Air killings

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As airmen killings which is internationally wrongful killing of destroyed or notgelandeter Allied aircrews in the final stages of the Second World War called. The vast majority of the perpetrators were local NSDAP functionaries and members of the criminal and secret state police . In some sources, more than 300 cases of murders and (in a few cases) refused assistance are documented. After the end of the war, those involved in the aviation trials were brought before Allied military courts and tried. Over 150 of the accused were executed.

"Lynchings" of Allied airmen

While the air raids carried out by the British RAF Bomber Command on Germany and the German-occupied territories of Western Europe in 1940/41 had hardly any notable successes, but resulted in high losses of machines and crews, the strategy has been used since the new commander Arthur Harris took office in early 1942 changed. From May 1942 onwards, there was nocturnal area bombing with large units of up to 1,000 bombers. The aim was to set city centers on fire whenever possible. The RAF Bomber Command, equipped with constantly improved aircraft types and targeting methods, was reinforced from June 1943 by the bombers of the United States Army Air Forces ( 8th Air Force ). In addition to the main bomber base in eastern England, from autumn 1943 the large airfield complex of Foggia in southern Italy, where the smaller 15th Air Force was based, was available to the Allies . After initial difficulties and sometimes heavy losses up to spring 1944, extensive Allied air sovereignty was gradually achieved from mid-1944. As a rule, the British units attacked at night and the US during the day, with the American side striving in principle to destroy less entire urban areas and residential areas than point targets (industries, transport facilities, etc.).

The treatment of aircraft crews who were shot down over enemy territory or had to make an emergency landing due to technical defects was laid down in the Hague Land Warfare Regulations of 1907 and in the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 1929. Both international agreements had been recognized by the German Reich and remained de jure in force until the end of the war . Regarding the treatment of prisoners of war, the Geneva Convention stated : “They must be treated with humanity at all times and, in particular, protected against violence, insults and public curiosity. Retaliation against them is prohibited. "

Nazi leadership and air killings

Memorial cross for murdered US pilots in Steffenshagen . The perpetrator in this case was a local " farmer's leader "

In October 1942 Hitler issued the " command order ", so-called "sabotage troops of the British and their accomplices", even if they were recognizable as soldiers by their uniforms or were unarmed, "to be cut down to the last man in combat or on the run". The "command order" did not refer to enemy pilots and flight crews who survived their aircraft being shot down or forced to land.

Heinrich Himmler as Reichsführer SS stated in an instruction of August 10, 1943 that it was "not the task of the police to interfere in disputes between German people and British and American terror aviators who had jumped off". The instruction was issued to the commanders of the Ordnungspolizei (BdO) and Sicherheitspolizei (BdS) and should be brought to the attention of subordinate agencies as well as the Gauleiter of the NSDAP orally. Ernst Kaltenbrunner , the head of the Reich Main Security Office , reaffirmed this directive on April 5, 1944 and announced that Himmler would, in light cases, not take under 14 days to “ preventive custody ” for people who “misunderstood compassion for captured enemy airmen” , in severe cases I ordered admission to a concentration camp . On the part of the NSDAP, Martin Bormann announced in a secret circular to the Reichsleiter, Gauleiter and district leaders of the party at the end of May 1944:

"In the past few weeks, English and North American airmen have repeatedly fired on-board weapons from low altitude at children, women and children playing in the fields, plowing farmers, carts on country roads, railroad trains, etc., and in the most mean way, defenseless civilians - especially women and children - murdered.

It has happened several times that crew members of such aircraft who jumped off or had made an emergency landing were lynched on the spot by the extremely indignant population immediately after their arrest.

Police and criminal prosecution of the national comrades involved was refrained from. "

Bormann's circular should be given orally to the local group leaders for their information. The Hamburg Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann confirmed in the Nuremberg trial that it was "clear from the wording" of the circular that non-interference in the lynching of airmen should be encouraged. Wilhelm Keitel , Chief of the High Command of the Wehrmacht , spoke in July 1944 of "self-help of the population" and considered it partial if soldiers were to protect Allied airmen: "No German national can understand such behavior by our armed power," said Keitel . In February and March 1945, the South Westphalian Gauleiter Albert Hoffmann issued an order to deliver Allied pilots to the "people's anger".

