled to special privileges. There were also many men of good
character and spirit, men drawn from the most varied professions and careers, who had simply
been appointed members of the SS by Himmler without any questions being asked. But as time
went on the picture changed; the SS took over numerous police functions of a most dubious sort.
Then units of the Allgemeine-SS were also armed. The number of foreign formations was here
also constantly on the increase; these were markedly worse than the units of the Waffen-SS, as,
for example, was shown by the behaviour of the Kaminski and Dirlewanger Brigades in the
crushing of the Warsaw uprising.
I never had anything to do with the SD and its Einsatzkommandos (Operational
commandos) and am therefore not able to give any first-hand information concerning them.
On the Officer Corps and Nazism:
When National-Socialism, with its new, nationalistic slogans, appeared upon the scene
the younger elements of the Officer Corps were soon inflamed by the patriotic theories
propounded by Hitler and his followers. The completely inadequate state of the country’s
armaments had lain like a leaden weight on the Officer Corps for many long years. It is no
wonder that the first steps towards rearmament inclined them to, favour the man who promised
to breathe fresh life into the armed forces after fifteen years’ stagnation. The National-Socialist
Party further increased its popularity in military circles since to begin with Hitler showed himself
to be well disposed towards the Army and refrained from interfering in its private affairs. The
previous gap in the Army’s political life was now filled, and interest was aroused in political
questions, though hardly in the manner that the democrats seem to have expected. Be that as it
may, once the National-Socialists had seized power, the leaders of the armed forces could hardly
remain aloof from National-Socialist politics, even had they wished to do so. The General Staff
[OKH] certainly played no leading role in this new development; if anything, the contrary was
true. The prime example of the sceptical attitude of the General Staff was that of General Beck.
He had a number of adherents at the centre, but no influence over the Army as a whole and even
less in the other services. Beck and his successor Halder, might try to put the brake on the swing
towards National-Socialism at the hub of military authority; their effect on policy in general was
nil and it simply followed its course without the support of, and in opposition to, the General
Staff. Once again—as before the First World War—Germany found itself in a political situation
from which there seemed to be no way out and which made the war look difficult if not hopeless,
before ever it began. Once again the soldiers, led by the generals and the General Staff Corps
officers, had to find a way out of an impasse for which they were not responsible.
All the reproaches that have been levelled against the leaders of the armed forces by their
countrymen and by the international courts have failed to take into consideration one very simple
fact: that policy is not laid down by soldiers but by politicians. This has always been the case and
is so today. When war starts the soldiers can only act according to the political and military
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situation as it then exists. Unfortunately it is not the habit of politicians to appear in conspicuous
places when the bullets begin to fly. They prefer to remain in some safe retreat and to
let the soldiers carry out’ the continuation of policy by other means.’ […]
At this point I should like to say a few words about the OKW. Field-Marshal Keitel was
basically a decent individual who did his best to perform the task allotted him. He soon fell under
the sway of Hitler’s personality and, as time went on, became less and less able to shake off the
hypnosis of which he was a victim. He preserved his Lower Saxon loyalty until the day of his
death. Hitler knew that he could place unlimited confidence in the man; for that reason he
allowed him to retain his position even when he no longer had any illusion about his talents as a
strategist. The Field-Marshal exerted no influence on the course of operations. His chief
activities were in the administrative field, which had previously been the domain of the War
Ministry. It was Keitel’s misfortune that he lacked the strength necessary to resist Hitler’s orders
when such orders ran contrary to international law and to accepted morality. It was only this
weakness on his part that permitted the issuing to the troops of the so-called ‘Commissar Order’
and other notorious decrees. He paid for this with his life at Nuremberg. His family were not
permitted to mourn at his grave.
Colonel-General Jodl, the chief of the Armed Forces Command Staff, had in fact
controlled the operations of the combined armed forces ever since the Norwegian Campaign of
April, 1940. He like Keitel, was a decent man; originally he too had fallen under Hitler’s spell,
but he had never been so hypnotised as was Keitel and therefore never became so uncritical.
After his quarrel with Hitler during the Stalingrad period he withdrew completely into his work,
most of which he did with his own hands and without the customary office and clerical
assistance. He was silent and resigned on the question of reforming the military and political
command, and adopted the same attitude towards the reorganisation and unified leadership of the
General Staff. Only in the last few weeks of the war did he rise to fresh heights. He was to share
Keitel’s bitter fate.
If these two officers had assumed a different point of view in their dealings with Hitler
they could have prevented much evil from taking place. Hitler only tended to give in when
confronted by a unified opposition. But such unity in military matters scarcely ever existed, and
this enabled him to make the OKH increasingly powerless and to ignore any objections that it
might raise.
For all that—they were my comrades.
Document 2. Halder’s Notes of Hitler’s Address to German Generals, 30 March
19413
On 30 March 1941 Hitler addressed his military leadership about the upcoming invasion of the
Soviet Union and the character he expected it to take. General Franz Halder, Chief of Staff of
the Army [OKH], recorded the following notes from the meeting.
11.00 Meeting of generals at Führer’s office. Address lasting almost 2½ hours. […]
Our tasks concerning Russia. Crush armed forces, break up state.
3 Reproduced in Jürgen Förster and Evan Mawdsley, “Hitler and Stalin in Perspective: Secret Speeches on the Eve
of Barbarossa,” War in History 11, no. 1 (2004): 70–78.
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Future political image of Russia. Northern Russia belongs to Finland. Protectorates: Baltic
states, Ukraine, White Russia. The new states must be socialist states, but without intellectual
classes of their own. Formation of a new intellectual class must be prevented. A primitive
socialist intelligentsia is all that is needed here.
Problem of Russia’s vastness: enormous expanse requires concentration on decisive points.
Massed planes and tanks must be brought forward to bear on decisive points. The Russian will
break down under the massive impact of tanks and air force. […]
Clash of two ideologies. Crushing denunciation of Bolshevism, identified with asocial
criminality. Communism is an enormous danger for our future. We must forget the concept of
comradeship between soldiers. A Communist is no comrade before or after the battle. This is a
fight of annihilation. If we do not grasp this, we shall still beat the enemy, but thirty years later
we shall again have to fight the Communist enemy. We do not wage war to preserve the enemy.
[Colonial tasks!]4 Fight against Russia. Extermination of the Bolshevik commissars and of the Communist intelligentsia. The fight must be directed against the poison of disintegration. This is no job for military courts. The individual troop commander must know the issues at stake. They must be leaders in this fight. The troops must fight back with methods with which they are attacked. Commissars and GPU men are criminals and must be dealt with as such. This need not mean that the troops should get out of hand. Rather, the commander must give orders which express the common feelings of his men. Commanders must make the sacrifice of overcoming their personal scruples. [This fight will be very different from the fight in west. In the east, a stitch in time
saves nine.]
Document 3. The Barbarossa Decree, 13 May 19415
The following directive was authored and signed by General Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the
Wehrmacht [OKW]. It was issued as a “Führer Decree” on behalf of Hitler.
TOP SECRET
Decree on the jurisdiction of martial law and on special measures of the troops [written in ink]
The exercise of martial law serves primarily to maintain military discipline.
The wide extent of operational space in the East, the form of combat that this offers, and the
peculiarity of the enemy, present tasks to the courts martial […] that, with their limited personnel,
they can only solve if military law restricts itself for the time being to its central task.
That is only possible if the troops themselves defend themselves against every threat from the
enemy civilian population without mercy.
4 Asterisks signify marginal entries.
5 Two different translations of the decree are available as “Fuehrer Decree, 13 May 1941,” accessed 13 February
2014, http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/USSR5.htm, and “Barbarossa Decree of 13 May 1941,” accessed 13
February 2014, http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/ggiles/barbaros.html.
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Accordingly, the following is decreed for the territory “Barbarossa” (theater of operation, rear
army area and area of the political administration):
I.
Treatment of criminal acts by enemy civilians
Criminal acts of enemy civilians are withdrawn until further notice from the jurisdiction of
courts-martial and summary courts.
Guerrillas are to be dispatched without mercy by the troops either in combat or while trying to
escape.
Furthermore, all other attacks by enemy civilians against the Wehrmacht, its members and
retinue are to be repelled on the spot by the most extreme measures up to the destruction of the
attacker.
Where measures of this kind were missed or were initially not possible, the suspicious
elements are to be immediately brought before an officer. He will decide whether they are to be
shot.
Collective drastic action will be taken immediately against communities from which treacherous
or insidious attacks against the Wehrmacht are launched, on the orders of an officer with at least
the rank of battalion commander upwards, if the circumstances do not permit a speedy
apprehension of individual culprits.
It is expressly forbidden to detain suspected culprits, in order to hand them over to the courts
when jurisdiction over native inhabitants is restored to these. […]
II.
