Nazi order instructing frontline troops to murder Soviet political commissars
First page of the Commissar Order, dated 6 June 1941
The Commissar Order (German: Kommissarbefehl) was an order issued by the German High Command (OKW) on 6 June 1941 before Operation Barbarossa. Its official name was Guidelines for the Treatment of Political Commissars (Richtlinien für die Behandlung politischer Kommissare). It instructed the Wehrmacht that any Soviet political commissar identified among captured troops be summarily executed as a purported enforcer of the so-called Judeo-Bolshevism ideology in military forces. It is one of a series of criminal orders issued by the Nazi leadership.
According to the order, all those prisoners who could be identified as "thoroughly bolshevised or as active representatives of the Bolshevist ideology" should also be killed.[1]
^Soviet Prisoners of War: Forgotten Nazi Victims of World War II Archived March 30, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
The CommissarOrder (German: Kommissarbefehl) was an order issued by the German High Command (OKW) on 6 June 1941 before Operation Barbarossa. Its official...
transliteration commissar often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and Eastern-bloc armies or to the people's commissars (effectively...
In the military, a political commissar or political officer (or politruk, a portmanteau word from Russian: политический руководитель, romanized: politicheskiy...
implementation of the CommissarOrder by the Wehrmacht, publishing his findings in 2008. It was the first complete account of the application of the order by the Wehrmacht's...
historian Klaus P. Fischer. On 8 September 1941, under the auspices of the CommissarOrder (Kommissarbefehl), the OKW issued a decree concerning the ruthless...
Ilgenfritz received fifteen years in prison. Adolf Hitler's directives CommissarOrder George Lane (British Army officer) German commando operations Gleiwitz...
associated with the Nazis. Guderian's troops carried out the criminal CommissarOrder during Barbarossa, and he was implicated in the commission of reprisals...
radicalisation of warfare on the Eastern Front. He had his staff draft both the CommissarOrder (issued on 6 June 1941) and the Barbarossa Decree (signed on 13 May...
Hitler's directives Barbarossa decree Commando OrderCommissarOrder German war crimes Texts of the order: Original version English version "NS-Archiv :...
Retrieved 2012-01-30. "CommissarOrder". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 27 September 2015. The CommissarOrder read: "The originators...
settlers. As part of this strategy, the CommissarOrder was issued, which stated that all Red Army commissars were to be executed when captured. Rundstedt...
it provided for the immediate liquidation of political commissars in the Red Army. The order was formulated in 1941 with the participation of the Army...
Einsatzgruppen and he implemented the CommissarOrder that directed Wehrmacht troops to summarily execute Red Army political commissars immediately upon capture....
time." Jodl signed the CommissarOrder of 6 June 1941 (in which Soviet political commissars were to be shot) and the Commando Order of 28 October 1942 (in...
Command Trial, mainly regarding his implementation of the criminal CommissarOrder and the mistreatment of POWs as well as civilians. He was sentenced...
they did not. Before May 1942, when the CommissarOrder was rescinded, an estimated 4,000 to 10,000 commissars were shot; such killings are documented...
Hebert 2010, p. 3. "Directives for the Treatment of Political Commissars ("CommissarOrder") (June 6, 1941)" (PDF). GHDI. Retrieved 26 November 2020. Schwartz...
from Kaltenbrunner included statements that he knew nothing of the CommissarOrder and that he never visited Mauthausen concentration camp, despite documentation...
The Order Police battalions were militarised formations of the German Ordnungspolizei (Order Police, "Orpo") during the Nazi era. In World War II, they...
war and enemy belligerents. Crimes against humanity by participating or ordering the murder, torture, deportation, hostage-taking, etc. of civilians . Participating...
the war, Hitler had issued the notorious CommissarOrder, which called for all Soviet political commissars taken prisoner at the front to be shot immediately...
and defenseless men, women, and children." CommissarOrder, an order stating that Soviet political commissars were to be shot on the battlefield. List of...
Ordnungspolizei (German: [ˈɔʁdnʊŋspoliˌtsaɪ]), abbreviated Orpo, meaning "Order Police", were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945...
work of a military nature; ordering the execution of Soviet political commissars in compliance with Hitler's CommissarOrder; and issuing scorched earth...
the XLVII Motorized Corps under his command executed the criminal CommissarOrder, prompting Lemelsen to complain: "Soon the Russians will get to hear...
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