Numbers and perpetrators

The exact number of Allied airman murders is unknown. 225 cases are proven, the total number is estimated at 350. Another 60 airmen were mistreated without being killed. At least 100 airmen were also lynched in Austria . The first documented cases occurred in connection with the bombing raids on Hamburg, the " Operation Gomorrah ", on July 25, 1943 near Lübeck. For July 1944, 24 killings and 11 ill-treatment are documented. The numbers fell slightly by January 1945, with most cases occurring in March 1945 with 37 murders and two ill-treatment. Regional focuses were Hessen , the area south of Wolfsburg and the Ruhr area . In the Ruhr area, the number of cases did not increase during the height of the British air raids between March and July 1943 (“ Battle of the Ruhr ”), but in October 1944.

With regard to the perpetrators, two main groups can be identified: local representatives of the NSDAP and members of the criminal police and Gestapo. In particular, NSDAP district leaders and their representatives were directly involved in the air murders. In the case of members of the police force, most of the perpetrators can be found in the ranks of the criminal police and the Gestapo. Local police officers were responsible for killings in individual cases, and more often for mistreatment immediately after arrest. In isolated cases the murders were committed by soldiers of the Wehrmacht . The local population was involved in a number of air murders. Cases of assault by an “angry mob” as well as excessive acts of individuals are documented here. The historian Barbara Grimm comes to the following conclusion:

“The attacks on crashed Allied airmen were generally not acts of revenge for immediately preceding bombing attacks. Incited by the regime's retribution propaganda, the attacks ultimately served primarily as welcome occasions to provide an outlet for the growing brutalization and radicalization. The perpetrators were usually National Socialist officials who were not afraid to lend a hand themselves. The lynching in the sense of self-mobilizing municipalities and districts, on the other hand, was the exception. "

Examples

By order of the NSDAP district leader Benedikt Kuner , five American airmen were shot dead after a parachute jump on July 21, 1944 in Schollach in the Upper Black Forest.

In Saarland Saarbrücken ordered police chief Fritz Dietrich in August 1944, the shooting of abgesprungener American pilots on. The fliers were in the custody of several police stations, were picked up by members of the 85th SS Standard and shot in the woods.

Memorial stone on Borkum

During the air murders on the North Sea island of Borkum on August 4, 1944, seven members of the crew of an emergency landed US bomber were beaten with shovels by members of the Reich Labor Service before an uninvolved German soldier shot the entire crew with his pistol. The navy guards did not intervene. There has been a memorial stone since 2003. Two former crew members of the bomber were present at the official ceremony. These two survived because they jumped off before the plane crashed.

In Rüsselsheim , six US airmen were murdered on August 26, 1944, and two more were seriously injured. The pilots had previously been shot down over northern Germany and were to be brought by rail to the Oberursel transit camp. The night before, the Royal Air Force had carried out a heavy bombing raid on Rüsselsheim. a. the local railway line interrupted. Therefore, the US pilots were led through the city on foot. The German guards did not intervene when the prisoners were pelted with stones and roof tiles and beaten with clubs, shovels and hammers. When the prisoners lay motionless on the ground, the NSDAP local group leader shot four of them. Two airmen later managed to escape seriously injured because they had pretended to be dead. The perpetrators' professions were housewives, workers, farmers and landlords. Five of the perpetrators were hanged on November 10, 1945 in the prison yard in Bruchsal. On August 31, 2004, a memorial to commemorate the murders was inaugurated in Rüsselsheim .

On September 10, 1944, USAAF fighter pilot Major John R. Reynolds was shot down over Ingolstadt . To avoid civilian casualties, he pulled his falling Mustang P-51 over a residential building and only parachuted out at a height of 50 meters. He was slightly injured on landing and was captured by the police. The Ingolstadt NSDAP district leader Georg Sponsel, a fanatical Nazi, had himself handed over to the prisoners of war under a pretext and shot him.

On about September 29, 1944, shortly after landing, an American aviator was parachuted to Bad Neustadt an der Saale and taken to the local police station in Bastheim . On the same day, the plane was picked up by the NSDAP district leader and his deputy and shot from behind a little later, so that it could be claimed that the American was "shot while trying to escape".

