Execution of German soldiers

Discussion in 'General' started by Warren F, Oct 25, 2008.

  1. Gebirgsjaeger

    Gebirgsjaeger Senior Member

    Thats another idiotic thing!
     
  2. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

    Idiotic ... is a gross understatement.
     
  3. Andreas

    Andreas Working on two books

    What i mean is that a defeated enemy is only allowed to do things with the agreement of the winner. So they can do guard duties, they can arrest deserters, criminals or else but the decision what to do with them is only at the winner side. So that means if they arrested deserters, the Canadian Army has to decide what to do with them, except the Wehrmacht haven´t told the Canadians that they caught some and executed them somewhere where it isn´t under the eyes of the Canadians.

    I guess it comes down to your capacity to deal with the matter. My guess is the Canadians didn't have a lot of capacity to involve themselves in the operations of the German military justice system, so they took a decision not to. I find that understandable.

    My grandfather also (sort of) deserted the Wehrmacht about this time (his unit CO basically made it clear that if anyone wanted to try to get home, they could do so), in Denmark. Had he been caught he might well have suffered the same fate as the poor sods in the Netherlands.

    All the best

    Andreas
     
  4. Gebirgsjaeger

    Gebirgsjaeger Senior Member

    Yes i think this and the fact that they didn´t know what to do with all of those Soldiers overwhelmed them a bit. I can understand the deserters at this time of the war. Why to be killed for nothing?
     
  5. Andreas

    Andreas Working on two books

    For my grandfather it was a question of getting home rather than going into captivity.

    All the best

    Andreas
     
  6. Gebirgsjaeger

    Gebirgsjaeger Senior Member

    Always the better option! You never know what happens to you while you´re in captivity.
     
  7. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Merged in with a previous thread on the same incident - old thread ran to post #13.
    ~A
     
  8. Drayton

    Drayton Senior Member

    Tragic, but I don't really see how the Canucks can be held responsible for this. The alternative would have been to dissolve the German army structures in the Netherlands, with potentially extremely serious consequences for the safety of everybody


    There was a world of difference (the difference between life and death) between allowing the German military structure to continue temporarily for purely internal administration - lodging, feeding etc - and formally approving discredited and disreputable "judicial" procedures, to the extent of supplying the essential means of unlawful "executions".

    There is no doubt that under both International and Canadian law the Canadian officers responsible should have been tried for aiding and abetting murder.
     
  9. Wills

    Wills Very Senior Member

    International Humanitarian Law - Geneva Convention Prisoners of War 1929





    Art. 46. Prisoners of war shall not be subjected by the military authorities or the tribunals of the detaining Power to penalties other than those which are prescribed for similar acts by members of the national forces.
    Officers, non-commissioned officers or private soldiers, prisoners of war, undergoing disciplinary punishment shall not be subjected to treatment less favourable than that prescribed, as regards the same punishment, for similar ranks in the armed forces of the detaining Power.

    Whilst this court was not Canadian, Would a defence not suggest that the Canadian forces allowed what was the 'normal punishment handed down for the offence by the national forces?' Heaven forbid - I am not defended the action.
     
  10. Drayton

    Drayton Senior Member

    No. The standard to be applied to Prisoners of War, for treatment in general and for disciplinary penalties in particular, is that of the 'detaining Power' - in this case, Canada.

    Manifestly, neither the charade of a 'court-martial' to which the victims were subjected nor the imposition of the death penalty for desertion in such circumstances, met the Canadian standards, and the Canadian chain of command must have been well aware of this. To hand over men who had conscientiously distanced themselves from Nazism and carrying on the war against the Allies, and thereby, after the complete German surrender and end of hostilities, were no threat to anyone - Germans or Allies - was overt encouragement to murder.
     
  11. Wills

    Wills Very Senior Member

    The point I think that would be made is again interpretation. Law is not about emotion - sadly! I tend to agree with you.
     
  12. Andreas

    Andreas Working on two books

    There was a world of difference (the difference between life and death) between allowing the German military structure to continue temporarily for purely internal administration - lodging, feeding etc - and formally approving discredited and disreputable "judicial" procedures, to the extent of supplying the essential means of unlawful "executions".

    There is no doubt that under both International and Canadian law the Canadian officers responsible should have been tried for aiding and abetting murder.

    I think the question is whether the Canadian army at the time had the capacity to take over the disciplinary side. I don't know the answer to that.

    Because if not, the moment they told the Germans to stop exerting military discipline, or risk the Germans just stopping doing it because they did not want to be micro-managed, they had to face the prospect of having an essentially lawless bunch of German ex-soldiers on the loose in the Netherlands, with potentially disastrous consequences for the local population, and to some extent the Canadian Army soldiers too (just witness what happened with displaced persons in Germany after surrender - in the village of my grandfather a few farms were plundered, and a Polish woman (herself a forced labourer) raped). The question then would have been whether they would have been able to guarantee everyone's safety.

    It's always easy to argue from the paper position, but if I were put in charge in that situation, I'd not feel very comfortable with either of the two choices, and I might just be tempted to go for the one where Germans shoot Germans, rather than Germans continuing to endanger the Dutch.

    All the best

    Andreas
     
    canuck and stolpi like this.
  13. Drayton

    Drayton Senior Member

    This misses the point. The two men "executed" were not not part of the body of German PoWs temporarily left to look after themselves. The two were actually sailors from the Kriegsmarine, who had deserted well before the general German surrender, and there was no proper reason for ever "handing them over".

    There is no evidence that there would have been trouble if the two had not been handed over, and, even after handing over, there is no evidence that refusing to confirm the wholly improper "sentences" would have caused trouble.

    The case seem to have been one of upholding an illusory code of "military honour" at the expense of international law and justice, not to mention humanity.
     
  14. Andreas

    Andreas Working on two books

    I don't think we'll agree on this matter, since we approach it from different viewpoints.

    I respect and understand your opinion.

    All the best

    Andreas
     

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