Commissar Order

E38773

The Commissar Order was a notorious directive issued by Nazi Germany in 1941 that mandated the summary execution of Soviet political commissars captured during Operation Barbarossa.

Aliases (1)

Statements (48)
Predicate Object
instanceOf Nazi military order
criminal order
war crime directive
alsoKnownAs Kommissarbefehl
appliesToConflict German-Soviet War
appliesToTheater Eastern Front
archivedIn German military archives
authorizedBy Adolf Hitler
conflictContext Operation Barbarossa
contributedTo criminalization of the Wehrmacht
countryOfOrigin Nazi Germany
dateIssued 1941-06-06
effectiveFrom 1941-06-06
evidenceIn High Command Trial
historicalAssessment example of state-organized war crime
historicalPeriod World War II
ideologicalBasis Nazi anti-Bolshevism
Nazi racial ideology
implementationCharacter criminal implementation of warfare
implementedBy German Army units on the Eastern Front
German security forces
Wehrmacht
issuedBy High Command of the German Armed Forces
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht
justificationUsedByIssuers fight against Bolshevism
language German
legalStatus violation of international law
violation of the laws and customs of war
mandatedAction denial of prisoner-of-war status
summary execution
opposedBy some Wehrmacht commanders
primaryVictimState Soviet Union
relatedTo Barbarossa Decree
Guidelines for the Conduct of the Troops in Russia
Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs
resultedIn escalation of brutality on the Eastern Front
mass executions of Soviet POWs
scope all German forces engaged against the Soviet Union
studiedInField Holocaust and genocide studies
international criminal law
military history
subjectOf Nuremberg Trials
targetedGroup Red Army political officers
Soviet political commissars
typeOfCrime crime against prisoners of war
war crime
violatedInstrument Hague Conventions
customary laws of war

Referenced by (3)
Subject (surface form when different) Predicate
Commissar Order ("Kommissarbefehl")
alsoKnownAs
CommissarOrderImplementation
basedOn
HungerPlan
relatedTo

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