Throughout the Second World War and before, to desert from your post was considered very
shameful.
During World War 1, the British Army executed many people who deserted and were convicted
of this crime and also cowardice.
These executions known as the shot at dawn executions were heavily criticised after the
conflict, but during the Second World War there was a collection of German deserters
who were shot dead, even after the Germans had surrendered to the Allies and Hitler had
taken his life inside of the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin.
The story of these men who were executed is a rather interesting one, as it was believed
that they were illegally court martialled.
There were many accounts of men of the German armed forces being executed after the war.
Many were deemed war criminals, and a large portion of those executed were men and women
who worked inside of concentration camps.
But there were other soldiers who were found guilty of being members of the military who
conducted large scale atrocities and mass killings.
However what is the story of the German Deserters who were shot dead on the 13th May 1945?
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Throughout the Second World War, it is believed that 22,500 German soldiers were sentenced
to death for desertion, and around 15,000 were shot or were guillotined.
Around 5000 others were condemned for defeatism or for subverting national defence, which
included actions such as criticising Hitler or assuming that the war was over.
Many of those who were convicted ended up dying inside of prisons before their execution
date came.
Today the German government look at cases of these people on an individual basis and
some people have been pardoned, but the German authorities were certain as to what the punishment
should be for those who were considered deserters.
It was said that, ‘The soldier can die, the deserter must die,’ and as the war was
turning against the Wehrmacht following huge defeats at Stalingrad and in North Africa,
desertion became a rather serious issue in the Wehrmacht’s ranks.
The problem got worse after the Normandy Invasions and the advances made towards the German heartland,
and it was believed that by the end of the war there were more than 100,000 German deserters.
These were men who left their post and abandoned the fight.
Some fled the battlefield, and many took strong actions against their homeland, for example
Stefan Hampel when witnessing the murder of Jews in Belarus, he burned his German army
uniform and then joined a polish resistance group in Lithuania.
Hampel was later arrested and was condemned to death but managed to survive.
Others who deserted fell victim to court martials, and many were convicted without any evidence.
Many were shot on sight if they mentioned anything that was anti-hitler, and it was
said that, ‘Military justice was above all political justice serving to stabilise nazi
power and to prolong the war.’
Another example of a deserter was a man named Baumann who managed to escape France.
He stole a pistol and a flashlight, and left Bordeaux in civilian clothes, however along
with another man he was caught by guards at a border crossing.
On the 30th June 1942, three judges sentenced the deserters to die in the name of the German
people.
However this man’s father managed to get the sentence commuted to 12 years in prison,
but Baumann was later sent to serve in a punishment battalion who fought against the might of
the red army.
But there was one rather infamous case of deserter executions which are today known
as the 13th May 1945 German deserter execution.
This was a series off executions that occurred 5 days after Nazi Germany had surrendered
to the allies along with the Wehrmacht.
This specific case was when an illegal court martial took place, with a group of disarmed
German officers who had been kept under Allied guard acting as the judge and also jury.
The allied forces in the Netherlands and specifically Amsterdam used these German officers to have
a trial against two former German deserters from the Kriegsmarine, named Bruno Dorfer
and Rainer Beck.
The pair had been caught deserting from the German Navy, and there were many who did do
this during the conflict especially towards the end of the war.
So the allied authorities held this trial with German POWs acting as the judges, and
the show trial took place inside an abandoned Ford Motor Company assembly plant found outside
of Amsterdam.
This place at the time was being used as a prisoner of war camp which was then being
looked after and run by the Canadian Army.
It was said of the trial that, ‘Under a dubious interpretation of international law,
Canadian military authorities permitted a continuation of the German military structure
after the demise of the Third Reich.
German assistance was indispensable in the disarmament, concentration, and evacuation
of the German armed forces within Holland.
Unfortunately, disinterested Canadian military authorities also left the German military
in control of order and discipline.
German commanders and military judges applied a military law warped by National Socialism.’
During this trial inside of the former ford factory, the German officers found the 2 members
of the kriegsmarine as guilty of desertion and with this they condemned them to death.
After all this was an illegal court, and following this the Nazi German prisoners of war, then
gathered a firing squad made up of their own men to carry out the death sentence.
The Canadian Army overseers gave the German POWs German rifles and also a three ton truck
given to them by the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada.
They were then given an escort by a platoon of Canadian soldiers.
They were led towards a firing squad which had been assembled.
What is bizarre with this incident is that the Canadian Army and the allied forces allowed
in theory the enemy to take the lives of some of their own soldiers, after the Germans had
surrendered.
In the firing range the men were secured before the German POWs armed with their rifles were
told to ready themselves.
They were then given the go ahead to fire into the two deserters, and with this incident
the German deserters were shot dead and were killed.
The justification behind this event is that the Canadian military authorities felt that
they had to listen to the Germans and get them on side, as they had a huge task of disarming
and evacuating the German armed forces in the Netherlands.
They needed them to be disciplined and not rebel against them, and with this they allowed
the execution 5 days after the surrender was signed, almost saying that German military
law was in existence after the surrender, and that the German officers wanted to punish
people who they believed had brought shame to their country.
Joseph Goebbels and his ministry of Propaganda had managed to convince most of the Germans
and Civilians as well as the military that they were doing the right thing.
They were convicted they were fighting for the greater good, and with this they saw deserters
who went against this as the lowest criminals that there was.
There was a larger amount of desertion in the final days of the war when it was clear
to the German soldiers within Germany that they were about to lose the war.
Despite this, Hitler called upon the Volksturm, a fighting group of civilians who were armed
with whatever they could get their hands on to defend the fatherland.
But thousands of Germans did surrender at the end of the war to the enemy and they were
then put into prisoner of war camps.
So as mentioned German deserters inside of Germany were considered the most terrible
people, as they had gone against Hitler and the war effort.
There were many episodes of deserters who were executed using the guillotine and firing
squads, but the British and Americans looked more favourable upon those who refused to
fight or left their post.
They seemed to have moved on from what occurred during the First World War with the shot at
dawn executions, but the executions that took place on the 13th May 1945 were rather bizarre
and strange.
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