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War crimes perpetrated by the armed forces of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union from 1919 to 1991 include acts committed by the Red Army (later called the Soviet Army) as well as the NKVD, including the NKVD's Internal Troops. In some cases, these crimes may have been committed on express orders of Joseph Stalin and the early Soviet government's policy of Red Terror. In other instances, they were committed without orders by regular army troops as retribution against civilians or military personnel of countries that had been in conflict with – or had invaded – the USSR (for example as revenge for Nazi war crimes), or during partisan warfare.

Many of these incidents occurred in Northern and Eastern Europe before and during World War II, and involved summary executions and mass murder of prisoners of war (such as the Katyn massacre) and mistreatment of civilians in Soviet-occupied territories. Although there are numerous documented cases of such incidents, very few members of the Soviet armed forces and leaders such as Vassili Kononov, Lavrentiy Beria have ever been charged with war crimes and none of them by the International Criminal Court or Soviet or Russian tribunal.

Background

The Soviet Union did not recognize Imperial Russia's signing of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 as binding, and refused to recognize them until 1955. This created a situation in which war crimes by the Soviet armed forces could be eventually rationalized. The Soviet refusal to recognize the Hague Conventions also gave Nazi Germany the rationale for inhuman treatment of captured Soviet military personnel.

Russian Civil War

Although early Soviet leaders treated anti-Semitism with "utter contempt" and strong efforts were made by Soviet authorities to contain anti-Jewish bigotry, some Red Army units perpetrated pogroms during the Russian civil war and the Soviet-Polish War of 1919–1920, notably at Baranovichi.

However, only a small number of pogroms are attributed to the Red Army, with the vast majority of 'collectively violent' acts in the period having been committed by anti-Communist and nationalist forces. The pogroms were vigorously condemned by the Red Army high command and guilty units were disarmed, while individual pogromists were court-martialed. Those found guilty were executed.

The Red Army and the NKVD

The Red Army often gave support to the NKVD, which had as one of its functions the implementation of political repression. The main function of the NKVD was to protect the state security of the Soviet Union, which was accomplished by large scale political repression of "class enemies". As an internal security force and prison guard contingent of the Gulag, the Internal Troops both repressed political dissidents and engaged in war crimes during periods of military hostilities throughout Soviet history. They were specifically responsible for maintaining the political regime in the Gulag and for conducting mass deportations and forced resettlement. The latter targeted a number of ethnic groups that the Soviet authorities presumed to be hostile to its policies and likely to collaborate with the enemy, including Chechens, Crimean Tatars, and Koreans.

During World War II, series of mass executions were committed by the Soviet NKVD against prisoners in Eastern Europe, primarily Poland, the Baltic states, Romania, Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union as the Red Army withdrew after the German invasion in 1941 (see Operation Barbarossa). The overall death toll is estimated at around 100,000. There were numerous reports of war crimes committed by Soviet armed forces, against captured German Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe soldiers from the very beginning of the war, documented in thousands of files of the The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1945, an office established in September 1939 to investigate violations of the Hague and Geneva conventions by Germany's enemies. Among the better documented massacres are those at Broniki (June 1941), Feodosiya (December 1941) and Grishino (1943). NKVD Internal Troops were engaged alongside Red Army forces in combat and NKVD units were used for rear area security, including as blocking units. In the occupied territory, the NKVD carried out mass arrests, deportations and executions. The targets included both collaborators with Germany and the members of anti-Communist resistance movements such as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in Ukraine, the Forest Brothers in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and the Polish Armia Krajowa. The NKVD also conducted the Katyn massacre, summarily executing over 20,000 Polish military officer prisoners in April and May 1940.

After the final repulse of German forces in the Soviet Union, Red Army troops entered Germany, Romania and Hungary in late 1944. Soviet soldiers were by then aware of the German war crimes and often executed surrendering or captured German soldiers in retaliation. There were numerous accounts of war crimes by Soviet armed forces – plunder, the murder of civilians and rape. In both Soviet-era and current Russian history books on the "Great Patriotic War" these war crimes are rarely mentioned.

War crimes by Soviet armed forces against civilians and prisoners of war in the territories occupied by the USSR between 1939 and 1941 in regions including the Western Ukraine, the Baltic states and Bessarabia in Romania, along with war crimes in 1944–1945, have been ongoing issues within these countries. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a more systematic, locally-controlled discussion of these events has taken place.

