POW's in Russian captivity Waffen SS?

[NickG]

Found this on the web...
Clearly German POW's in Russian captivity. Two condemned men per truck... War criminals?
Possibly Waffen SS officers? Russians showed no mercy to that branch...
(nor were they signatories of the Geneva convention, if I'm not mistaken)

or perhaps these are ROA, Vlasov or Cossack or related Russian freiwilligen?
and treated as traitors and hanged for defecting to the other side?

Look at the size of the crowd of (military) spectators...The harsh reality of war!

[Felix]

My guess would be that they are considered traitors to the people and commie party and therefore executed in front of a crowd to show as example. Normal POW's were sent to the Gulags or were uses as slave labour to rebuild destroyed cities etc.

The hars side of war ...
... and the harsh side of a dictatorship that shows no mercy or respect to human rights. Who can say that traitors really were criminals rather than that they fought for their minority within the Soviet union as a response to the soviet repression and murder?

//Felix

[viva_giulio]

.

[Paul.B.]

Would be interesting to date the picture.
Could be Cossacks fresh from being sold out by the Brits.

[chrischa]

I think the term sold out is incorrect.

A few Britush officers had a difference of opinion and the order was given for the Russian enemy to go back to their own countrymen. I'm not sure how much I'd care after six years of war and fighting.

Any different from French or Belgian waffen SS being returned to their countries?

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

back to the original picture which is showing 12 of the 15 defendants in the Kiev trial (January 17 to 28, 1946).
They were hanged on January 29, 1946 in Kiev.

1) Paul Scheer
former chief of security police and the Kiev and Poltava regions

2) Karl Burkhardt
former commandant of the rear 6th Army (Korück 593) in the territory of Stalin (now Donetsk) and Dnepropetrovsk regions

3) Hans Eckardt von Tschammer und Osten
former commander of the 213th Security Division, operated in the Poltava region of Ukraine, and later - the principal field commander of Oberfeld-Kommandantur 392

4) Georg Josef Heinisch
former Gebietskomissar, Melitopol district

5) Oscar Walliser
former Ortskommandant of Borodyansky district

6) Georg Heinrich Trukenbrod
former military commander of cities Pervomaysk, Korostysheva, Korosten and other localities

7) Wilhelm W. Hellerforth
former Chief of SD in the Dneprodzerzhinskoe district of Dnepropetrovsk region

8) Emil Knoll
former commander of the Field Gendarmerie of 44th Infantry Division

9) Fritz Bekenhof
former commandant of the agricultural Borodyansky district

10) Hans Wilhelm Isenmann
former soldier from the 5th SS Wiking Division

11) Emil Fridrich Jogschat
former commander of a field gendarmerie unit

12) Willi Meyer
former company commander in the 323rd Police Battalion

The three other defendants were sentenced to hard labor.

13) Johann Paul Lauer
former soldier from the 1. Panzerarmee (maybe 19. Panzer-Division)

14) August Schadel
former Chief of Staff in the Borodyansky district

15) Boris Oleg Ernst Kaljuveri-Drachenfels
former deputy of a company commander in the Polizei Front-Bataillon Ostland

Various pictures (some modified) taken after the execution :












See You

Vince

[Robert H]

Executions on both sides.
Once moving East, and once moving West.

[Gaspare]

they are war criminals looking at their descriptions.. Their penalty for what they did was to hang from the Soviets.......

[areilley]

Pows

Any different from French or Belgian waffen SS being returned to their countries?

Yes, Quite a bit

[Ian Hulley]

With 2 exceptions .. "former commander ... " most being of rear area security units

The 'Wiking' soldier and the Panzertruppe man I find the most interesting.

Ian

[dragnet]

And the Brits hung Lord Haw Haw, if i remember all he did was talk on a radio

[Paul.B.]

I think the term sold out is incorrect.

A few Britush officers had a difference of opinion and the order was given for the Russian enemy to go back to their own countrymen. I'm not sure how much I'd care after six years of war and fighting.

Any different from French or Belgian waffen SS being returned to their countries?

That was purely the British playing politics.
Some of those Cossacks had British decorations.
Just like them going to war over Polish sovereignty how did Poland end up again?
Half the French were murdered on the spot and the other half got off scot free.
The English know they sold out Cossacks it's just sucking up to the Soviets pure and simple.

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

killings of French SS by the Soviet or free Polish Army existed, but were not a majority at all.
More French (SS and unwilling soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine) died in the Tambov POW camp due to exhaustion and lack of food.

The Kiev trial judged people involved in various mass murders in the Ukraine, including the various Babi-Yar killings over the years.
The Wiking soldier was probably a witness or a defendant in the few "pacification sweeps" some units of the division took part in starting in 1941.

See You

Vince

[chrischa]

That was purely the British playing politics.
Some of those Cossacks had British decorations.
Just like them going to war over Polish sovereignty how did Poland end up again?
Half the French were murdered on the spot and the other half got off scot free.
The English know they sold out Cossacks it's just sucking up to the Soviets pure and simple.

But surely politics was important?

Obviously I don't have the knowledge or emotion on the subject you have.

I see it as an enemy formation being returned to their homeland as agreed by the allies at the Yalta conference.

(I have briefly read some articles this morning on the subject which apply 21st century opinion and I don't disagree it wasn't the most honorable of events but still think it followed an agreement, with the intention to protect allied POW's in the USSR's area of occupation).

[chrischa]

Any different from French or Belgian waffen SS being returned to their countries?

Yes, Quite a bit

Well argued.