11/21/2023 0 Comments Halder general![]() The originators of barbaric, Asiatic methods of warfare are the political commissars. They are a danger to our own safety and to the rapid pacification of the conquered territories.Ģ. In this battle mercy or considerations of international law is false. In particular it can be expected that those of us who are taken prisoner will be treated with hatred, cruelty and inhumanity by political commissars of every kind.ġ. In the battle against Bolshevism, the adherence of the enemy to the principles of humanity or international law is not to be counted upon. Guidelines for the Treatment of Political Commissars However, Germany did, and was bound by article 82, stating "In case, in time of war, one of the belligerents is not a party to the Convention, its provisions shall nevertheless remain in force as between the belligerents who are parties thereto." The Soviet Union, as a distinct entity from the Russian Empire, did not, in fact, sign the Geneva Convention of 1929. He said that the Hague Conventions of 18 did not apply since the Soviets had not signed them. Hitler was well aware that this order was illegal, but personally absolved in advance any soldiers who violated international law in enforcing this order. He argued that the war against the Soviet Union "cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion" because it was a war of "ideologies and racial differences." He further declared that the Commissars had to be "liquidated" without mercy because they were the "bearers of ideologies directly opposed to National Socialism." Hitler stipulated the "annihilation of the Bolshevik commissars and the Communist intelligentsia" (thus laying the foundation for the Commissar Order), dismissed the idea of court martials for felonies committed by the German troops, and emphasised the different nature of the war in the East from the war in the West. Among those present was Halder, who recorded the key points of the speech. On 30 March, Hitler addressed over 200 senior officers in the Reich Chancellery. The most brutal violence is to be used in the Great Russian Empire" (quoted from Halder's War Diary entry of 17 March ). Hitler declared: "The intelligentsia established by Stalin must be exterminated. 21 (Case Barbarossa)" discussing, among other matters, the interaction of the army and SS in the theatre of operations, deriving from the "need to neutralise at once leading bolsheviks and commissars." ĭiscussions proceeded on 17 March during a situation conference, where Chief of the OKH General Staff Franz Halder, Quartermaster-General Eduard Wagner and Chief of Operational Department of the OKH Adolf Heusinger were present. On that same day, instructions incorporating Hitler's demands went to Section L of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) (under Deputy Chief Walter Warlimont) these provided the basis for the "Guidelines in Special Areas to Instructions No. On 3 March 1941, Hitler explained to his closest military advisers how the war of annihilation was to be waged. The Wehrmacht was already politicised to some extent, having participated in the extra-legal killings of Ernst Röhm and his associates in 1934, communists in the Sudetenland in 1938, and Czech and German political exiles in France in 1940. In December 1940, Hitler began vague allusions to the operation to senior generals on how the war was to be conducted, giving him the opportunity to gauge their reaction to such matters as collaboration with the SS in the "rendering harmless" of Bolsheviks, which eventually culminated in Führer Directive 21 on 18 December 1940. ![]() Planning for Operation Barbarossa began in June 1940. It is one of a series of criminal orders issued by the leadership.Īccording to the order, all those prisoners who could be identified as "thoroughly bolshevized or as active representatives of the Bolshevist ideology" should also be killed. It instructed the Wehrmacht that any Soviet political commissar identified among captured troops be summarily executed as a purported enforcer of the so-called Judeo-Bolshevism ideology in military forces. Its official name was Guidelines for the Treatment of Political Commissars ( Richtlinien für die Behandlung politischer Kommissare). The Commissar Order ( German: Kommissarbefehl) was an order issued by the German High Command ( OKW) on 6 June 1941 before Operation Barbarossa. Nazi German order instructing frontline troops to murder Soviet political commissarsįirst page of the Commissar Order, dated 6 June 1941
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |