Criminal orders (Nazi Germany)

Criminal orders is the collective name given to a series of orders, directives and decrees given before and during the German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II by the Wehrmacht High Command. The criminal orders went beyond established codes of conduct and led to widespread atrocities on the Eastern Front.

Orders

• Barbarossa decree, issued 13 May 1941
• Guidelines for the Conduct of the Troops in Russia, issued 19 May 1941
• Commissar Order, issued 6 June 1941
• Orders Concerning the Deployment of the Security Police and the Security Service within Military Formations, issued 28 April 1941
• Orders relating to the treatment of prisoners of war, issued June to December 1941

See also

• Commando Order
• Myth of the clean Wehrmacht
• Severity Order
• War crimes of the Wehrmacht

Bibliography

• Heer, Hannes; Manoschek, Walter; Pollak, Alexander; Wodak, Ruth (2008). The Discursive Construction of History: Remembering the Wehrmacht's War of Annihilation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780230013230.
• Bartov, Omer (1986). The Eastern Front, 1941–1945, German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare. New York: St. Martins Press. ISBN 0312224869.
• Beorn, Waitman (2014). Marching into Darkness. London, UK: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-72550-8.