The Scourge of the Swastika Read online

  After the Armistice was concluded with France in June 1940 the attitude of the German occupation authorities was at first conciliatory. They hoped to draw the French into their war against England and later the United States of America, and tried by every means in their power to gain the maximum co-operation and collaboration of the French people.

  It was but a pious hope, and this mild approach was doomed to end in failure. With increased resistance from the French, the mask of sweet reasonableness was quickly dropped, it had never been more than a sham and a shallow pretence, and the Nazis reverted to type. The execution of hostages at Dinant, at Laon, and at Senlis, which in 1914 had shocked the civilized world, paled into insignificance beside the massacres at Oradour-sur-Glâne, at Lidice, in the Balkans, in Warsaw, in Russia and the Ardeatine Caves.

  Before the end of 1940 the red posters edged with black were common sights in France, pasted on the walls of Paris and the towns and villages throughout the country. These announced the first shootings of hostages carried out in reprisal for anti-German incidents.

  In September 1940 the Commander-in-Chief of the German Army in France had defined hostages as ‘inhabitants of a country who guarantee with their lives the impeccable attitude of the population. The responsibility for their fate is thus placed in the hands of their compatriots. Therefore the population must be publicly threatened that hostages will be held responsible for hostile acts of individuals.’

  The responsibility of the innocent for offences committed by others was the official policy and attitude of the occupation authorities, and steps were taken by them to ensure that these threats were carried into execution. ‘Threats which cannot be realized’, the order stated, ‘give the impression of weakness.’

  This doctrine was given the highest official approval in September 1941 by the issue of a General Order over Keitel’s signature. It remained in force throughout the war and was addressed to the German military commanders in France, Belgium, Norway, Holland, Denmark, the Ukraine, Serbia, Salonika, Greece, and Crete, all of which were under German occupation.

  In its application to Russia it ordered that 50 to 100 Communists were to be put to death for each German soldier killed. This order was confirmed later in the same month, and adapted by Stülpnagel in his famous order known in France as the ‘Hostages Code’.

  This order is of great importance as it clearly demonstrates the attitude of the German military command in France towards the hostages policy. The following are extracts from it:

  I.

  On 22nd August 1941 I issued the following announcement: ‘On the morning of 21st August 1941, a member of the German Armed Forces was killed in Paris as a result of a murderous attack.’

  I therefore order that:

  (1) All Frenchmen held in custody of any kind by the German authorities, or on behalf of German authorities in France, are to be considered as hostages from 23rd August.

  (2) If any further incident occurs, a number of these hostages are to be shot, to be determined according the gravity of the attempt.

  III.

  On the basis of my notification of 22nd August 1941 and of my order of 19th September 1941 [which was set out in paragraph II], the following groups of persons are therefore hostages.

  [Six such groups were then set out.]

  VI.

  Lists of hostages.

  If an incident occurs which according to my announcement of 21st August 1941 necessitates the shooting of hostages, the execution must immediately follow the order. The district commanders, therefore, must select from the total number of hostages in their own districts, those who from a practical point of view may be considered for execution and enter them on a list of hostages. These lists will serve as a basis for the proposals submitted to me in the case of an execution.

  According to the observations made so far, the perpetrators of those outrages originate from communist or anarchist terror gangs. The District Commanders are, therefore, to select from those in detention those persons who, because of their communist or anarchist views in the past or their positions in such organizations, are most suitable for execution. In making the selection it should be borne in mind that the better hostages to be shot are known, the greater will be the deterrent effect on the perpetrators themselves, and on those persons who in France or abroad, bear the moral responsibility for acts of terror and sabotage.

  A list of hostages is to be prepared from prisoners with De Gaullist sympathies.

  A pool of hostages was also established.

  The lists must contain about 150 for each district and about 400 for the Greater Paris Command. The district chiefs should always record on their lists those persons who had their last residence or permanent domicile in their own districts, because persons to be executed should, as far as possible, be taken from the district where the act was committed.

  Instructions were then given for the actual execution, and the final paragraph ends thus:

  When the bodies are buried, the burial of a large number in a common grave in the same cemetery is to be avoided, in order not to create places of pilgrimage which, now or later, might form centres for anti-German propaganda. If necessary, therefore, burials must be carried out in various places.

  Similar orders were issued in Belgium by General von Falkenhausen, in Holland by Gauleiter Seyss-Inquart, and in Norway by General von Falkenhorst.

  The effects of this policy were not always those which its authors had expected and from Belgium Falkenhausen sent this letter to Keitel criticizing the principle, not for humanitarian reasons but on the grounds of expediency.

  Enclosed is a list of the shootings of hostages which have taken place up till now in my area and the incidents on account of which these shootings took place. In a great number of cases, particularly in the most serious, the culprits were later apprehended and sentenced.

  The result is undoubtedly very unsatisfactory. The effect is not so much deterrent as destructive of the feeling of the population for right and security: the cleft between the people influenced by Communism and the remainder of the population is being bridged: all circles are becoming filled with a feeling of hatred towards the occupying forces and effective inciting material is given to enemy propaganda.

  signed: von Falkenhausen.

