The holocaust and war crimes through the lens of ordinary German soldiers.

The holocaust and war crimes through the lens of ordinary German soldiers.


The myth that the holocaust happened outside of the knowledge of the ordinary German soldier is wide spread one.
When the allies liberated the camps in Germany and occupied Europe the phrase "wir haben das nicht gewusst" was used often as an excuse, it were just limited numbers people of the awful regime that did this and all of it out of sight of the population, a big secret.
The Wehrmacht tried to wash his hands in innocents by putting the blame on the Waffen SS, they were as regular army troops not involved in these massacres and if they were they were forced to, because Befehl ist Befehl.
The mass executions were indeed not done in public in German cities but they were done in occupied towns and villages in the East, in area occupied by large numbers of WH troops that witnessed them.
These WH troops visited these execution sites as a kind of a tourist sightseeing trip, some of them even participated.
The taking of pictures was strictly prohibited by the organizers of the mass executions, not really because it was all that secret, they were allowing tourists and were sending back reports to Berlin about their progress; taking pictures was prohibited because it could damage the moral back home if the soldier that took them showed them to his friends and family when on vacation back in Germany and if these pictures would by accident fall in the hands of the allies it also could be evidence used against them.
Despite that Befehl is Befehl in the German army many soldiers just ignored this order and took pictures anyway.
Did they take this pictures so that they could proof large groups of people were exterminated in the East? No, not really, most of them took these pictures as gruesome souvenirs, a kind of evidence, that the filthy Jew or Untermensch finally got what he deserved, that the German army was taking care of business, no more half measures.


In this thread I'll show some pictures of my small collection.
Please feel free to add others if you have them.

#1.
I'll start of with one of a rather friendly scene, Jews washing tanks in a small town in Lithuania.
Harmless picture isn't it?
But take a closer look, the setup of the situation is one with a very dark sense of humour: forcing your victims to clean the tools that are used to oppress them.
If this picture is indeed like the caption on the backside says taken in Lithuania, then we are looking at tanks of the 6th Panzer Division, it was the only division operating in Lithuania armed with T35 tanks.
The 6 Pz Div was a WH division, not a Waffen SS unit.
The Jews are guarded by an armed WH soldier you can see in left background, the smiling soldier in the foreground is wearing a pair of Black Panzer uniform pants.
Like I said, although this from first glance innocently looking picture it tells a dark story of how some of the German Panzer troops looked upon the Jewish population in Lithuania.

#2.
On this picture the caption on the back is very interesting, it says:
All Jews. They had them all shot in Shitomir.
("all" is used in this sentence to describe that all the Jews of Shitomir were shot, not only the group seen in the picture)
On the roof a Jewish chimney sweep, he is chased from one fire place to another.
(A sarcastic way, to say that the chimney sweep was also shot by firing squad)
On this occasion also two Jews were publicly hanged.

The picture itself is also full of interesting details.
The Jewish males are guarded not only by a German military police man but also ghetto police, notice the man on the left walking away from the camera, there is also the man in the foreground armed with a huge club/pole arm.
The soldiers watching this is a very mixed bunch, the one behind the armed guard is a Waffen SS trooper wearing the typical camo clothing, helmet cover and dust goggles, I also seem to see a soldier with a M38 Fallschirmjäger helmet, but most are wearing overseas caps.

#3.
Two pictures taken by someone that visited the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, it is a series of pictures, the other eight pictures in the group are the run of the mill ghetto pictures, Jews in shoddy clothing, the ghetto wall and gate,...etc.
But these two jump out.
On it you can see a German police battalion sergeant kicking two children back in to a fenced part of the ghetto.
The caption on the back says, that the picture taker, called the children, but they were forced back through the barbed wire.

#4.
An execution picture.
A WH sergeant just used his HP35 to shoot a Russian POW.
No helmets are worn, so we can assume that this shooting happened behind the frontline.

#5.
The worst of the series.
On the first picture you can see a group of young Jewish males, the picture is crystal clear and you can see the fear in their eyes, they exactly know what is coming.
They are guarded by a SD sergeant that holds a gummy club in his right hand.
The soldiers in the background are WH soldiers and NCO's in walking out uniform, tourists on an execution site.
Some are very eager to be in the picture.
Also many of the victims look directly in to the lens.
On the second picture you see what happened to them.....
The pit is constructed according to rules and regulations, part of the sand used to catch the bullets.
In the background you can soldiers casually watching this scene with their hands in their pockets.

