Throughout the Second World War, there were many accounts of captured German soldiers who never made it to prisoner of war camps and they were ruthlessly shot by their enemies. Some of these men were SS men and were brutal war criminals, but others were just teenagers who were led into the fighting for a mixture of necessity and also brainwashing.
German soldiers throughout World War II were at times all labeled as Nazis, but some were military men who did not support the Nazis. But of course to the allies, they were just the enemy who needed dispatching quickly. The Soviets were more notorious for executing their prisoners quickly and they had personally suffered in their homelands and they refused to treat their enemies well.
In this documentary, we’ll go over all the different types of German soldiers and look at why they were dispatched ruthlessly and shot. They were some of the most feared soldiers to take to the battlefields of the 20th century and they were driven by their devotion to their Führer. The SS or Schutzstaffel led by Heinrich Himmler originally began life as a personal bodyguard unit tasked with keeping a close eye on Hitler.
However, it transitioned to become the elite guard of the Reich and also the force that carried out many security-related jobs such as overseeing the concentration camps. But they had a military wing known as the Waffen SS. But if the SS soldiers fell into captivity on the battlefield and were captured even by the allies, they faced immediate execution and many were shot on the spot.
The allies feared the SS and they were known for being the most devoted who would fight to their deaths. But why were SS soldiers more likely to be shot than ordinary Wehrmacht or German army ones? The Waffen SS were heavily involved in many war crimes throughout World War II. From overseeing mass shootings and atrocities to carrying out anti-partisan warfare against resisters, they became known for their brutal actions.
Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, wanted to involve the group in the war effort, and he wanted his force to be seen with as much prestige as soldiers who fought in the ordinary army. In late 1939, Hitler, with one eye on a new global conflict, gave Himmler permission to establish an armed SS force known as the Waffen SS.
He was allowed to begin with four divisions, but soon this became more than 20. Half a million SS men fought in these groups, and they had their own command structure. Instead of just military training or weapons training, SS soldiers were given political indoctrination and further brainwashing that focused on ensuring they would give their lives for the Reich.
The Allied soldiers who came up against them found they were some of the best equipment, MG 42s, King Tiger tanks, and much more. And they had been given stronger gear than the army in some cases. But after D-Day, there was a belief inside the Allied ranks by some soldiers that SS soldiers needed to be dealt with instantly after their capture or surrender, and that they should be shot and executed on the spot.
Of course, this would have been a war crime if someone who surrendered was shot. But why did this reputation develop? Firstly, the Allies had heard about the SS’s reputation for atrocities and war crimes. The group had become synonymous with the concentration camps and mass murder. Organizations like the Totenkopf or Das Reich divisions were linked to massacres in which hundreds were shot, and during the Battle of the Bulge, they executed many American soldiers and prisoners in the Malmedy massacre.
The Allies knew that the SS executed prisoners, including British, Canadian, and American commandos. So, when they encountered SS men in their captivity, they believed that if the tables were turned, they would not be given any mercy. One American veteran said that if they wore the SS runes, we didn’t take them prisoner.
We’d seen what they did to our boys. Also, the SS soldiers were known for fighting to the last bullet, and they rarely surrendered willingly. Many fought on when surrounded, wounded, or even hopelessly outnumbered. This made them a dangerous and unpredictable enemy, and some SS even used a false surrender, dropping their weapons to then fire at the allies again, which led Allied soldiers to treat surrender with suspicion.
One British soldier of the 11th Armoured Division said that, “We learned quickly. If he was SS, you didn’t trust him to surrender properly.” They had a reputation for being deceptive and defiant, which led many to be shot before being captured. But, by the final weeks of the war, there were many concentration camps which were discovered and found by the allies and the Soviets, and they had found the scenes of massacres.
At Dachau, for example, they discovered train boxcars just outside the main camp with thousands of dead bodies inside. These are victims of the crimes of the SS within the camp. Upon entering Dachau for liberation, the Americans shot many SS guards after seeing this. They were caught up rightly in the emotion and sought instant revenge.