Stumbling block for Cyril William Sibley

Cyril William Sibley , a 21-year-old sergeant in the Royal Air Force, survived the shooting down of his plane over the northern Front Palatinate near Dirmstein in February 1945 . He was shot a little later by the NSDAP local group leader Adolf Wolfert from Dirmstein . Wolfert and others involved in the crime were sentenced to death by a British military tribunal and executed in 1946. Since 2009 a stumbling stone in Dirmstein reminds of Sibley.

On November 5, 1944, after the major attack on Solingen , four Allied soldiers in Canadian uniform - Ernest Crossley, Jack Lupinsky, Allan Gilchrist Samuel and Matthew Dorrell - who had died in an attack on November 2, were to be transferred to Düsseldorf for interrogation become. The small guarded group of SA men , Wehrmacht soldiers and civilians was discovered in front of the Solingen town hall . The prisoners of war were shot out of the crowd, and all four prisoners died on the street. Other passers-by threw stones at the dying soldiers and stepped on their bodies. Two perpetrators were charged before a British military court in 1947: SA leader Erich Wilinski was sentenced to death and soldier Hans Kühn was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Wilinski was later pardoned to 20 years in prison and, like Hans Kühn, released from the Werl war crimes prison in 1957 .

In Graz , Austria, four British bombers were lynched on March 4, 1945 by members of the SS and the Volkssturm . When police officers withdrew their service weapons, the crowd let go of the fifth crew member. The police subverted the command of their commander to shoot the plane by feigning execution. The prisoner managed to escape.

Aviation trials

After the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht , the trials of the killing and mistreatment of Allied airmen were among the first criminal proceedings carried out by Allied military courts in Germany. In the Dachau trials alone - named after the venue on the site of the former concentration camp used as an internment camp - 200 trials were carried out. As of May 1, 1947, 27 trials had taken place in British and Canadian courts. Several aviation murders were negotiated in the Curiohaus trials . Eight proceedings were carried out in the Soviet Zone or GDR .

In the cases before American military courts in Dachau , the defendants were charged with violating international law, namely the Hague Land Warfare Regulations of 1907 and the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 1929. Furthermore, charges of “ common design ” - a joint plan or project to commit crimes - were brought up. The judgments of the military courts could be reviewed upon request. For this purpose, there was a so-called Review Board of the US Army , which checked the judgments and made appropriate recommendations to the American Commander-in-Chief in Europe . This was entitled to change or confirm the judgments. The review of the judgments was more like a pardon than a revision .

Execution in the prison yard of Landsberg am Lech , 1946. Most of the perpetrators who had been convicted of air murder were hanged here.

The proceedings against SS-Obergruppenführer Jürgen Stroop and 20 co-defendants from January 10 to March 21, 1947 were of particular importance . In this process, various attacks on airmen in Hesse were negotiated together. Stroop stood before the court as Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) "Rhein-Westmark"; other accused were members of the SS and the Gestapo. Orders and instructions such as the Himmler's of August 10, 1943 were the subject of negotiations and were the reason for the military tribunal to accept a "common design". In addition, hierarchies as well as official and command channels were discussed in the process. The defendants often invoked that they had acted under higher orders and confirmed their knowledge of orders to kill airmen. 13 defendants were sentenced to death; three of these sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment. The other defendants received terms of between three and 15 years in prison. Jürgen Stroop, who had been sentenced to death, was extradited to Poland, where he was sentenced to death again as the person responsible for suppressing the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and executed in 1952. Those sentenced to prison terms were released early.

The Ingolstadt district leader Sponsel was convicted and executed in 1947.

In further aviation trials, the Mecklenburg NSDAP Gauleiter Friedrich Hildebrandt was sentenced to death in Dachau on May 31, 1947, together with other party officials in his Gaus. As a result of their orders, captured airmen were killed in four cases. The former police chief of Langenselbold , Alfred Bury, was sentenced to death on July 15, 1945 along with five other defendants. Bury had ordered the killing of a jumped US pilot in December 1944. The co-defendants included police officers who shot the plane in a nearby wooded area, as well as superiors Bury who had issued general orders. On October 30, 1947, the physician Alois Grisl was sentenced to life imprisonment. In July 1944, Grisl refused to give medical care to an American pilot who had been shot down near Molln in Upper Austria . The seriously injured died. The verdict against Grisl was later reviewed and reduced to 15 years in prison. In the Landsberg War Crimes Prison , a total of 82 death sentences were carried out against those convicted of the American trials.