Don't forget that these horrible pictures were taken by ordinary German soldiers or officers, developed and printed in German photo shops, were put in to photo albums and shown to friends and relatives back home.......
"wir haben das nicht gewusst" or "Befehl ist Befehl"?

So easy to forget. Thank you.

I dont know whether to thank you for this post or to cry. While I collect German ww2 military arms, I have always been aware of the evil that they are linked to. My dad told stories and has pictures from when the 6th armored passed through Buchenwald. He always said the German citizens were horrified when forced to see the atrocities the regime, but in actuality their son, daughters and fathers committed. He and many US servicemen thought they knew exactly what was going on, they just hadn't seen the killing first hand but readily accepted the fruits of it such as clothing, housing and other goods. They very well knew the house they now lived in, the furniture they now used belonged to "relocated Jews". The Germans were/are very analytical and were certainly capable of putting the facts in front of them together, they just chose not to or were ok with it.

Peter, you have a great talent for seeing the fine details in documents and photos that breathe life into an otherwise lifeless item. Thank yo for your contributions to the hobby and this form.

Sad but interesting pictures. Some show SS or police troops and the individual who appears to have been shot appears to be uniformed. Early in Barbarossa, partisans were hanged or shot if captured but that policy was viewed as counterproductive by the army and these were given POW status. By the weapons shown on the troops, these were rear-echelon SS or police troops with soldiers as on-lookers. That rear echelon characters carried out mass murders is well documented. Other than the short-lived and generally ignored Commissar Order, the regular military resisted all efforts by the NS leadership to engage in the mistreatment of any civilians as a matter of policy. This is documented by US Army studies on the subject and prevailed from the artic circle to North Africa. Unfortunately, even during the Vietnam war, there were those in my service who simply disobeyed orders.

The SS got the shaft, after the war, when they were used by the regular German armed forces as a scapegoat for atrocities also routinely committed by Heer and Luftwaffe units.

This allowed the Wehrmacht to falsely claim they had maintained their military honor, by lying through their teeth, about the nature and extant of the murders that they were guilty of.

We, the Allies, knowingly went along with the bald faced lie & myth, because it became clear, almost as soon as the war ended, that we needed to reconstitute a German military force to counter the growing Soviet threat, and it served our purposes to condemn the SS, while exonerating the others.

This is not to say the SS was not guilty of war crimes, only to point out that the Wehrmacht, itself, was wading knee deep in the blood of innocents, damned well knew it, delighted in their own participation in it, and with a few notable exceptions, approved of it's own barbaric behavior.

I call your attention to a book titled The German Army And Genocide

edited by the Hamburg Institute for Social Research

first published in German as Vernichtungskrieg; Verbrecher der Wehrmacht bis 1941 bis 1944

Available in English through Amazon

I suggest anyone who thinks the Wehrmacht had clean hands or maintained it's "military honor" read this book and remember most of the photos came from private sources, that is to say photos taken by German troops themselves, of atrocities, being conducted by members of the regular armed forces.

war crimes

Hello,

my Dad served in various infantry units from early 1939 to the last days of WWII.
I very well remember one story he told me.

After a retreat, his unit reconquered a village where they had to leave behind a field hospital. They found their comrades and the hospital staff slaughtered. He told me details, I want to spare out.
On the very same day they got the order: No more Russian prisoners!

No more Russian PoW!
Questions?

Thanks

Being of an age that spans the late war years and the time since has revealed much to me. In a positive sense, I could never have imagined admiring some of my Russian professors or having good friends of that nationality. Also, that relatives and friends who were once enemies could form friendships that endured for the remainder of their lives. That generation not only attained great character, but had the invaluable perspective of having experienced the most destructive war in history, survived, and actually derived incomparable wisdom from it. Unfortunately, nearly all have gone to their reward and their perspectives have been reduced to the memories of those left behind, and their writings. I consider it a blessing to have known those people and to be able to differentiate between the popular and actual histories of the events they experienced. It has also reinforced my belief that if there is such a thing as a compilation of all the conclusions drawn from these sources it would have to be the US Constitution. America's founding fathers were wise in many ways and they profoundly believed (as the German people were to learn) that allowing a foreigner to lead the American people should be avoided at all costs.

