German war crimes

Jewish women and children removed from a bunker by Schutzstaffel (SS) units during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising for deportation either to Majdanek or Treblinka extermination camps (1943)

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

Herero Wars

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

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

World War I

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

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

Chemical weapons in warfare

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

Belgium

Depiction of the execution of civilians in Blégny by Évariste Carpentier

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

Bombardment of English coastal towns

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

Unrestricted submarine warfare

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

World War II

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

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

The Holocaust: ghettos, concentration camps, and extermination camps during World War II across German-occupied Europe.
Polish hostages preparing for mass execution by Nazi Germans, 1940.
Destruction of Adam Mickiewicz Monument in Kraków, Poland, by Nazi German forces on August 17, 1940.
Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen photograph: murdering of Jewish civilians by Nazi German army mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) near Ivanhorod, Ukraine, 1942.
Polish farmers killed by Nazi German forces, German-occupied Poland, 1943.
Polish teachers from Bydgoszcz guarded by members of Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz before execution, 1 November 1939.

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

— Telford Taylor

War criminals

Massacres and war crimes of World War II by location

Austria

Belarus

1941
1942
  • 26 March – 6 April, Operation Bamberg (Hłusk, Bobrujsk; 4,396 people, including children)
  • April 29 and August 10, 1942, Dzyatlava massacre, Diatłowo (Dzyatlava); 3,000- 5,000 people, including women and children
  • 9 – 12 May, Kliczów-Bobrujsk massacre (520 people, including children)
  • Beginning of June, Słowodka-Bobrujsk massacre (1,000 people, including children)
  • 15 June Borki (powiat białostocki) massacre (1,741 people, including children)
  • 21 June Zbyszin massacre (1,076 people, including children)
  • 25 June Timkowiczi massacre (900 people, including children)
  • 26 June Studenka massacre (836 people, including children)
  • 18 July, Jelsk massacre (1,000 people, including children)
  • 15 July – 7 August, Operation Adler (Bobrujsk, Mohylew, Berezyna; 1,381 people, including children)
  • 14 – 20 August, Operation Greif (Orsza, Witebsk; 796 people, including children)
  • 22 August – 21 September, Operation Sumpffieber (White Ruthenia; 10,063 people, including children)
  • August, Bereźne massacre
  • 22 September – 26 September (Małoryta massacre; 4,038 people, including children)
  • 23 September – 3 October, Operation Blitz (Połock, Witebsk; 567 people, including children)
  • 11 – 23 October, Operation Karlsbad (Orsza, Witebsk; 1,051 people, including children)
  • 23 – 29 November, Operation Nürnberg (Dubrowka; 2,974 people, including children)
  • December, Mirnaya massacre, Mirnaya (Мірная), Belarus (be); 147 including women and children
  • 10 – 21 December, Operation Hamburg (Niemen River-Szczara River; 6,172 people, including children)
  • 22 – 29 December, Operation Altona (Słonim; 1,032 people, including children)
1943
Mass murder of Soviet civilians near Minsk, 1943
  • 6 – 14 January, Operation Franz (Grodsjanka; 2,025 people, including children)
  • 10 – 11 January, Operation Peter (Kliczów, Kolbcza; 1,400 people, including children)
  • 18 – 23 January, Słuck-Mińsk-Czerwień massacre (825 people, including children)
  • 28 January – 15 February, Operation Schneehase (Połock, Rossony, Krasnopole; 2,283 people, including children); 54; 37
  • Until 28 January, Operation Erntefest I (Czerwień, Osipowicze; 1,228 people, including children)
  • Jaanuar, Operation Eisbär (between Briańsk and Dmitriev-Lgowski)
  • Until 1 February, Operation Waldwinter (Sirotino-Trudy; 1,627 people, including children)
  • 8 – 26 February, Operation Hornung (Lenin, Hancewicze; 12,897 people, including children)
  • Until 9 February, Operation Erntefest II (Słuck, Kopyl; 2,325 people, including children)
