okay i understand,
so accroding to international law, reprisal shooting is allowed provided it is being followed according to the conditions..So it was disproportionate reprisal shooting as a war crime rather than the act of reprisal shooting itself..
Does that law still applied to now?
Is revenge shooting allowed?
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David Thompson
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panzermahn -- You asked about reprisal shootings, "Does that law still applied to now?"
Reprisal shootings haven't been expressly outlawed. The question is open as to whether a country could practice reprisals without violating some other international treaty committment. I haven't really researched the point, but I don't believe killing civilians in an act of reprisal is permitted nowadays.
Reprisal shootings haven't been expressly outlawed. The question is open as to whether a country could practice reprisals without violating some other international treaty committment. I haven't really researched the point, but I don't believe killing civilians in an act of reprisal is permitted nowadays.
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Windward
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Rob - wssob2
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re: reprisals
My understanding is that prior to WWII, the Hague/Geneva conventions did permit (or at least did not specifically outlaw) reprisals under certain conditions. However, the Third Reich took these conventions and stretched them all out of proportion to justify some pretty abhorrent behavior - for example killing anywhere from 10 to 100+ hostages for every German soldier killed. In addition, the massive reprisal policies of the Third Reich included mass arrests and the execution of hostages without investigation into their (supposed) guerilla activity and without trial, actions which definitely did not adhere to the convention regulations.so accroding to international law, reprisal shooting is allowed provided it is being followed according to the conditions..So it was disproportionate reprisal shooting as a war crime rather than the act of reprisal shooting itself..
(BTW prior to the invasion of the USSR, Hitler drafted the "Barbarossa Order" which specifically exempted German soldiers from persecution regarding violations of the Hague/Geneva conventions during the invasion. In other words, Hitler permitted the German Wehrmacht to freely violate the conventions at will due to the unique "racial" nature of the conflict. )
Absolutely not. Thanks to the criminal activities of the Third Reich and Hirohito's Japan, the UN drafted several resolutions to specifically prohibit such excesses:Does that law still applied to now?
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948
Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.
Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.
The fourth convention specifically prohibits the taking of hostages, reprisals and executions without trial.
A good web resource for this discussion is
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebFULL?OpenView
which is an index of all international treaties covering warfare from the 1850's to the present day.
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David Thompson
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Panzermahn
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Found another interesting article regarding reprisal shootings
http://www.codoh.com/found/fndSiegert.html
http://www.codoh.com/found/fndSiegert.html
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simsalabim
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I was already wondering when Siegert would pop-up. Here's some info on the good man, taken from the website from the Univerisity of Gottingen:
http://www.math.uni-goettingen.de/sumpf ... /main.html
The 10 ordinary professors of the year 1933 left their office within the next five years. Four professors pensioned regularly, the rest of them were forced to retire, to move or to go into exile. Under the influence of Dr Karl Siegert, a convinced national socialist, teaching from november 1933 to 1939/1940, the law faculty should develop itself into a breeding ground for national socialist law making. The budding teachers Karl Larenz, Karl Michaelis and Friedrich Schaffstein made a jump to the office of professor thanks to these dismissals to the national socialist university of Kiel, to have influence on NS-law.
Rehabilitation of the perpetrators and the victims.
(snip)
Professors Karl Siegert, Wilhelm Ebel and Georg Erler lost their status as a civil servant because of the Entnazifizierung while Hans Welzel one of the ideologists of the NS era could go on teaching.
To be honoust I take claims and articles form sites like codoh and vho with tons of salt, and when I knew about the background of Siegert, I took the article, which is quite apologetic with a shipload of salt. Like I said earlier I am not an expert on international law but I know enough of it that the opinion of Siegert was quite a dissenting one.
http://www.math.uni-goettingen.de/sumpf ... /main.html
My translation:... zum Dritten Reich
Die 10 ordentlichen Professoren des Jahres 1933 sind alle innerhalb der nächsten 5 Jahre aus ihrem Amt ausgeschieden. Vier Professoren gingen regulär in den Ruhestand. Die restlichen sechs wurden zwangspensioniert, versetzt oder zur Emigration gezwungen. Unter dem Einfluß von Prof. Karl Siegert, einem überzeugtem Nationalsozialisten, von November 1933 bis 1939/40 in Göttingen, sollte sich die juristische Abteilung zur "Pflanzstätte bester nationalsozialistischer Rechtsgelehrter" entwickeln. Die aufstrebenden Göttinger Privatdozenten Karl Larenz, Karl Michaelis und Friedrich Schaffstein schafften aufgrund der politisch motivierten Entlassungen zügig den Sprung auf eine Professorenstelle an der Nationalsozialistischen Elite-Universität Kiel, um fortan das NS-Recht zu prägen.
