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On 22 June 1941, the Council of the Supreme Soviet
imposed martial law over Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Ukraine, White Russia,
Karelia, Bessarabia, as well as over the territories of Archangel, Murmansk,
Vologda, Leningrad, Kalinin, Ivanovo, Yaroslav, Ryazan-Smolensk, Tula, Kursk,
Moscow, Voronezh, Orel, the Crimea, and Krasnodar. General mobilization was
ordered in 15 military districts.
Partisan warfare was unleashed
one week later. It was a prepared measure in violation of international law for
which the Wehrmacht was unprepared. Furthermore, a “Service Regulation for the
Partisan War” had been in effect in the Red Army since 1933. As early as
January and February 1941, large scale partisan war games were held in various
military districts of the Soviet Union by the “Society for the Encouragement of
Defense” (Osowiachim), in which the civilian population also took part, as
reported by the Army newspaper “Red Star”. Based on these experiments, the
Soviet Communist Party created so-called “Destruction Battalions”, even prior
to the beginning of the war. When an area was to be abandoned by the Red Army,
these destruction battalions were systematically supposed to destroy all
businesses, communications installations, medical installations, etc. of any military
or commercial importance, and to being partisan warfare as soon as the front
was overrun (56)
On 29 June1941, the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union called upon all Party,
Soviet, Trade Union and Komosol organizations to form “partisan divisions and
diversion groups” and to pursue and destroy the German invaders in a “merciless
struggle… to the last drop of blood”. (57). Two phrases occur repeatedly
throughout all following announcements, orders, instructions, instructions and
guidelines of the Central and Provincial authorities of the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union until the end of the war. One phrase consists of all the
possible variations on the word “destroy”, and the other, all possible
variations on the word “invader”. As early as 1 July 1941, the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of White Russia, for example, in compliance
with the order from Moscow, ordered civilians “to blow up or damage streets and
bridges, fuel and food warehouses, set vehicles and airplanes on fire, cause
railway accidents, give the enemies no rest either day or night, destroy them
wherever one comes across them, to kill them with everything at hand: ax,
scythe, crowbars, pitchforks, and knives”. A particularly remarkable sentence
states: “In destroying the enemy, don’t shrink from resort to any means at all:
strangle, burn, poison the fascist expectoration!”
On 3 July 1941, Stalin, in his
well-known radio speech “Comrades! Citizens! Brothers and Sisters! Fighters of
our Army and Navy!”, which was broadcast everywhere over and over again in the
following days, ordered the population to deprive the German invader of
everything that might be of use: “Not single locomotive, not one single
railroad car, not one kilogram of grain, not one liter of fuel must be left
behind for the German enemy”. Anything that could not be taken away was to be
destroyed: “In enemy-occupied areas, partisan divisional units, on both foot
and horseback, must be created to fight the units of the enemy army, to set partisan
warfare ablaze everywhere, to blow up bridges and streets, to destroy telephone
and telegraph connections, to burn down forests, warehouses and wreck trains.
Intolerable conditions must be created in the occupied territories; the enemy
is to be pursued and destroyed at all time, and all enemy measures must be
thwarted.” (58).
On 18 July 1941, followed the
decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
entitled “On the Organization of the Struggle Behind the Lines of the Hostile
Troops”, the leaders of the Republic, Area and district committees of the Party
organizations were personally made responsible for ensuring that “Partisan
divisions, diversion and destruction groups on foot and horse”, in compliance
with Stalin’s order, were organized to “create intolerable conditions for the
German invader” (59).
