Mass murders in Lviv in the summer of 1941

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Memorial of the murdered Lviv professors in Wroclaw , Poland. Inscription: Our fate is a warning

As a result of the German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 , several mass murders occurred in the city ​​of Lviv, which until the beginning of the war belonged to Poland but has since been occupied by the Soviet Union . The best known of these was the Lviv professor murder . All these events can be summarized under the term mass murders in Lviv in the summer of 1941 .

prehistory

Memorial plaque in Warsaw for the murder of Lviv professors in July 1941
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A few weeks after the German invasion of Poland began in September 1939, Lemberg was occupied by the Red Army as a result of the Hitler-Stalin Pact . At the time, around 160,000 Poles, 110,000–150,000 Jews and 50,000 Ukrainians lived in the city . Some Polish professors were able to keep their chairs.

After the German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Lemberg was occupied by the Wehrmacht on June 30 . A week before the city was taken, members of the NKVD murdered around 4,000 political prisoners in Lviv prisons.

The first German troop reached the citadel of the city at 4:00 a.m. on the morning of June 30, 1941, without a fight, a scouting group of the 1st Battalion of the 99th Mountain Infantry Regiment of the 1st Mountain Division . The III. Battalion of the 98 Mountain Infantry Regiment of the same division under the command of Major Josef Salminger . The Red Army had evacuated the city without resistance.

On June 25 and 26, 1941, there was an uprising by Ukrainian nationalists who saw in the Germans the liberators of their country from Soviet rule. Many of them were subsequently imprisoned in Lviv prisons by members of the NKVD . Due to the rapid advance of the German troops and the lack of means of transport, the NKVD had decided to murder the majority of the 5,000 political prisoners. Many had been shot in the neck , others found beaten, abused, abused and mutilated. Immediately after the conquest of Lemberg (June 30 to July 8, 1941), statements by survivors, German autopsy doctors, the Ukrainian Red Cross and other institutions were made and recorded under oath before a German court martial . Many of the corpses were photographed by Wehrmacht reporters. These images were used for propaganda purposes with the “general agreement of the Führer” .

Lviv pogrom

By midday on June 30, 1941, the city was finally in the hands of the Wehrmacht , and the investigation into the three main prisons was ended. Although German doctors had spoken out against having relatives identify the NKVD victims due to the advanced decay, the laying out of the corpses was part of an anti-Semitic staging. Many Jews were forced to crawl on their knees to the bodies and wash them. Division commander Major General Hubert Lanz inspected the city, and leaflets and posters blamed “ Jewish Bolsheviks ” on the responsibility for the murders. Immediately afterwards there were massive riots against the Jewish population. The Ukrainian militia OUN stood out in particular . She arrested Jews and drove them to prisons. The pogrom was also incited on the orders of German officers . Civilians and gunmen beat the Jews.

Neither Lanz nor the city commandant, Colonel Karl Wintergerst, who had extensive powers, did anything against the pogrom. Major Salminger even led the mountain troops of his battalion to the murder sites in order to swear them to the "complete annihilation and extermination of the Jewish-communist gang of criminals".

How many members of the Wehrmacht took part in the pogrom can no longer be determined precisely. During the action on June 30th and July 1st, an unknown number of Jews were mistreated and several hundred murdered. Task Force C then arrived in Lemberg. She murdered more systematically, shooting 100 Jews in the city and another 3,000 on the outskirts.

Lviv professor murder

course

Memorial plaque in the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Lviv

At the same time, with the help of Ukrainian students, a list of Lviv professors of Polish descent was drawn up. On the night of July 3rd to 4th, 22 professors, some with their family members and all persons who were in their apartments, were made available by the Gestapo under the command of the task force (e.g. V.), the then SS- Oberführer Karl Eberhard Schöngarth , arrested and 21 professors, including Antoni Cieszyński , Antoni Łomnicki , Włodzimierz Stożek and Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński , shot together with 13 relatives that same night. On July 12th, two more professors were murdered.

It was assumed that motives for robbery played a role in the crime, because the apartments themselves were looted and the art and valuables were stolen. The involvement of Ukrainians and the nightingale battalion in these arrests is controversial.

Work-up

The Polish Institute for National Remembrance ascribes direct responsibility for this murder to Brigadefuhrer Eberhard Schöngarth, who was also responsible for the arrest of the professors of the Jagiellonian University as part of the Krakow special campaign in November 1939, and SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Krüger ; However, there is no evidence of his direct participation in the shooting. Simon Wiesenthal was looking for the Gestapo chief and deputy head of the Drohobytsch office , SS-Untersturmführer Walter Kutschmann , whom he described as the head of the execution squad made up of seven people involved in the crime. He lived as Pedro Ricardo Olmo in Buenos Aires and died there in 1986 before an extradition decision was made.

An involvement of the later Federal Minister for Expellees Theodor Oberländer from the Ukrainian battalion Nachtigall, whose soldiers were involved in the arrests, is now considered unlikely. A GDR verdict from 1960 that condemned him as a murderer in Lemberg was overturned by the Berlin Regional Court in 1993 due to formal deficiencies. At the end of 1997 the responsible Cologne public prosecutor's office, which carried out further investigations from 1996 to 1998, concluded the investigation into Oberlander's role in the Nachtigall battalion. After Oberländer's death on May 4, 1998, she stopped the remaining investigations that she had conducted against him on charges of further massacres in the Caucasus.

In the further course of the German occupation, 110,000 to 120,000 Lviv Jews were murdered by the occupiers.

