How guilty is the entire Wehrmacht of war crimes?

Objective research on factual information regarding German military related warcrimes.
Epaminondas
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Post by Epaminondas »

Checking a few old posts here and there it was the meat and bakery companies; Russians after the war implicated them in killing jewish civilians in the Lvov area in 41. German records confirm the killing of several hundred civilians; but are not clear if elements from Wiking's supply elements were involved or not.

A recent Hungarian book claimed some Jewish refugees were kill by Wiking division members in 45.

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By "white" I am referring to the evaluation of the war crimes tribunal during and after WWII which put all axis divisions into three categories, white, grey and black. White was cleared of prosecutable warcrimes, while black meant the unit was involved in significant numbers of warcrimes.

White doesn't mean no warcrimes, it either means nothing can be proven in 1945-8; OR nothing beyond the normal sorts of incidents. (shooting of prisoners, etc)

Wiking was the only "white" SS unit.

===
===

And that is about as much time I'm going to spend on it. I have better things to then argue about the level of involvement sub elements of a unit had in warcrimes before the entire unit is implicated.

I'm not a SS fanboy who needs to cling to the illusion that some units were clean. I just think that war is inherently a chaotic activity that can't be confined by laws- yes there should rules of warfare, but it is inherent in war that both sides are going to do things that in retrospect appear or are immoral. The flip side is just because a baker commits a warcrime doesn't mean a tank driver in the same division should be implicated.

And to be just to Wiking; it deserves to pointed out that much of the recent warcrimes allegations are coming from former finnish members; and finnishs sources being translated into other languages.
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Post by phylo_roadking »

Ah, Lvov - and these would be the same Russians that butchered prisoners in the prison there in the face oif the advancing Germans? Or even - the same victims? :wink: Lvov is getting to be like Katyn - the party that yells loudest and latest is not necessarily the one with the cleanest hands...
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Epaminondas
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Post by Epaminondas »

Please reread my post. The Germans own records admit to killing 700+ jews in the Lvov area during this time period.

Finnish Wiking soldiers mention the bakery company and meat company were involved.

It isn't clear what happened, and if Wiking really was involved. But there is no question German soldiers killed several hundred jews near Lvov in 1941.
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Post by Reb »

Phylo

Exactly. Those NKVD creeps shot people who were locked up for petty theft right along with "political undesirables." A fine lot of fellows eh?

I got an eye opener reading Ivan's War. Apparently rather a lot of the "Jews" and "innocent Russian civilians" murdered in Latvia had a pernicious habit of wearing NKVD uniforms. The fact that they were Jewish was secondary - anyone who could get an NKVD man in front of a gun and not pull the trigger was a damn fool.

When it comes to those guys (NKVD) I feel exactly the same way I do about Einsatzgruppen - adios amigos. Say hi to your buddy the devil.

cheers
Reb
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Post by phylo_roadking »

Epaminondas, it'll take some searching on here, but there's a thread on Feldgrau where someone - I think it was actually HvM - posted the German report of what THEY found when they actually went into Lvov in 1941. It makes quite brutal reading...
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Post by sid guttridge »

Hi Epaminondas,

As I have mentioned twice before, the Wiking served only on the Eastern Front. Therefore it would not have drawn itself to the attention of the Western Allies either positively or negatively.

I was previously unaware of the Lvov and Hungarian acusations or that more than one Finn has raised issues. If nothing else, this thread has built up quite an extensive range of accusations against members of the Wiking from at least seven different nationalities, half of them Axis.

Yes, crimes are committed on all sides, but it does not absolve anyone from culpability. Nor are crimes necessarily commtted with the same frequency by all combatants. It is this differential that is significant. Leaving aside any Allied accusations, it appears that the Wiking attracted an unusual amount of attention in this regard from within the Axis forces. Furthermore, such accusations cover four of the five years in which it campaigned.

Far from the Wiking being a formation that was "was cleared of all charges by the Allies including the Russians", as suggested by another poster earlier in this thread, it looks more like a formation that may have been unusually heavily engaged in them.

Cheers,

Sid.
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Post by sniper1shot »

"was cleared of all charges by the Allies including the Russians"
My God Sid, do you really have nothing better to do than pick pepper out of fly sh*t?
The point was that Wiking was not placed in the same catagory as some of the other SS Divisions. The Russians did not prosecute the Wiking in the same level as the others and the Division came out of the war relatively with some form of respect.