Stalin’s speech at a
celebration session of the Mosow Soviet of the Deputies of the Workers on the
occasion of the 24 th anniversary of the Great Socialist October Revolution on
6 November 1941 was peppered with insults directed at German soldiers: “Men
with the morals of beasts”, “Robbers who have lost all human face in their
moral rottenness and have long since sunk to the level of beasts”, “Men without
conscience and honor”, etc. Any expedient was permitted against them. The
population was to be mobilized “to the last man” in destroying the German enemy
(60). To this purpose, on 17 November 1941, Stalin issued Order no. 428,
which, in German journalism, became known as the “Arsonists Order”. In the
original, the order was entitled: “The monstrous crimes, cruelties and acts of
violence of the German authorities in the occupied districts and territories”
and stated as follows: “All settlements occupied by German troops are to be set
on fire, to a depth of 40 to 60 km behind the main front line and 20 to 30 km
on both sides of the roads. Air Force, Artillery and Partisan divisions groups
equipped with bottles of fuel” were assigned to this task. The order is even
said to have contained the following sentence: “The search and destroy
commandos shall carry on the destruction actions in the uniform of the German
army and Waffen-SS. Such actions incite hatred against the fascist occupiers
and facilitate the recruitment of partisans in the backcountry. At the same
time, care should be taken to leave survivors to report on ‘German
atrocities’". 20 to 30 “courageous fighters” were to be selected for these
underground guerrilla groups, to be created in each regiment. “In particular, those
who destroy settlements behind the German lines in German uniforms are to be
nominated for the receipt of medals”, the order says. The last sentence says:
“The population must be told that the Germans burnt the villages and localities
to punish the partisans” (61). The propagandists of the Red Army followed
Stalin’s brutal order to the letter, even though it was chiefly directed
against the Russian population. On 30 November 1941, the most powerful of
these propagandists, Ilya Ehrenburg, issued the proclamation: “Fighters, Spies,
Partisans!”, in which he called upon members of these three groups to do as
follows: “Anywhere there is a house in which the Germans might warm themselves,
smoke the Germans out!” (62).
On 7 January 1942, the Soviet
Foreign Ministry issued the following hypocritical note to their accredited
diplomats in Moscow: “The Soviet Government, before the diplomatic
representatives of world public opinion, objects to the cruelties, devastations
and plundering committed by German troops in the Soviet territories, in which
the German Wehrmacht deliberately destroys entire villages and cities and burns
them to the ground, rendering the Soviet population homeless. The destruction
has assumed the dimensions of widespread devastation. The Soviet population is
robbed of food and clothing, while anyone who resists is shot” (63). With
these remarks, the Soviet government attempted to blame the Wehrmacht for
atrocities unscrupulously committed by the Soviets themselves, against their
own population.
The demonization of the German
soldiers in Soviet propaganda paved the way for partisan atrocities against the
“fascist beasts”, ”fascist carrion”, “band of Hitlerite cannibals”, “German
robbers”, “Hitler hordes”, etc. To the partisans, this classification of the
enemy was a license to kill. The cruelties of the Red Army were overshadowed by
the cruelties of the partisans. German soldiers who fell into the hands of the
partisans had to expect the worst. On 1 October 1941, a member of the Central
Committee named Kazapalov called upon the partisans “to torture” captured
German soldiers “by mutilating them before shooting them” (64). Brutalized
members of the partisan hordes followed these instructions only too willingly.
The Germans, in turn, commonly referred to the partisans as ‘bandits’.
German officers were not
always able to prevent their soldiers from taking revenge. The bitterness was
too great. What happens in a soldier who finds his comrades lying mutilated at
the edge of a forest? The pay book of every member of the Wehrmacht and
Waffen-SS contained a document entitled “The 10 Commandments of the German
Soldier”, which was learned by every recruit. The third commandment stated: “No
enemy who surrenders is to be killed, except for partisans or spies. The latter
are to receive a just punishment from the courts”. These humane statements,
which were entirely in conformity with international law and had been
implemented in the campaigns until that time, were soon proven inadequate for
the actual situation.
Despite the escalation of
brutality in the partisan war, the German military leadership repeatedly called
upon the soldiers of the Wehrmacht to spare the foreign civilian population.
