On the 5th January 1946 in Leningrad, a city that had suffered heavily during the Second
World War a number of men were led out to a large gallows structure which has been created
inside of a square in the ruins of Leningrad near to a market.
Each of the 8 men who were stood under the gallows had the nooses fastened around their
necks by a Soviet executioner, but to those thousands of people who looked on, these men
were some of the most evil war criminals.
These condemned soldiers were former members of the German army, and one was even a major
General and they had been responsible for the horrific slaughter of civilians inside
of Soviet villages as the German army invaded and rampaged following the launching of Operation
Barbarossa.
Each of the 8 men had been found guilty of a number of different crimes, and to the Soviets
they represented the evil horror of the nazi regime.
But one by one the men were executed on the gallows.
Join us today as we look at the BRUTAL executions of the German soldiers of Leningrad and as
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Operation Barbarossa was launched by the German Army on the 22nd June 1941, and it was the
largest land offensive in history with 10 million soldiers taking part.
No-one would have anticipated that Hitler would launch an invasion on the Soviet Union
to begin with, as he actually signed a non aggression pact with Stalin, and the pair
had agreed to not fight each other for allegedly a decade.
But this was broken, as Hitler’s whole belief was to rampage to the East and he wanted to
destroy communism, but during the course of Operation Barbarossa, 3.8 million Axis soldiers
entered the western Soviet Union along a front of around 3000 kilometres, and they were supported
by 600,000 vehicles and more than 600,000 horses.
This opened up the Eastern Front which became the bloodiest theatre of the Second World
War, and saw some of the biggest battles in history.
But the crimes that the Nazis and the Germans committed inside of the Soviet Union were
endless.
For example the Nazis would starve to death and deliberately kill over 3 million Soviet
Prisoners of War, and millions of civilians died from starvation in mass food shortages.
But following the German Army was a paramilitary death squad known as the einsatzgruppen.
These were soldiers who were there to round up civilians and execute them.
The Einsatzgruppen’s crimes were horrific, and they would force many to dig their own
graves before they were shot in these pits and still many of their crimes have no been
uncovered and their victims still lie under the ground.
Further horror’s occurred as the German Army would abuse civilians and they would
burn and raze settlements to the ground as well as loot when they could.
Hitler had specifically given orders for commissars to be shot immediately without trial, and
mass killings occurred every single day.
The citizens of Leningrad were subjected to a hard and rough ordeal during the Second
World War, as they would experience a siege that lasted 872 days and with this over a
million people would starve to death.
Around 400,000 of these victims were children younger than 14, and the German and Finnish
blockade of the city cut off food supplies, fuel and materials and rations sunk to a very
low amount.
There was hardly any good to go around, and Soviet civilians were forced to eat pets and
others resulted allegedly to cannibalism.
There were 2,000 arrested for eating human flesh during the siege.
There was a huge amount of suffering, and Leningrad became the site of the most lethal
siege in world history.
The city had also suffered from German bombardment from the skies also, as bombers would rain
down on the city and thousands were killed by these German bombs.
Artillery bombardment also hit the city, and the city was in ruins.
The siege was eventually lifted, but the city was scarred with the horror of what had happened.
The sentiment of those who witnessed what happened inside of Leningrad led to the belief
that the Germans were completely evil, and after the war there was a significant amount
of reprisal wanted against those enemies of the Soviets.
But at the end of the war, Leningrad became the site where 8 German soldiers who had committed
crimes inside of the Soviet Union were executed in the square.
11 Germans were tried in this trial which occurred inside of Leningrad, and most of
them had committed crimes in the Pskov region.
It’s not known specifically why these Germans were collected in this group, and why they
were taken to Leningrad for their trial.
It may have been a propaganda effort because of the horror that occurred in the city during
the war.
8 of these men were sentenced to death.
The most senior of those condemned was Major General Heinrich Remlinger, who would during
the war order 14 expeditions of German soldiers who would rampage in the Pskov region and
would burn villages down.
He was linked to the slaughter of 8000 people mostly women and children, and documents discovered
linked him to this as well as testimony from witnesses.