Please do not expect me to go through my 300+ books looking for a sentence here or there stating as such.
For modern Nazi apologists the Wiking represents their ideal of a clean-cut, wholesome, anti-Communist, Nordic "Europa". In order for them to sustain their fantasy and recruit more devotees to it, it is necessary for Wiking to be seen as clean as possible
I hope for your sake, Sid, that you are not lumping me into this statement, because if you are you had better say so....... :?

it looks more like a formation that may have been unusually heavily engaged in them
Hmmm right.
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Post by phylo_roadking »

Dis, note the section I have emboldened...
On 30 June 1941, the Polish - Ukranian city of Lvov was captured by the 1. Gebirgs Division of the 49. Armee Korps. On that day, the intellegince section of the 49. Armee Korps gave it's first report

"According to the account of Major Heinz, commander of a battalion of Regiment 800, thousands of brutally murdered persons were found in the Lvov prisons. The 1st and 4th Mountain Divisions are hereby ordered to assign journalists and photographers to cover these atrocities. The chief military judge of the Corps and the liaison officer of the Foreign Office with the High Command of the 17th Army have been sent to Lvov to carry out in-depth investigations."

No doubt most of the victims were Polish and Ukranian political and religious opponents of the Soviet regime. The dead decomposing bodies in the Soviet prisons were gruesomly stacked upon each other in rooms which were then flooded with blood and an 8 year old girl was even hung by a towel.

The number of victims was so great, that 3 Heer military judges, Judge Hans Tomforde of the 603. Garrison Division HQ., Judge Erich Wilke of the 49. Armee Korps, and Judge Wilhelm Möller of the high command of the 17. Armee, began investigations into this Soviet warcrime commited by the NKVD before they received orders from Berlin.

In the medical investigations that ensued, it was discovered that 7 captured members of the Luftwaffe had been executed by the Soviets, most of them wounded. It was also discovered throgh testimony of Polish and Ukranian survivors that 5 wounded German soldiers who were at Lvov hospital were executed by the Soviet Commissars Loginov and Maslov. This case is not surpirsing, considering that at the early stage of the war unfortunately barely 5% of German and Axis POWs in Soviet hands survived.

After numerous Ukranians and Poles were interviewed about the atrocity, Möller drafted a report on 16 July 1941 and sent it to the Wehrmacht war crimes bureau.

The Wehrmacht war crimes bureau then collected information from various sources about Lvov as part of a documentation named "War crimes of the Soviet armed forces" released in November 1941, then sent to the white book of the German foreign office titled "Bolshevik war crimes and crimes against humanity", which the British foreign office obtained through neutral Switzerland.

An important contributer to the investigations was the Ukranian Red Cross. It stated on 7 July 1941 to the German commandant of Lvov

"Over 4,000 corpses have been found in Lvov's prisons ... it is hardly possible to describe the condition in which the bodies were found.... Full of anguish and consternation because of the fate of all Ukrainians who remain in prisons and concentration camps throughout the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian Red Cross requests that the entire civilized world be informed by radio of theses atrocities. In particular we urge the Swiss, Swedish, and Dutch Red Cross societies to take measures to protect the lives of those who are endangered so that they may still be saved."

Information on these war crimes then slipped to the Polish government in exile in Britain, leading to the British foreign office to send a note to the Soviet foreign minister Molotov, who without doubt denied the war crimes on July 12 1941. However, the foreign minster of the Polish government-in-exile, Edward Raczynski, commented "little doubt that the Polish and Ukrainian political prisoners in Lvov had in fact been liquidated as alleged."

The name of Lvov was not mentioned a lot, until the Nuremburg trials of 1946, in which German defendants were charged with the activities of the Einsatzgruppe squads in the area. However, in the trials of some German generals, such as Manstein's in 1949 in Hamburg, Lvov was used in defence, as after the Ukranian population found out about the atrocity, they blamed it on the Jews, and started pogroms, but they were halted by local German military authorities. Several statements from German generals add to this.