Rehabilitation der Opfer ... und Täter
Sofort nach Ende des Krieges erging ein Schreiben an alle aus politischen Gründen entlassenen Professoren mit der Einladung zur Rückkehr an die juristische Fakultät. Wenn auch nicht alle Professoren zurü ckkehrten, so traten doch alle wieder mit der Fakultät in Kontakt. Jedoch verzichtete der wegen seiner jüdischen Abstammung verfolgte Richard Honig auf eine Professur. Der zum Bundesverfassungsrichter aufgestie gene Gerhard Leibholz kehrte erst 1959 nach Göttingen zurück. Die Professoren Karl Siegert, Wilhelm Ebel und Georg Erler verloren im Zuge der Entnazifizierung ihren Beamtenstatus, während Hans Welzel, einer der Ideologen der NS-Zeit, unbeschadet weiter amt ieren konnte. Nach einer Schamfrist konnten Ebel und Erler ihren Lehrbetrieb wieder aufnehmen.
The 10 ordinary professors of the year 1933 left their office within the next five years. Four professors pensioned regularly, the rest of them were forced to retire, to move or to go into exile. Under the influence of Dr Karl Siegert, a convinced national socialist, teaching from november 1933 to 1939/1940, the law faculty should develop itself into a breeding ground for national socialist law making. The budding teachers Karl Larenz, Karl Michaelis and Friedrich Schaffstein made a jump to the office of professor thanks to these dismissals to the national socialist university of Kiel, to have influence on NS-law.
Rehabilitation of the perpetrators and the victims.
(snip)
Professors Karl Siegert, Wilhelm Ebel and Georg Erler lost their status as a civil servant because of the Entnazifizierung while Hans Welzel one of the ideologists of the NS era could go on teaching.
To be honoust I take claims and articles form sites like codoh and vho with tons of salt, and when I knew about the background of Siegert, I took the article, which is quite apologetic with a shipload of salt. Like I said earlier I am not an expert on international law but I know enough of it that the opinion of Siegert was quite a dissenting one.
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Panzermahn
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from the same article...After the capture of Bengasi, Montgomery stated that he believed that numerous mines and traps had been set in the city. For every British soldier that was killed, he would have 10 Italians shot.[63] A November 30, 1944, radio message from the Allied headquarters in Paris stated:[64]
"Regarding General Leclerq's proclamation in Strassbourg, according to which 5 hostages were to be shot for every French soldier killed in ambush, Headquarters has ordered that Allied expedition troops operate in accordance with the Geneva Convention of 1929 and especially its Article 2, which states that reprisals against prisoners of war are prohibited.
Under martial law, however, taking hostages in order to ensure that the inhabitants of the occupied territory obey the orders of the military government is permitted by the laws of warfare. Such hostages may be tried in court, and even sentenced to death.
Therefore, under certain circumstances - especially in cases where civilians have violated the orders of the Geneva Convention - the threat expressed by General Leclerq may be enforced, but not against prisoners of war."
According to Falkenhausen Document 58a, 6 officers and 34 soldiers were executed at Annecy (Haute Savoie), and another 40 Germans at Habère, as reprisal for atrocities allegedly committed by a Russian battalion.
On April 24, 1945, in Reutlingen, Württemberg, four reprisal prisoners were shot by the French for the murder of a French soldier.[65] On April 28, 1945, the following announcement was made in Leutkirchen:[66]
"[...] 4. If a German shoots at Frenchmen, or if any other incident whatsoever happens, 5 houses will be torched and 100 Germans executed.
[...] 6. I am responsible, on pain of my own death, to ensure that these orders are enforced [...] the Mayor [...]"
In Markdorf, 4 German civilians were executed per 1 French soldier shot.[67]
In Saulgau it was proclaimed on April 27, 1945, that if a French soldier were killed or even only wounded, 20 hostages would be shot and the corresponding city district would be burned to the ground.[68]
The Berlin Ordinance of July 1, 1945,[69] stated, inter alia:
"Anyone who commits an attack on a member of the occupation forces or on a bearer of official functions, or who commits arson for reasons of political enmity, seals not only his own fate but that of 50 former members of the Nazi Party as well. Their lives are forfeit together with that of the assassin or arsonist."
Falkenhausen Document 74 tells of the execution of 8-12 Germans for one officer killed during the American march-in in Treseburg.
Further threats of reprisal killings were proven in the SouthEast Trial in Nuremberg in Case VII;[70] examples include a ratio of 1:25 in Stuttgart, 1:10 in Birkenfeld, 1:30 in Markdorf, and an American threat of 1:200 in Harz. Hoppe[71] mentions further that the Americans took French officials hostage in 1941 in Syria; as well, the Russians took Persian officers hostage in 1949 in Azerbaijan. Further, the French took and killed hostages in Indochina.[72] Sonnenburg[73] reports that the French shot 80 prisoners of war in Fort Mont Lucon in 1944, as well as 20 hostages in Saigon in May 1951.