Treatment of criminal acts by members of the Wehrmacht or its retinue against native civilians
For acts which members of the Wehrmacht or its retinue commit against enemy civilians, there
is no compulsion to prosecute, even when the act represents at the same time a military crime or
offense.
In judging such deeds it is to be considered in any proceedings that the collapse in the year
1918, the later period of suffering of the German people, and the battle against National
Socialism with the movement’s countless sacrifices of blood are incontestably to be attributed to
Bolshevik influence, and that no German has forgotten that.
The chairman of the court must therefore examine whether a disciplinary reprimand is
appropriate or whether it is necessary to institute judicial proceedings. The chairman only orders
court-martial proceedings for acts against native inhabitants, when the maintenance of discipline
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or the protection of the troops demands it. That applies, for example, in the case of serious acts
that result from the loss of sexual restraint, are derived from a criminal disposition, or are a sign
that the troops are threatening to run wild. Criminal acts, by which lodgings or supplies or other
plunder are senselessly destroyed to the detriment of our own troops, are not on the whole to be
judged more leniently. The order of the inquiry proceedings requires in every individual case the
signature of the judge.
Extreme care must be exercised when judging the authenticity of the statements of enemy
civilians.
III.
Responsibility of the troop commanders
The troop commanders are, within the sphere of their competence, personally responsible for the
following:
that all officers of the units subordinated to them are very thoroughly and promptly instructed
about the fundamentals of I,
that their legal advisors be promptly informed about these instructions and about the verbal
statements with which the political intentions of the leadership had been explained to the
commanders-in-chief,
that only such sentences will be confirmed which are in accord with the political intentions of
the leadership. […]
[signed] KEITEL
Document 4. Guidelines for the Conduct of the Troops in Russia, 19 May 19416
The OKW issued additional guidelines on 19 May. These were delivered to German infantry
divisions in mid-June, with instructions to distribute them among battalions on the eve of the
invasion.
I.
Bolshevism is the mortal enemy of the national socialist German Volk. This subversive
Weltanschauung and its carriers are Germany’s struggle.
This struggle demands ruthless and energetic action against Bolshevik agitators, saboteurs,
Jews and the complete elimination of all active or passive resistance.
II.
6 Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg im Breisgau, RH 26-126/25. Courtesy of the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum.
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Extreme reserve and the sharpest care is in order towards all members of the Red Army –
including prisoners – as one should expect treacherous combat practices. The Red Army’s
Asiatic soldiers are especially devious, unpredictable, underhanded, and callous.
During the capture of entire units, the leaders are to be immediately separated from the men.
III.
The German soldier is confronted by a disparate population in the Union of Socialist Soviet
Republics (U.S.S.R.). The U.S.S.R. is an imperial state formed by various smaller states
incorporates a large number of Slavic, Caucasian, and Asiatic peoples into it and is held together
through the force of the Bolshevik authorities. Jewry is heavily represented in the U.S.S.R.
The majority of the Russian population, especially the rural population impoverished by the
Bolshevik system, is internally hostile to Bolshevism. In the anti-Bolshevik population, the
national consciousness is conjoined to a deep religious feeling. Joy and gratitude over the
liberation from Bolshevism will frequently find its expression in religious form. Thanksgiving
services and religious processions are not to be prevented or disturbed.
The greatest caution is required in conversation with the population and in conduct towards
women. Many Russians understand German even if they are unable to speak it. The enemy
intelligence service is presently at work in the occupied territory to obtain intelligence about our
important military installations and measures. Any carelessness, boastfulness, and misplaced
trustfulness can therefore have serious repercussions.
IV.
Economic goods of all types and seized goods for military use, especially food and fodder,
fuels, and everyday clothing are to be saved and secured. All squandering and waste harms the
troops. Plundering will be punished with the heaviest penalties according to military law.
Caution in the consumption of seized foodstuffs! Water should only be consumed after being
boiled (typhus, cholera). Every contact with the population involves health dangers. Protecting
one’s health is the soldier’s duty. […]
Document 5. The Commissar Decree, 6 June 19417
Two weeks before the invasion of the Soviet Union, the following decree was issued to German
commanders destined for the eastern front. Keitel’s deputy, Walter Warlimont, signed the
order on his behalf. Commissars were Communist Party officials assigned to Red Army units to
ensure the loyalty of officers and to monitor and control morale among Soviet troops.
TOP SECRET
7
“The Commissar Decree, 6 June 1941,” in The Nazi Germany Sourcebook, eds. Roderick Stackelberg and Sally A.
Winkle (London: Routledge, 2002), 277–79.
13
By hand of officer only!
Further to the Fuhrer decree of 14 May regarding the exercise of military jurisdiction in the area
of “Barbarossa” … , the attached document, “General Instructions on the Treatment of Political
Commissars,” is circulated herewith. You are requested to limit its distribution to the
Commanders of Armies and Air Force and to arrange for its further oral communication to lower
commands.
Chief of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW)
[signed] Warlimont
INSTRUCTIONS ON THE TREATMENT OF POLITICAL COMMISSARS
In the struggle against Bolshevism, we must not assume that the enemy’s conduct will be based
on principles of humanity or of international law. In particular, hate-inspired, cruel, and inhuman
treatment of prisoners can be expected on the part of all ranks of political commissars, who are
the real leaders of resistance.
The attention of all units must be drawn to the following:
To show consideration to these elements during this struggle or to act in accordance with
international rules of war is wrong and endangers both our own security and the rapid
pacification of conquered territory.
Political Commissars have initiated barbaric, Asiatic methods of warfare. Consequently
they will be dealt with immediately and with maximum severity. As a matter of principle
they will be shot at once whether captured during operations or otherwise showing
resistance.
The following regulations will apply:
I. THEATER OF OPERATIONS
Political commissars who oppose our forces will be treated in accordance with the decree
on “The Exercise of Military Law in the Area of Barbarossa.” This applies to every kind
and rank of Commissar even if only suspected of resistance or sabotage or incitement to
resist. In this connection see “General Instructions on the Conduct of Troops in Russia.”
Political commissars serving with enemy forces are recognizable by their distinctive
insignia — a red star interwoven with a hammer and sickle on the sleeve band (see details
in “Armed Forces of the USSR” … ). On capture they will be immediately separated from
other prisoners on the field of battle. This is essential to prevent them from influencing in
any way the other prisoners. Commissars will not be treated as soldiers. The protection
afforded by international law to prisoners of war will not apply in their case. After they
have been segregated they will be liquidated.
Political commissars who are neither guilty nor suspected of being guilty of hostile
actions will be initially exempt from the above measures. Only as our forces penetrate
14
further into the country will it be possible to decide whether remaining officials should be
allowed to stay where they are or whether they should be handed over to the
Sonderkommandos [special units], who should where possible carry out the investigation
themselves. In reaching a verdict of “guilty or not guilty,” greater attention will be paid to
the character and bearing of the commissar in question than to his offence, for which
corroborative evidence may not be forthcoming.
Under I. and 2. a short report (on a report form) on the case will be forwarded
(a) by divisional units to divisional headquarters (Intelligence Section)
(b) by units directly subordinate to a Corps, Army Group, or Armored Group to the
Intelligence Section at Corps or higher headquarters.
None of the above measure must be allowed to interfere with operations. Systematic
screening and cleansing operations by combat units will therefore not take place.
II. IN THE COMMUNICATIONS ZONE
Commissars who are apprehended in the rear areas for acting in a suspicious manner will be
handed over to the Einsatzgruppen or Einsatzkommandos of the SD.
III. MODIFICATION OF GENERAL AND REGIMENTAL COURTS MARTIAL
General and regimental courts martial will not be responsible for carrying out the measures in
Sections I and II.
Document 6. Watch Out!, 16 June 19418
The following leaflet was printed by the Sixth Army, stationed in occupied Poland on the eve of
Operation Barbarossa.
WATCH OUT!
Destroy after Distribution to Troops
We are fighting a Soviet enemy who has used treacherous and unimaginably cruel methods,
which conform to the Bolshevik character, in every war he has waged. To know the methods
means to be prepared for them. The highest level of suspicion is appropriate. Pay attention to the
following types of the Soviet conduct of war so that you are not surprised and you will find the
means and ways to make them harmless.
Gas war in every form. Poisoning of long stretches of roads for retreat. The gasmask protects
against all combat gases. Retaliation has been prepared.
8 National Archive and Record Administration, Washington D.C., T-314, Roll 187. Courtesy of the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum.
15
Poisoning of fountains, foodstuffs and cattle stocks. Do not drink out of fountains, be careful
in the use of foodstuffs before they have been examined by a doctor.
Mixture of seed corn and poison. Bacteria war (plague, cholera, typhus). The prepared medical
measures (vaccinations) will protect you against them. But do not take any anything edible from
the civilian population.
Parachute jumps by saboteurs in civilian clothes. Especially in the rear of the combat areas,
these criminals need to be immediately rendered harmless before they cause incalculable damage
(destruction of fuel dumps, bridges, etc.).
