Looking for a German document

World War II German Military
#1

Hello!

Hopping for for some help here.
Few times I stumbled upon mention of a German document dated sometime in Summer 1941 called, roughly, like “Warning against the treacherous Soviet methods of war conduct”.

It is my translation from Russin, so it is most likely isn’t litteraly correct. But the key words are “treacherous Soviet war metods”.

It was mentioned in an article by Cristian Hartmann and it supposed to be a separate document/instruction or something like that.
I know that similar terms were used in the “Commissar Order”, but here I am after a whole separate documnet (an instruction?).
Could be interesting to find its content as well as the date of issue.

All hopes for Flamethrougherguy. :slight_smile:

#2

There are two notorious Nazi orders from 1941 concerning OP Barbarossa that come to mind. The first one of course would be the “Kommissarbefehl” (Commissar Order). The other one is the “Kriegsgerichtsbarkeiterlass” (don’t even try to pronounce it;), I would translate it as “war jurisdiction decree”) from May 13, 1941. The decree kind of dictates how to deal with all kinds of Soviet persons within the occupied territories.
Could this be the one? I’ll try to find an adequate translation…

#3

I don’t think it is either of them.
At least K.Hartmann mentiones all of them separately.
The one I am looking (as I understand from the article) was not an order as such, but rather an instruction leaflet issued by OKW and destributed among Wehrmacht soldiers. According to Hartmann it was issued after 22 of June 1941, but there is no specific date given.

Some other people said that it most likely is an instruction destributed among soldiers from about 16 of June 1941. One of the pages was, as I was told, part of the famous exhibition about Wehrmacht in the 1990-s.

#4

So do you know what it said? Or is that why you want to find it?

Sounds to me like something comparable to the enhanced ROE meant for GIs during Vietnam, warning them to stay away from dead enemies and dropped weaponry, as it could be mined, etc.

At least that would fit to the title…

#5

No, I don’t know the content of the document. Only more or less the title.

Sounds to me like something comparable to the enhanced ROE meant for GIs during Vietnam, warning them to stay away from dead enemies and dropped weaponry, as it could be mined, etc.

At least that would fit to the title…

Probably, yes.
I was curious what were those “treacherous” methods mentioned in the instruction.

#6

http://books.google.com/books?id=jHQdRHNdK44C&pg=PA219&lpg=PA219&dq=Kriegsgerichtsbarkeiterlass&source=bl&ots=Kus6VhtKiN&sig=Qmd3Wbuc6q2D4RAoi_6q-3kLf_c&hl=en&ei=QCg4S_fFLI6xlAe_j8iaBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Kriegsgerichtsbarkeiterlass&f=false

Should help as this book has alot of it.

Deaf

#7

Well treacherous most likely qualified any kind of warfare method not deemed conventional. You know Nazis like to exaggerate. That could be anything from mining dead/wounded to partisan actions.

#8

I did a little research on this the other night but didn’t quite post it. But Schultz is correct, from what I saw of Hartman’s work being cited, it involved partisans and anti-partisan operations in the rear…

http://www.scribd.com/doc/17272751/War-in-the-Wild-East-The-German-Army-and-Soviet-Partisans

#9

Posibly… But it would deppend when the document in question was issued. If it was issued before and shortly after the 22nd of June 1941, then IMHO it should not be conserned with partisan activity, as it was yet so apparent of an issue.

#10

I was kind of thinking that it was the “Guidelines for the Conduct of the Troops in Russia” from 19 of May 1941 (Richtlinien für das Verhalten der Truppe in Rußland), but I think it is not.
Though in the point 3 it mentiones “use insidious methods of fighting”, but with no elaboration on the topic.