Some Einsatzgruppen members, members of the death squads that rampaged in the east after capture, were publicly executed in front of the Soviet population. Now, the uniforms for the SS made them actually very easy to identify and also spot. The SS often wore their distinctive collar insignia with SS runes, and they also had blood group tattoos, usually under their left arm.
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A small mark with a letter. Some at the end of the war to avoid capture or punishment for being a member of the SS actually burned these off and tried to remove the tattoo. The SS were so easily recognizable and it was difficult for SS men to blend in with regular Wehrmacht troops. So, once identified, they risked immediate execution and could be even spotted in the most ferocious battle situations.
On the Eastern Front, the conflict between specifically the SS and the Red Army was one of annihilation. The SS were given roles to slaughter and execute those who were said to be racially inferior or undesirable in the eyes of the Nazis. SS divisions took part in anti-partisan operations.
This involved massacre of civilians. The Soviets saw them as criminals and not soldiers and captured SS men were shot frequently on the spot by members of the Red Army in retaliation for the Commissar Order. They saw the SS as those men who had burned down villages and organized massacre and there would be no mercy. Now, official orders from the Allied High Command did demand that all prisoners of war be treated in accordance to the Geneva Convention, but on the field of conflict, whether this was taken seriously or not was rather debatable.
Following the Malmedy massacre, in which 84 American prisoners of war were murdered by SS troops, the Americans began to take less SS prisoners. This was also reported within the Canadian and British ranks in Normandy and also in the Netherlands. Reports of shot SS soldiers rarely made it back to high command and commanders often turned a blind eye, too, understanding the emotions of their men and also the reputation of the SS.
The group had been indoctrinated by the Nazis to believe that if they did fall into enemy hands, that they would be tortured and executed. Many were told that the Allies, especially the Soviets, would execute them, hence why they went down with a fight. But, in the final weeks of the Second World War, order broke down across Germany and the front lines.
Allied and Soviet troops saw the end in sight, but were exhausted by the fighting. Civilians were lynching SS men in the streets, too. And field executions became co- And field executions became common, even by Wehrmacht soldiers who blamed the SS for the Nazis and for prolonging the war. But, to sum up, the SS soldiers were more likely to be shot during their capture because their units had committed atrocities, which earned them a reputation for brutality.
Also, they fought fanatically. And sometimes, there were cases of fake surrender, meaning it was dangerous to take them a prisoner. Also, the Allied soldiers wanted revenge for the massacre of prisoners of war and fellow countrymen they’d heard about. They were also easy to spot and identify, which meant they did not blend in well to the general German military.
But, while many SS men met a violent end when they were captured, others did manage to hide their identities and actually blend into a post-war world, escaping any punishment and any form of justice. One of the most haunting images of the Second World War was child soldiers armed with weapons such as Panzerfaust anti-tank weapons, Panzerschreck rocket launchers, and MP 40s.
The situation in the final days of the war in Germany was so desperate that children who were barely 10 years old were thrust in the way of Soviet T-34 tanks, artillery crews, and the brutality of the Red Army. What happened inside the German capital of Berlin in April 1945 was savage and shocking.
And the 1,000-year Reich was collapsing in just 12 years. The Allied armies were pushing in from the west and the Soviet Red Army from the east and the Nazis began to rely on boys, some not even teenagers, to stand in the face of conquer. These were members of the Hitler Youth and their involvement came from complete desperation. This is the dark reason why child soldiers were used and were ultimately shot by the enemy.
For many years, as soon as the Nazis came into power, they began to indoctrinate young boys and girls into their politics and ideas. The Hitler Youth wasn’t just a youth club that children would attend and play games on a Friday night after school. It was a ruthless military training organization. The boys were prepared to become soldiers who would one day give their life for the Reich.
The German boys were taught many things, including that war was heroic, that sacrifice for the fatherland was glorious, and dying for Hitler was one of the most honorable things that someone could do. They were also taught many other disturbing things, such as the persecuting policies of the Nazis and the Aryan people were racially superior, but also that the enemy, in particular communists and the Soviets, were barbaric, threatening, and not worthy of life.
