German war crimes



The government of Germany ordered, organized and condoned innumerable war crimes in both World War I and World War II. The most notable of these is the Holocaust in which millions of people were murdered or died from abuse and neglect, 60% of them (approximately 6 million out of 10 million) Jews. However, millions also died as a result of other German actions in those two conflicts. The true number of victims may never be known, since much of the evidence was destroyed by the perpetrators, by burning of bodies, murder of witnesses and destruction of documentation in an attempt to conceal the crimes.

Pre-World War I
The Herero and Namaqua Genocide is considered to have been the first genocide of the 20th century. It took place 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 colonial rule. In August, German general Lothar von Trotha 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 desert wells.

Chemical weapons in warfare
Poison gas was introduced by Imperial Germany, and was subsequently used by all major belligerents in the war against enemy soldiers, 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
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 fear of Belgian resistance fighters, or francs-tireurs. This action was in violation of the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare provisions that prohibited collective punishment on 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 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.

Unrestricted submarine warfare
Unrestricted submarine warfare was instituted in 1915 in response to the British blockade of Germany in the North Sea. Prize rules, which were codified under the 1907 Hague Convention&mdash;such as those that required commerce raiders to warn their targets and allow time for the crew to board lifeboats&mdash;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.

Attempts to destroy evidence of German crimes
During World War II, after occupying France, Nazis seized Allied documentation regarding German war crimes in World War I and destroyed monuments commemorating them.

World War II


"it should be noted that, 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.""
 * The Holocaust of the Jews, the Action T4 killing of the disabled and the Porajmos of the Gypsies. Not all 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:

- Telford Taylor


 * Le Paradis massacre, May 1940, British soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, captured by the SS and subsequently murdered. Fritz Knoechlein tried, found guilty and hanged.
 * Wormhoudt massacre, May 1940, British and French soldiers captured by the SS and subsequently murdered. No one found guilty of the crime.
 * Lidice massacre after assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, when the Czech village was utterly destroyed, and inhabitants murdered.
 * Ardenne Abbey massacre, June 1944 Canadian soldiers captured by the SS and Murdered by 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend. SS General Kurt Meyer (Panzermeyer) sentenced to be shot 1946; sentence commuted; released 1954
 * Malmedy massacre, December 1944, United States POWs captured by Kampfgruppe Peiper were murdered outside of Malmedy, Belgium.
 * Wereth massacre. 17 December 1944, soldiers from 3./SS-PzAA1 LSSAH captured eleven African-American soldiers from 333rd Artillery Battalion in the hamlet of Wereth, Belgium. Subsequently the prisoners were shot and had their fingers cut off, legs broken, and at least one was shot while trying to bandage a comrade's wounds.
 * Gardelegen (war crime) of April 1945 when concentration camp prisoners were herded into a barn, which was the set alight, killing all inside
 * Oradour-sur-Glane
 * Massacre of Kalavryta
 * Unrestricted submarine warfare against merchant shipping.
 * The intentional destruction of major medieval churches of Novgorod, of monasteries in the Moscow region (e.g., of New Jerusalem Monastery) and of the imperial palaces around St. Petersburg (many of them were left by the post-war authorities in ruins or simply demolished).
 * The campaign of extermination of Slavic population in the occupied territories. Several thousand villages were burned with their entire population (e.g., Khatyn massacre in Belarus). A quarter of the inhabitants of Belarus did not survive the German occupation.
 * Commando Order, the secret order issued by Hitler in October 1942 stating that Allied combatants encountered during commando operations were to be executed immediately without trial, even if they were properly uniformed, unarmed, or intending to surrender.
 * Commissar Order, the order from Hitler to Wehrmacht troops before the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 to shoot Commissars immediately on capture
 * Nacht und Nebel decree of 1941 for disappearance of prisoners

War criminals

 * Adolf Eichmann
 * Heinrich Gross
 * Rudolf Hoess
 * Karl Linnas
 * Josef Mengele
 * Carl Hans Heinze Sennhenn
 * Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer
 * Alfred Trzebinski