General Max Winkler: "I remember [hearing] the figure of some 4,000 corpses.... As a reaction to those murders the Ukrainian population immediately started to drag the Jews out of their homes and to abuse them in the streets.... The provisional commander of Lvov, Colonel Fingergerst of the 49th Army Corps ... succeeded in stopping [these excesses] by giving orders to German troops and sending special patrols through the streets."

General Egbert Picker: "In the courtyard of the state prison I saw many rows of corpses, laid next to each other, many of them with the most grotesque mutilations.... I also saw in a small courtyard ... some 15 corpses, apparently Jews who had been killed as reprisal by the local population shortly after the Russians evacuated the town.... Jews were being taken to the prison by local civilians wearing armbands, and in one case they were being beaten with a bat.... General Kübler ... told me ... that he had ordered such acts of violence by the civilian population against Jewish persons to be immediately stopped."

General Hans Kreppel: "In the first hours after the occupation of Lvov I personally saw hundreds of bodies of murdered Ukrainians ... I also remember an order of the 49th Army Corps forbidding the Ukrainian population to persecute the Jews."

There is no doubt that this atrocity happened, but there should be clear seperate lines drawn between the mass murder of political opponents by the NKVD, the Ukranian anti semitic pogroms and the Einsatzgruppe activities.

source: The Wehrmacht war crimes bureau, 1939 - 45 by Alfred DeZayas
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phylo_roadking
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Post by phylo_roadking »

The point being - "The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau"??? If they mentioned stopping the deathes of 15 Jews, and orders specifically being in place against the killing of Jews in this time period...I think you'd find any actions by Wiking in this report.....and it'sa noticable by its absence

And what were the locals turning on the jews for??? because as Reb says, they associated them with the NKVD in Russian life - and I believe you had this discussion elsewhere, Sid....and why were they turning on the Jews they associated with the NKVD?....
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Post by phylo_roadking »

Top Secret.

To the Peoples Commissar of Internal Affairs comrade Beria.
Potential relocation of the convicts from the near-front prisons, as well newly arrested after recent prison evacuations, as well as once who would appear as a resulted of proposition to widen evacuation zone, seems to be unconsidered in the light of extreme graveness of transport situation and extreme excess of number of convicts already in the rear area prisons.

It is most urgent to allow chiefs of UNKGB and UNKVD , on case by case basis, in coordination with military command, to decide the problem of prison unloading , basing on following guidelines.

1. Only people who are still under investigation for diversionary, spy and terrorist activities are to be evacuated to the rear prisons.
2. Women with children, pregnant, underage, with exception of spies, bandits especially dangerous etc are to be freed.
3. All convicted under the orders oh Presidium of Highest Council of USSR from 6.26, 8.10. 12.28 of 1940 and 4.9 of 1941 and also people convicted for small-time domestic , government crimes and other unimportant criminal activities as well as people who currently being investigated for such and who do not considered to be socially dangerous, are to be organized for defense work in accordance to request of military command and to be freed before the time, if evacuation is called.
4. All other criminals, deserters included, are to be shot.
Awaiting your instructions
Deputy to Peoples Commissar of Internal Affairs Chernishev
Chief of Prison department Nikolskiy
July 4 1941.


From the report of Chief of Prison department of NKVD UkSSR , captain of State Security Filipov to the Deputy of Peoples commissar of Internal l Affairs Chernishev and to chief of Prison department of NKVD USSR, captain of State Security, Nikolskiy July 12 1941.

The beginning of combat actions prompted evacuation of incarcerated form Western regions prisons, in the first turn – from the prisons attacked by German armed forces, and form the remaining prisons later on.

In order to assist in organization of evacuation of incarcerated at 0.5 hors of 06/24/1941 16 high-rank officials of prison Department of NKVD UkSSR were sent in all western regions – 2 per prison.

From 0.4 hours of 6.27.41 till 7.4.41 I myself and 3 other employees of prison department were in Ternopl and Proskurov where I commanded this operation through the staff of South-Western Front – mainly asking for transport.

Lack of the later was the main handicap in the evacuation process
Despite the existing order of Fronts headquarters, military commandants of the railways station gave priority to the evacuation of wounded and other military traffic. No transport was given of evacuation of incarcerated.