By 1945, an entire generation of young people had grown up under Nazi education and brainwashing and many teenagers finally believed in the ideals of the regime. Some did lose faith, but not many. So, because of this ideology and belief, the young men of Nazi Germany didn’t need too much convincing to take up arms and then fight.
By 1944, Germany and the Wehrmacht, as well as the military wing of the SS, had lost a huge amount of fighting age men and soldiers. After the launchings and failings of the Eastern Front offensives, millions of German soldiers and Axis forces were killed and millions more were wounded and were captured becoming prisoners of war.
Entire divisions had been destroyed and wiped out and some were rotting inside Soviet gulags and prisons. Germany in particular did not have enough adult soldiers left. Men were being dragged from working in the concentration camps to be then sent to the front lines and boys aged between 12 and 17 were some of the only remaining groups physically able to hold a rifle and a weapon.
Units such as the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitler Youth comprising of mostly 16 and 17 year olds were formed. These were paired with older SS soldiers and were given mentors and they were then sent to the front lines. And teenagers were seen in the defense of Normandy in 1944 and also in the Battle of Berlin in 1945.
Hitler also believed that younger people with the Reich were more fanatical. He had a distrust of older men who had experienced life before the Nazis came to power and who may have been more dissenting. For him, the youngsters who had been involved and surrounded by the Nazi ideas constantly were more impressionable and less likely to surrender.
He also believed they were stronger, too, and many through their brainwashing lacked fear. They were sometimes easy to command and control, too, and reports of desertion may have been lower in units that used teenage soldiers. Hitler once said, and I quote, “We will create a youth before whom the world will tremble.
” But by 1945, that belief turned into policy and teenagers and even younger children became the last lines of defense against the complete destruction of the Nazi Reich. But Nazi propaganda also made the war seem like a final existential battle and with this young people believed that they were fighting for their future and that their life would not be worth living in the event of a German loss.
As Soviet forces approached Germany, propaganda from the ministry headed up by Joseph Goebbels told that if Germany lost, then the entire German people would be destroyed, and also that the Soviets would murder, torture, and enslave them. This was exaggerated, but it invoked and inspired a huge amount of fear.
Many Germans had heard about or witnessed retaliatory and revenge violence from the Eastern Front. And some young people were told that they were going to be defending their homes, families, and nation itself, which was putting a huge amount of pressure on them. In October 1944, the German government created the Volkssturm, a last-ditch panic militia made up of teenage boys, old men, and war veterans who were unfit for normal service.
Some of these men were elderly and in their 80s, but others were incredibly young. They were rushed into battle and had minimal training. There are images showing youngsters being given one-shot panzerfaust anti-tank rockets, and the training they were given was just like, well, here you go, aim, and the rocket comes out of that way.
They were sent in against the Soviet tanks, including heavy tanks. The weapons were also very outdated and poor, and there was a lack of ammunition in the final weeks of the war, meaning that resistance was practically futile. There was also little understanding of real combat within young fighters, and many Volkssturm units actually dissolved straight away as the Soviets appeared or surrendered very quickly.
But some fought hard, particularly in the defense of Berlin. There are very famous images out there showing Hitler awarding medals and accolades to children wearing German uniforms who were fighting in the capital. But for the children, refusing to serve and fight for the defense of the Reich was actually very dangerous.
If they not want to take up arms, then their families could be punished, arrested, and some could even be shot for this. Refusal to fight was considered treason, and in Berlin in particular, there were deserters and refusers who were hung up from lampposts and streetlights with signs around their necks saying they refused to fight and defend the Berlin women.
Local Nazi officials also sometimes pressurized parents, but many boys did not choose to fight. They were forced to do so. One example of this was Alfred Zech. He was just 12 when he was thrust into the fighting. Now, he’d actually been volunteered to fight in the war by his own family, and he was one of those who was decorated with the Iron Cross by Hitler in Berlin.