Eberhard Schöngarth was also one of those executed for her involvement in the aviation murders . The participant in the Wannsee Conference was sentenced to death in February 1946 by a British military tribunal for the shooting of an Allied pilot near Enschede in November 1944 and executed in Hameln penitentiary .

The General of the Flak Cartillery August Schmidt was convicted in 1947 for passing orders that captured Allied pilots should not be protected by their German guards. The life sentence was reduced to ten years on appeal.

Others

In October 1935 , Fascist Italy attacked the Abyssinian Empire and conquered the country as part of a cruel warfare. The fate of the Italian pilots Tito Minniti and Livio Zannoni, who were killed after an emergency landing of their reconnaissance aircraft - presumably by angry villagers - was exploited by the Italian side for propaganda purposes . The Italian propaganda spread various, sometimes contradicting reports about their cruel fate; the actual circumstances of their death could no longer be clarified when the bodies were found.

Three of the eight American airmen captured in the 1942 air raid on Tokyo, known as the Doolittle Raid , were executed in the occupied city of Shanghai on the orders of the Japanese leadership .

literature

  • Georg Hoffmann: Fliegerlynchjustiz. Violence against allied aircrews shot down 1943–1945. (War in History Vol. 88). Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 2015, ISBN 978-3-506-78137-6 .
  • Ralf Blank : "... not to be withdrawn from popular indignation". Gauleiter Albert Hoffmann and the "Fliegerbefehl". In: Märkisches Jahrbuch für Geschichte 98 (1998), pp. 255–296.
  • Barbara Grimm: Lynch murders of allied airmen in World War II. In: Dietmar Süß (Ed.): Germany in the air war. History and memory. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-486-58084-1 , pp. 71-84.
  • Georg Hoffmann / Nicole-Melanie Goll: Mechanisms of the delimitation of violence. Analyzes of groups of perpetrators and dimensions of perpetration of the so-called NS-Fliegerlynchjustiz using the example of Graz In: Ursula Mindler u. a. (Ed.): Zones of limitation. transcript Verlag, Graz 2012, ISBN 978-3-8376-2044-3 , pp. 237-251.
  • Klaus-Michael Mallmann : “People's Justice against Anglo-American Murderers.” The massacres of Western Allied airmen and parachutists in 1944/45. In: Alfred Gottwaldt, Norbert Kampe, Peter Klein (eds.): Nazi tyranny. Contributions to historical research and legal processing. (= Publications of the House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial and Education Center; Vol. 11). Edition Hentrich, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89468-278-7 , pp. 202-213.
  • August J. Nigro: Wolfsangel. A German city on trial, 1945–1948. Brassey, Washington DC 2000, ISBN 1-57488-245-7 (on the air killings in Rüsselsheim and the post-war trial).
  • Robert Sigl: In the interests of justice. The Dachau war crimes trials 1945–1948. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-593-34641-9 .
  • Hans Michael Kloth: Systematic murder . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 2001, p. 47 f . ( online ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "... chronological list of cases as well as alphabetical list of crime scenes ..." ( Memento from May 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) - archive page from flieger-lynchmorde.de.
  2. ↑ Hans Michael Kloth: Systematic murder . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 2001, p. 47 f . ( online ).
  3. ↑ Mallmann: "People's Justice". 2005, p. 202. The Hague Land Warfare Regulations were published in the 1910 Reichsgesetzblatt (p. 134); the agreement on the treatment of prisoners of war of July 27, 1929 in the Reichsgesetzblatt 1934, part 2, p. 227 ff. (scan at the Austrian National Library ).
  4. ^ Reichsgesetzblatt 1934, Part 2, p. 233 .
  5. ↑ quoted in Grimm: Lynchmorde. 2007, p. 77.
  6. ↑ Himmler's circular to the Higher SS and Police Leaders (HSSPF) of August 10, 1943 (Nuremberg Document R-110), quoted in Grimm: Lynchmorde. 2007, p. 79. Himmler's circular was also cited during the interrogation of the Hamburg Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann in the Nuremberg trial. See Minutes of the July 30, 1946 Afternoon Session, p. 62 at www.zeno.org.
