1941
62nd Infantry Division was assigned to 17th Army from January to April 1941. [1]
No case of sabotage may go unpunished.
Walter Keiner (21 July 1941),Anderson 1997, p. 302.
From May to August 1941, 62nd Infantry Division was part of XVII Army Corps under 6th Army, and participated in the initial invasion of Operation Barbarossa as part of Army Group South. [1] Along with its parent army corps, it initially advanced over Kovel and Sarny towards Korosten. [6] The 62nd Infantry Division served with distinction during the encirclement of Kiev and distinguished itself with several days of very intense combat near Boryspil. [7] During the fighting at Boryspol, 405 officers and soldiers were killed and another 487 wounded, with an additional 166 missing, all in the period of just 19 September until 24 September. The division was briefly transferred to the reserves during September 1941 as a result of the high casualties. Overall, the division had suffered 553 dead, 1,027 wounded and 182 missing over the course of September 1941, accounting for a casualty rate of 13% when compared to the divisional strength on 31 August. [6] The division was briefly reassigned to XVII Army Group under 6th Army in October, before again being pulled to the reserves by November to serve in the army group's rearguard. [1]
The rear area of Army Group South was not yet of elevated operational importance (the focus on the southern sector would increase as the focus of the Wehrmacht's operation was shifted towards the Caucasus in 1942 and 1943), but there were incidents of attacks by partisan groups against German supply lines. Although the Ukrainian people at large were initially either indifferent towards or even enthusiastic about the end of Soviet rule and the arrival of German forces, small groups of Red Army troops, communist functionaries, and NKVD-trained auxiliaries remained to deal damage against critical points that were of importance to the German war effort. Until October, overall activity by partisans was low and major singular acts of German military reprisals against local civilian populations were rare. [Note 1] With the German capture of Kiev in late September, the partisan activity in northern and eastern Ukraine saw an uptick and posed an increased threat to the ever-growing rear area that Army Group South had to control. Three infantry divisions [Note 2] were pulled away from frontline duty to assist rearguard actions, among them the 62nd Infantry Division. The division had little prior experience in anti-partisan warfare before being assigned its task (although it had received and confirmed the Barbarossa decree). Initially, no immediate major actions were undertaken against civilians even when the division was faced by direct attacks by partisan units. [Note 3] [6]
This hands-off attitude persisted for the first few days of the division's presence in the area, but changed when the dead bodies of two German airmen, killed by partisans, were found on a bridge near Kamishnya on 19 October, followed by several partisan attacks over the next few days. The local commander at Myrhorod called upon the aid of the 62nd Infantry Division and specifically demanded acts of reprisal against the civilian population. Members of the 3rd battalion of 190th Infantry Regiment, part of 62nd Infantry Division, murdered the entire Jewish population of Myrhorod, along with a number of suspected partisans, on 28 October 1941. In total, 162 Jews and 45 non-Jews were killed in the Myrhorod area on that day. It was later given to protocol in the war diaries of the regional command that the Jews in question had been assisting partisan activity, but the war diaries of the units of 62nd Infantry Divisions contain no such references during the days leading up to the massacre on 28 October. On 9 November, a German soldier who had survived an ambush by partisans during the night of the 4th to the 5th of November, in which three of his comrades were killed, reached the positions of the 62nd Division and made report of his experiences. This incident was treated as a major massacre by the German leadership, and the rear area commander Erich Friderici instructed the 62nd Infantry Division to execute 'deterrent punitive actions against guilty local populations'. It was also the first order of its kind that didn't specify Russians, Jews and communists as targets of choice (thus leaving non-Jewish non-communist Ukrainians, perceived to be friendly to Germany, safe from reprisals). The III/190 battalion, which had already carried out the massacre at Myrhorod, reached the village of Baranivka to locate the bodies of the three deceased German soldiers whose deaths had caused this operation. After locating the dead bodies, the soldiers killed ten villagers and lit the village on fire. For the first time, the victims included ethnic Ukrainians, who had previously been safe from such executions. The same group of German soldiers was then involved in a skirmish against partisans on 12 November, when they were ambushed by a group of one hundred to two hundred partisans. Three German soldiers were killed and five wounded, and the surviving partisans, whose presence was suspected to have been the one that caused Myrhorod's initial call for aid, fled the area. However, that did not stop the 62nd Infantry Division's acts of reprisals against civilians. The population of the nearby village was accused of having assisted the partisan group, and all of the village's inhabitants were summarily executed and the village put to the torch. [6]
At the same time that III/140 battalion was committing these acts, II/164 battalion was also actively looking for partisans. Starting with the execution on 10 November of six suspected partisans that had been denounced by a local, II/164 then proceeded to shoot a local guardsman. On 11 November, four hostages were taken in Mlyny in the hopes of acquiring more information about the partisans. Subsequently, more hostages were taken over the next few days, and 21 prisoners were summarily executed on 13 November. [Note 4] This number came in addition of another 27 executions in the meantime, for a total of 49 suspected partisans killed between 10 November and 13 November. The commander of the battalion, Faasch, noted these 49 executions as the fulfillment of an army-ordered reprisal, although it is not clear what order he might have referred to. [Note 5] The Battalion II/164, now part of 190th Infantry Regiment, was subsequently deployed again against partisans. On 23 November, a Jewish family of 23 was murdered by members of the seventh company of II/164 without a specified reason. A few days later, eight suspected partisans were summarily executed in Welibowka. On 30 November, the 62nd Infantry Division was instructed to prepare for its replacement in the area by Ersatzbrigade 202. One last act of reprisal against the locals was committed on 1 December, when thirty suspected bandits were summarily executed in forest north of Ssalowka. The lack of a report about a skirmish indicates that the alleged bandits had been taken prisoner without a firefight. The village was put to the torch. The 62nd Infantry Division reported in Poltava on 8 December and was formally returned to the Army Group reserves for frontline combat on 21 December. [6]
Nazi Germany 