Massacres and war crimes of World War II by location

 * The Holocaust
 * Einsatzgruppen
 * Nazi human experimentation

Austria

 * Murders of children by Heinrich Gross

Belarus

 * The Holocaust in Belarus
 * Anti-partisan operations in Belarus
 * Operation Bamberg
 * Operation Cottbus

1941

 * 28 September – 17 October, Pleszczenice-Bischolin-Szack (Šacak)-Bobr-Uzda (White Ruthenia) massacre (1,126 children)

1942

 * 26 March – 6 April, Operation Bamberg (Hłusk, Bobrujsk; 4,396 people, including children)
 * 9 – 12 May, Kliczów-Bobrujsk massacre (520 people, including children)
 * Beginning of June, Słowodka-Bobrujsk massacre (1,000 people, including children)
 * 15 June Borki (powiat białostocki) massacre (1,741 people, including children)
 * 21 June Zbyszin massacre (1,076 people, including children)
 * 25 June Timkowiczi massacre (900 people, including children)
 * 26 June Studenka massacre (836 people, including children)
 * 18 July, Jelsk massacre (1,000 people, including children)
 * 15 July – 7 August, Operation Adler (Bobrujsk, Mohylew, Berezyna; 1,381 people, including children)
 * 14 – 20 August, Operation Greif (Orsza, Witebsk; 796 people, including children)
 * 22 August – 21 September, Operation Sumpffieber (White Ruthenia; 10,063 people, including children)
 * August, Bereźne massacre
 * 22 September – 26 September, Małoryta massacre; 4,038 people, including children)
 * 23 September – 3 October, Operation Blitz (Połock, Witebsk; 567 people, including children)
 * 11 – 23 October, Operation Karlsbad (Orsza, Witebsk; 1,051 people, including children)
 * 23 – 29 November, Operation Nürnberg (Dubrowka; 2,974 people, including children)
 * 10 – 21 December, Operation Hamburg (Niemen River-Szczara River; 6,172 people, including children)
 * 22 – 29 December, Operation Altona (Słonim; 1,032 people, including children)

1943

 * 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)
 * 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, Barycz (near Buczacz) massacre (126 people, including children)
 * 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; ca. 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)

Estonia

 * The Holocaust in Estonia
 * Murders of children by Karl Linnas

1941

 * 2 November, Mass murder of children in Pärnu synagogue (34 children)

1942

 * 27 March Murder of Pliner children (Holocaust in Estonia; 3 children)

France

 * Le Paradis massacre
 * Wormhoudt massacre
 * Murders of children in the Drancy internment camp
 * Maillé massacre
 * Maillé, Indre-et-Loire
 * Oradour-sur-Glane
 * Tulle murders

1944

 * 10 June, Oradour-sur-Glane massacre (205 children)
 * Ardenne Abbey massacre of British and Canadian troops by Waffen-SS
 * Ascq massacre April 1944

Germany

 * Action T4
 * Murders of children in the Hadamar Clinic (NS-Tötungsanstalt Hadamar) mostly by Irmgard Huber
 * Murders of children by Carl Hans Heinze Sennhenn
 * Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer

1945

 * 8 April - The Celle Massacre
 * 13 April - Gardelegen Massacre
 * 20 April - Murder of 20 children by Alfred Trzebinski

Greece

 * Distomo massacre
 * Drakeia massacre
 * Holocaust of Kedros
 * Holocaust of Viannos
 * Kommeno
 * Massacre of Kalavryta
 * Massacre of Kondomari
 * Massacre of the Acqui Division
 * Mesovouno massacre
 * Paramythia executions
 * Razing of Kandanos
 * The Massacre of Chortiatis

1943

 * 14 September - 16 September, Holocaust of Viannos (ca. 500 people, including children)

1944

 * 10 June, Distomo massacre (218 people, including children)

Italy

 * List of massacres in Italy
 * Ardeatine massacre
 * Boves massacre
 * Marzabotto massacre
 * Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre

1944

 * 29 June, Civitella-Cornia-San Pancrazio massacre (Toscana; 203 people, including children)
 * 12 August, Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre (560 people, including children)
 * 29 September – 5 October, Marzabotto massacre (250 children)