The second reason for the untimely evacuation was total lack of the cooperation form local NKGB departments which grew in outright opposition to it till it was too late, and who later put all the responsibility on the local head of prison. That was especially obvious in Tranopol region.
Also they totally distanced themselves from conduct of operation of 1st category (execution – oleg) in most case leaving the job to the local prison personnel, and since they were conducted under the enemy fire and during the general retreat prison personel did not have enough time to camouflage graves more meticulously.
Region by Region situation is as follows:
Lvov Region: From the prisons of Lvov region gone by 1st category (executed –oleg) 2464, freed - 808, evacuated 201, left in prison -1546, namely: prison #1- 1366 men, #2 -66 men, #4 - 114 men - mainly convicted for household criminal acts. During the night of 23-24 of June of this year, in accordance to the order of Lvov staff all personnel of the prison – guarding company included- left the city but came back in 4 hours. In that period about 300 men escaped form the prison #1 – most of the m are common criminals. All archives and documents with exception of prisoners registration journals, and valuables registration journals are burned. The above mentioned remaining documents are in Kiev.
There were several attack by OUN on the prison in Zlochev. All attacks were repulsed by prison guards.

Dorogobich Region. By the time of Prisons Department brigade arrival in the region, for the purpose of prisoners evacuation, prison in Permishl was already evacuated due to occupation of the town by the enemy. From the words of prison chief Telnov evacuation was done on foot in two columns – 1st common criminals, 2nd all the remaining ZKs (Russian acronym fro the prisoner -oleg). First column under Telnov successfully made its way to the Sambor; second one was taken over by Germans – guarding personnel and some prisoners fought their way through and now located in Stariy
The remaining two prisons in Sambor and Stariy contained 2242 Zks. During the evacuations of these two prisons were executed 1101 men, freed 250 men, evacuated by rail 637 men, left in prison - 304 men.
On June 27th, during the Sambor Prison evacuation there wer left 80 corpses that personnel did not have time to burry and local NKGB refused to offer any assistance.
Stanislav region. From 3 prisons – Stanislav, Kolimichi, Pechnzhina, evacuated by rail total of 1376 men –in accordance with order by chief of UNKVD Mikhailov, among them were 294 convicted for criminal activities and 9 men who were sentenced to death – all former red army personnel.
Gone by 1st category – 1000 men. According to chief of Stanislav prison – they are partially buried behind the prison limits and partially on the prison territory. Freed -295 men. Due to the lack of transport 647 remained in the prison – 282 criminals, the rest convicted for household crimes and misdemeanors.
Tarnopol Region. In the Chertkoev prison there was 1300 Zks. There was enough transport for the evacuation however on the orders of local NKGB chief 800 of them were left in prison – all criminals. Thus only 500 men were evacuated. At the very last moment NKGB chief washed his hands off the responsibility the above mentioned 800 saying “do whatever you want with them”
Chie fo the prison Levchuk, organized evacuation on foot , to Kamenec-Podolskiy and then even further since he was unable to obtain needed transport there as well.
In Kremenc prison there were 360 Zks. On June 26 in accordance with chief of local NKVD prison personnel left the facility in the direction of Katrenburg form where it came several hours later. By the time they came back 191 Zk has escaped. The rest is currently evacuated to Proskurov. Riabov is removed form his position and currently is under investigation. According to data we have Zks from Kremenec are in Kharkov as of July 6.


As of 6/22/41 there were 1790 men in Tarnopol prison – out of that number 560 men are gone by 1st category. Operation was conducted by chief of UNKGB.
. 1008 Zks form Tarnopol prison is evacuated by foot Volochisk station and then by rail to Kursk. Freed 217 men, shot while trying to escape 18 men.
In Berzhani prison there were 376 Zks as of 6/28/41 –gone by 1st category 174 men. Local NKGB refused to participate and assist in any way. 8 people are freed, sent to Tranopol – 94 remaining in prison -48 and additional 51 that are to be freed.
Rovno Region. Dubno prison – gone by 1st category 230 men, freed 170 men. Sent to prison #4 (Roeno) 250 men out of which 20 were left in the various hospitals on the way due to illness.
Ostrogi prison out of 75 prisoners 5 are freed the rest remained there.
Volinsk Region
Kovel Prison gone by 1st category 195 men, freed 300 men, 45 are still in prison
documents came from "evacution of Prisons" by A.Guriaynov and A. Kokurin
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sid guttridge
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Post by sid guttridge »

Hi S1S,

It comes down to a simple matter of whether something is correct or not. In this case it wasn't true that the Wiking "was cleared of all charges by the Allies, including the Russians."