  • 15 February – end of March, Operation Winterzauber (Oświeja, Latvian border; 3,904 people, including children)
  • 22 February – 8 March, Operation Kugelblitz (Połock, Oświeja, Dryssa, Rossony; 3,780 people, including children)
  • Until 19 March, Operation Nixe (Ptycz, Mikaszewicze, Pińsk; 400 people, including children)
  • Until 21 March, Operation Föhn (Pińsk; 543 people, including children)
  • 21 March – 2 April, Operation Donnerkeil (Połock, Witebsk; 542 people, including children)
  • March 22, Khatyn massacre, Khatyn; 149 people including women and children
  • 1 – 9 May, Operation Draufgänger II (Rudnja and Manyly forest; 680 people, including children)
  • 17 – 21 May, Operation Maigewitter (Witebsk, Suraż, Gorodok; 2,441 people, including children)
  • 20 May – 23 June, Operation Cottbus (Lepel, Begomel, Uszacz; 11,796 people, including children)
  • 27 May – 10 June, Operation Weichsel (Dniepr-Prypeć triangle, South-West of Homel; 4,018 people, including children)
  • 13 – 16 June, Operation Ziethen (Rzeczyca; 160 people, including children)
  • 25 June – 27 July, Operation Seydlitz (Owrucz-Mozyrz; 5,106 people, including children)
  • 30 July, Mozyrz massacre (501 people, including children)
  • Until 14 July, Operation Günther (Woloszyn, Lagoisk; 3,993 people, including children)
  • 13 July – 11 August, Operation Hermann (Iwie, Nowogródek, Woloszyn, Stołpce; 4,280 people, including children)
  • 24 September – 10 October, Operation Fritz (Głębokie; 509 people, including children)
  • 9 October – 22 October, Stary Bychów massacre (1,769 people, including children)
  • 1 November – 18 November, Operation Heinrich (Rossony, Połock, Idrica; 5,452 people, including children)
  • December, Spasskoje massacre (628 people, including children)
  • December, Biały massacre (1,453 people, including children)
  • 20 December – 1 January 1944, Operation Otto (Oświeja; 1,920 people, including children)
1944
  • 14 January, Oła massacre (1,758 people, including children)
  • 22 January, Baiki massacre (987 people, including children)
  • 3 – 15 February, Operation Wolfsjagd (Hłusk, Bobrujsk; 467 people, including children)
  • 5 – 6 February, Barysz [pl] (near Buczacz) massacre (126 people, including children; see pl:Zbrodnie w Baryszu)
  • Until 19 February, Operation Sumpfhahn (Hłusk, Bobrujsk; 538 people, including children)
  • Beginning of March, Berezyna-Bielnicz massacre (686 people, including children)
  • 7 – 17 April, Operation Auerhahn (Bobrujsk; c. 1,000 people, including children)
  • 17 April – 12 May, Operation Frühlingsfest (Połock, Uszacz; 7,011 people, including children)
  • 25 May – 17 June, Operation Kormoran; (Wilejka, Borysów, Minsk; 7,697 people, including children)
  • 2 June – 13 June, Operation Pfingsrose (Talka; 499 people, including children)
  • June, Operation Pfingstausnlug (Sienno; 653 people, including children)
  • June, Operation Windwirbel (Chidra; 560 people, including children)

Belgium

1940
1944

Croatia

1943
1944

Czechoslovakia

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

Estonia

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

France

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

Germany

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

Greece

Massacre of Kondomari in Greece, June 1941

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

Italy

A body lies in the via Rasella, Rome, during the round up of civilians by Italian collaborationist soldiers and German troops after the partisan bombing on 13 March 1944.

Latvia

1941
  • 30 November and 8 December, Rumbula massacre (25,000 people, including children)

Lithuania

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

Netherlands

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

Norway

Poland

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

Russia

A victim of starvation in besieged Leningrad in 1941

Serbia

1941

Slovenia

1942
1945

Ukraine

1941
1943
  • 1 – 2 March 1943, Koriukivka massacre
  • 19 March 1943, Ozerjany massacre (267 people).[additional citation(s) needed]
  • Second half of March, Kharkov massacre following the Third Battle of Kharkov (2500 people).[additional citation(s) needed]
  • 29 September, Wola Ostrowiecka massacre (220 children)
  • December 10, Tarassiwka massacre; 400 people (including women and children)
1944

See also


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