Red Army soldiers who play dead and have their hands up in the air then a resumption of
fighting from the rear. The immediate execution of such opponents is your prerogative.
Underhanded shootings by small units and individual people. Night attacks on sentries and
rear area convoys. Always be prepared to defend day and night to overcome such opponents.
The use of cattle herds and civilians as cover for Red troops and guerillas. Do not enter
seemingly harmless appearing villages before they have been found to be free of the enemy.
Shooting at illuminated windows. Immediately darken if you have to turn on a light.
Vehicle accidents. Careful investigation and cautious driving will protect you from surprises
and help you overcome obstacles.
Sadistic treatment of prisoners. Every German soldier must know that captivity in the hands
of the Red Army is synonymous with horrific torture and death!
Document 7. General Jodl’s Order, 7 October 19419
Alfred Jodl was another of Keitel’s deputies at the OKW. He sent the following message to the
Army High Command [OKH] when it appeared likely that Leningrad and Moscow would soon fall
into German hands. Neither city ever did.
MOST SECRET
Supreme Command of Armed Forces
Führer’s Hq., 7 Oct. 41
To Army Supreme Command (Ops. Section)
The Fuhrer has again decided that a capitulation of Leningrad or later of Moscow is not
to be accepted even if offered by the enemy.
The moral justification for this measure is clear to the whole world. Just as in Kiev, our
troops were subject to extreme danger through explosions with time-fuses, the same must be
9
“General Jodl’s order, 7 October 1941,” in Stackelberg and Winkle, The Nazi Germany Sourcebook, 285.
16
expected to a still greater degree in Moscow and Leningrad. The Soviet radio itself has broadcast
that the foundations of Leningrad were mined and the city would be defended to the last man.
Extreme danger of epidemics is to be expected.
Therefore no German soldier is to enter these cities. Anyone who tries to leave the city
through our lines is to be forced to return under fire.
The exodus of the population through the smaller, unguarded gaps towards the interior of
Russia to be allowed. Before all other cities are taken, they are to be softened up by artillery fire
and airraids and their population forced to flee.
We cannot take the responsibility of endangering our soldiers’ lives by fire in order to
save Russian cities, nor that of feeding the population of these cities at the expense of the
German homeland […]
Chief of Supreme Command of the Armed Forces
By Order
[signed:] Jodl
Document 8. Memorandum on Conduct of Troops in Eastern Territories, 10
October 194110
Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau commanded the German Sixth Army as part of Army Group
South in 1941. He issued the following secret memo to his unit commanders.
SECRET!
ARMY H.Q., 10.10.41
Army Command 6., Sec. Ia-A.7
Subject: Conduct of Troops in Eastern Territories.
Regarding the conduct of troops towards the bolshevistic system, vague ideas are still
prevalent in many cases. The most essential aim of war against the Jewish-bolshevistic system is
a complete destruction of their means of power and the elimination of asiatic influence from the
European culture. In this connection the troops are facing tasks which exceed the onesided
routine of soldiering. The soldier in the eastern territories is not merely a fighter according to the
rules of the art of war but also a bearer of ruthless national ideology and the avenger of
bestialities which have been inflicted upon German and racially related nations.
Therefore the soldier must have full understanding for the necessity of a severe but just
revenge on subhuman Jewry. The Army has to aim at another purpose, i.e., the annihilation of
revolts in hinterland which, as experience proves, have always been caused by Jews. The
combating of the enemy behind the front line is still not being taken seriously enough.
Treacherous, cruel partisans and unnatural women are still being made prisoners of war and
guerrilla fighters dressed partly in uniforms or plain clothes and vagabonds are still being treated
as proper soldiers, and sent to prisoner of war camps. In fact, captured Russian officers talk even
mockingly about Soviet agents moving openly about the roads and very often eating at German
field kitchens. Such an attitude of the troops can only be explained by complete thoughtlessness,
so it is now high time for the commanders to clarify the meaning of the present struggle.
10 “Conduct of Troops in Eastern Territories,” in The Nazi State and German Society: A Brief History with
Documents, ed. Robert G, Moeller (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010), 117–19.
17
The feeding of the natives and of prisoners of war who are not working for the Armed
Forces from Army kitchens is an equally misunderstood humanitarian act as is the giving of
cigarettes and bread. Things which the people at home can spare under great sacrifices and
things which are being brought by the Command to the front under great difficulties, should not
be given to the enemy by the soldier not even if they originate from booty. It is an important part
of our supply.
When retreating the Soviets have often set buildings on fire. The troops should be
interested in extinguishing of fires only as far as it is necessary to secure sufficient numbers of
billets. Otherwise the disappearance of symbols of the former bolshevistic rule even in the form
of buildings is part of the struggle of destruction. Neither historic nor artistic considerations are
of any importance in the eastern territories […]
Being far from all political considerations of the future the
soldier has to fulfil two tasks:
Complete annihilation of the false bolshevistic doctrine of the Soviet State and its armed
forces.
The pitiless extermination of foreign treachery and cruelty and thus the protection of the
lives of military personnel in Russia.
This is the only way to fulfil our historic task to liberate the German people once forever from
the Asiatic-Jewish danger.
Commander in Chief
[signed] von Reichenau
Field Marshal
Document 9. Von Manstein Order to Eleventh Army, 20 November 194111
General Erich von Manstein took over command of the Eleventh Army in Ukraine in September
After the war, von Manstein was regarded as one of Germany’s elite field commanders.
The following order, signed by von Manstein, was to be distributed to all regiments and
battalions in the Eleventh Army.
SECRET
Since the 22nd June the German people have been engaged in a life-and-death struggle against
the Bolshevist system. This struggle is not being carried on against the Soviet armed forces alone
in the established form laid down by European rules of warfare.
Behind the front, too, the fighting continues. Partisan snipers dressed as civilians attack single
soldiers and small units, and try to disrupt our supplies by sabotage with mines and infernal
machines. Bolshevists left behind keep the population, freed from Bolshevism, in a state of
unrest by means of terror, and attempt thereby to sabotage the political and economic
pacification of the country. Harvests and factories are destroyed and the city population in
11 The text of the order is available in Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal,
Nuremberg, 14 November 1945–1 October 1946 (Nuremberg, 1947–49), vol. 20, 640–42.
18
particular is thereby ruthlessly delivered to starvation.
Jewry constitutes the middleman between the enemy in the rear and the remainder of the Red
armed forces which is still fighting and the Red leadership. More strongly than in Europe it holds
all the key positions in the political leadership and administration, controls commerce and trade,
and further forms the nucleus for all unrest and possible uprisings.
The Jewish-Bolshevist system must be exterminated once and for all. Never again must it
encroach upon our European living-space.
The German soldier has therefore not only the task of crushing the military potential of this
system. He comes also as the bearer of a racial concept and as the avenger of all the cruelties
which have been perpetrated on him and on the German people. The fight behind the lines is not
yet being taken seriously enough. Active co-operation of all soldiers must be demanded in the
disarming of the population, the control and arrest of all roving soldiers and civilians and the
removal of Bolshevist symbols.
Every instance of sabotage must be punished immediately with the severest measures, and all
signs thereof must be reported.
The food situation at home makes it essential that the troops should as far as possible be fed off
the land, and that furthermore the largest possible stocks should be placed at the disposal of the
homeland. Particularly in enemy cities a large part of the population will have to go hungry.
Nevertheless nothing which the homeland has sacrificed itself to contribute may, out of a
misguided sense of humanity, be given to prisoners or to the population unless they are in the
service of the German Wehrmacht.
The soldier must appreciate the necessity for the harsh punishment of Jewry, the spiritual bearer
of the Bolshevist terror. This is also necessary in order to nip in the bud all uprisings, which are
mostly attributable to Jews.
It is the task of leaders at all levels to keep constantly alive the meaning of the present struggle.
Support for the Bolshevist fight behind the front by way of thoughtlessness must be prevented.
It is to be expected of the non-Bolshevist Ukrainians, Russians and Tartars that they will be
converted to the New Order. The non-participation of numerous alleged anti- Soviet elements
must give place to a definite decision in favour of active co-operation against Bolshevism.
Where it does not exist it must be forced by suitable measures.
Voluntary co-operation in the reconstruction of occupied territory is an absolute necessity for the
achievement of our economic and political aims.
It has as its condition a just treatment of all non- Bolshevist sections of the population, some of
whom have for years fought heroically against Bolshevism.
The ruling of this country demands from us results, strictness with ourselves and submergence of
19
the individual. The bearing of every soldier is constantly under observation. It can make enemy
propaganda ineffective or give it a springboard. If the soldier in the country takes from the
peasant the last cow, the breeding sow, the last chicken or the seed, then no restoration of the
economy can be achieved.