He didn’t even know that his father had been killed also in the fighting after he was pressed into the Volkssturm. He was then later sent along way away from his home to modern-day Czechoslovakia to fight, and despite being just 12, he was actually wounded and captured, and then spent time as a prisoner of war.
But the results of the child soldiers was truly tragic. Thousands of teenagers and some even younger, some still in school, died hopelessly in battles where their fate was absolutely doomed, and their operations were doomed to fail. In Berlin, children as young as 12 were sent into fierce fighting with those one-shot weapons, panzerfausts, and most of them died without ever firing that single shot.
The Soviet Red Army had no problems with shooting and taking out these child soldiers, too. In their eyes, they were a product of the Nazi land, and were at the end of the day a very dangerous enemy who needed dealing with there and then. Some after capture were shown weeping and pleading for their lives, but inside of Berlin, hundreds of young children were killed in the tough fighting with the Soviets.
This was not their conflict. Some encountered truly terrible ends, being blown up by artillery, or being attacked by rounds from T-34s or heavy tanks. But, the street-to-street fighting led to Soviet soldiers taking absolutely no prisoners, and firing their rifles and submachine guns at just children who did pose a danger to them.
These were some of the most battle-hardened soldiers, and they were ruthless, and age for them did not matter. One Soviet officer later record finding, in his words, “A boy of perhaps 13, still wearing short trousers, lying beside a smashed panzerfaust. He was just a child.” The use of child soldiers throughout the final weeks of the Second World War was one final desperate roll of the dice for the Nazis.
It was, however, completely foreseeable that these youngsters would face immediate death at the hands of the Soviet Red Army. But, the Nazis were more than happy to thrust teenagers into the conflict to meet a certain death. It showed the complete devotion some had to the Reich, and as families volunteered their own children to take up arms and be sent thousands of miles away to face the Red Army.
It also shows that families were more than happy to send their children to go and fight and a grave. As the Allies rampaged throughout occupied Europe after D-Day, there were thousands of German soldiers, members of the Wehrmacht and also the Waffen SS, who were captured and became prisoners of war. After they had surrendered, they were supposed to be protected by the POW status, but often they were not, and some were shot within minutes.
The action of shooting captured German soldiers was not official Allied policy, but it happened because of a number of different circumstances relating to the brutality of the war, battlefield chaos, revenge and retaliation, and also the actions of criminal German units such as the SS. As the Second World War turned against the Germans, the true crimes of the SS were discovered, and with this, the Allies decided sometimes not taking prisoners may have been the right thing to do. By 1944, the Second World War had
become exceptionally savage and brutal. Both Allied and German troops had suffered years of heavy casualties, atrocities, and also fear. On the Eastern Front, atrocities committed by the Wehrmacht, the German Army, and the SS against civilians and Red Army troops created an atmosphere in which Soviet soldiers often killed prisoners, and they didn’t ask any questions.
The Soviets were unlikely to ever face any reprisal for these shootings, too. As Stalin and the Red Army generals would never punish the shooting of an enemy combatant, even if they had surrendered. Also on the Western Front, American, British, Canadian, and French forces were shocked by what they came across.
Murdered civilians, massacred prisoners of war, and of course the concentration camps. Fighting in the Ardennes region during the Battle of the Bulge was also very horrifying. But the increasing brutalization of the war made soldiers far more likely to shoot surrendering or captured soldiers, especially with their emotions running very high.
But the worst treatment of all often fell upon those soldiers and members of the Waffen SS. These were members of Heinrich Himmler’s paramilitary group. Originally, the group started as Hitler’s bodyguards, but a military wing, the Waffen SS, were responsible for many terrible atrocities, and ruthless commanders ordered the executions and killings of prisoners of war.
For example, the Malmedy massacre in the Ardennes resulted in 84 American prisoners of war being shot by the side of a road. This event and the news of it spread quickly amongst the American units, and many would admit that after hearing about this, well, they stopped taking SS prisoners altogether. Also in Normandy, dozens of Canadian prisoners of war were shot, too.