  Falkenhausen complained more than once to OKW about the deplorable effects of Keitel’s order. He pointed out again that in several cases the saboteurs were discovered after the innocent hostages had been shot, and that the real culprits often did not belong to the same circles as the executed hostages. This led to resentment on the part of sections of the population who had previously shown a passive attitude.

  Towards the end of 1942 a further warning reached Keitel from the Wehrmacht Commander in Holland. After reporting the shooting of a number of very distinguished hostages in Rotterdam, he stated that public opinion had been greatly affected. Nothing which the Germans had done since the occupation began, and there were few enormities which they had not committed, had created such an impression or aroused so much resentment. Many letters had been received at the German Headquarters, some signed and some anonymous. The report ended: ‘In short, such disapproval even in the ranks of the very few really pro-German Dutch had never before been experienced, or so much hatred felt.’

  But Keitel cared for none of these things. His order of 16th September 1941 was never countermanded throughout the whole war, and over 29,000 hostages were executed in France alone.

  From time to time appeals were made by the German occupation authorities to the general population to desist from resistance, and to potential French traitors and informers to denounce their loyal compatriots.

  The following is the text of such an appeal which was issued in September 1941:

  I recognize that the great majority of the population is conscious of its duty, which is to help the authorities in their unremitting effort to maintain calm and order in the country in the interest of the inhabitants.

  But
among you there are agents paid by Powers hostile to Germany, Communist criminal elements, who have only one aim, to sow discord between the Occupying Power and the French population…. I will no longer allow the lives of German soldiers to be threatened by these murderers. I shall stop at no measure, however rigorous, in order to fulfil my duty…. I appeal to you all, to your administration and to your police to co-operate by your extreme vigilance and your active personal intervention in the arrest of the guilty. It is necessary, by anticipating and denouncing these criminal activities, to avoid the creation of a critical situation which would plunge the country into misfortune.

  He who fires in ambush on German soldiers, who are only doing their duty here, and who are safeguarding the maintenance of a normal life, is not a patriot but a cowardly assassin and the enemy of all decent people.

  Frenchmen! I count on you to understand these measures which I am taking in your own interests.

  signed: von Stülpnagel.

  It is a matter for wonder that the nation that had invaded France thrice in seventy years should know so little of its enemy’s psychology.

  It was during the month of October 1941 that the ‘executions of Châteaubriant and Bordeaux’ took place. On 21st October the following notice appeared in the newspaper Le Phare:

  Notice. Cowardly criminals in the pay of England and of Moscow killed the Feldkommandant of Nantes yesterday morning by shooting him in the back. So far the assassins have not been arrested. As expiation for this crime I have ordered that fifty hostages be shot to begin with. Because of the gravity of the crime, fifty more hostages will be shot in case the guilty should not be arrested by midnight the 23rd October 1941.

  A list of sixty Frenchmen, held in custody at Châteaubriant, who were all supposed to be dangerous Communists was prepared by the Vichy Minister of the Interior, Pucheu1 and handed to General von Stülpnagel.

  Twenty-seven of these were shot at Châteaubriant, and the Abbé Moyon, who was present, wrote this report of the execution on the day after it occurred:

  It was a beautiful autumn day. The temperature was particularly mild. There had been lovely sunshine since morning. Everyone in town was going about his usual business. There was great animation in the town, for it was Wednesday which is market day. The inhabitants knew from the newspapers and from information received from Nantes, that a senior officer had been killed there but refused to believe that such savage and extensive reprisals would be carried out. At Choiseul Camp the German authorities had, some days previously, put into special quarters a number of men who were to serve as hostages in case of attacks against the Occupation Forces. It was from these men that those who were to be shot that evening were chosen.

  The Cure of Bère was just finishing lunch when Monsieur Moreau, Chief of Choiseul Camp, arrived at the presbytery and in a few words explained the object of his visit. He had been sent by Monsieur Lecornu, Sous-Préfet of Châteaubriant to inform the Cure that twenty-seven men selected from the ‘political prisoners’ of Choiseul were to be executed that afternoon and to ask him to go at once and attend them.

  The priest agreed to go and went immediately to the camp. The Sous-Préfet was already there to announce to the prisoners their terrible fate…. Suddenly there was the sound of motor-car engines. The door which I had shut when I entered the room, so that we might be more private, was abruptly opened and French constables with handcuffs appeared. A German Army Chaplain arrived. He said to me ‘Monsieur le Cure, your mission has been accomplished and you must withdraw immediately.’

  Access to the quarry where the execution took place was absolutely forbidden to all Frenchmen. I only know that the hostages were executed in three groups of nine each, that all the men who were shot refused to have their eyes bound, that young Mocquet fainted and fell and that the last cry which sprang from the lips of these heroes was an ardent ‘Vive la France’.