The victims

Used abbreviations:

  • UJK = Uniwersytet Jana Kazimierza (University of Lviv, now Ivan Franko National University of Lviv )
  • PSP = Państwowy Szpital Powszechny (National Hospital)
  • PL = Politechnika Lwowska (Lviv Polytechnic, now Lviv National Polytechnic University )
  • AWL = Akademia Weterynaryjna We Lwowie (Veterinary Academy in Lviv)
  • AHZ = Akademia Handlu Zagranicznego We Lwowie (Academy for Foreign Trade in Lviv)
Murdered in the Wulka Hills
  1. Antoni Cieszyński , professor of stomatology UJK
  2. Władysław Dobrzaniecki, Head of Ord. Oddz. Surgical PSP
  3. Jan Grek, Professor of Internal Medicine, UJK
  4. Maria Grekowa, wife of Jan Grek
  5. Jerzy Grzędzielski, head of the Institute of Ophthalmology, UJK
  6. Edward Hamerski, Head of Internal Medicine, AWL
  7. Henryk Hilarowicz, Professor of Surgery, UJK
  8. Pastor Władysław Komornicki, theologian, relative of the Ostrowski family
  9. Eugeniusz Kostecki, husband of Dobrzaniecki's servant
  10. Włodzimierz Krukowski, Head of the Institute of Electrical Metrology, PL
  11. Roman Longchamps de Bérier, Head of the Civil Law Institute, UJK
  12. Bronisław Longchamps de Bérier, son of Longchamps de Bérier
  13. Zygmunt Longchamps de Bérier, son of Longchamps de Bérier
  14. Kazimierz Longchamps de Bérier, son of Longchamps de Bérier
  15. Antoni Łomnicki , Head of the Institute of Mathematics, PL
  16. Adam Mięsowicz, grandson of Prof. Sołowij
  17. Witołd Nowicki, Dean of the Faculty of Anatomy and Pathology, UJK
  18. Jerzy Nowicki, assistant at the Institute for Hygiene, UJK, son of Witołd Nowicki
  19. Tadeusz Ostrowski , head of the Institute for Surgery, UJK
  20. Jadwiga Ostrowska, wife of Tadeusz Ostrowski
  21. Stanisław Pilat , Head of the Institute of Technology of Petroleum and Natural Gas, PL
  22. Stanisław Progulski, pediatrician, UJK
  23. Andrzej Progulski, son of Progulski
  24. Roman Rencki, head of the Institute for Internal Medicine, UJK
  25. Stanisław Ruff, Head of the Surgery Department at the Jewish Hospital
  26. Anna Ruffowa, Ruff's wife
  27. Adam Ruff, Ruff's son
  28. Włodzimierz Sieradzki, Dean of the Faculty of Forensic Medicine, UJK
  29. Adam Sołowij, former head of the Gynecology and Obstetrics Department at PSP
  30. Włodzimierz Stożek , Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics, PL
  31. Eustachy Stożek, assistant at Politechnika Lwowska, son of Włodzimierz Stożek
  32. Emanuel Stożek, son of Włodzimierz Stożek
  33. Tadeusz Tapkowski, lawyer
  34. Kazimierz Vetulani, Dean of the Faculty of Theoretical Mechanics, PL
  35. Kasper Weigel, Head of the Institute of Measures, PL
  36. Józef Weigel, son of Kasper Weigel
  37. Roman Witkiewicz, Head of the Institute for Machines, PL
  38. Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński , writer and gynecologist, head of the Institute for French Literature
Murdered in the courtyard of Bursa Abrahamowiczów, a former school, now a hospital
  1. Katarzyna Demko, English teacher
  2. Stanisław Mączewski, Head of the Gynecology and Obstetrics Department at PSP
  3. Maria Reymanova, nurse
  4. Wolisch (first name unknown), businessman
Murdered on July 12th
  1. Henryk Korowicz, head of the Institute for Economics, AHZ
  2. Stanisław Ruziewicz , head of the Institute of Mathematics, AHZ
Murdered on July 26th in Brygidki Prison
  1. Kazimierz Bartel , former Prime Minister of Poland, former Rector of PL, Chairman of the Department of Geometry, PL

literature

Web links

Commons : Mass murders in Lviv in the summer of 1941  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1941-07-09 - Die Deutsche Wochenschau No. 566
  2. ↑ Hannes Heer : Practice in the Holocaust: Lemberg June / July 1941. In: ZfG 5/2001.
  3. ↑ Hannes Heer: Bloody Overture. Lviv, June 30, 1941. With the arrival of the Wehrmacht troops of the murder of Jews begins , Time ., No. 26/2001, p.90.
  4. ↑ Dieter Schenk: The Lviv Professors Murder and the Holocaust in East Galicia. Bonn 2007, ISBN 978-3-8012-5033-1 , p. 126 and p. 134.
  5. ↑ For example, Albert contradicts the Zygmunt (see literature).
  6. ↑ Dieter Pohl : Hans Krüger - the 'King of Stanislau'. In: Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Gerhard Paul: Careers of violence. National Socialist perpetrator biographies. Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-16654-X , p. 135.
  7. ↑ Dieter Schenk: The Lviv Professors Murder and the Holocaust in East Galicia. Bonn 2007, ISBN 978-3-8012-5033-1 , pp. 129-131.
  8. ↑ War Criminal: Long gone . Der Spiegel 28/1975, July 7, 1975, S: 24–26, accessed on July 4, 2016.
    Dieter Schenk: Der Lemberg Professorenmord and the Holocaust in Ostgalizien. Bonn 2007, ISBN 978-3-8012-5033-1 , pp. 240–242.
  9. ^ Philipp-Christian Wachs : The case of Theodor Oberländer. A lesson in German history. Frankfurt 2000, ISBN 3-593-36445-X , p. 470 ff.