During the Second World War, a number of horrific war crimes were committed by the militaries
who were fighting in the conflict.
The Germans conducted scores of war crimes, and the most horrific include the shootings
by the Einsatzgruppen and the imprisonment of millions and extermination of them in concentration
camps.
There were millions killed in German war crimes, and still today evidence of many of these
have not been uncovered, and there are mass graves littered around Europe hiding the crimes
of different armies.
One German atrocity that occured happened in the aftermath of a mass escape attempt
in which 500 soviet Prisoners of War tried to escape from the Muhlviertler sub camp.
This belonged to the Mauthausen-Gusen complex, which itself was the site of where 90,000
people died from execution, starvation, ill-treatment and disease.
However the pursuit of those inmates who escaped became known as the ‘Muhlviertler Rabbit
Hunt,’ as within 3 weeks of the escape most of the escapees had been executed.
So join us today as we look at, ‘The BRUTAL Executions of the Muhlvietler Rabbit Hunt.’
Remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
One the 2nd March 1944, Aktion Kugel was decreed and issued by Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel.
In this, it was a secret decree that stated that any escaped allied prisoners of war,
especially those who were officers of senior NCO’s should he handed over to the SD.
The SD were then given instruction to execute these escapees immediately.
There was an exemption made to this decree for American and British soldiers who managed
to flee camps, and it was said their case would be looked at individually, and this
later did change to include British prisoners following the Great Escape from Stalag Luft
III.
This decree led to thousands being executed, and it’s been estimated that between 1300
and over 5000 people were executed in the wake of the escape order, and the majority
of these prisoners were from the Soviet Union.
Less questions were asked with regards to escaped Soviet prisoners, and for this they
were shot instantly.
To escape a concentration camp, or a prisoner of war camp was seen by the Germans as a very
serious thing.
Those who managed to get out and were captured were often dealt with incredibly brutally,
for example Mala Zimetbaum who along with her boyfriend escaped Auschwitz were executed
in public.
Her boyfriend was hanged in front of 100s of other prisoners, and Mala herself as she
defied right up until the very end was even its rumoured to have been cremated alive at
the orders of Maria Mandl, a brutal and horrific concentration camp guard.
Those who managed to escape and never be recaptured told of the horrific treatment inside of the
camps, but the Nazis used different methods to execute those escapees.
Hitler viewed the Soviet’s as the worst of the worst in terms of his enemies, as he
saw Bolshevism and communism as the direct enemies of Nazism.
Because of this, Soviet POW’s were known to have been treated terribly, and also many
were executed in public for resistance or defiance inside of concentration camps.
When Field Marshal Keitel issued Action Kugel, he stated that escaped Soviet officers were
to be transported from their place of imprisonment en mass to Mauthausen Concentration Camp.
Mauthausen itself was known as being one of the most disturbing camps within the Third
Reich, with the main camp based in near a quarry where prisoners were forced to conduct
back breaking work on a daily basis with little food.
Because of the decree, 5700 soviet officers were then transported to the camp.
Many of those who were sent there did not even manage to enter the barbed wire fences,
as upon being offloaded from trucks or the train they were shot indiscriminately.
Those prisoners who found themselves imprisoned at Mauthausen were then transported to the
Mulhviertler sub camp, and were then imprisoned inside of Block number 20 there.
Block 20 was heavily guarded, as it was isolated from the rest of the camp by a 2.5 metre fence
topped with barbed wire, and also along the perimeter fence protecting the block were
three towers.
Inside of these were guards armed with machine guns who would fire at prisoners for any indiscretion.
The prisoners inside of Block 20 were kept off record too, and they were not registered
there, and they were treated terribly.
They were given hardly any food, roughly a quarter of what other prisoners at Mauthausen
were given which the rations given in the camp itself were inadequate.
The conditions inside the specific block were incredibly basic, as there was no heating
and there was no windows or bunks.
Prisoners were forced to be locked inside the dark with no beds, sleeping on the floor
and the block was also very overcrowded and cramped.