In all measures it is not the momentary success which is decisive. All measures must, therefore,
be judged by their effectiveness over a period of time.
Respect for religious customs, particularly those of Mohammedan Tartars, must be demanded.
In pursuance of these concepts there are other measures besides to be carried out by the later
administration. The enlightenment of the population by propaganda, encouragement of personal
initiative, e.g., by prizes, extensive detailing of the population towards fighting the partisans and
expansion of the local auxiliary police must be given more significance.
For the achievement of this object the following must be demanded:
Active co-operation of soldiers in the fight against the enemy in the rear.
No soldier to go about alone at night.
All motor vehicles to be equipped with adequate armament.
A self-assured but not overbearing attitude from all soldiers.
Restraint towards prisoners and the other sex.
No waste of food.
Severest action to be taken:
Against despotism and self-seeking.
Against lawlessness and lack of discipline.
Against every transgression of the honour of a soldier.
Document 10. Mitteilungen für die Truppe, June 194012
The Mitteilungen für die Truppe was a news-sheet issued by OKW’s Propaganda Office and
distributed to all Wehrmacht units.
What the reports of OKW in May 1940 had made known is one single grand poem of German
heroism and inspired leadership […] Any attempt to describe the battles of these three weeks of
12 Quoted in Omer Bartov, Hilter’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1992), 122–23.
20
the Greater German War of Liberation with one word which would equal their greatness, must be
admitted to border on the impossible […] This battle of annihilation was so great that we can
only accept with shocked silence and thankful hearts this act of destiny.
Behind the battle of annihilation of May 1940 stands in lone greatness the name of the
Führer.
All that has been accomplished since he has taken the fate of our people into his strong
hands! […]
He gave the people back its unity, smashed the parties and destroyed the hydra of the
organizations […] he decontaminated the body of our people from the Jewish subversion,’ created
a stock-proud, race-conscious Volk, which had overcome the racial death of diminishing births
and was granted renewed children-prosperity as a carrier of the great future of the Fatherland. He
subdued the terrible plight of unemployment and granted to millions of people who had already
despaired of the Volk a new belief in the Volksgemeinschaft and happiness in a new Fatherland
[…]
His genius, in which the whole strength of Germandom is embodied with ancient powers,
has animated the souls of 80,000,000 Germans, has filled them with strength and will, with the
storm and stress of a renewed young people; and, himself the first soldier of Germany, he has
entered the name of the German soldier into the book of immortality.
All this we were allowed to experience. Our great duty in this year of decision is that we
do not accept it as observers, but that we, enchanted, and with all the passion of which we are
capable, sacrifice ourselves to this Führer and strive to be worthy of the historical epoch molded
by a heaven-storming will.
Document 11. Mitteilungen für die Truppe, July 194113
Anyone who has ever looked at the face of a red commissar knows what the Bolsheviks are like.
Here there is no need for theoretical expressions. We would insult the animals if we described
these mostly Jewish men as beasts. They are the embodiment of the Satanic and insane hatred
against the whole of noble humanity. The shape of these commissars reveals to us the rebellion
of the Untermenschen against noble blood. The masses, whom they have sent to their deaths by
making use of all means at their disposal such as ice-cold terror and insane incitement, would
have brought an end to all meaningful life, had this eruption not been dammed at the
last moment.
Document 12. Mitteilungen für das Offizierkorps, April 194214
The Mitteilungen für das Offizierkorps was a news-sheet issued by OKW’s Propaganda Office
and distributed to all Wehrmacht officers.
In the struggle against the capitalism and imperialism of the English and the Americans and
against the world-revolutionary theses of the Bolsheviks the weapons of the Wehrmacht alone
will not achieve victory … [which can be gained] only … when the people … confronts the
political and ideological theses of the enemy with better political concepts …. [S]uch an attitude
13 Bartov, Hitler’s Army, 126.
14 Bartov, Hitler’s Army, 123–24.
21
… is based on the German people’s unshakable sense of loyalty to Führer, Volk and Fatherland,
the kind of loyalty which remains absolutely firm in the face of all crises and knows no
scepticism …. Not only are the economic and power-political bases of our life critically
threatened, but the whole spiritual life of the nation, the ethical basis of our cultural and religious
concept of the world, truly everything which is great and holy for German men in life and death,
all is threatened at the core if we fail to master the enemy …. Have the officers burnt this so
deeply into their men’s hearts, that each of them knows and sees fully and clearly against what
devilish game in the world he has been called into action? .. We know that the Devil has been set
loose against our land … we are filled with the responsibility to God to defend the land which
had been given us, to save His property and to multiply it, and therefore we mobilize not only
our weapons … but also the weapons of the soul. … The military-spiritual [or ideological]
leadership of the soldiers has been added to the officers’ duties, because political determination
and soldierly feats are a single unity and are indissolubly bound to each other. The more German
soldiers are aware of the full extent of the mortal danger which threatens them, the greater will
be the conviction and the toughness with which they will confront the dynamics of the Bolshevik
revolution with the whole strength of soul and will of National Socialist Germany …. In the war,
as the Fuhrer has said … the nations are being judged in the Godly court of the Almighty. He
who survives this trial will be seen as worthy of molding a new life on earth …. What a task! …
The officers of the Fuhrer, and the German soldiers whom they lead, a sworn community of the
best men of German blood, carried on by the love, the work and the belief of the German people,
are marching to the decision. There beyond hell is burning. May it charge! We shall still win!
Document 13. A Letter from Sergeant Karl Fuchs to His Wife, 28 June 194115
Karl Fuchs was a tank gunner in the 7th Panzer Division. He participated in Operation Barbarossa
and was killed in combat outside of Moscow on 21 November 1941. The following three
documents consist of letters written by Fuchs to his family in Germany.
My dearest wife, my dear little Horsti,
… Up to now, all of the troops have had to accomplish quite a bit. The same goes for our
machines and tanks. But, nevertheless, we’re going to show those Bolshevik bums who’s who
around here! They fight like hired hands—not like soldiers, no matter if they are men, women or
children on the front lines. They’re all no better than a bunch of scoundrels. By now, half of
Europe is mobilized. The entry of Spain and Hungary on our side against this Bolshevik
archenemy of the world overjoyed us all. Yes, Europe stands under the leadership of our beloved
Fuhrer Adolph Hitler, and he’ll reshape it for a better future. The entry of all these volunteer
armies into this war will cause the war to be over soon.
The impressions that the battles have left on me will be with me forever. Believe me,
dearest, when you see me again, you will face quite a different person, a person who has learned
the harsh command: “I will survive!” You can’t afford to be soft in war; otherwise you will die.
No, you must be tough—indeed, you have to be pitiless and relentless. Don’t I sound like a
different person to you? Deep down in my heart, I remain a good person and my love for you and
our son will never diminish. Never! This love will increase as will my longing for you. I kiss you
and remain forever
15 “A German Soldier’s Letters from the Eastern Front,” in Moeller, The Nazi State and German Society, 119–20.
22
your Korri
Document 14. A Letter from Sergeant Karl Fuchs to His Father, 4 August 194116
Dear Father,
… The pitiful hordes on the other side are nothing but felons who are driven by alcohol
and the threat of pistols pointed at their heads. There is no troop morale and they are at best
cannon fodder. You should read the pamphlets that they drop from the sky with better accuracy
than their bombs. “Desert! Join the Bolsheviks! You’ll be safe with us!” They are nothing but a
bunch of assholes! Excuse the expression, but there simply is no other term for them. Having
encountered these Bolshevik hordes and having seen how they live has made a lasting
impression on me. Everyone, even the last doubter, knows today that the battle against these
subhumans, who’ve been whipped into a frenzy by the Jews, was not only necessary but came in
the nick of time. Our Führer has saved Europe from certain chaos. And so we move on to the
final battle and victory. I shake your hand and greet you. Germany, Sieg Heil!
Your loyal son, Karl
Document 15. A Letter from Sergeant Karl Fuchs to His Mother, 15 October 194117
My dear Mother,
While a terrible snowstorm is howling outside, my comrades and I are camping in one of
these terrible peasant houses. Although it’s not much of a home, we managed to clean it up
yesterday. Up until now we’ve always preferred to dig a hole in the ground and maybe pitch a
tent. Now, however, it’s simply too cold outside. If you could see how these people live here, you
would be horrified!
This present abode is in better shape than most. In one corner there is even a structure
that looks like a bed. Most Russians don’t sleep in beds, but either behind or on top of their stove.
I won’t describe the other facilities, such as water and sanitation. Suffice it to say that they hardly
exist.
Our duty has been to fight and to free the world from this Communist disease. One day,
many years hence, the world will thank the Germans and our beloved Fuhrer for our victories
here in Russia. Those of us who took part in this liberation battle can look back on those days
with pride and infinite joy. That’s all for today. I send you my greetings.