Amberg said:

Hello,

my Dad served in various infantry units from early 1939 to the last days of WWII.
I very well remember one story he told me.

After a retreat, his unit reconquered a village where they had to leave behind a field hospital. They found their comrades and the hospital staff slaughtered. He told me details, I want to spare out.
On the very same day they got the order: No more Russian prisoners!

No more Russian PoW!
Questions?

Thanks

Click to expand...

Hello Amberg,


Indeed I have some questions and I hope you will answer them to, just like I have answered my own questions.
But before I ask my questions, let me first tell this and let it be clear also!!!
I don't doubt your fathers story at all and I certainly don't want to claim that he was involved in any war crime(s).
Not taking POW's isn't even considered a war crime I think, executing your pow's is, their is a subtle difference.




Now back to my questions I want to ask you.
Question #1
Picture #4, it has no caption on the back, but it came out of a series of pictures taken in the summer of 1941.
The German army was in the offensive and victorious on most, if not all fronts in Russia.
Do you think that sergeant executed that POW because he had just seen a massacre done by the Red Army?
...
Let you give my answer.
That picture is taken well behind the frontline and I am pretty certain that revenge wasn't the motive to shoot this Soviet POW, his motive was most likely just racial hate towards the Untermensch in uniform.


Question two.
What did the Jews do on picture #1 to be humiliated like that?
...


My answer.
I have no knowledge of Panzer troops forcing French or Belgian citizens to clean their tanks in May/June 1940.
I have no other answer, then that their motive was racial hate towards them.


Question three.
- Do you think that revenge for Red Army massacres was the motive why the soldiers on picture #5 went to watch and most likely also participate in the murder of those Jewish civilians?

My answer.
I doubt it very much, that revenge for Soviet war crimes was their motive.
My understanding is that they just wanted to witness how the Jewish population was taken care of, the final solution being done, no more talk but action.

DaveDavis said:

The SS got the shaft, after the war, when they were used by the regular German armed forces as a scapegoat for atrocities also routinely committed by Heer and Luftwaffe units.

This allowed the Wehrmacht to falsely claim they had maintained their military honor, by lying through their teeth, about the nature and extant of the murders that they were guilty of.

We, the Allies, knowingly went along with the bald faced lie & myth, because it became clear, almost as soon as the war ended, that we needed to reconstitute a German military force to counter the growing Soviet threat, and it served our purposes to condemn the SS, while exonerating the others.

This is not to say the SS was not guilty of war crimes, only to point out that the Wehrmacht, itself, was wading knee deep in the blood of innocents, damned well knew it, delighted in their own participation in it, and with a few notable exceptions, approved of it's own barbaric behavior.

I call your attention to a book titled The German Army And Genocide

edited by the Hamburg Institute for Social Research

first published in German as Vernichtungskrieg; Verbrecher der Wehrmacht bis 1941 bis 1944

Available in English through Amazon

I suggest anyone who thinks the Wehrmacht had clean hands or maintained it's "military honor" read this book and remember most of the photos came from private sources, that is to say photos taken by German troops themselves, of atrocities, being conducted by members of the regular armed forces.

Click to expand...

Well said.

Just this noon I sat at a table in a restaurant with my family, one person at the table lost his father in the war, he was tortured in a Sipo/SD prison and eventually died in the concentration camp of Dora-Mittelbau, and I myself have a family member that came back mutilated from a forced labour camp in Germany and despite all this I can tell you all that I hold no grudge, neither do I have feelings of hate towards, present day Germans, I have made vacations in Germany, buy stuff from German shops and work with Germans, I even worked for a German company for almost eight years.
But that doesn't mean that I think we should just forget about the crimes committed by the Nazi's and all those that assisted them, also it isn't because they became our allies soon after the war against the Soviet Union and world communism that these crimes didn't happen; I will always speak out against those that feel they have to deny or minimize the crimes that were committed by the Nazi's and the German armed forces.

At least the Germans, unlike the God damned Japs admit to their crimes.

DaveDavis said:

At least the Germans, unlike the God damned Japs admit to their crimes.

Click to expand...

The best books on my shelves about this subject matter are indeed written by German academics.
And there was a German resistance movement against the Nazi's that also shouldn't be forgotten.