Because of this it was easy for disease to spread.
The SS officers treated the prisoners with such distain, during one clean up of the barrack
which was hosed down with water, they forced in the middle of winter the prisoners to lie
in the wet floor.
Whilst this happened the SS men walked on them in their boots as they did not want to
get their boots dirty, showing that they would rather trample on the prisoners.
In terms of the daily activities of Block 20, there were not really allowed to work
with other prisoners.
Instead they were forced to spend all day completing exercise drills, including running
non stop around the barrack blocks.
It was considered the death barrack, and at the time it held around 1800 prisoners.
Each day up to 20 people died such was the hardness, and at the end of January 1945 with
the war turning against the Germans only 570 soviet prisoners remained inside of Block
20.
However this is where they began to plan a huge mass escape attempt.
Under the cover of nightfall and darkness on February 2nd 1945, around 500 prisoners
from Block 20 decided to make a break for it.
They used fire extinguishers from the barracks along with blankets and boards from the wooden
hut to launch at the watch towers, and one group attacked a watch tower whilst the wet
blankets and clothing were attached to the electrified fence.
This created a short circuit, and allowed the prisoners to then climb the fence.
The escape attempt was done over a few hours, and 419 prisoners managed to escape the grounds
of the camp, but a number were too weak to get to the woods on the outskirts of the camp.
The winter’s evening also slowed them down as snow was all around.
Once the escape attempt was realised, the SS guards then tried to stop as many as they
could, and they managed to shoot a number of those who escaped with their machine guns,
including those who collapsed from exhaustion.
These were dying people who were willing to give their lives for one possible attempt
at freedom as they were going to die inside of the camp anyway.
The SS camp commandant ordered a huge search of the local area, and he convinced local
people to help to hunt down the escapees.
The soviet prisoners were hunted also by SA groups, members of the Hitler Youth and also
the Wehrmacht.
For the commandant the escape attempt was a disgrace on his record, and he was furious
that anyone could escape his watch.
The SS ordered also that the Gendarmerie should not bring anyone back to the camp alive, ordering
the execution of anyone who was captured.
This led to a huge hunting squad, armed with rifles and guns in a sense stalking their
targets who were unarmed, in basic clothing and hiding to survive in the winters cold.
It was the hunting vs the hunted.
As the days went on, more and more of the escapees were hunted and the commandant’s
orders to not bring anyone back alive were adhered to.
It was quite clear who was an escapee due to their clothes and emaciated state, and
once captured they were killed in brutal ways.
Some were firstly beaten savagely by the guards sometimes to death before being shot.
But when the escapees realised they were found, they often ran and were shot dead like game
or deer.
Around 40 murdered corpses were taken to Ried in der Riedmark, where the search was being
co-ordinated from, and it was said that the corpses were stacked in a pile, ‘like the
bag at an autumn hunt,’ drawing comparisons once again to hunting.
Those people who brought prisoners back alive to Mauthausen were often angrily told off
for not having beaten them to death instead.
Around 300 survived the first night, and 57 returned to the camp, however over the course
of three weeks of searching, it was estimated that over 300 had been executed.
It’s estimated that over 480 people were shot in the wake of the escape attempt, but
only 11 who escaped managed to survive.
A number of local families and civilians sheltered those who escaped, or even brought food to
those who were hiding in the woods.
This was incredibly risky as if they were found doing this, the families too would have
been killed.
3 months later the war ended, and they were then free.
Following the war, Hugo Tacha a Wehrmacht officer was convicted for his role in the
executions and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and today a memorial to the escapees
marks the massacre.
The Muhlviertler Rabbit Hunt was seen as a horrific war crime in which around 500 tried
to escape, but ultimately more than 489 soviet POWs were executed.
There were less than a dozen who survived, and it’s remembered today as a unique mass
escape attempt that occured at one of the harshest concentration camps used in the Third
Reich.
Once again thanks for watching.
To support our channel please make sure ti subscribe.
Once again thanks for watching.