Your son, Karl
Document 16. A Letter from Konrad Jarausch to His Wife, August 194118
Born in 1900, Konrad Jarausch was too old for frontline military service. However, he was
mobilized as a reservist in September 1939 for service in rear-area security and logistical duties.
In August 1941, he was transferred to a transit camp (Dulag 203) in occupied Belarus, attached
to the 286th Security Division. Transit camps acted as way stations for Soviet prisoners of war
16 “A German Soldier’s Letters from the Eastern Front,” in Moeller, The Nazi State and German Society, 121.
17 “A German Soldier’s Letters from the Eastern Front,” in Moeller, The Nazi State and German Society, 122.
18 Reproduced in Konrad H. Jarausch, ed., Reluctant Accomplice: A Wehrmacht Soldier’s Letters from the Eastern
Front (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 261–63.
23
being sent from the frontline to permanent camps in Poland or Germany. Jarausch was put in
charge of one of the field kitchens. In peacetime, he had worked as a high-school religion
teacher. Jarausch died in January 1942 after contracting typhoid fever.
Keep this somewhere safe and do not copy.
Camp Kochanowo [August 1941]
(Partially based on my comrades’ insights).
“Dulag” is short for transit camp. Such camps serve to process prisoners once they’ve been
removed from the battlefield and then send them on. The camps thus follow on the heels of the
fighting troops but lie beyond the battle zone. Depending on what’s happening in the field, they
can be filled quickly and then can become quiet again. Then one has to start building the
facilities out of nothing, leaving them during further advance behind for supply convoys etc. The
first time we advanced, we kept very close to the tanks, because we were part of an attack
division. Noe things are peaceful and lazy.
The road here in K[ochanowo] winds its way through the village and then sinks and
passes over a creek. The meadows on either side of this creek seemed to offer an ideal location
for a camp. Everything was fine as long as the sun was shining. But then we had quite a
downpour. The creek flooded and the meadows were covered in water. At the same time, we
received some 10,000 to 12,000 prisoners. They had marched thirty to forty km from the front;
they were soaked; they had gone days without food and had eaten green sheaves of grain. In an
instant the meadow was transformed into a muddy morass, with the prisoners sprawled all about.
Their hunger drove them to the kitchens. Shots were fired to keep them in order. Some (not
many) were killed. Others rolled around in the mud, howling from their hunger pains. The next
morning several corpses were pulled out of the mud; only their legs or heads stuck up out of the
mess.
If you could see the camp now, eight days later, you wouldn’t believe this had ever
happened. Everything is so peaceful and orderly. There’s a large, lofty building in between all
the other buildings (they house two kitchens, the sentry post, storage rooms, quarters for
captured officers), and thousands of men can find shelter there from the rain. We have four
kitchens set up. We hand out food in the morning, at noon, and in the evening: a liter of grits and
1,000 grams of dark bread; those at hard labor receive 1,700 grams. Prisoners serve in the
kitchens, as overseers, and as medics. We don’t see many Mongolian types anymore. When
prisoners line up to eat by the hundred, one sees mostly Eastern European farmers and workers.
Some are really young boys with impish features; they’re cheeky and trusting. Probably most of
them are happy to be away from [the front] and that things are not worse.
Document 17. A Letter from Konrad Jarausch to His Wife, 1 September 194119
September 1, 1941
It’s the anniversary of the beginning of the war. We all lined up because the division general
wanted to give out a few medals (officers and clerks). Everything was pretty pitiful and really
brought home where we rate as soldiers. But all that’s over for me now anyway. Not it’s just
about doing what I can for the prisoners and planning for the future. We had 12,300 prisoners in
our camp during the last few days. A day like today (when from morning to evening one has to
19 Jarausch, Reluctant Accomplice, 273–74.
24
take care of the supplies, the fires, and then dole out the food) is hard enough. One is constantly
surrounded by the stench and the cries, beset by incessant pleading. To keep things going overall,
one sometimes has to be hard-nosed toward individuals. Then there’s the friction with out
superiors (officers and administrators); they fight with one another and that rubs off on us; above
all there is a constant pressure to economize. We can’t satisfy the prisoners’ hunger. Since
they’ve already been in prison for weeks now, they’re more restless. They want warmth, work,
bread—and we can’t give it to them. […]
Document 18. A German NCO Writes Home, July 194220
The following excerpts are from letters written home by two different but anonymous noncommissioned officers [NCOs] of the Wehrmacht.
… The great task given us in the struggle against Bolshevism lies in the destruction of eternal
Jewry. Once one sees what the Jew has done in Russia, one can well understand why the Führer
began the struggle against Jewry. What sorrows would have come to our homeland had this beast
of a man had the upper hand? … Recently a comrade of ours was murdered in the night. He was
stabbed in the back. That can only have been the Jew, who stands behind these crimes. The
revenge taken for that act brought indeed a nice success. The population itself hates the Jews as
never before. It realizes now, that he is guilty of everything.
Document 19. A German NCO Writes Home, August 194221
I have received the “Stürmer”22 now for the third time. It makes me happy with all my heart ….
You could not have made me happier. … I recognized the Jewish poison in our people long ago;
how far it might have gone with us, this we see only now in this campaign. What the Jewishregime has done in Russia, we see every day, and even the last doubters are cured here in view of
the facts. We must and we will liberate the world from this plague, this is why the German
soldier protects the Eastern Front, and we shall not return before we have uprooted all evil and
destroyed the center of the Jewish-Bolshevik “world-do-gooders.”
Document 20. A Conversation between Two German POWs, August 194423
During the Second World War, British intelligence agents systematically eavesdropped on
conversations between German prisoners of war by bugging their cells. The following
conversation took place between Lieutenant General Georg Neuffer and Colonel Hans Reimann
in August 1944.
NEUFFER: That transporting of the Russians to the rear from Vyasma [in autumn 1941] was a
ghastly business.
20 Bartov, Hitler’s Army, 162.
21 Bartov, Hitler’s Army, 163.
22 Der Stürmer was a Nazi tabloid-newspaper known for its anti-Semitic and anti-communist propaganda.
23 Quoted in Sönke Neitzel and Haral Welzer, Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying; The Secret WWII Transcripts
of German POWs, trans. Jefferson Chase (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2011), 95–96.
25
REIMANN: It was really gruesome. I was present when they were being transported from
Korosten to just outside Lwow. They were driven like cattle from the trucks to the
drinking troughs and bludgeoned to keep their ranks. There were troughs at the stations;
they rushed to them and drank like beasts; after that they were given just a bit of
something to eat. Then they were again driven into the wagons; there were sixty or
seventy men in one cattle truck! Each time the train halted ten of them were taken out
dead: they had suffocated for lack of oxygen. I was in the train with the camp guard and I
heard it from the “Feldwebel” [sergeant], a student, a man with spectacles, an intellectual,
whom I asked: “How long has this been going on?” — “Well, I have been doing this for
four weeks; I’ll not be able to stand it much longer, I must get away; I don’t stick it any
more!” At the stations the prisoners peered out of the narrow openings and shouted in
Russian to the Russians standing there: “Bread! And God will bless you,” etc. They
threw out their old shirts, their last pairs of stockings and shoes from the trucks and
children came up and brought them pumpkins to eat. They threw the pumpkins in, and
then all you heard was a terrific din like the rearing of wild animals in the trucks. They
were probably killing each other. That finished me. I sat back in a corner and pulled my
coat up over my ears. I asked the “Feldwebel”: “Haven’t you any food at all?” He
answered: “Sir, how should we have anything, nothing has been prepared!”
NEUFFER: No, really, all that was incredibly gruesome. Just to see that column of PW
[prisoners of war] after the twin battle of Vyasma–Bryansk, when the PW were taken to
the rear on foot, far beyond Smolensk. I often travelled along that route—the ditches by
the side of the roads were full of shot Russians. Cars had driven in to them; it was really
ghastly.
Document 21. Letter from Alfred Rosenberg to Wilhelm Keitel, 28 February 194224
Alfred Rosenberg was a prominent Nazi intellectual and ideologue who was born a Baltic
German in Estonia. Among his prewar writing that equated Jewry with Bolshevism, Rosenberg
also propounded an anti-Christian Germanic neo-paganism. On 17 July 1941, Hitler placed
Rosenberg in charge of the newly created Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories.
Technically, his Ministry oversaw the civilian administration of territories in the Baltic,
Belorussia, and Ukraine that were not under direct military rule by the army. However, in
practice, Rosenberg was unable to control his subordinates [Reichskommissare] and he soon
lost out in power struggles with other state agencies and the SS, who implemented their own
policies in the occupied east. Here, Rosenberg writes Keitel about the army’s treatment of
Soviet prisoners of war and its ramifications for German occupation policy.