If the wiking did come out of the war relatively with some form of respect, then the above thread indicates that this was probably not justified. It appears to have been the subject of complaints from a wider variety of sources, including its own side, than any other formation I am aware of.

No, I am not lumping you in with Nazi apologists. I am was making a general point that the Wiking is the focus of a contemporary whitewashing tendency of which we must all be wary in passing on tidbits about the formation.

Yup, looking at the above thread and only the accusations from Germans, Austrians, Slovaks, Hungarians and Finns, none of whom were on the other side from Wiking, yes indeed, "Hmmm right".

Cheers,

Sid.
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Post by Reb »

The Soviets were unlikely to "clear" any one. It's a doctrinal thing - the W-SS (and indeed all the Germanski!) were "class traitors" and criminals - to be re-educated in the dialectic or liquidated. Thus - they can't be cleared because they were criminal by their very nature.

Those Soviet folks were most unpleasant but you have to give them credit - they were focused!

I myself doubt Wiking was innocent of any wrong doing. Simply because the war was so cruel that wrong doing became a way of life. If we're talking atrocities against the Jews or other civilians - I'm unaware of any problems other than mentioned already in this thread.

But I'd be hard pressed to find a world war 2 combat unit on either side that didn't shoot some prisoners now and again. In war you become so tough (or so dead) that you stop noticing things that would have appalled you previously.

And Wiking was very much an anti-bolshevik legion of a sorts. Battles of ideology tinged with the nazi racial element are going to be ugly.

Perhaps I'm jaded. But minor "excesses" (shooting prisoners at point of contact, friendly fire incidents, looting) don't even register - I've studied war too long - those things are the norm. If civilians knew the things we know they might be a little more hesitant to roll the drums as often as they do.

cheers
Reb
jamesjack
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Post by jamesjack »

LIKE Reb says, all armys shoot prisoners in hectic circumstances. I can remember a family member blubbering to me in the pub about how his platoon shot two surrendered Germans outside Cassino town ,and how guilty he felt. Wow!! first time you ever told me that in fifty years.

Just had to laugh at all the chunndering in this thread. Soviets and Nazis, two brutal totalatarian regimes, locked in a vicious race, idealogical, ect fight for survival. What's the point in debating who was the nastiest?

There's lots of forums like this one. Ilove them all. What's the abiding attraction for WW2 German army? It can't be cos they had the sexiest helmets on their blonde square heads [or as Himmler maintained, in underpants also lol]
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Post by joefraser »

Hi,
here is an exert from a letter sent to me by a former member of Wiking.
" You wondered about the behaviour of our units in the Wiking Division. I must explain first that I am only sure of the people in my company. Further afield, say the battalion or even the regimentis utterly and completely unknown to me. There are some exceptions to the last statement. I did have lots of contact after the war in Holland with men from the Wiking and many who were in a different regiment, but no one ever mentioned attrocities or foul behaviour to civilians.
Before you believe we were all little angels, certainly not. There were conditions in the war that would not be understood by civilians today. You mentioned something like that when you talked to ............. When we had had a fight and of course the wounded from both sides were found, we quickly adopted the habit of shooting any Russian that we thought had been wounded but was lying in a position where he could hide a weapon. If you did not kill him he would shoot you or a comrade in the back. We only started doing this after we learned from bad experiences how the Russians would behave. The Allies tell it in a different way, they say we just shot all Russians regardless. We however lost the war and history is told by the victor"
I have no reason to doubt what he has written to me. As he states he can only speak 100% for his immediate circle.
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Post by Opa »

I think the Wiking survivor said it well. There is no collective guilt.

Otherwise, all human beings would be guilty and murderable (I am an American, so for all I know my kids are collectively guilty for the holocoust of the Indians if collective guilt exists). It is a profoundly inhuman concept, something Nazis and Communists might dream of. Most Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS soldiers did not commit warcrimes. Hence they are not guilty. There is nothing to add to that. %E
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