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 Namibian genocide and then in the First and Second World Wars. The most notable of these is the Holocaust, in which millions of European Jews, Romanis and Slavs 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 these crimes.
Herero Wars
Considered to have been the first genocide of the 20th century, the Herero and Nama genocide was perpetrated by the German Empire between 1904 and 1907 in German South West Africa (modern-day Namibia), during the Scramble for Africa.Olusoga, David and Erichsen, Casper W (2010). The Kaiser's Holocaust. Germany's Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism. Faber and Faber. Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2001, p. 12 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.Colonial Genocide and Reparations Claims in the 21st Century: The Socio-Legal Context of Claims under International Law by the Herero against Germany for Genocide in Namibia, 1904–1908 (PSI Reports) by Jeremy Sarkin-HughesEmpire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation and Subaltern Resistance in World History (War and Genocide) (War and Genocide) (War and Genocide) A. Dirk Moses -page 296(From Conquest to Genocide: Colonial Rule in German Southwest Africa and German East Africa. 296, (29). Dominik J. Schaller)The Imperialist Imagination: German Colonialism and Its Legacy (Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany) by Sara L. Friedrichsmeyer, Sara Lennox, and Susanne M. Zantop page 87 University of Michigan Press 1999Walter Nuhn: Sturm über Südwest. Der Hereroaufstand von 1904. Bernard & Graefe-Verlag, Koblenz 1989. .Marie-Aude Baronian, Stephan Besser, Yolande Jansen, "Diaspora and memory: figures of displacement in contemporary literature, arts and politics", pg. 33 Rodopi, 2007, 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.Samuel Totten, William S. Parsons, Israel W. Charny, "Century of genocide: critical essays and eyewitness accounts" pg. 51, Routledge, 2004,Dan Kroll, "Securing our water supply: protecting a vulnerable resource", PennWell Corp/University of Michigan Press, pg. 22
World War I
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.France: the dark years, 1940–1944 page 273 Julian Jackson Oxford University Press 2003
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
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.Robinson, James J., ABA Journal 46(9), p. 978. 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.
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 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 era war crime, and the very first major 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:
German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war – at least 3.3 million Soviet POWs died in German custody, out of 5.7 million captured; this figure represents 57% POW casualty rate. Le Paradis massacre, May 1940, British soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, were captured by the SS and subsequently murdered. Fritz Knoechlein was tried, found guilty and hanged. Wormhoudt massacre, May 1940, British and French soldiers captured by the SS and subsequently murdered. No one was found guilty of the crime. Lidice massacre after assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, when the Czech village was utterly destroyed, and inhabitants murdered. Normandy Massacres, a series of killings in which up to 156 Canadian prisoners of war were murdered by soldiers of the 12th SS Panzer Division (Hitler Youth) during the Battle of Normandy Ardenne Abbey massacre, one of the Normandy massacres; 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 Graignes massacre, 11 June 1944, United States POWs that had surrendered were executed by 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen by shooting and stabbing. 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 tortured, shot, and had their fingers cut off, legs broken, eyes gouged out, jaw broken and at least one was shot while trying to bandage a comrade's wounds. Wahlhausen massacre, January 1945, United States POWs from the 28th Infantry Division captured by German troops were summarily executed. GERMAN ATROCITIES DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR Gardelegen massacre of April 1945 when Nazi concentration camp prisoners were herded into a barn, which was then set alight, killing all inside Oradour-sur-Glane massacre 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. 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. Soap made from human corpses produced on a small-scale by German scientist Rudolf Spanner. 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 List of Axis personnel indicted for war crimes List of Nazi doctors Adolf Eichmann Heinrich Gross Hans Heinze Rudolf Hoess Karl Linnas Josef Mengele Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer Alfred Trzebinski
Massacres and war crimes of World War II by location
Austria
Murders of disabled children by Heinrich Gross Recommendation of disabled children for euthanasia by Hans Asperger
Belarus
The Holocaust in Belarus Anti-partisan operations in Belarus Operation Bamberg Operation Cottbus
1941 27 October, Slutsk, Slutsk Affair (4,000 people, including women and children) 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) 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)