The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht was the supreme military command and control office of Nazi Germany during World War II. Created in 1938, the OKW replaced the Reich Ministry of War and had oversight over the individual high commands of the country's armed forces: the army, navy, and air force.
Nacht und Nebel, meaning Night and Fog, also known as the Night and Fog Decree, was a directive issued by Adolf Hitler on 7 December 1941 targeting political activists and resistance "helpers" in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, who were to be imprisoned, murdered, or made to disappear, while the family and the population remained uncertain as to the fate or whereabouts of the alleged offender against the Nazi occupation power. Victims who disappeared in these clandestine actions were often never heard from again.
The Commando Order was issued by the OKW, the high command of the German Armed Forces, on 18 October 1942. This order stated that all Allied commandos captured in Europe and Africa should be summarily executed without trial, even if in proper uniforms or if they attempted to surrender. Any commando or small group of commandos or a similar unit, agents, and saboteurs not in proper uniforms who fell into the hands of the German forces by some means other than direct combat, were to be handed over immediately to the Sicherheitsdienst for immediate execution.
Anton Dostler was a German army officer who fought in both World Wars. During World War II, he commanded several units as a General of the Infantry, primarily in Italy. After the Axis defeat, Dostler was executed for war crimes—specifically, ordering the execution of fifteen American prisoners of war in March 1944 during the Italian Campaign.
Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during the Second World War, which held captured Western Allied air force personnel.
The Dachau trials, also known as the Dachau Military Tribunal, handled the prosecution of almost every war criminal captured in the U.S. military zones in Allied-occupied Germany and in Allied-occupied Austria, and the prosecutions of military personnel and civilian persons who committed war crimes against the American military and American citizens. The war-crime trials were held within the compound of the former Dachau concentration camp by military tribunals authorized by the Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Third Army.
In Germany, stalag was a term used for prisoner-of-war camps. Stalag is a contraction of "Stammlager", itself short for Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschaftsstammlager, literally "main camp for enlisted prisoners of war". Therefore, "stalag" technically means "main camp".
During World War II, the German Wehrmacht committed systematic war crimes, including massacres, mass rape, looting, the exploitation of forced labour, the murder of three million Soviet prisoners of war, and participated in the extermination of Jews. While the Nazi Party's own SS forces was the organization most responsible for the genocidal killing of the Holocaust, the regular armed forces of the Wehrmacht committed many war crimes of their own, particularly on the Eastern Front.
An Oflag was a type of prisoner of war camp for officers which the German Army established in World War I in accordance with the requirements of the 1899 Hague Convention, and in World War II in accordance with the requirements of the Geneva Convention (1929).
Adolf Hitler's directives, or Führer directives (Führerbefehle), were instructions and strategic plans issued by Adolf Hitler himself over the course of World War II. The directives covered a wide range of subjects, from detailed direction of the Armed Forces' operations during World War II, to the governance of occupied territories and their populations. In addition to being a reflection of his personality and strategic interests, they were also a reflection of the larger philosophy of the Nazi regime.
Prisoners made numerous attempts to escape from Oflag IV-C, one of the most famous German Army prisoner-of-war camps for officers in World War II. Between 30 and 36 men succeeded in their attempts - exact numbers differ between German and Allied sources. The camp was situated in Colditz Castle, perched on a cliff overlooking the town of Colditz in Saxony.
The Mühlviertler Hasenjagd was a war crime in which 500 Soviet officers, who had revolted and escaped from the Mühlviertel subcamp of Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp on 2 February 1945, were hunted down. Local civilians, soldiers and local Nazi organizations hunted down the escapees for three weeks, summarily executing most of them. Of the original 500 prisoners who took part in the escape attempt, eleven succeeded in remaining free until the end of the war. It was the largest escape in the history of the Nazi concentration camps.
Action 14f13, also called Sonderbehandlung14f13 and Aktion 14f13, was a campaign by Nazi Germany to murder Nazi concentration camp prisoners. As part of the campaign, also called invalid or prisoner euthanasia, the sick, the elderly and those prisoners who were no longer deemed fit for work were separated from the rest of the prisoners during a selection process, after which they were murdered. The Nazi campaign was in operation from 1941 to 1944 and later covered other groups of concentration camp prisoners.
The Stalag Luft III murders were war crimes perpetrated by members of the Gestapo following the "Great Escape" of Allied prisoners of war from the German Air Force prison camp known as Stalag Luft III on March 25, 1944. Of the 76 successful escapees, 73 were recaptured, most within several days of the breakout, 50 of whom were executed on the personal orders of Adolf Hitler. These executions were conducted within a short period following recapture.
Joseph Morton was an American war correspondent for the Associated Press (AP) in the European Theater during World War II. On December 26, 1944, a Nazi counter-partisan unit named "Edelweiss" stormed a log cabin high on Homolka Mountain in today's Slovakia which housed 15 Allied intelligence officers, a Slovak officer, a Slovak-American interpreter, two Slovak civilian resistance fighters, and Morton himself, covering an OSS operation in the country for a story. Although the Allied officers were duly uniformed and Morton had a war correspondent ID in order to be treated as prisoners of war according to the Geneva Convention (1929), the SS headquarters, in compliance with the Commando Order—which stated that all Allied commandos should be killed immediately without trial, even those in proper uniforms—ordered the summary execution of Allied officers and others caught in the act. On January 24, 1945, Joseph Morton, along with 13 Allied officers, was executed at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. He was the only Allied correspondent to be executed by the Axis during World War II.
Gustave Marie Maurice Mesny was a French Army general in command of the 5th North African Infantry Division who was captured during the Second World War. He was victim of a war crime, controversially killed in retribution for the death of German General Fritz von Brodowski while in French custody.
During World War II, the Barbarossa decree was one of the Wehrmacht's criminal orders given on 13 May 1941, shortly before Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The decree was laid out by Adolf Hitler during a high-level meeting with military officials on March 30, 1941, where he declared that the upcoming war against the Soviets would be a war of extermination, in which both the political and intellectual elites of Russia would be eradicated by German forces, in order to ensure a long-lasting German victory. Hitler underlined that executions would not be a matter for military courts, but for the organised action of the military. The decree, issued by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel a few weeks before Barbarossa, exempted punishable offences committed by enemy civilians from the jurisdiction of military justice. Suspects were to be brought before an officer who would decide if they were to be shot. Prosecution of offenses against civilians by members of the Wehrmacht was decreed to be "not required" unless necessary for the maintenance of discipline.
Gusen was a subcamp of Mauthausen concentration camp operated by the SS between the villages of Sankt Georgen an der Gusen and Langestein in the Reichsgau Ostmark. Primarily populated by Polish prisoners, there were also large numbers of Spanish Republicans, Soviet citizens, and Italians. Initially, prisoners worked in nearby quarries, producing granite which was sold by the SS company DEST.
The Normandy massacres were a series of killings in-which approximately 156 Canadian and two British prisoners of war (POWs) were murdered by soldiers of the 12th SS Panzer Division during the Battle of Normandy in World War II. The majority of the murders occurred within the first ten days of the Allied invasion of France. The killings ranged in scale from spontaneous murders of individual POWs, to premeditated mass executions involving dozens of victims. Colonel Kurt Meyer, a commander in the 12th SS Panzer Division, was the only perpetrator charged for his role in the atrocities.