  7. ↑ Circular of April 5, 1944 (Nuremberg Document PS-3855), quoted in Mallmann: “Volksjustiz”. 2005, p. 206.
  8. ^ Secret circular of the party chancellery of May 30, 1944 (Nuremberg Document PS-057), quoted in the minutes of the Nuremberg Trial, hearing of July 30, 1946, afternoon session, p. 63 at www.zeno.org. See also Grimm: Lynch Murders. 2007, p. 79.
  9. ^ Statement by Kaufmann in the Nuremberg Trial, hearing on July 30, 1946, afternoon session, p. 63 at www.zeno.org. See also Grimm: Lynch Murders. 2007, p. 79.
  10. ↑ Released in a circular issued by Luftgaukommandos VI / Ia (Nuremberg Document NOKW-3060), quoted by Mallmann: “People's Justice”. 2005, p. 207.
  11. ↑ Ralf Blank, Gauleiter Albert Hoffmann and his pilot's order.
  12. ↑ a b Figures in Grimm: Lynch murders. 2007, p. 75 f.
  13. ↑ Forgotten Episode: Lynched Pilots science.orf.at, accessed on April 16, 2015.
  14. ↑ For the groups of perpetrators see Grimm: Lynchmorde. 2007, p. 80 ff.
  15. ↑ Grimm: Lynch murders. 2007, p. 83.
  16. ↑ Summary of the verdict ( memento of February 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) for justice and Nazi crimes.
  17. ^ Burkhard Krupp: Interview with witnesses. March 12, 1981, archived from the original on October 15, 2012 ; accessed on February 21, 2014 .
  18. ↑ Mallmann: "People's Justice". 2005, p. 208; Summary of verdicts ( memento from August 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) for justice and Nazi crimes.
  19. ↑ Mallmann: "People's Justice". 2005, p. 208; Summaries of the judgments in justice and Nazi crimes: US043 ( memento from April 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), US044 ( memento from July 23, 2007 in the Internet Archive ); English translation of a report in the Borkumer Zeitung dated August 5, 2003.
  20. ↑ Case No. 12-489 and Case No. 12-485 concern the seven murders.
  21. ↑ For Rüsselsheim see:
  22. ^ Christian Silvester: Major Reynolds' Survival and Dying , Donaukurier of September 20, 2012
  23. ↑ Grimm: Lynch murders. 2007, p. 81, summary of the verdict ( memento of July 23, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) for justice and Nazi crimes.
  24. ^ Marie-Christine Werner: The English aviator - The murder of Cyril William Sibley . Broadcast by Südwestrundfunk in Mainz on February 10, 2001, 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., typescript, 47 pages. See also entry February 21, 1945 ( memento of May 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) at www.flieger-lynchmorde.de.
  25. ↑ Wolfgang Arzt: Commemoration of the Lynch murder of allied airmen in Solingen 75 years ago (2019-11-05). In: nrweltoffen-solingen.de. Retrieved November 1, 2019 .
  26. ↑ Mallmann: "People's Justice". 2005, p. 208, with reference to a judgment by the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court , see summary of the judgment ( Memento of December 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) for justice and Nazi crimes .
  27. ↑ Sigl: In the interests of justice. 1992, p. 113 ff.
  28. ^ Neuengamme Concentration Camp: Exhibition on Curiohaus processes
  29. ↑ Sigl: In the interests of justice. 1992, pp. 29, 114.
  30. ↑ This assessment by Sigl: In the interest of justice. 1992, p. 61.
  31. ↑ Sigl: In the interests of justice. 1992, p. 114 ff., Summary of the verdict ( memento of July 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) on justice and Nazi crimes.
  32. ↑ Summary of the verdict ( memento from July 19, 2014 on WebCite ) for justice and Nazi crimes.
  33. ↑ Summary of judgments on justice and Nazi crimes; see also Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals, The United Nations War Crimes Commission ( Memento of August 17, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) at the University of the West of England .
  34. ↑ Summary of the verdict ( memento of August 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) for justice and Nazi crimes.
  35. ↑ Mallmann: "People's Justice". 2005, p. 211.
  36. ↑ Mallmann: "People's Justice". 2005, p. 211. See also short biography ( memento of January 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) at the House of the Wannsee Conference.
  37. ↑ Rainer Baudendistel: Between Bombs And Good Intentions. The Red Cross And the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-1936. Berghahn Books, NY 2006, pp. 235-248.