According to the publication Der Heimkehrer,[74] French officers and soldiers returning from Indochina stated that they could not understand what was happening at that time, 71/2 years after the war, to the former members of the German occupation forces. They pointed out that incidents like Oradour take place in Indochina on a weekly basis, and must take place, in fact, for the sake of the protection of the French troops there.As we can see, hostages were taken by all sides in World War Two, and in many cases they were also killed as reprisal.
[The font size of the bold text portion of this post was reduced from 18 to 12 by the moderator for ease in reading -- DT]
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simsalabim
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Panzermahn,
What is the meaning of your last post?
Mr Siegert, a convinced national-socialist, who was kicked out of his office after the war, wrote an article, stating his opinion about reprisals. His view was not widely accepted at all, so why are you repeating him?
Do you concur with his views?
And what has post-war French military policy in Indo-China to do with this matter?
What is the meaning of your last post?
Mr Siegert, a convinced national-socialist, who was kicked out of his office after the war, wrote an article, stating his opinion about reprisals. His view was not widely accepted at all, so why are you repeating him?
Do you concur with his views?
And what has post-war French military policy in Indo-China to do with this matter?
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Panzermahn
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It shows that the reprisal shootings just like in Oradour are not just limited to the germans but also to the allied especially the French...
If you read back the post again, you will Allied forces instituted strings of illegal reprisal shootings that they themselves outlawed when Germany commits the same thing
If you read back the post again, you will Allied forces instituted strings of illegal reprisal shootings that they themselves outlawed when Germany commits the same thing
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DragonFire
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A brief summary of the great work made by Vincent Reynouard on this event.
The official version tells us that in 06/10/1944, a few days after the Normandy landing, a detachement of the Das Reich division went to the village of Oradour to avenge the kidnapping by the maquisards, of an SS officer, the major Kämpfe (in earlier versions of this story, this fact is not even mentionned). They are supposed to have deliberately burned alive something like 400 women and children held in the village church, and shot down all the remaining men taken as hostages. All this was known thanks to the testimony of the only one survivor, Marguerite Rouffanche.
Vincent Reynouard has compiled the many testimonies of the people who have witnessed those tragic events and have found many contradictions that make them at least suspect, at worst false. Marguerite Rouffanche have certainly never been to the place of the slaughter, and have been influenced to give a false testimony by a communist journalist after those events.
Reynouard has also analysed the ruins of the church, and he has found there were no big traces of fire but rather traces of explosion, an explosion that originated in the steeple of the church. Pursuing his investigations, he found it was common practice among the maquisards of this area to hide explosives in the church's steeples!...
All those findings led him to a different theory :
after the kidnapping of major Kämpfe, the german army was especially anxious for him, especially considering the fact that the day before, the Das Reich went to the city of Tulle to rescue a detachement of the german army incircled by partisans : they have found the bodies of 60 german soldiers atrocely mutilated, their testicles cut off and put in their mouths, being driven over with trucks and so on... The people who have done this stuff were not french but communist spaniards, russians, poles, probably jewish...
They got the information that the major Kämpfe could be detained in Oradour sur Glane. They got there, brought all the women and children to safety in the church, regrouped all the men, in other places, and they started to search the village. They have found many explosives and weapons, and have found in the baker's oven, human remains that could have been those of the unfortunate major, and then in a water pit some human bodies (probably those of french collaborators or of other german soldiers). And then all of a sudden, the church exploded. There were certainly some spanish maquisards hidding themselves in the steeple, and the women have probably started a panic movement against them being anxious for their men, because they were in the know of what has happened in the village. And then a fierce fight have started between the SS and the remaining spaniards, as proven by the huge quantities of american ammunitions found inside the church and the many spanish names among the list of the people killed (too much for a little village of Limousin!...). Thinking they were under attack by the maquis, the SS have finished to shot down the remaining male hostages, under the confusion, because they didn't know anymore who was friend or foe.
That's more or less what Reynouard is explaining in his book, with a lot more details and informations...
If you are fluent in french or have the possibility to get it translated you have the text of Mr Reynouard available at this place :http://cetrbilbi.free.fr/textes/reynouard_oradour.zip
http://cetrbilbi.free.fr/resources.html
You have also a version with pictures :
http://cetrbilbi.free.fr/textes/oradourimages.zip
[The boldfaced type in which the entire post was rendered has been replaced by the moderator with ordinary type for ease in reading. Please use boldfaced type only to emphasize individual words or phrases rather than the entire text. -- DT]
The official version tells us that in 06/10/1944, a few days after the Normandy landing, a detachement of the Das Reich division went to the village of Oradour to avenge the kidnapping by the maquisards, of an SS officer, the major Kämpfe (in earlier versions of this story, this fact is not even mentionned). They are supposed to have deliberately burned alive something like 400 women and children held in the village church, and shot down all the remaining men taken as hostages. All this was known thanks to the testimony of the only one survivor, Marguerite Rouffanche.
