10 Commandments of german soldier

[Gibbo]

These seem to be a very good summary of the rules of war. Pity the country that produced it ignored them.

[Za Rodinu]

That's all very kind on the Army's part, but then there is Hitler's Directive 33 (supplement, 23 Jul 41):

6. The troops available for securing the conquered Eastern territories will, in view of the size of this area, be sufficient for their duties only if the occupying power meets resistance, not by legal punishment of the guilty, but by striking such terror into the population that it loses all will to resist.

The Commanders concerned are to be held responsible, together with the troops at their disposal, for quiet conditions in their areas. They will contrive to maintain order, not by requesting reinforcements, but by employing suitably draconian methods.

Or Directive 46 (18 Aug 42)

4. A necessary condition for the destruction of bandit gangs is the assurance to the local population of the minimum requirements of life.

[Harry Ree]

There was always the Hitler Directives which motivated those serving on the Eastern Front that they would never be held responsible for excesses against the Slavs.This assurance to all German forces gave a free hand for the systematic extermination of civilians and POWs alike.The first directive approved and issued by Hitler on 25 May 1940 referred to the need for systematic extermination in the occupied East in order to Germanise Russia up to the Ural mountains

There has been a suggestion that since Russia had not signed the 1929 Geneva Convention,their military forces and civilians did not qualify for the protection of the Convention.However the Russians had signed the Hague Convention which had largely been absorbed by the 1929 Geneva Convention.(As an aside, it is interesting that the Germans declared that they had always honoured the Hague Convention in relation to the treatment of POWs and this was circulated to those POWs in StalagLuft 3 prior to the breakout in the spring of 1944.)

Evidence of the infringement of Conventions covering the rules of warfare and the treatment of civilians and POWs were unearthed by the Russians and no doubt this evidence came from German POWs as they were interrogated in captivity.

The testimony made by such a Wehrmacht serviceman was made by one Helmut Holwitzer.He relates, "Prior to the start of the campaign against Russia,we had a sheet with 10 fundamental rules for the German soldier pasted within every service record book.It had a list of regulations of the International convention limiting war crimes -protection of lives of disarmed and captive enemy soldiers,protection of lives of civilian population,a ban on looting and rape.When the war started,however, these sheets were reoved from our service books, which made it clear for everyone that bararian ways had gained the upper hand with the consent of the military commands".

The infringement of the 1929 Geneva Convention was one of the corner stones of the charges against those at at Nuremberg and those involved in battlefield atrocities.