Latvia

 * The Holocaust in Latvia

1941

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

Lithuania

 * The Holocaust in Lithuania

1941

 * 13 July – 21 August Daugavpils massacre by Einsatzkommando 3 and Lithuanian partisans (9,585 people, including children)
 * July – August 1944, Ponary massacre (ca. 100,000 people, including children)
 * 18 August – 22 August, Kreis Rasainiai massacre (1,020 children)
 * 19 August, Ukmerge massacre (88 children)
 * Summer-autumn-winter, Complete murder of native Jewish population in Estonia (900 individuals, including 101 children)
 * 1 September, Marijampolė massacre (1,404 children)
 * 2 September, Wilno massacre (817 children)
 * 4 September, Čekiškė massacre (60 children)
 * 4 September, Seredžius massacre (126 children)
 * 4 September, Veliuona massacre (86 children)
 * 4 September, Zapyškis massacre (13 children)
 * 6 September – 8 September, Raseiniai massacre (415 children)
 * 6 September – 8 September, Jurbork massacre (412 people, including children)
 * 29 October, Kaunas massacre (4,273 children)
 * 25 November, Kauen-F.IX massacre (175 children)

1944

 * 1 October, Putten raid (552 deaths)
 * 5 November, Heusden Town Hall Massacre (134 people, including 74 children)

Norway

 * Murder of children of Jewish Children's Home in Oslo

Poland

 * The Holocaust in Poland
 * Borów massacre (103 children)
 * Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany
 * German AB-Aktion in Poland
 * Gmina Aleksandrów, Lublin Voivodeship
 * Gmina Besko
 * Gmina Gidle
 * Gmina Kłecko
 * Gmina Ryczywół
 * Gmina Siennica
 * Huta Pieniacka massacre
 * Intelligenzaktion Pommern
 * Jedwabne pogrom
 * Jeziorko woodland cemetery
 * Kidnapping of Polish children by Nazi Germany
 * Krasowo-Częstki massacre (83 children)
 * Lviv pogroms
 * Massacres of Poles in Volhynia
 * Michniów massacre (48 children)
 * Murders of children by Josef Mengele
 * Pacification Operations in German occupied Poland
 * Planned destruction of Warsaw
 * Ponary massacre
 * Operation Tannenberg
 * Szczecyn massacre (71 children)
 * Valley of Death (Bydgoszcz)

1942

 * 2 July, murder of children of Lidice in the Kulmhof extermination camp (82 children)

1943

 * 12 March, Murder of Czesława Kwoka in KZ Auschwitz-Birkenau (1 child)
 * 23 May, Kielce cemetery massacre (45 children)
 * 3 August, Szczurowa massacre (93 people, including children)
 * 29 September, Ostrówki massacre (246 children)
 * 29 September, Wola Ostrowiecka massacre (220 children)

1944

 * 28 February, Huta Pieniacka massacre
 * 28 – 29 February, Korosciatyn Massacre (ca. 150 people, including children)
 * 2 June, Murder of Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam's children (9 children)
 * 4–August 25, Ochota massacre (ca. 10,000 people, including children)
 * 5 – 8 August, Wola massacre (40,000 up to 100,000 people, including children)

Russia

 * The Holocaust in Russia
 * Commissar Order
 * German war crimes during the Battle of Moscow
 * German war crimes against Soviet civilians

1941

 * 20–21 October Kragujevac massacre (2300-5000 civilians killed, including 217 children)

Ukraine

 * The Holocaust in Ukraine
 * Babi Yar
 * List of victims of the Babi Yar massacre
 * Drobytsky Yar
 * Lviv pogroms
 * Massacres of Poles in Volhynia

1941

 * June, Czechow massacre (6 children)
 * 29 – 30 September, Babi Jar massacre (33,771 people, including children: List of victims of the Babi Yar massacre)

1943

 * 1 – 2 March 1943, Koriukivka massacre
 * 29 September, Wola Ostrowiecka massacre (220 children)

1944

 * 28 February, Huta Pieniacka massacre
 * 28 – 29 February, Korosciatyn Massacre (ca. 150 people, including children)