SUBJECT: PRISONERS OF WAR
Since the beginning of its existence, the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories has
taken the viewpoint that the large number of Soviet prisoners of war constitute highly valuable
material for propaganda. The treatment of Soviet prisoners of war must be considered differently
than the treatment of prisoners of war of other nations for various reasons:
24 “Letter from Alfred Rosenberg, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, to Field Marshal Wilhelm
Keitel, Chief of the OKW, 28 February 1942,” in Stackelberg and Winkle, The Nazi Germany Sourcebook, 293–95.
26
The war in the East has not been concluded, and the treatment of the prisoners of war
must have far-reaching effects on the will to desert of the Red Army soldier who is still
fighting.
Germany intends to keep a large part of the former Soviet Union occupied, even after the
end of the war, and to develop it industrially for our purposes. Therefore we depend on a
far-reaching cooperation of the population.
Germany is conducting the fight against the Soviet Union because of ideological
differences. Bolshevism must be overthrown and something better must be put in its
place. Even the prisoners of war themselves must realize that National Socialism is
willing and in a position to bring them a better future. They must return later to their
homes from Germany with a feeling of admiration and esteem for Germany and German
institutions, and thus become propagandists for the cause of Germany and National
Socialism.
This attempted goal has not been attained so far. The fate of the Soviet prisoners of war in
Germany is on the contrary a tragedy of the greatest extent. Of 3.6 million prisoners of war, only
several hundred thousand are still able to work fully. A large part of them have starved, or died,
because of the hazards of the weather. Thousands also died from typhus. It is understood, of
course, that there are difficulties encountered in the feeding of such a large number of prisoners
of war. Anyhow, with a certain amount of understanding for goals aimed at by German politics,
dying and deterioration could have been avoided to the extent described. For instance, according
to information on hand, the native population within the Soviet Union are absolutely willing to
put food at the disposal of the prisoners of war. Several understanding camp commanders have
successfully chosen this course. However, in the majority of cases, the camp commanders have
forbidden the civilian population to put food at the disposal of the prisoners, and they have rather
let them starve to death. Even on the march to the camps, the civilian population was not allowed
to give the prisoners of war food. In many cases, when prisoners of war could no longer keep up
on the march because of hunger and exhaustion, they were shot before the eyes of the horrified
civilian population, and the corpses were left. In numerous camps no shelter for the prisoners of
war was provided at all. They lay under the open sky during rain or snow. Even tools were not
made available to dig holes or caves. A systematic delousing of the prisoners of war in the camps
and of the camps themselves has apparently been missed. Utterances such as these have been
heard: “The more of these prisoners die, the better it is for us.” The consequence of this treatment
now is that typhus is spreading due to the escape and discharge of prisoners and has claimed its
victims among the Wehrmacht as well as among the civilian population, even in the old part of
Germany.
Finally, the shooting of prisoners of war must be mentioned. These were partly carried
out according to viewpoints that ignore all political understanding. For instance, in various
camps, all the “Asiatics” were shot, although the inhabitants of the areas, considered belonging
to Asia, of Transcaucasia and Turkestan especially, are among those people in the Soviet Union
who are most strongly opposed to Russian subjugation and to Bolshevism. The Reich Ministry of
the Occupied Eastern Territories has repeatedly emphasized these abuses. However, in
November for instance, a detail appeared in a prisoner of war camp in Nikolajew, wanting to
liquidate all Asiatics.
27
The treatment of prisoners of war appears to be founded for a great part on serious
misconceptions about the people of the Soviet Union. One finds the opinion that the people
become more inferior the further one goes east. If the Poles already were given harsh treatment,
it is argued, even harsher treatment should be meted out to the Ukrainians, White Ruthenians,
Russians, and finally the “Asiatics.”
It was apparently completely ignored, in the treatment of prisoners of war, that Germany
found— in contrast to the West (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway)—a people who
went through all the terror of Bolshevism, and who now, happy about their liberation, put
themselves willingly at the disposal of Germany. A better gift could not come to Germany in this
war, which requires every last man. But instead of accepting this gift, the people of the East are
being treated more contemptibly and worse than the people of the West, who do not hide their
enmity towards Germany …
Document 22. Affidavit of SS Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf, 5 November 194525
Otto Ohlendorf was a senior figure in the SS who commanded Einsatzgruppe D in southern
Ukraine in 1941 and 1942. Captured by the Americans at the end of the war, Ohlendorf signed
the following affidavit in November 1945, outlining the work of his unit. He was later placed on
trial for war crimes and executed.
I, Otto Ohlendorf, being first duly sworn, declare:
I was chief of the Security Service (SD), Amt III of the Main Office of the chief of the
Security Police and the SD (RSHA), from 1939 to 1945. In June 1941 I was designated by
Himmler to lead one of the special commitment groups [Einsatzgruppen], which were then being
formed, to accompany the German armies in the Russian campaign. I was the chief of the
Einsatzgruppe D … Himmler stated that an important part of our task consisted of the
extermination of Jews—women, men, and children—and of communist functionaries. I was
informed of the attack on Russia about four weeks in advance.
According to an agreement with the armed forces high command and army high
command, the special commitment detachments [Einsatzkommandos] within the army group or
the army were assigned to certain army corps and divisions. The army designated the areas in
which the special commitment detachments had to operate. All operational directives and orders
for the carrying out of executions were given through the chief of the SIPO [Security Police] and
the SD (RSHA) in Berlin. Regular courier service and radio communications existed between the
Einsatzgruppen and the chief of the SIPO and the SD.
The Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos were commanded by personnel of the
Gestapo, the SD, or the criminal police. Additional men were detailed from the regular police
[Ordnungspolizei] and the Waffen SS. Einsatzgruppe D consisted of approximately 400 to 500
men and had about 170 vehicles at its disposal.
When the German army invaded Russia, I was leader of the Einsatzgruppe D in the
Southern sector, and in the course of the year, during which I was leader of Einsatzgruppe D, it
liquidated approximately 90,000 men, women, and children. The majority of those liquidated
were Jews, but there were among them some communist functionaries too.
25
“Affidavit of SS Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf,” in Stackelberg and Winkle, The Nazi Germany Sourcebook, 342–
43.
28
In the implementation of this extermination program the special commitment groups
were subdivided into special commitment detachments, and the Einsatzkommandos into still
smaller units, the so-called Special Purpose Detachments [Sonderkommandos] and Unit
Detachments [Teilkommandos]. Usually, the smaller units were led by a member of the SD, the
Gestapo, or the criminal police. The unit selected for this task would enter a village or city and
order the prominent Jewish citizens to call together all Jews for the purpose of resettlement. They
were requested to hand over their valuables to the leaders of the unit, and shortly before the
execution to surrender their outer clothing. The men, women, and children were led to a place of
execution which in most cases was located next to a more deeply excavated anti-tank ditch. Then
they were shot, kneeling or standing, and the corpses thrown into the ditch. I never permitted the
shooting by individuals in group D, but ordered that several of the men would shoot at the same
time in order to avoid direct, personal responsibility. The leaders of the unit or especially
designated persons, however, had to fire the last bullet at those victims who were not dead
immediately. I learned from conversations with other group leaders that some of them demanded
that the victims lie down flat on the ground to be shot through the nape of the neck. I did not
approve of these methods.
In the spring of 1942 we received gas vehicles from the chief of the Security Police and
the SD in Berlin. These vehicles were made available by Amt 11 of the RSHA. The man who
was responsible for the cars of my Einsatzgruppe was Becher. We had received orders to use the
cars for the killing of women and children. Whenever a unit had collected a sufficient number of
victims, a car was sent for their liquidation. We also had these gas vehicles stationed in the
neighborhood of the transient camps into which the victims were brought. The victims were told
that they would be resettled and had to climb into the vehicles for that purpose. Then the doors
were closed and the gas streamed in through the starting of the vehicles. The victims died within
10 to 15 minutes. The cars were then driven to the burial place, where the corpses were taken out
and buried …
[signed] Ohlendorf
5 November 1945
Document 23. A Conversation between German POWs, 28 December 194426
British intelligence officers recorded the following conversation between Lieutenant General
Heinrich Kittel and two other German prisoners named Felbert and Schaefer. The events they
discuss took place in German-occupied Latvia between July and November 1941. At the time,
Kittel was a colonel in a reserve unit of Army Group North.
FELBERT: Have you also known places from which the Jews have been removed?
KITTEL: Yes.
FELBERT: Was that carried out quite systematically?
KITTEL: Yes.
FELBERT: Women and children—everybody?
KITTEL: Everybody. Horrible!
FELBERT: Were they loaded onto trains?
