The Kraljevo massacre was the World War II mass murder of approximately 2,000 residents of the city of Kraljevo in the German-occupied territory of Serbia between 15 and 20 October 1941 by the German Army. The massacre came in reprisal for a joint Partisan–Chetnik attack on a German garrison during the Siege of Kraljevo in which 10 German soldiers were killed and 14 wounded. The number of hostages to be shot was calculated based on a ratio of 100 hostages executed for every German soldier killed and 50 hostages executed for every German soldier wounded, a formula devised by Adolf Hitler with the intent of suppressing anti-Nazi resistance in Eastern Europe.
The German Army initially responded by rounding up and executing 300 Serbian civilians, described in contemporary documents as "communists, nationalists, democrats and Jews." Over the following several days, all men between the ages of 14 and 60 were arrested and herded into a makeshift detention centre at the local rolling-stock factory. Once there, their papers were checked and their names entered into a ledger. When the camp was full, the German Army ordered groups of 100 prisoners to march to pre-dug mass graves, where they were executed with heavy machine guns. The bodies were then examined for any signs of life; victims that had survived the initial volley were dealt a single bullet to the head. Once the first group had been liquidated, the soldiers returned to the factory and collected the next 100 victims. This process continued until all the men that were rounded up had been killed. The reprisals lasted several days. Following the shooting of hostages from the rolling-stock factory, the German Army deployed through the surrounding villages, burning homes and killing indiscriminately. According to the 717th Infantry Division's own records, 1,736 men and 19 "communist" women from the city and its outskirts were executed, despite attempts by local collaborationists to mitigate the punishment. Twenty members of the 717th Infantry Division were later conferred Iron Crosses for their role in the killings.
The massacre at Kraljevo, as well as a similar and nearly concurrent massacre in nearby Kragujevac, convinced German commanders that mass killings of Serbian hostages were not only ineffectual but also counterproductive, as they drove locals into the hands of insurgents and sometimes resulted in the deaths of factory workers contributing to the German war effort. Following the war, several senior German military officials were tried and convicted for their involvement in the reprisal shootings at the Nuremberg Trials and the Subsequent Nuremberg trials.
The Kraljevomassacre was the World War II mass murder of approximately 2,000 residents of the city of Kraljevo in the German-occupied territory of Serbia...
forces in Kraljevo during the Siege of Kraljevo. In retaliation the Wehrmacht carried out the Kraljevomassacre, killing 2,000 residents of the city. A...
only when the hostages were ethnic Serbs. The scale of the massacres in Kragujevac and Kraljevo resulted in no quarter being given to German POWs by the...
committed a massacre of approximately 2,000 civilians in the period between 15 and 20 October, in an event known as the Kraljevomassacre. On 23 October...
residents of Kraljevo had been shot dead in front of and in the hall by the Wehrmacht as revenge for a partisan attack during the Kraljevomassacre. Germans...
The following is a list of massacres in Serbia. List of massacres in Yugoslavia List of mass executions and massacres in Yugoslavia during World War II...
a massacre of approximately 2,000 civilians in an event known as the Kraljevomassacre, in a reprisal for the attack. Draginac and Loznica massacre of...
resistance activity (e.g. the Kragujevac massacre and the Kraljevomassacre). SS Division "Prinz Eugen" massacred large numbers of civilians and prisoners...
by the Wehrmacht in the Kragujevac massacre of October 1941. An additional 2,000 were killed in the Kraljevomassacre around the same time. By December...
German-occupied Serbia) were shot in executions such as the Kraljevomassacre and Kragujevac massacre. These shootings were punished as war crimes during the...
executed by the German occupation forces during World War II during the Kraljevomassacre in October 1941. Though several people intervened for him to be released...
The following is a list of massacres and mass executions that occurred in Yugoslavia during World War II. Areas once part of Yugoslavia that are now parts...
planned to commit a massacre with a bomb. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) found him. On 9 May, an 18-year-old from Kraljevo was arrested because...
two-engine bombers Dornier Do 17K, on the German license. During the Kraljevomassacre in October 1941, among over 2,000 victims executed by the occupational...
The Bar massacre (Albanian: Masakra e Tivarit) was the killings of an unknown number of mostly ethnic Albanians from Kosovo by Yugoslav Partisans in late...
again promoted in Kruševac on 17 January 2020 and Kraljevo on 20 February 2020. List of massacres in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992 Yugoslav People's Army...
ethnic Serbs, Jews, and Roma. Recorded crimes against Serbs include the massacre of 162 people from April-May 1941 in the districts of Peja, Djakovica,...
Communists in Camp Sebac. 2,300 hostages in Kragujevac. 1,700 hostages in Kraljevo." Executions of Serbian civilians continued well into the following year...
diverse as Belgrade firefighters' headquarters, a residential building or Kraljevo public library. Frequency of the false bomb threats was reduced in 2009...
SS Division, Himmler himself travelled to Kraljevo in the German occupation zone; Himmler was in Kraljevo from 15 to 18 October 1942 and toured the division...
German soldiers and Serbian collaborators perpetrated two massacres against civilians in Kraljevo and Kragujevac, with a combined death toll reaching over...
institutes which are spread over six nearby cities (Kragujevac, Čačak, Kraljevo, Užice, Jagodina and Vrnjačka Banja). Around 16,000 students are currently...
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