Soviet-Russian execution orders

[Edwin Meinsma]

Hi there,

We all know Hitler issued the 'Komissar Befehl' (commissar order) which meant to liquidate Bolshevism by physically eliminating all bearers of the idea and the Soviet State apparatus.

My question: did Stalin ever issue a similar order, I mean an order for instance to shoot every 3.SS-Totenkopf soldier or active NSDAP members ?

Regards,
Edwin Meinsma

[Caldric]

No Stalin was smarter then Hitler. Honestly, he was a master at remaining the innocent Dictator that has been wronged. If any order was issued it would have been from Beria, Stalin would never do it, if it went wrong then Stalin would point at Beria and have him shot. However, I have seen nothing to indicate the Soviets had any official plans for such things. The NKVD could however be as brutal and zealous as the SS.

[Edwin Meinsma]

Thanks Caldric. You're probably right, Stalin always tried to keep his hands clean.

I'm wondering if there ever existed some kind of official order or guideline about what to do with captured German soldiers. I know that 3.SS 'totenkopf' or ROA pow's got a 'special treatment' but was there some official order behind this ?

Regards,
Edwin Meinsma

[Ogorek]

SMERSh was actively pursuing, and usually executing on the spot, the ROA troops in Czechoslovakia. Probably a written order, if it exists, will not be accessible to any researcher. SMERSh was zealous to the extreme, and this was surely on either verbal orders, or "instinct."

[Edwin Meinsma]

Thanks Ogorek,

I think in the Red Army most of these orders were verbal. I mean it's pretty clear the Red Army, like the German Army, structurally killed thousands of prisoners. When written orders are lacking there must have been other ways to give such orders although I haven't found any evidence yet.

Regards,
Edwin Meinsma

[Starinov]

I am not sure if any of those orders exist but if they do, they should be found in the NKVD-NKGB-Smerch archives or in the archives belonging to the Political Department of the RKKA/Red Army.

[wildboar]

Edwin Meinsma,

yes edwin there was a stalin's order routed via mr beria to SMERSH & NVKD to punish Volkstrum ccording to memmbers according Mikhail Semiryaga who was part of soviet military administration in berlin-

Our security organs, SMERSH and NKVD, played in our occupation policy a dual role. On the one hand, their role was positive: They stabilized the situation in Germany, struggling against [the Nazi] "volksturm," who went underground and [had been] shooting and killing our soldiers. It was their just role, that [the fascist hold-outs] should face trial and should be punished. ...

source-http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/ep ... semiryaga/

So i have no doubt that stalin had given such order but through mr Beria.

[Roberto]

Edwin Meinsma,

yes edwin there was a stalin's order routed via mr beria to SMERSH & NVKD to punish Volkstrum ccording to memmbers according Mikhail Semiryaga who was part of soviet military administration in berlin-

Our security organs, SMERSH and NKVD, played in our occupation policy a dual role. On the one hand, their role was positive: They stabilized the situation in Germany, struggling against [the Nazi] "volksturm," who went underground and [had been] shooting and killing our soldiers. It was their just role, that [the fascist hold-outs] should face trial and should be punished. ...

source-http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/ep ... semiryaga/

So i have no doubt that stalin had given such order but through mr Beria.

Wildboar, here again we have one of your far-fetched conclusions.

How could the activities of Soviet secret services against German underground resistance fighters possibly lead us to an order to kill certain categories of German officers or officials on account of the tasks they carried out within their organization or the unit they belonged to, which alone would be comparable to Hitler's Kommissarbefehl ?

You'll have to do better.

Anyway, thanks a lot for the link to the interview with Prof. Semiryaga. It is very interesting.

Cheers,

Roberto

[Acolyte]

As far as I know, in August 1941 the STAVKA (SU General Headquarters) specifically ordered all Soviet POWs - then considered traitors by the Stalinist regime - in German captivity to be annihilated by any means available to the Red Army. In accordance with this order VVS bombers regularly attacked German POW camps located in the Eastern occupied territories (I've read about this in the latest issue of Rubicon, a Hungarian history-themed periodical).

[Gregory Deych]

Can you provide some details about this order - who signed it, what date it was, how was it discovered by Rubicon? It sounds extremely unlikely, for many reasons.

[Acolyte]

I'm somewhat busy these days but I'll re-read the article and try to give answers.

[Fritz Fleischer]

Interesting topic...did stalin order or not.

One thing I know, out of 250, 000 (can't say the exact numbers right now) German prisoners taken to the Siberia camps almost none came back!!! - but sure stalin never ordered to kill them or anything...he just gave them an extra long hiliday...

regards f.f.

[Acolyte]

The article I was referring to in my post above also asserted that a German POW in Soviet captivity was, faccording to statistics, actually less likely to survive to the end of the war than a Soviet POW in German captivity.

[David Thompson]

We already have many open threads on POWS. In this thread, please stay on the topic of whether Stalin issued a murder order.

German treatment of Soviet POWs

PoWs in German hands by 20th Dec 1941
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=68924
Documents on German treatment of Soviet POWs
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=62262
Annihilation of Soviet prisoners of war in Belorussia
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=8034
Another cause of death of Soviet POWs
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=9173

Soviet treatment of German POWs

Of 120,000 soldiers from 6th Army captured, only 5,000 return
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=16935
What happened to Germans who surrendered at Stalingrad?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=11576
Does anyone know how many German POWs died . . .
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=24494
Another example of Soviet murder of POWs
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=12773
So what was survival rate of German POWs in Soviet Union?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=25227
German POWs murdered in Broniki, Ukraine, in 1941
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=9229
Soviet Union murdered German prisoners of wars
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=1696
Wounded German soldiers murdered in Feodosia, Crimea 1941
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=9273
Soviet atrocities on German POWs in early phases of war
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=3281
Captured Helferinnen used as sex slaves?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=46608
Bolshevik partisan ferocious brutality against German POWs
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=10405
German PoWs forced into slave labour by Soviets
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=45519
Usage of German PoWs by the Soviets on the battlefield
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=45438
Did the Russians rape German POWs?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=40640
Did the Geneva Convention Make Any Difference
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 4&start=15
The Last Known German Soldiers to be Released from the SU
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=18914
German soldiers in Russian captivity since the 1970s
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=32226

[Eugene (J. Baker)]

I never heard about such orders, although read tons of military memoirs and historical books.