Jeff Rutherford - The German Army on the Eastern Front - An Inner View of the Ostheer's Experiences of War

The nastiest military crime is desertion. At the same time, its combating serves the general fight against crime, because as experience shows, deserters commit numerous of the gravest crimes. A sustained combating of desertion is only possible when Wehrmacht agencies and the general Security Service desertion authorities know the tricks that deserters have often successfully used previously in order to make possible and continue with desertion. Then deserters will quickly be seized and convicted more successfully than before. That is the most important measure to combat desertion.

The report also included examples of deserters and their techniques in hopes of the army recognizing and stopping such infractions in the future.

In the following, 2 typical cases are named. They show that great mistrust is appropriate everywhere and the active collaboration of every superior is necessary to combat this crime.

Before Gefreiter W. deserted, he stole numerous already stamped but not signed forms for marching orders and Wehrmacht train tickets, as well as two leave passes from his unit’s orderly room. Before his numerous trips, he drew up the corresponding march orders each time. He was able to travel by train unchallenged:

Lemberg-Berlin-Breslau-Lemberg

Lemberg-Breslau-Hamburg

Hamburg-Paris

Paris-Berlin-Breslau-Hamburg

Hamburg-Posen-Breslau-Hamburg

Due to his passes, he continually received food.

Over time, he donned the badge of rank of an Unteroffizier and later that of a Feldwebel . He entered the promotion he gave himself into his pay book. Despite numerous controls, the falsifications were never discovered. One day, he appeared at a dockyard. He passed himself off as an Oberfeldwebel from the Reich Air Ministry and declared he had the task of reviewing suspicious holders of military passes.

During the examination of his pay book when he showed it, the false entries were immediately detected and this prompted his arrest.

As deserters, Gefreiter P. and Kanonier Z. stayed for many months among the Russian inhabitants of Kharkov. They identified themselves to patrols through stolen pay books.

In the vicinity of the city, they one day discovered a defective Russian truck. At a divisional motor transport squadron, they acquired a motor for the vehicle. There, they passed themselves off as members of a corps map production unit and asked for a suitable motor for the vehicle. The motor was handed over without verification. They subsequently fitted the motor into the vehicle to make it drivable. In the following period, they frequently used the vehicle to get paid by a Russian town administration for delivering goods.

The deserters were sentenced to death.

Announcement of Sentences (Military Theft)

A soldier has the assignment as a messenger to bring the field post to his deployed company. He used the opportunity to misappropriate numerous field post packages addressed by and for his comrades. He continues his thievery when later the mail is brought forward from the company-troop vehicle. Amongst other things, he steals 20 packages from a postal sack earmarked for wounded soldiers. Within 4 months, he steals no less than 120 packages with items from loved ones at home and also valuables of all types. He is sentenced to death as a Volksschädling and shot. [47]

The concluding section of the document publicized the execution of a Volksschädling – someone whose behaviour damaged the Volk as a whole – for theft. This was actually one of the more common crimes punished by the army on the Eastern front, alongside the more explosive crimes of desertion or self-mutilation.

The following report, issued by the 83rd Infantry Division in autumn 1942, gives a flavour of the discipline issues the army chose to punish.

Activity Report of the 83rd Infantry Division’s Court for the Months of August and September 1942

Punishments have been handed out in accordance with the following breakdown:

NCOs in 7 cases

Enlisted Men in 42 cases […]

Enquiries of death were completed in 8 cases (including 5 suicides). […]

Punishments:

1) Lange, Friedrich, Schütze 1./Security Battalion 343. Breach of guard regulations. 1 year and 3 months prison. [He] did not take to sentry post in partisan-threatened area, but instead went to sleep in a house out of his sentry area. […]

3) Schulz, Wilhelm, Unteroffizier , 1./Security Battalion 336. Breach of guard regulations. 1 year and 6 months confinement in a fortress. Due to heavy rain, a fork in the road that his group was to secure by night was not permanently manned, and instead the fork in the road was ‘secured’ by a patrol while his troops withdrew some 700m. The fork was occupied by the Russians and had to be retaken by a relief force with the loss of one man.

4) Johannsen, Alfred, Gefreiter , 8./Infantry Regiment 251. Absence without leave. 6 months prison. Exceeded his home leave by 8 days to initiate his divorce.

5) Ninkerken, Karl-Heinz, Schütze , 14./Anti Tank/Infantry Regiment 251. Breach of guard regulations and insubordination. 5 years penitentiary and Wehrunwürdikeit . [48][He] had stable guard and was to observe a forest edge 300m away. He left his position, went to his quarters, and went to bed. Furthermore shortly afterwards during a Russian attack, after delivering a message he did not go as ordered to his gun position, but rather lay in a trench and slept. […]

8) Küllsen, Karl, Gefreiter , 7.Infantry Regiment 251. Cowardice in concomitance with breach of guard regulations. 5 years penitentiary and Wehrunwürdikeit. Due to fear of danger to himself, [he] did not move to his security post.

9) Koschnitzki, Wilhelm, Kanonier , 4./Artillery Regiment 183. Theft from a fellow soldier. 3 months prison. Stole a pullover jacket and a lighter from a comrade. […]

11) Ingelmann, Edmund, Gefreiter , 8./Infantry Regiment 251. Careless handling of weapons. 5 months confinement in a fortress. [He] caused the death of a comrade through the careless handling of a submachine gun.

12) Schulz, Helmut, Kanonier , 1./Artillery Regiment 183. Careless handling of weapons. 3 months confinement in a fortress. [He] caused the death of a comrade by loading his rifle contrary to regulations.

13) Herzogenrath, Hubert, Gefreiter , 9./Infantry Regiment 251. Continued breach of guard regulations, insulting and threating a superior. Total punishment 1 year and 6 months prison. [He] left his guard position three times at night and went to the rear position, to find the relief inadvertently forgotten to be sent forward, and while there insulted and threatened the responsible commander.

14) Rof, Willi, Gefreiter , 4./Artillery Regiment 183. Theft from a comrade. 6 months prison. [He] stole breeches, a fur coat and a map case from a room in which two military police men lived.

15) Wischniewski, Roman, Reiter , Veterinary Company 183. Recidivism of theft, military embezzlement, plundering. 3 years and 6 month prison and loss of bürgerliche Ehrenrechte [49]for 3 years. [He] has continually stolen from his comrades and superiors and appropriated a comrade’s wallet that he found, as well as stole 10m of linen and a scarf from a Russian house.

16) Schoknecht, Reinhold, Obergefreiter , 7./Infantry Regiment 251. Recidivism of military theft. 6 months of prison. As cook [he] sent some 800 grams of coffee from the allotted inventory to his family members, furthermore from army inventory he sent to his wife 2 towels, 2 handkerchiefs, 3 pairs of stockings and bootlaces. […]

18) Weidner, Kurt, Gefreiter , 7./Infantry Regiment 251. Careless handling of weapons. 3 months confinement in a fortress. After finishing weapon cleaning and the insertion of the magazine, [he] touched the trigger of the submachine gun and thereby fired several shots which killed one comrade and severely wounded another comrade. During the sentencing, his good conduct, his youthful age, and his lack of training with the submachine gun were taken into consideration in favour of the punished.