Vincent Reynouard has compiled the many testimonies of the people who have witnessed those tragic events and have found many contradictions that make them at least suspect, at worst false. Marguerite Rouffanche have certainly never been to the place of the slaughter, and have been influenced to give a false testimony by a communist journalist after those events.
Reynouard has also analysed the ruins of the church, and he has found there were no big traces of fire but rather traces of explosion, an explosion that originated in the steeple of the church. Pursuing his investigations, he found it was common practice among the maquisards of this area to hide explosives in the church's steeples!...
All those findings led him to a different theory :
after the kidnapping of major Kämpfe, the german army was especially anxious for him, especially considering the fact that the day before, the Das Reich went to the city of Tulle to rescue a detachement of the german army incircled by partisans : they have found the bodies of 60 german soldiers atrocely mutilated, their testicles cut off and put in their mouths, being driven over with trucks and so on... The people who have done this stuff were not french but communist spaniards, russians, poles, probably jewish...
They got the information that the major Kämpfe could be detained in Oradour sur Glane. They got there, brought all the women and children to safety in the church, regrouped all the men, in other places, and they started to search the village. They have found many explosives and weapons, and have found in the baker's oven, human remains that could have been those of the unfortunate major, and then in a water pit some human bodies (probably those of french collaborators or of other german soldiers). And then all of a sudden, the church exploded. There were certainly some spanish maquisards hidding themselves in the steeple, and the women have probably started a panic movement against them being anxious for their men, because they were in the know of what has happened in the village. And then a fierce fight have started between the SS and the remaining spaniards, as proven by the huge quantities of american ammunitions found inside the church and the many spanish names among the list of the people killed (too much for a little village of Limousin!...). Thinking they were under attack by the maquis, the SS have finished to shot down the remaining male hostages, under the confusion, because they didn't know anymore who was friend or foe.
That's more or less what Reynouard is explaining in his book, with a lot more details and informations...
If you are fluent in french or have the possibility to get it translated you have the text of Mr Reynouard available at this place :http://cetrbilbi.free.fr/textes/reynouard_oradour.zip
http://cetrbilbi.free.fr/resources.html
You have also a version with pictures :
http://cetrbilbi.free.fr/textes/oradourimages.zip
[The boldfaced type in which the entire post was rendered has been replaced by the moderator with ordinary type for ease in reading. Please use boldfaced type only to emphasize individual words or phrases rather than the entire text. -- DT]
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alsaco
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The version given by M; Reynouard is one possibility. All participants and victims in this event having been killed on the spot or on the front, all suppositions can be presented.
Other explanations have been submitted, and for the same reason, absence of account from the german side, can not be considered proven.
Oradour however was not unique in these days. Not only did the Das Reich exterminate the population of Oradour, but in many places these men did execute wounded, hostages, civilians. In Tulle, 99 people were hanged. The question is therefore not so much the pactise, imported from Russia in fact, that the principles of retaliation on civilians. How can a regular military formation do such things, coldly.
I personnally do not accept Mr Raynouard version, because we have the relation of the stayover in Nieul l'Espoir, the night after the killing, of these men, and know this way how they exhibited the stolen money and the product of their looting. It was not a nervous breakdown after a fight, but the organised sharing up by gangsters.
So far, a trial, limited to some soldiers, exists. Even if proofs are weak, they seem near to truth. Oradour was not an act of war, but a personnal vengeance by some friends on supposed ennemies. Dickmann wanted revenge for Kempff, and the regimental HQ was not able to maintain order among his men. More than 620 people were killed by error.
Like in Greece, the same day, and in Italy in the following months.
Other explanations have been submitted, and for the same reason, absence of account from the german side, can not be considered proven.
Oradour however was not unique in these days. Not only did the Das Reich exterminate the population of Oradour, but in many places these men did execute wounded, hostages, civilians. In Tulle, 99 people were hanged. The question is therefore not so much the pactise, imported from Russia in fact, that the principles of retaliation on civilians. How can a regular military formation do such things, coldly.
I personnally do not accept Mr Raynouard version, because we have the relation of the stayover in Nieul l'Espoir, the night after the killing, of these men, and know this way how they exhibited the stolen money and the product of their looting. It was not a nervous breakdown after a fight, but the organised sharing up by gangsters.
So far, a trial, limited to some soldiers, exists. Even if proofs are weak, they seem near to truth. Oradour was not an act of war, but a personnal vengeance by some friends on supposed ennemies. Dickmann wanted revenge for Kempff, and the regimental HQ was not able to maintain order among his men. More than 620 people were killed by error.
Like in Greece, the same day, and in Italy in the following months.