Peter U said:

Hello Amberg,


Indeed I have some questions and I hope you will answer them to, just like I have answered my own questions.
But before I ask my questions, let me first tell this and let it be clear also!!!
I don't doubt your fathers story at all and I certainly don't want to claim that he was involved in any war crime(s).
Not taking POW's isn't even considered a war crime I think, executing your pow's is, their is a subtle difference.




Now back to my questions I want to ask you.
Question #1
Picture #4, it has no caption on the back, but it came out of a series of pictures taken in the summer of 1941.
The German army was in the offensive and victorious on most, if not all fronts in Russia.
Do you think that sergeant executed that POW because he had just seen a massacre done by the Red Army?
...
Let you give my answer.
That picture is taken well behind the frontline and I am pretty certain that revenge wasn't the motive to shoot this Soviet POW, his motive was most likely just racial hate towards the Untermensch in uniform.


Question two.
What did the Jews do on picture #1 to be humiliated like that?
...


My answer.
I have no knowledge of Panzer troops forcing French or Belgian citizens to clean their tanks in May/June 1940.
I have no other answer, then that their motive was racial hate towards them.


Question three.
- Do you think that revenge for Red Army massacres was the motive why the soldiers on picture #5 went to watch and most likely also participate in the murder of those Jewish civilians?

My answer.
I doubt it very much, that revenge for Soviet war crimes was their motive.
My understanding is that they just wanted to witness how the Jewish population was taken care of, the final solution being done, no more talk but action.

Click to expand...

Hello Peter,
I sure will answer your questions. But my answers only will be assumptions.
First of all, I think, not taking POWs is a war crime! No difference, if the enemy wants to surrender, or you kill him after he surrendered.
From what my Dad told me, his unit committed war crimes by not taking prisoners any more. In 1943/44 he served as a sniper, but that is a different story.
Question #1:
No, I don't think the sergeant executed the Russian soldier. To me it looks like he is just passing by.
Question #2:
I think back then it was reason enough to be executed when you were Jewish. Not to talk about being humiliated like a dog.
Question #3:
Are you sure these people are Jews?
That is an early war photo and has nothing to do with war crimes committed by Red Army Soldiers later in the war.
The German Army executed civilians for one or the other reason in all theaters of WWII. Think of Crete. Jews? No!

Some years ago I got a photo album of a former army postal service member from the very same Regiment my Dad served with, on a flea market. It contained some photos of executed, hanged, burned Jews in Bessarabia. Back then, I gave it to our local Jewish museum as a gift, and talked to the curator today if I may take some copies to show them in this forum.
When I get the copies, I'll post them here and tell you more about the relationship of my family to Jews back then. Our next door neighbors were Jews.

Thanks

Thanks for answering my small questions Amberg!
It really is appreciated.




Of course your answers are assumptions, so are mine.
They are pictures, moments in time captured on film.
But I try to think logical and special to look at the small details.
In the case of picture #4, because of the smirks on there faces and the HP35 pistol out of the holster I presume they have just shot that Red Army soldier.
These events have been documented, the commissar order for example, that ordered the immediate execution of all political officers of the Red Army.
I'am pretty sure the young men in picture #5 are Jewish, they sure have the looks and they were the prime target for mass shootings in 1941.
And I'am pretty sure that the caption on the back of picture #1 is correct.
These pictures are indeed all early war pictures, film was then still reasonably available and soldiers had thus the opportunity to take them, later when film got scarce these type of pictures weren't made anymore or certainly not as frequently.
Also these type of pictures are, alas perhaps, not that rare, which leads to the conclusion that events like this took place often and weren't exceptions or odd occasions.




I asked these question so I could ask my follow up question:

Couldn't it be that the invasion of Soviet Russia in June 1941 that came with all kinds of brutalities, not seen on this scale in the previous invasions: abuse of POW's, executing Red Commissars, burning down of villages, mass executions of Jews and all this almost from day 1, a dirty war declared against the Untermensch was the trigger for Soviet attrocities?
.....
I think it was, it seems very logical to me.
All the Untermensch theories and extreme anti Semitism eventually let to this, waging war not only against an army and a government but against a complete population.
The excuse not to take POW's like your fathers unit did later in the war because they witnessed Soviet brutalities in Russia when the Germans were themselves on the retreat can't be used to explain the many atrocities that were committed in the summer of 1941.



And to say it once again, no hate feelings from me towards present day Germans.