And revenge was also in the air after this had been discovered. After these events, many Allied units informally adopted a policy of no prisoners when facing Waffen SS troops. With this, they would also shoot members of the German army, mistaking them for SS units and SS men, and would then, obviously, ask questions later.
But combat on the Western Front, in the hedgerows and bocage of Normandy, or within the forests of the Ardenne, was chaotic and very close quarters. In this environment, some German soldiers tried to surrender at the last moment while still under heavy fire, and others pretended to surrender, and then they opened fire.
This led to Allied soldiers beginning to distrust late surrender attempts, and they then opened fire themselves. Confusion about who was actually surrendering led to a split-second decision in which prisoners were accidentally or were deliberately shot. Battlefield confusion became one of the most common causes that led to the deaths of prisoners of war on either side.
Now, by 1944 to 1945, Allied forces in Europe had been fighting for some time. Men who had lost close friends in front of them sometimes reacted violently when German soldiers attempted to surrender, believing they were, well, avenging their fallen friends. Also, the stress and trauma of combat often led to a breakdown in discipline in the heat of the moment.
Many soldiers would claim that they simply snapped in the aftermath of a particularly bloody battle or skirmish. There were documented cases of German soldiers, especially fanatical SS troops, faking surrender before attacking. Some SS grenadiers surrendered and then detonated hidden grenades. And also, last-ditch Werwolf units pretended to give up before then firing their own weapons.
This led to some Allied troops viewing all sudden surrenders with immediate suspicion. Small Allied patrols and groups of soldiers often captured more prisoners than they could safely guard. If the front line wasn’t stable in one section, or if reconnaissance indicated a larger German force, or that a counterattack was expected, soldiers became fearful that prisoners could pick up discarded weapons, overpower the guards, and then attack, but also reveal Allied positions.
In a few cases, prisoners in dangerous forward positions were shot as a grim reality of not having the capacity to deal with the enemy. One example of this was in Normandy following D-Day. The Allies quickly needed to take the beaches and to move quickly inland. And many of the machine gun teams who had focused their fire upon the Allies surrendered.
But with their hands up in the air, the advancing forces just shot and fired their weapons at the Germans. Some were taken to concealed areas where they were then shot. There was no time to take prisoners or then process them. So, the enemy was just ruthlessly dealt with. On the Eastern Front, the Red Army soldiers behaved far more aggressively towards surrendering Germans.
This was for a number of reasons. With the launching of Operation Barbarossa and the subsequent invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazis committed scores of atrocities. The Einsatzgruppen death squads rampaged and shot millions of civilians, and the Soviets wanted revenge. Also, for events such as the Siege of Leningrad and the entire destruction of towns and villages, the Soviets refused to take prisoners at times.
They shot SS personnel on sight and regular Wehrmacht troops also suffered extremely harsh treatment, even if they had surrendered. As the Allies began to discover concentration camps, such as Buchenwald, Dachau, or Bergen-Belsen, they saw so many horrific sights that they lost all restraints. Inside Dachau, a number of guards were shot by the Allies after liberation, and many claimed they could not control their emotions after seeing what had happened.
But some German units did also have reputations for fighting ferociously and also for refusing to surrender. Hitler Youth divisions, for example, were known for this, and some Allied troops believed they would never surrender. And this suspicion led sometimes to shootings. Also, there was at times a lack of senior officers present at the front, especially during small engagements.
Without officers nearby, then discipline occasionally collapsed, and this meant some of the crimes never went reported, and no one ever faced punishment for a shooting. In the final days and even after the conflict, some soldiers sought revenge on the German population, and they shot suspected soldiers and suspected members of the SS.
While the Allies did not have a policy of killing prisoners, the extreme brutality of the war, especially the actions of the Waffen SS, as well as the chaos of the battlefields, and the psychological trauma of the war, led to lot of and historically documented instances where captured German soldiers or prisoners of war were shot.
