What Happened to German Soldiers Who Refused to Execute Civilians during World War II?

According to David H. Kitterman’s study “Those Who Said ‘No!’: Germans Who Refused to Execute Civilians during World War II”, there were at least 85 documented cases of German soldiers, police or SS personnel who refused to take part in civilian and Soviet POW executions. In terms of consequences, the findings are surprising: over half (about 57.6 %) of these refusers experienced no negative consequence at all for their refusal. Only one individual was sent to a concentration camp because of his refusal (though even in that case the punishment was arguably ambiguous). Some others were transferred to combat units, reprimanded, or demoted, but death-sentences, execution or guaranteed harsh reprisals for refusal were not documented. Kitterman therefore concludes that while refusal was very rare, the often-assumed popular image of an automatic, uniform “shoot the refuser” mechanism appears not to hold up: he found “no conclusively documented instance of a life-threatening situation (shot, physically harmed, or sent to a concentration camp) occurring to those who refused”.
So in short: though refusing execution orders under the Nazi regime was clearly risky, Kitterman’s data suggest that many who did so escaped severe punishment — contrary to a widely-held belief of inevitable, harsh retribution.


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SOURCES
– Ordinary Men, Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Reserve Police Battalion 101 (Christopher Browning).
– Those Who Said "No!": Germans Who Refused to Execute Civilians during World War II (David H. Kitterman).
https://gwern.net/doc/history/1988-kitterman.pdf


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