Wehrmacht war crimes

Wehrmacht war crimes were violations of international law committed by Germany’s armed forces during World War II, including mass killings, abuse of prisoners, and deportations.

Commissar Order: A June 1941 German directive ordering the summary execution of captured Soviet political commissars. It explicitly instructed troops to kill a class of captured Soviet personnel.
Massacre of Soviet prisoners of war: The mass death of Soviet soldiers held by Germany through executions, starvation, exposure, and disease. The treatment of Soviet captives became one of the war’s largest crime patterns.
Operation Barbarossa: Nazi Germany’s June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, a war of conquest and racial empire. The eastern campaign brought military operations into a planned war against populations and states.
Wilhelm Keitel: German field marshal and chief of the Armed Forces High Command, convicted at the Nuremberg trial. He signed or transmitted criminal orders affecting troops and occupied populations.
High Command Trial: The 1947–1948 Nuremberg trial of senior German military leaders before a United States military tribunal. The trial examined the criminality of military orders and the responsibility of commanders.
Barbarossa Decree: A May 1941 directive granting German troops broad immunity from prosecution for crimes against Soviet civilians. It weakened legal restraints before the invasion of the Soviet Union.
Babi Yar massacre: The September 1941 mass shooting of more than 33,000 Kyiv Jews by German forces and their auxiliaries. Wehrmacht personnel supported the operation and secured the area around the killing site.
Generalplan Ost: A Nazi program for German colonization and demographic transformation of eastern Europe through expulsion, enslavement, and murder. Its racial-imperial aims informed the occupation context in which military crimes occurred.
Erich von Manstein: German field marshal who commanded on the Eastern Front and was convicted by a British military court after the war. His command record became central to debates over army responsibility and postwar justice.
Clean Wehrmacht myth: The postwar claim that Germany’s regular armed forces fought honorably and remained separate from Nazi crimes. This myth long obscured the army’s participation in atrocities and occupation policies.

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