26 Quoted in Neitzel and Welzer, Soldaten, 101–106.
29
KITTEL: If only they had been loaded onto trains! The things I’ve experienced! I then sent a man
along and said: “I order this to stop. I can’t stand it any longer.” For instance, in Latvia,
near Dvinsk, there were mass executions of Jews carried out by the SS or Security
Service [SD]. There were about fifteen Security Service men and perhaps sixty Latvians,
who are known to be the most brutal, when I kept on hearing two salvoes followed by
small arms fire. I got up and went out and asked: “What’s all this shooting?” The orderly
said to me: “You ought to go over there, sir, you’ll see something.” I only went fairly near
and that was enough for me. 300 men had been driven out of Dvinsk; they dug a
communal grave and then marched home. The next day along they came again—men,
women and children—they were counted off and stripped naked; the executioners first
laid all the clothes in one pile. Then twenty women had to take up their position—
naked—on the edge of the trench, they were shot and fell down into it.
FELBERT: How was it done?
KITTEL: They faced the trench and then twenty Latvians came up behind and simply fired once
through the back of their heads. There was a sort of stop in the trench, so that they stood
rather lower than the Latvians, who stood up on the edge and simply shot them through
the head, and they fell down forwards into the trench. After that came twenty men and
they were killed by a salvo in just the same way. Someone gave the command and the
twenty fell into the trench like ninepins. Then came the worst thing of all; I went away
and said: “I’m going to do something about this.” […]
I got into my car and went to this Security Service man and said: “Once and for all, I
forbid these executions outside, where people can look on. If you shoot people in the
wood or somewhere where no-one can see, that’s your own affair. But I absolutely forbid
another day’s shooting there. We draw our drinking water from deep springs; we’re
getting nothing but corpse water there.” It was the Meschefs spa where I was; it lies to the
north of Dvinsk.
FELBERT: What did they do to the children?
KITTEL (very excited): They seized three-year old children by the hair, held them up and shot
them with a pistol and then threw them in. I saw that for myself. One could watch it; the
SD had roped the area off and the people were standing watching from about 300 m. off.
The Latvians and the German soldiers were just standing there, looking on.
FELBERT: What kind of SD people are they, then?
KITTEL: Nauseating! I’m convinced that they’ll all be shot.
FELBERT: Where were they from, from which formation?
KITTEL: They were Germans and they were wearing the SD uniform with the black flashes on
which is written “Sonder-Dienst.”
FELBERT: Were all the executioners Latvians?
KITTEL: Yes.
FELBERT: But a German gave the order, did he?
KITTEL: Yes. The Germans directed affairs and the Latvians carried them out. The Latvians
searched all the clothes. The SD fellow saw reason and said: “Yes, we will do it
somewhere else.” They were all Jews who had been brought in from the country districts.
Latvians wearing the armband—the Jews were brought in and were then robbed; there
was a terrific bitterness against the Jews at Dvinsk, and the people simply gave vent to
their rage.
FELBERT: Against the Jews?
30
[At this point, Schaefer jumps in to answer Felbert’s question]
SCHAEFER: Yes, because the Russians had dragged off 60,000 Estonians. But, of course, the
flames had been fanned. Tell me, what sort of an impression did these people create? Did
you ever see any of them shortly before they were shot? Did they weep?
KITTEL: It was terrible. I once saw them being transported but I had no idea they were people
who were being driven to their execution.
SCHAEFER: Have the people any idea what is in store for them?
KITTEL: They know perfectly well; they are apathetic. I’m not sensitive myself but such things
just turn my stomach; I always said: “One ceases to be a human being; that’s got nothing
more to do with warfare.” I once had the senior chemist for organic chemistry from IG
Farben as my adjutant and because they had nothing better for him to do he had been
called up and sent to the front. He’s back here again now, though he got there quite
accidentally. The man was done for weeks. He sat in the corner the whole time and wept.
He said: “When one considers that it may be like that everywhere!” He was an important
scientist and a musician with a highly strung nervous system.
FELBERT: That shows why Finland deserted us, why Roumania deserted us, why everyone
hates us everywhere—not because of that single incident but because of the great number
of similar incidents.
KITTEL: If one were to destroy all the Jews of the world simultaneously there wouldn’t remain a
single accuser.
FELBERT (very excited and shouting): It’s obvious; it’s such a scandal; it doesn’t need to be a
Jew to accuse us—we ourselves must bring the charge; we must accuse the people who
have done it.
KITTEL: Then one must admit that our State system was wrongly built.
FELBERT (shouting): It is, it’s obvious that it’s wrong, there’s no doubt about it. Such a thing is
unbelievable.
KITTEL: We are the tools…
Document 24. Testimony of Lieutenant Erwin Bingel, August 194527
Having been wounded in France in 1940, Lieutenant Erwin Bingel was later assigned to
Landesschützen Battalion 783, a unit made up of older or less fit military personnel tasked
mainly with guarding prisoners and communications lines in the rear area. In September 1941,
his unit was transferred east to the newly-formed Reichskommissariat Ukraine, which was
under civil rather than military administration. He was captured and interrogated by the Soviets
at the end of the war, providing the following testimony.
On 12.9.1941 we arrived at Vinnitsa where we met the unit which had already taken over
the transit camp at the Vinnitsa airport. The guard duties at this camp were the responsibility of
the 3rd Company under Hauptmann Becker.
This Company was soon to earn a reputation for the acts of cruelty which it committed in
the camps under its control. […] We had been barely two days in Vinnitsa when we received
27 Excerpted from Erwin Bingel, “The Extermination of Two Ukrainian Jewish Communities: Testimony of a German
Officer,” in Yad Vashem Studies on the European Jewish Catastropher and Resistance III, ed. S. Esh (Jerusalem: Yad
Vashem, 1959), 303–320.
31
orders to proceed to Uman. We arrived there on September 15. I reported to the Town
Commandant’s and received further orders. These were: firstly, to have all railroads in this area
guarded permanently; secondly to surround the airport of Uman. To these orders, a Special Order
had been added, to the effect that the airport of Uman was to be closed the following day to all
traffic, including members of the German Army.
On the appointed day, my Company, strengthened by reinforcements, marched to the
airport. There was a certain disquiet prevalent among the troops, as it could be presumed with
certainty that something special was bound to happen. From the town, voices of a crowd of
people singing Russian melodies could be heard, intimating that large masses of people were on
the move and drawing near. The main streets could be seen very clearly and along them huge
columns marching six abreast carne by, singing all the time, approaching the confines of the
airfield. We soon observed that they included not only men, but also women and children of all
ages. Nobody could imagine the possible purpose of bringing this crowd of people there, and the
whole affair became still more mysterious when I was given orders to withdraw my guards from
the nearest posts. These guards were replaced by Feldgendarmerie-Oberleutnant (Lieutenant of
Field Gendarmerie) Georg Baier. […] I consequently withdrew my men up to a distance of 400
metres, with the exception of those maintaining a few main posts stationed on the Uman-Kiev
road. The latter were separated by a distance of only 200 metres from the place where the people
had been brought. In the meantime, it became light and it was possible to see everything most
exactly. As we could not approach the site, the only alternative we had was to find out by
attentive observation what was the meaning of this rally.
When the people had crowded into the square in front of the airport, a few trucks drove
up from the direction of the town. From these vehicles a troop of field gendarmes alighted, and
were immediately led aside. A number of tables was then unloaded from one of the trucks and
placed in a line at distances from each other. Meanwhile, a few more trucks with Ukrainian
Militiamen commanded by SS officers had arrived. These Militiamen had work tools with them
and one of their trucks also carried chloride of lime.
I now have to revert to the preceding day. On that day, long ditches . . . had been dug in
the square in front of the airport.
The truck now drove alongside these ditches and the men on it unloaded 6-8 sacks of
chloride of lime at intervals of 15-20 metres.
In the meantime, a number of transport planes (Model ‘Junker 52’) had landed at the
airport. Out of these stepped several units of SS soldiers who, having fallen in, marched up to the
Field Gendarmerie unit, subsequently taking up positions alongside it. As could be discerned
from the distance, the two units were obviously being sworn in. I was then informed by my
interpreter, who was Jewish—which fact, however, was known only to me personally—that he
had learned that the people had been brought together following upon an order which had been
posted in the streets of Uman and, which had been given the widest publicity throughout Uman
sub-district by the Ukrainian Militia. The order was worded as follows:
Concerning the Jewish population in the town of Uman and its sub-district:
Order
For the purpose of preparing an exact census of the Jewish population in the town of
Uman, and its sub-district, all Jews, of all ages, must appear on the day appointed
hereunder at the respective places of registration.
Persons failing to comply with this order will be punished most severely.
32
The result of this proclamation was, of course, that all persons concerned appeared as
ordered. This relatively harmless summons, we thought, could be connected in some way or
other with the preparations we were observing.
It was because we took the matter so lightly that we were all the more horrified at what
we witnessed during the next few hours.
One row of Jews was ordered to move forward and was then allocated to the different
tables where they had to undress completely and hand over everything they wore and carried.
Some still carried jewellery which they had to put on the table. Then, having taken off all their
clothes, they were made to stand in line in front of the ditches, irrespective of their sex. The
commandos then marched in behind the line and began to perform the inhuman acts, the horror
of which is now known to the whole world,
With automatic pistols and 0.8 pistols these men mowed down the line with such zealous
intent that one could have supposed this activity to have been their life-work.
