Criminal orders (Nazi Germany)

Criminal orders is the collective name given to a series of orders, directives and decrees given before and during the invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II by the Wehrmacht High Command.^[1][2][3] The criminal orders went beyond established codes of conduct and led to widespread atrocities on the Eastern Front.

The orders

• Barbarossa Decree, issued 13 May 1941
• Guidelines for the Conduct of the Troops in Russia, issued 19 May 1941
• Commissar Order, issued 6 June 1941
• Orders Concerning the Deployment of the Security Police and the Security Service within Military Formations, issued 28 April 1941
• Orders relating to the treatment of prisoners of war, issued June to December 1941

See also

• Commando Order
• Severity Order
• War crimes of the Wehrmacht
• Myth of the clean Wehrmacht

References

1. Heer et al. 2008, pp. 17–19.
2. Bartov 1986, p. 106.
3. Beorn 2014, p. 52.

Bibliography

• Heer, Hannes; Manoschek, Walter; Pollak, Alexander; Wodak, Ruth (2008). The Discursive Construction of History: Remembering the Wehrmacht's War of Annihilation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780230013230.
• Bartov, Omer (1986). The Eastern Front, 1941–1945, German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare. New York: St. Martins Press. ISBN 0312224869.
• Beorn, Waitman (2014). Marching into Darkness. London, UK: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-72550-8.