Vinkt massacre
The Vinkt massacre occurred on May 27, 1940 as part of the German campaign to the west in the village of Vinkt and the neighboring town of Meigem, sub-communities of the small town of Deinze in East Flanders , 20 km southwest of Ghent . German troops murdered 86 residents. The historian Peter Lieb rated this murder in 2007 as the greatest crime of the Wehrmacht during the war in the West.
prehistory
The rapid advance of the German Wehrmacht had taken the Allies by surprise. The French army had suffered several defeats. French troops were surrounded with the British expeditionary force in the battle of Dunkirk . The Belgian troops had fought against the Germans, but were retreating towards the Channel coast. On May 24th the front line had arrived at the Schipdonk Canal . Crossings over the canal and the bridge in Deinze were of great strategic importance. In addition, at least one million Belgian citizens were on the run from the Germans because they feared a repetition of the German atrocities of the First World War , in which German soldiers shot many civilians. The 1st Division of the Belgian Ardennes fighters prepared to defend the bridge and to repel attempts to cross the canal in order to keep the way clear for as many British soldiers and Belgian refugees as possible.
When the German 225th Infantry Division had reached the village of Meigem, they encountered the prepared defense of the Ardennes fighters. Another unit of these reservists tried in vain to take the bridge over the canal near Deinze. When the German soldiers came under artillery fire, they took people from Deinze hostage to use them as human shields . 38 civilians were killed.
May 26
A rumor among German soldiers that Belgian civilians had shot at them provoked retaliatory actions. On May 26, the Germans arrested dozen of Meigem's residents and locked them up as hostages in the village church. The Belgian Ardennes fighters continued to defend the bridge and Vinkt remained in the hands of the Belgians. Meigem was already in German hands, Vinkt was still occupied by Belgian troops.
May 27th
On May 27, 1940, the Belgian King Leopold III. announced that it would order the Belgian troops to lay down their arms. Until then, the Belgian troops continued the defense.
In the afternoon there was a serious explosion in the church in Meigem. 27 of the people held there died. According to the operators of the Belgian website “Vinkt.be” of the “experticecentrum und Vereiniging Vinkt Mai 1940”, the explosion was probably triggered by the Belgian shelling themselves, because the church was in the line of fire of the artillery.
Shootings took place all day in Vinkt. In the afternoon the Germans gained the upper hand and around 3 p.m. the fight was over. The 377th Infantry Regiment, which belonged to the 225th Infantry Division, occupied Vinkt. The German soldiers were of the opinion that they had been shot at by citizens from Vinkt. That was a reason for them to raid. All citizens were driven out of their homes. The people were separated. Women and children were gathered in a farmer's meadow. The men were first driven towards Meigem, then they had to turn around. Then they were forced to run to Vinkt in rows of five. The elders were shot on the wall of the local monastery. On the wall of the pastorate, one of the rows of five citizens was shot, followed by eleven other citizens. A little further on was the next execution. A total of 38 people were shot in the village square. Four people survived this event seriously wounded. At Zwart Huiseke, eleven people were executed and buried in a mass grave, and there were other executions. A total of 111 people were killed that day as a result of executions and artillery fire.
28th of May
On the morning of May 28, the Belgian king announced the surrender on the radio. That day, 9 other Vinkt citizens were shot dead after digging their own graves.
A total of 140 people from Vinkt and Meigem were killed in the 4 days. 86 were murdered, 27 were killed in the church explosion.
consequences
The Vinkt and Meigem events sparked a second wave of refugees, over a million Belgians leaving the country. In June 1940, the Red Cross estimated that around 30% of the Belgian population was across the country's borders.
After the end of the war, the war crime was tried in a Belgian court. Two of the responsible German officers, Major Erwin Kühner and Lieutenant Franz Lohmann, were indicted and sentenced in 1950 to 20 years of forced labor. They were extradited to the German state after just five years. In Germany, they were probably released.
literature
- Belgique, Commission des crimes de guerre: Les crimes de guerre commis lors de l'invasion du territoire national, May 1940. Les massacres du Vinkt. Liège 1948.
- Peter Taghon: Vinkt, Meigem et Deinze. Quand les légends deviennent des vérités. In: Frances Balace (ed.), Jours de Guerre . Volume V. Brussels 1995, pp. 19-35.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Peter Lieb : Conventional war or Nazi ideological war? Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-486-57992-4 , p. 15.
- ↑ Peter Lieb: Conventional war or Nazi ideological war? Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-486-57992-4 , p. 15.
- ↑ http://www.vinkt.be/pages/mei3.html Accessed November 1, 2014.
- ↑ http://www.vinkt.be/pages/mei4.html
- ↑ http://www.vinkt.be/pages/mei5.html
- ↑ http://www.vinkt.be/pages/mei6.html
- ↑ http://www.vinkt.be/pages/mei8.html
- ↑ http://www.vinkt.be/pages/mei9.html
- ^ Norbert Frei : Transnational Past Policy , Wallstein Verlag 2007, ISBN 3-89244-940-6 , p. 345.
- ↑ http://www.vinkt.be/pages/mei9.html