Even Women carrying children a fortnight to three weeks old, sucking at their breasts,
were not spared this horrible ordeal. Nor were mothers spared the terrible sight of their children
being gripped by their little legs and put to death with one stroke 0f the pistol-butt or club,
thereafter to be thrown on the heap of human bodies in the ditch, some of which were not quite
dead. Not before these mothers had been exposed to this worst of all tortures did they receive the
bullet that released them from this sight.
The people in the first row thus having been killed in the most inhuman manner, those of
the second row were now ordered to step forward. The men in this row were ordered to step out
and were handed shovels with which to heap chloride of lime upon the still partly-moving bodies
in the ditch. Thereafter, they returned to the tables and undressed.
After that they had to set out on the same last walk as their murdered brethren, with one
exception—this time the men of the alternative firing squad surpassed each other in cruelty, lest
they lag behind their predecessors.
The air resounded with the cries of the children and the tortured. With senses numbed by
what had happened, one could not help thinking of wives and children back home who believed
they had good reason to be proud of their husbands and fathers, who, they thought, were fighting
heroically in the ranks of the German Army on behalf of the Fatherland, whilst the so-called
Elite troop, always referred to as unique, perpetrated the most horrible acts of cruelty in the
honourable uniform of a nation.
Two of my men who had been standing closest to the scene, left their posts before the
appointed time of relief.
Oberfeldwebel (Sergeant-Major) Renner […] withdrew his men up to our line. This
Sergeant-Major and another man were taken to the Lvov field hospital the following day, both
having suffered a complete nervous breakdown.
The whole ‘action’ took place between 8 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. At 5 pm. the square lay
deserted in deadly desolation and only some dogs, attracted by the scent of blood in the air, were
roving the site. The shots were still ringing in our ears. The whole thing might have seemed to
me to be a terrifying nightmare but for the sparsely covered ditches which gleamed at us
accusingly.
All this was so incomprehensible. How could a nation have the audacity to perpetrate,
through its supreme leader and his Elite troop, acts as such as these for which there could be no
excuse under any circumstances?
33
When we returned to our living quarters, my men rushed at me and asked me to make
representations at the Commandant’s office, requesting a justification for what had happened. I
acceded to this request by going with the Company Officer to the Town Commandant,
demanding an explanation from him. I was given to understand that a special, express order had
been issued by Reichsführer SS Himmler, and personally signed by him.
Upon request, I was allowed to see this document. It read:
Soldiers of the Waffen-SS!
In the forest of Vinnitsa, District of Kiev, six of our best officers were found assassinated,
hanging on a tree.
The details are as follows:
They were found naked, with their legs pointing upwards, their bodies slit open and their
intestines showing.
As a result of this case, I have decided upon the following measures: As it may be taken
for granted that this action was carried out by Jewish partisans, I hereby order that in the
District of Kiev 10,000 Jews—irrespective of sex or age—are to die for each of the six
officers mentioned above.
Even the child in the cradle must be trampled down like a poisonous toad.
May each one of you be mindful of his oath and do his duty, whatever may be demanded
of you.
We are living in an epoch of iron during which it is also necessary to sweep with ironmade brooms.
This was the wording of the Order directly issued to this murder unit to be carried out in the most
gruesome and horrible way. […]
Subsequent to the incident described above, we were again ordered back to Vinnitsa,
where our Company was ordered to clean up the airport area. On 19.9.1941 I was compelled to
send 20 per cent of my men on leave of absence, since, as a result of their recent experiences,
they were quite incapable of performing any duty.
Document 25. Major von Gersdorff’s Report, 9 December 194128
Major Rudolf-Christoph von Gersdorff was an intelligence officer on the staff of the High
Command of Army Group Centre. Here he reports on a recent trip to the front.
In all conversations of any length with officers, I was asked about the shootings of Jews, without
having made any reference to them myself. I gained the impression that the officer corps is
generally opposed, one could almost say, to the shooting of Jews, prisoners, and political
commissars. In the case of the commissars it is mainly because killing them increases the
strength of the enemy’s resistance. The shootings are regarded as bringing dishonor on the
German army, and on the officer corps in particular. Officers brought up the question of
responsibility for them, in stronger or less strong language depending on the individual’s
temperament and disposition. I was able to ascertain that the existing facts have become known
in full, and that the officers at the front discuss them far more than was to be assumed.
28 Quoted in Wette, The Wehrmacht, 200.
34
APPENDIX
A. The German Army Chain of Command
Understanding the German military hierarchy can help you evaluate the perspective from which
each source is written.
Together, the OKW and OKH formed Germany’s military leadership, responsible for general
policy and strategy. A separate set of field commanders (of armies, etc.) carried out orders and
conducted operations in occupied and enemy territory. The following list runs from highest to
lowest rank in the chain of command. Orders were filtered and conveyed down this chain. In
addition to the commanding officer, each level of command included a varying number of staff
officers assigned to different sections, including operations, supply, intelligence, personnel,
medical, legal, etc.
OKW [Oberkommando der Wehrmacht = High Command of the Armed Forces]
• Tasked with coordinating army, naval, and air forces on all fronts
• Based out of Berlin; in direct daily contact with Hitler as supreme commander
• Typically headed by a Field Marshal or General
OKH [Oberkommando des Heeres = High Command of the Army; Army General Staff]
• Tasked with coordinating the strategy and operations of Army Groups and Armies
• Based out of Berlin; in direct daily contact with Hitler as supreme commander
• Typically staffed by a General
Army Group
• Because the eastern front was so large, the Germans divided their forces into three
groups (North, Centre, and South) with separate objectives
• Responsible for occupying a large rear area (several 100 km deep)
• Comprised a million or more men
• Typically commanded by a Field Marshal or General
Army / Panzer Group / Panzer Army
• Several Armies made up an Army Group
• A Panzer Group or Army was made up of largely mechanized forces
• Comprised about 200,000 men
• Typically commanded by a General
Corps
• Several Corps made up an Army
• Comprised around 50,000–60,000 men
• Typically commanded by a General
Division
• Several Divisions made up a Corps
• The smallest combined-arms formations capable of independent operations
• Comprised around 15,000–18,000 men
• Typically commanded by a General
35
Regiment
• German Divisions were made up of Infantry, Panzer (Armoured), and Artillery Regiments
• Typically commanded by a Colonel
Battalion
• Most Regiments were divided into three Battalions of about 1,000 men each
• Typically commanded by a Colonel or Major
Company
• Several companies of about 200 men each made up a Battalion
• Typically commanded by a Captain
• Further divided into Platoons led by junior officers (Lieutenants) and Squads led by noncommissioned officers (NCOs = Sergeants, Corporals, etc.)
B. List of Terms and Abbreviations
Barbarossa The operational codename assigned to the invasion
of the Soviet Union, launched on 22 June 1941
Einsatzgruppen SS death squads that operated behind the front
lines on the eastern front; tasked with maintaining
security, they were responsible for the deaths of
Jews, commissars, Gypsies, and other civilians;
recruited from the SD, Gestapo, and state police
OKH [Oberkommando des Heeres] High Command of the Army; Army General Staff
OKW [Oberkommando der Wehrmacht] High Command of the Armed Forces
Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern State ministry created in July 1941 under Alfred
Territories Rosenberg to administer captured Soviet territory
Reichskommissariat Territorial unit in occupied countries assigned to
civil authorities
RHSA [Reichssicherheitshauptamt] Reich Security Head Office; subordinate to Himmler
SD [Sicherheitsdienst] Security/intelligence service of the SS; part of RHSA
SS [Schutzstaffel] Nazi “protection squad” which under Himmler
came to dominate policing and racial policy
Waffen-SS Combat formations of the SS
Wehrmacht German Armed Forces
36
C. The German-Occupied East
The map below depicts German occupation at its height in 1942. Captured Soviet territory
under German occupation was divided into three administrative units: Reichskommissariat
Ostland in the northwest; Reichskommissariat Ukraine in the south; and, areas under military
jurisdiction nearer the front lines. These boundaries were constantly in flux, as the Germans
conquered and lost territory. Generally speaking, regions well behind the front lines were
transferred to civilian control (of the Reichskommissariate) as soon as possible. Nonetheless,
army personnel were always present in the Reichskommissariate, either for security, rest,
transit, or logistical purposes.
Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
(https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/map/german-administration-of-eastern-europe-1942).
37
D. The Laws of War
The term “genocide” was not coined until 1944 and was not codified as an international crime
until 1948. At the time of Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, the most important
international agreements on the laws of war were the Hague and Geneva conventions. The full
text of these conventions is available via the following links:
Hague Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907)
Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick (1929)
Geneva Convention Relating to Prisoners of War (1929)

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