His soldiers shot over 200 people in Karamyshevo, and 200 more were burned alive in wooden buildings
in Utorgosh.
The horrors of Remlinger’s troops were many more.
Another condemned man was Captain Strufing Karl, who shot 25 people in the Ostrov region.
He ordered his men to shoot children and young boys with machine guns, and he was known for
shooting 200 people with his own weapons himself.
Oberfeldwebel Engel Fritz was part of a platoon that would burn 7 villages, and these men
shot 80 people and burned 100 in houses and in sheds, and the horrors of Fritz’s actions
were told to the court room.
Oberfeldwebel Ernst Bohm was found guilty of burning down villages such as Krivets,
Olkhovka and others in which around 60 were shot dead, and Bohm shot 6 himself.
Leftenant Eduard Sonnenfeld went on the rampage from December 1943 to February 1944 and he
burnt villages with his men.
In Zapolye his men killed 40, and in another village names Seglitsy, Sonnenfeld’s men
ordered civilians to dig trenches and then they forced them in as his men threw grenades
into the trench.
Sonnenfeld took part in the executions and the court reached the conclusion that he himself
had killed around 200 soviet civilians with his own hand.
Janike Gergard was a soldier and was not of any rank, but in the village of Malye Luzi,
88 civilians mostly women were driven into a barn and were burned, and Gergard was linked
to personally slaughtering over 300 people.
Soldier Erwin Ernst was also involved in burning villages, and he killed 100 mostly women and
children.
The final man who was condemned for his crimes was known as Erwin, and he was involved in
the executions of 150 people and in Luga he burned 50 homes, and then was involved in
burning other villages and around 200 houses.
These German soldiers and officers were seen by the Soviets after the Second World War
as the ultimate evil, especially following the experiences of those who had lived through
the Leningrad siege.
Their trial was covered by the Leningrad press, and newspapers each day documented what happened.
But as mentioned those men were sentenced to death, and a gallows had been created in
Leningrad on the square near the Kondratyevsky market.
The crowds on the 5th January 1946 gathered near to the gallows for the executions of
the German soldiers, and to those who would witness the executions it was a justified
execution.
They had seen how the Germans treated the Soviet civilians and they knew first hand
the horrors that had occurred.
These were people who had been shot at by artillery fire and bombed by aircraft of the
Luftwaffe, but they were there to see reprisal and revenge.
The crowd was large, and then the Germans were brought out.
Each of them were paraded in front of the crowd, and they did remain calm in their final
moments.
But General Heinrich Remlinger was not as calm, and he looked for a way out, but there
was not one and he went to his execution not as calm as the others.
If he would have broke from the executioners then it’s possible that he would have been
torn to pieces by the Leningrad population.
There was no sympathy for these men, and the executioner and the officials then announced
the crimes of each of the men.
What struck some was that these were men who had slaughtered many, many of those who were
women and children.
The Germans had been loaded onto the backs of vehicles and lorries, which had been reversed
under the gallows inside of the square.
Each one then had the noose tied around their necks, and then when all of the men had been
secured to the gallows, the vehicles then slowly drove off.
This led to the Germans now swinging from the gallows in the air, and they were left
hanging until they were killed.
After the crowds left, a Soviet guard was left to protect the remains which were left
and some boys threw ice at the executed bodies, and the guard did not prevent this.
The witnesses did not cheer, but there was a sense of justification and revenge for this
German soldiers who were executed that day.
The city of Leningrad suffered heavily during the Second World War, and the civilians in
the city who died during the siege was around 1 and a half million, but there was a huge
death toll also for the Red Army, and also the Germans.
It was one of the bloodiest events of the Second World War, and the levels that the
people of the city had to sink during the siege led to many believing that after the
end of the war that executions against German soldiers and officers were completely justified.
These men who were executed were not involved in the siege, and they were not involved in
the attacks on the city, but they were involved in attacks against Soviet civilians and villages
in regions hundreds of miles away.
To those civilians of Leningrad, all of these men were evil and there is no doubt that their
actions were horrific, and that their actions led to the slaughter of innocent people.
But the deaths of those germans on the scaffold in the centre of Leningrad was seen by some
as a small reprisal for the horrors that they experienced.
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