These events were sometimes usually investigated. Most went unreported. And those who which did get reported were certainly unpunished because of the intensity of the Second World War. But technically, shooting a prisoner of war, regardless of what army they belonged to, was a war crime. German generals were shot during the Second World War, both by their enemy, but also by their own side and soldiers.
Some succumbed to the brutality of conflict on the Eastern Front and the ferocity of fighting the Red Army. But others were turned upon by those above them and were even linked to conspiracies and plots. Generals and commanders were not usually on the front line of the fighting. Neither did they go running into battle armed with a machine gun.
They were back from the front ordering groups to advance and move out. However, some did get caught up in the action. However, there were even some generals who were arrested for war crimes and were then shot by a firing squad. But other German generals were shot for many different reasons, from being linked to plots to bring down the whole of the Third Reich to just defying orders.
Inside of the German military, including the Air Force and the Army, general was a very high rank. It was not as superior as Reichsmarschall, the top military position of the war held by Hermann Göring, and also field marshal, which would be the equivalent to a six-star general in the American forces if the rank existed.
General came next. And there were different designations within general. Someone could be a general of the infantry or cavalry. And there were also ranks within such as General Oberst, a Colonel General, or a General Major. Hitler expected complete obedience from his military officers, and especially generals, who he held regular conferences and meetings with.
These were the men who ultimately looked great in his eyes when they won battles and gained territory. But they also looked terrible to the Führer when they lost, and if they retreated or ordered a retreat. And they would possibly be seen as defeatist, which was a crime in itself, and was a crime which one could pay for with their life.
One of the most common methods of punishment for the German generals was death by shooting. Shooting was considered a noble death for military officials, and for centuries before this was seen as a soldier’s death, rather than being sent to the gallows, which was for criminals. But during the Second World War, there were a number of German generals who were shot for a variety of different reasons.
Surprisingly, a huge number of these generals were shot and were killed in the aftermath of the July 20th plots. The Stauffenberg plot, as it was also known, resulted in the bombing of Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair. The plan was a military one, and it was an assassination attempt upon Hitler, the Führer.
The military were concerned about his leadership of the war, and they thought they would face incredibly harsh sanctions in the event of defeat. And with this, a cabal of conspirators gathered, made up of high-ranking members of the German military, in particular the army. They believed they could assassinate Hitler and then take control of the war effort.
They would then initiate a military coup to control the whole German state. This all failed after the bomb which did explode did not kill Hitler, and he survived with minor injuries. But what came next was ruthless and brutal reprisals. For the coup and assassination attempt, Hitler ordered immediate revenge.
And there would be 7,000 people arrested in the following days and weeks. And almost 5,000 people were executed. Most were hanged or guillotined inside of German prisons. But to begin with, the leaders of the plot were immediately shot. A number of the men were shot outside of the place where the coup was orchestrated, the Bendlerblock.
And these were high-ranking German officials. One of them was a general, Friedrich Olbricht. Olbricht was a general in the infantry and was the chief of the German Army Office. Olbricht was arrested at 9:00 p.m. on the evening of the coup. And he was given a hastily arranged court-martial. And was then dragged outside into the courtyard of the Bendlerblock alongside the man who actually planted the bomb, Claus von Stauffenberg.
And alongside others, was shot by firing squad. General Olbricht was the first of the four to be shot that night. Now, the man who carried out those shootings was General Friedrich Fromm. A man whose quick suppression of the rebels attracted suspicion. Joseph Goebbels, the head of propaganda, remarked, “You’ve been in a damn hurry to get your witnesses below ground.
” Goebbels had worked out that Friedrich Fromm was also involved. He was later sentenced to death at trial. And just months before the war was coming to an end, he was shot by a firing squad inside of the Brandenburg Gordon Prison. His final words were, “I die because it was ordered. I always wanted only the best for Germany.
” Another general who suffered this fate was chief of the German General Staff, Ludwig Beck. He had become increasingly frustrated with Hitler’s aggressive policy and his dictatorship. And also the influence of the SS over German Army affairs. Beck was a leader of the resistance and helped with the planning of the plots.