  A police officer named Roussel saw the condemned men driven through Châteaubriant in the afternoon in four German trucks, preceded by a German officer in a staff car. The men were handcuffed and were singing patriotic songs such as the ‘Marseillaise’ and the ‘Chant du Depart’. In one of the trucks was a party of armed German soldiers.

  About two hours later the convoy returned from the quarry where the execution had taken place and drove into the courtyard of the Chateau where the bodies of the hostages were put into a cellar until coffins could be made.

  The following day, the 23rd October, according to Roussel’s statement, ‘the bodies were put into coffins without any French persons being present, and all entrances to the Chateau were guarded by German sentries. The dead were then taken to nine different cemeteries in the surrounding Communes, three coffins to each. The Germans were careful to choose places where there was no regular bus service, presumably to avoid the population going en masse to the graves of these martyrs.’

  Only two days later fifty more reprisal prisoners were shot by the Germans in Bordeaux. These were taken from a batch of 100 persons who were known to be sympathizers with the Communist Party or the De Gaullist movement and who had been arrested on 22nd October. These reprisal measures were announced to the Préfet of the Gironde in a letter from General von Faber Du Faur.

  Bordeaux, 23rd October 1941.

  To the Préfet of the Gironde, Bordeaux.

  As expiation for the cowardly murder of Councillor of War, Reiners, the Military Commander in France has ordered fifty hostages to be executed. The execution will take place to-morrow.

  In case the murderers should not be arrested in the very near future additional measures will be taken, as in the case of Nantes. I have the honour of making this decision known to you.

  signed: von Faber Du Faur.

  Chief of the Military Regional Administration.

  There were many other shootings of hostages as reprisal measures. In September 1942 an attack was made on a number of German soldiers at the Rex Cinema in Paris, and 116 hostages were shot in reprisal.

  The Fort of Romainville in the suburbs of Paris has since the war become a place of pilgrimage for Parisians. During the occupation it became a depot for hostages where a pool was kept from which victims were selected to be shot in reprisal for some act against the Occupying Power.

  One of them, Monsieur Rabate, who had the good fortune to survive, has given an account of the fate of some of these prisoners.

  Some of us were transferred to the German quarter of the Santé [a prison in Paris] but the majority of us were taken to the military prison of Cherche-Midi [also in Paris]. We were questioned in turn by a Gestapo officer in the Rue des Saussaies. Some of us were tortured to such an extent that our limbs were broken. While questioning me the Gestapo officer said,’Rabate, here you will have to speak. Professor Langevin’s son-in-law, Jacques Solomon, came in here arrogant. He went out crawling.’

  After a short stay of five months in the Cherche-Midi, we were transferred on 24th August 1942 to the Fort of Romainville. We were not allowed to write or receive letters and on the doors of our cells was written, ‘Alles verboten’ (Everything is forbidden). All we had to eat was three quarters of a litre of vegetable soup and 200 grammes of black bread per day. The biscuits sent to the prison for the political prisoners by the Red Cross and the Quaker’s Association never reached us. In Romainville we were confined as ‘NN’ prisoners.1

  In Northern France which was administered in conjunction with Belgium by General von Falkenhausen it was the same. It was the same in Holland and in Norway. In all the Western European countries the Germans carried out systematic executions of hostages in reprisal for acts of resistance.

  In no case were these executions according to law; they were always carried out before any effort had been made to discover and arrest the real culprits, and in many cases the perpetrators were arrested shortly after the innocent hostages had given their lives to ‘expiate’, as the Germans called it, the resistance of their compatriots.2

  By the end of 1941 Hitler had alr
eady come to the conclusion that the measures taken to punish those who committed offences against the German Occupation were inadequate. He decided, therefore, that in future the only cases to be brought to trial before the German Military Courts would be those which could be presented within eight days of the commission of the offence and in which a sentence of death was certain to be awarded.

  Accordingly he issued the ‘Night and Fog’1 decree of 7th December 1941. Its object was to ensure that non-German civilians in occupied territories, alleged to have committed offences against the Occupation Forces, were taken secretly to Germany, hence its name, unless it could be guaranteed that a death sentence would be passed if tried by a Military Court in their own country.

  Hitler took the view that in such cases any lesser sentence would be regarded by the occupied as a sign of weakness, and that the only way, short of a death sentence, to deter a potential offender was to take such measures as would leave his family and the local population uncertain of his fate.

  In a secret letter forwarding the Führer’s instructions in respect of the decreee to the Abwehr,2 the new plan for dealing with such prisoners was thus described: ‘The prisoners are, in future, to be transported to Germany secretly … these measures will have a deterrent effect because (a) the prisoners will vanish without leaving a trace, and (b) no information may be given of their whereabouts or their fate.’

  This idea was later carried a step further by the application of what was officially described as the ‘collective responsibility of members of families of assassins and saboteurs.’ Whenever any member of the Occupation Forces was assassinated, or sabotage was done to important installations, not only were the culprits to be shot, but their kinsmen and their female relatives over the age of sixteen were to be sent to concentration camps, and if the culprits themselves were not apprehended their relatives could be punished in their stead.