The Commander in Chief of the Army, in his “Guidelines for Fighting the
Partisans”, issued on 25 October 1941, ordered that all German soldiers were to
“win the trust of the population through rational and fair treatment, thus
depriving the partisans of further support” (65). In the “Guidelines for the
Reinforced Struggle against the Problem of Banditry in the East” (Instruction
no. 46) of 18 August 1942, even Hitler had to admit that the cooperation of
the population was “indispensable”, demanding “strict but just treatment” of
the Soviet population. (66)
55. Fritz
Becker: Stalins Blutspur durch Europa: Partner des Westens 1933-45, Kiel, 1995,
p. 236.
56. L.V. Richard: Partisanen. Kämpfer hinter den Fronten, Rastatt, 1986, pp. 21, 63.
57. Direktive des Rates der Volkskommissare der UdSSR und des ZK der KPdSU, in : Heinz Kühnrich: Der Partisanenkrieg in Europa 1939-1945, East Berlin, 1965, p. 434, f.
58. L.V. Richard (see note 56), p. 21.
59. Heinz Künrich (see note 57), p. 437.
60. Joseph Stalin: Über den Grossen Vaterländischen Krieg der Sowjetunion, East Berlin, 1952, p. 16 ff.
61. GenStH Fremde Heere Ost II H 3/70 Fr. 6439568, National Archives Washington, series 429, roll 461; Fritz Becker (see note 55), p. 268 ff; Dimitri Wokogonow: Stalin. Triumph und Tragödie. Ein politisches Profil, Düsseldorf, 1989, p. 617 f; Ic-Berichte von Partisanen in deutscher Uniform bei Rudolf Aschenauer (see note 36), p. 153 ff. The author has not yet received [a copy of] the original order from the National Archives.
62. Joachim Hoffmann (see note 33), p. 201.
63. Fritz Becker (see note 55), p. 269.
64. Joachim Hoffman (see note 33), p. 110.
65. Befehl vom 10 October 1941 über das Verhalten der deutschen Truppen. For further information on the partisan war on Russian soil, see, among others: Heinz Künrich: Der Partisanenkrieg in Europa 1939-1945, East Berlin, 1968; Soviet Partisans in World War II, edited by John A. Armstrong, Madison, 1964; Peter Kolmsee: Der Partisanenkrieg in der Sowjetunion, East Berlin 1963.
66. Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv RW 39/69, sheet 70.
56. L.V. Richard: Partisanen. Kämpfer hinter den Fronten, Rastatt, 1986, pp. 21, 63.
57. Direktive des Rates der Volkskommissare der UdSSR und des ZK der KPdSU, in : Heinz Kühnrich: Der Partisanenkrieg in Europa 1939-1945, East Berlin, 1965, p. 434, f.
58. L.V. Richard (see note 56), p. 21.
59. Heinz Künrich (see note 57), p. 437.
60. Joseph Stalin: Über den Grossen Vaterländischen Krieg der Sowjetunion, East Berlin, 1952, p. 16 ff.
61. GenStH Fremde Heere Ost II H 3/70 Fr. 6439568, National Archives Washington, series 429, roll 461; Fritz Becker (see note 55), p. 268 ff; Dimitri Wokogonow: Stalin. Triumph und Tragödie. Ein politisches Profil, Düsseldorf, 1989, p. 617 f; Ic-Berichte von Partisanen in deutscher Uniform bei Rudolf Aschenauer (see note 36), p. 153 ff. The author has not yet received [a copy of] the original order from the National Archives.
62. Joachim Hoffmann (see note 33), p. 201.
63. Fritz Becker (see note 55), p. 269.
64. Joachim Hoffman (see note 33), p. 110.
65. Befehl vom 10 October 1941 über das Verhalten der deutschen Truppen. For further information on the partisan war on Russian soil, see, among others: Heinz Künrich: Der Partisanenkrieg in Europa 1939-1945, East Berlin, 1968; Soviet Partisans in World War II, edited by John A. Armstrong, Madison, 1964; Peter Kolmsee: Der Partisanenkrieg in der Sowjetunion, East Berlin 1963.
66. Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv RW 39/69, sheet 70.
Translated by C. Porter
(c) 2006
The book is a winner of the "Pour le Mérite" prize for military history in Germany.
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