Here after the failing of the plot, was in the custody of General Fromm, where he tried to take his own life to avoid torture at the hands of the Gestapo. But this went very wrong, and one of Fromm’s men then shot General Beck using a coup de grâce gunshot to the back of the neck.
At the end of the war, and following the Nuremberg trials, Hermann Göring, the highest ranking member of the military and the Reichsmarschall, despite being condemned for war crimes and his actions, actually asked to be shot instead of being hanged. But there was one general who was shot by American forces at the end of World War II, and General Anton Dostler’s shooting was even filmed.
Dostler was condemned as he had specifically ordered the shooting of 15 American prisoners of war in March 1944 during the Italian campaign. Regardless of him knowing that this was a war crime, he insisted that these shootings must take place. At the end of the war, he tried to say he was just following superior orders passed on to him by Field Marshal Albert Kesselring.
But this excuse was not accepted, and for this he was to be shot. As a soldier, it was deemed he would be shot rather than hanged, and he was on the 1st of December 1945 at 8:00 a.m. led to a wooden stake where he was secured. A priest heard him say his final words and said a prayer for him, and then they all stepped back.
The hooded General Dostler stood motionless as a firing squad, 12 American soldiers, aimed their rifles and then shot straight at their targets. He was immediately killed by this, and of all the Nazi war criminals executed by the American army, Dostler was one of only two who was shot, and he was the only general shot.
Now, another high-ranking German military official who was shot for very different reasons was General Hans Graf von Sponeck. He was someone who commanded large forces on the Eastern Front and also today would be considered a brutal war criminal as his soldiers shot over 1,000 people in December 1941 working alongside the Einsatzgruppen death squads.
However, in the very same month, General von Sponeck withdrew his divisions to avoid being captured and encircled by the Soviet forces. In doing this, he directly disobeyed direct orders from Hitler to hold his ground. His actions may have saved his men’s life, but Hermann Göring, a man who had a distrust of von Sponeck, had the general sentenced to death.
He was imprisoned for a couple of years, but on the 23rd of July 1944, upon the specific orders of head of the SS Heinrich Himmler, von Sponeck was shot and killed. So, he was shot for defying orders and going against what Hitler wanted, but let’s remember that he was a terrible war criminal. But the most common cause of death for generals during the Second World War was that they died being caught up in the fighting.
For example, General Albert Buck, a man who received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, was killed in fighting on the Eastern Front when grenades exploded near to his car. There was also Friedrich Carl Cranz who commanded the 18th Infantry Division and he was killed in a training accident by friendly artillery fire.
General Werner von Fritsch died early on in the fighting of the conflict and a Polish bullet, either from a machine gun or a sniper, hit him and tore an artery in his leg. It was claimed about this that, I quote, “In this moment, the Herr General Erbst received a gunshot in his left thigh. A bullet tore an artery.
Immediately, he fell down. I took off his suspenders to bind the wound. The Herr General Erbst said, “Please leave it.” Lost consciousness and died with a foolish grin on his fading face. Only 1 minute passed between receiving gunshot and death. Many of these men were killed in the final months of the fighting and were caught up in the retreat and were trying to repel the advances of the allies and also the Red Army.
For example, General George Pfeifer, who commanded the Sixth Army Corps, and he was killed trying to repel the Soviets. Generals were also high-value targets for Soviet snipers and they became adept at identifying the military leaders by their uniforms. General Franz Schädler was shot by a Soviet sniper in 1942, for example.
There was also General Hermann von Vietinghoff Scheel, who was shot by French machine gun fire. It seems so that a large number of these high-ranking military officers in the final days of the war were fighting alongside any other soldier to defend their homeland. So, many German generals were shot during the Second World War for many different reasons.
Some were condemned for their plotting against Hitler and others were shot for their war crimes, but most were casualties of the war, especially in the final months of the fighting, as they were pitched alongside lower-ranking soldiers to try and do whatever they could to defend the Reich, which was crumbling.
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