Exam Questions for History of Holocaust | EUH 3033, Exams of World History

Download Exam Questions for History of Holocaust | EUH 3033 and more Exams World History in PDF only on Docsity! EUH 3033 History of the Holocaust Professor Geoffrey J. Giles Barbarossa Decree of 13 May 1941 Decree on the jurisdiction of martial law and on special measures of the troops The exercise of martial law serves primarily to maintain military discipline. The wide extent of operational space in the East, the form of combat that this offers, and the peculiarity of the enemy, present tasks to the courts martial...that, with their limited personnel, they can only solve, if military law restricts itself for the time being to its central task. That is only possible if the troops themselves defend themselves against every threat from the enemy civilian population without mercy.... I Treatment of criminal acts by enemy civilians 1. Criminal acts of enemy civilians are withdrawn until further notice from the jurisdiction of courts-martial and summary courts. 2. Guerrillas are to be dispatched without mercy by the troops either in combat or while trying to escape. 3. Furthermore, all other attacks by enemy civilians against the Wehrmacht, its members and retinue are to be repelled on the spot by the most extreme measures up to the destruction of the attacker. 4. Where measures of this kind were missed or were initially not possible, the suspicious elements are to be immediately brought before an officer. He will decide whether they are to be shot. Collective drastic action will be taken immediately against communities from which treacherous or insidious attacks against the Wehrmacht are launched, on the orders of an officer with at least the rank of battalion commander upwards, if the circumstances do not permit a speedy apprehension of individual culprits. 5. It is expressly forbidden to detain suspected culprits, in order to hand them over to the courts when jurisdiction over native inhabitants is restored to these. II. Treatment of criminal acts by members of the Wehrmacht or its retinue against native civilians 1. For acts which members of the Wehrmacht or its retinue commit against enemy civilians, there is no compulsion to prosecute, even when the act represents at the same time a military crime or offense. 2. In judging such deeds it is to be considered in any proceedings that the collapse in the year 1918, the later period of suffering of the German people, and the battle against National Socialism with the movement’s countless sacrifices of blood, are incontestably to be attributed to Bolshevik influence, and that no German has forgotten that. 3. The chairman of the court must therefore examine whether a disciplinary reprimand is appropriate or whether it is necessary to institute judicial proceedings. The chairman only orders court-martial proceedings for acts against native inhabitants, when the maintenance of discipline or the protection of the troops demands it. That applies, for example, in the case of serious acts that result from the loss of sexual restraint, are derived from a criminal disposition, or are a sign that the troops are threatening to run wild. Criminal acts, by which lodgings or supplies or other plunder are senselessly destroyed to the detriment of our own troops, are not on the whole to be judged more leniently. © Translation G. Giles