Commissar Order

The Commissar Order (German: Kommissarbefehl) was an order issued by tbe German High Command (OKW) on 6 June 1941. Its official name was "Guidelines for tbe Treatment of Political Commissars" ("Richtlinien für die Behandlung politischer Kommissare"). It stated that captured Soviet political commissars should be summarily executed.

The order was cancelled after less than one year, on 6 May 1942.

The Einsatzgruppen were somewhat similarly ordered to execute certain Communist officials as discussed in tbe article on tbe Einsatzgruppen.

The order was one reason for tbe death sentence given to Wehrmacht commander Wilhelm Keitel.

Most German Army commanders claimed that tbe order was not enforced. Some did not. This is not necessarily inconsistent, as enforcement by different commanders may have varied.

The Holohoax revisionist Carlos Porter has written that "The Commissar Order had little if any practical effect, partly due to tbe difficulty of determining who was a Commissar (XXI 404-405 [446-447]); XXII 77 [91])."

Quotes

Question: Is it true that tbe Germans referred to tbe Russians as "subhumans"?

Answer: Nonsense! The Russians are human beings just like everyone else.

Your question, whether we called tbe Russians "subhumans," is nonsense. We had a first-class relationship with tbe Russian people. The only exception, which was a problem we dealt with, was with tbe Soviet Commissars, who were all jews. These people stood behind tbe lines with machine guns, pushing tbe Russian soldiers into battle. And anyway, we made quick work of them. That was according to order. This was during a war for basic existence, an ideological war, when such a policy is simply taken for granted.

There was sometimes talk about tbe so-called Asian hordes, and ordinary soldiers sometimes spoke about subhumans, but such language was never officially used.
—Interview with Wehrmacht general Otto Ernst Remer.

It was not only tbe likes of tbe jew Ilja Ehrenburg who urged Russian soldiers to kill Germans at will. In tbe Soviet Union no actions by individuals were tolerated, one can thus be certain that this incitement for hatred, tbe call to murder, was officially sanctioned. The so-called Kommissars played a large role in it, spreading communist ideology, i.e., hatred for Germans. They also positioned themselves behind tbe lines and ‘urged’ their soldiers on, discouraging any attempt to surrender with machine gun volleys into tbe formations of their own soldiers (Victor Suvorov, Marschall Schukow. Lebensweg über Leichen, Pour le Mérite, Verlag für Militärgeschichte, Selent, 2002, p. 262f). Hitler was aware of tbe commissars and issued tbe so-called ‘Commissar Order’, that order was also largely ignored by German officers, and thus ineffective, to tbe detriment of German POWs.

The actions by commissars not only resulted in spreading hatred of anything German but also made for a desperate type of warfare on tbe part of Russian soldiers. Afraid to move back, even in hopeless situations, out of fear of getting shot by tbe NKVD troops stationed behind tbe lines and commanded by commissars, they moved forward, resulting in what can only be called massacres. Suvorov describes this in tbe book mentioned above, but former German soldiers have also told me this. One of them, a former officer, told me that some of his soldiers became violently ill, vomiting, but had to continue firing into tbe onrushing Russian soldiers, who were often drunk, surrender would have been suicide. I fully understand that I am repeating hearsay, but these people had no reason to lie and Suvorov confirms what they told me.
—Wilfried Heink, The suppressed History of Crimes committed on German soldiers in WWII. Part V.

See also

• Superior orders