The Soviets deployed mustard gas bombs during the Soviet invasion of Xinjiang. Some civilians were killed by conventional bombs during the invasion.

World War II

Estonia

Estonia was illegally annexed by the Soviet Union on 6 August 1940 and renamed the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1941, some 34,000 Estonians were drafted into the Red Army, of whom less than 30% survived the war. No more than half of those men were used for military service, the rest perished in Gulag concentration camps and labour battalions, mainly in the early months of the war. After it became clear that the German invasion of Estonia would be successful, political prisoners who could not be evacuated were executed by the NKVD, so that they would not be able to make contact with the Nazi government. More than 300,000 citizens of Estonia, almost a third of the population at the time, were affected by deportations, arrests, execution and other acts of repression. As a result of the Soviet takeover, Estonia permanently lost at least 200,000 people or 20% of its population to repression, exodus and war.

Soviet political repressions in Estonia were met by an armed resistance by the Forest Brothers, composed of former conscripts into the German military, Omakaitse militia and volunteers in the Finnish Infantry Regiment 200 who fought a guerrilla war, which was not completely suppressed until the late 1950s. In addition to the expected human and material losses suffered due to the fighting, until its end this conflict led to the deportation of tens of thousands of people, along with hundreds of political prisoners and thousands of civilians lost their lives.

Mass deportations

Tens of thousands of Estonian citizens underwent deportation during the Soviet occupation. Deportations were predominantly to Siberia and Kazakhstan by means of railroad cattle cars, without prior announcement, while deported were given few night hours at best to pack their belongings and separated from their families, usually also sent to the east. The procedure was established by the Serov Instructions. Estonians residing in Leningrad Oblast had already been subjected to deportation since 1935.

Destruction battalions

In 1941, to implement Stalin's scorched earth policy, destruction battalions were formed in the western regions of the Soviet Union. In Estonia, they killed thousands of people including a large proportion of women and children, while burning down dozens of villages, schools and public buildings. A school boy named Tullio Lindsaar had all of the bones in his hands broken then was bayoneted for hoisting the flag of Estonia. Mauricius Parts, son of the Estonian War of Independence veteran Karl Parts, was doused in acid. In August 1941, all residents of the village of Viru-Kabala were killed including a two-year old child and a six-day old infant. A partisan war broke out in response to the atrocities of the destruction battalions, with tens of thousands of men forming the Forest Brothers to protect the local population from these battalions. Occasionally, the battalions burned people alive. The destruction battalions murdered 1,850 people in Estonia. Almost all of them were partisans or unarmed civilians.

Another example of the destruction battalions' actions is the Kautla massacre, where twenty civilians were murdered and tens of farms destroyed. Many of the people were killed after torture. The low toll of human deaths in comparison with the number of burned farms is due to the Erna long-range reconnaissance group breaking the Red Army blockade on the area, allowing many civilians to escape.

Lithuania

Lithuania, and the other Baltic States, fell victim to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. This agreement was signed between the USSR and Nazi Germany in August 1939; leading first to Lithuania being invaded by the Red Army on 15 June 1940, and then to its annexation and incorporation into the Soviet Union on 3 August 1940. The Soviet annexation resulted in mass terror, the destruction of civil liberties, the economic system and Lithuanian culture. Between 1940–1941, thousands of Lithuanians were arrested and hundreds of political prisoners were arbitrarily executed. More than 17,000 people were deported to Siberia in June 1941. After the German attack on the Soviet Union, the incipient Soviet political apparatus was either destroyed or retreated eastward. Lithuania was then occupied by Nazi Germany for a little over three years. In 1944, the Soviet occupation of Lithuania resumed following the German army being expelled. Following World War II and the subsequent suppression of the Lithuanian Forest Brothers, Soviet authorities executed thousands of resistance fighters and civilians accused of aiding them. Some 300,000 Lithuanians were deported or sentenced to prison camps on political grounds. It is estimated that Lithuania lost almost 780,000 citizens as a result of Soviet occupation, of which around 440,000 were war refugees.

The estimated death toll in Soviet prisons and camps between 1944 and 1953 was at least 14,000. The estimated death toll among deportees between 1945 and 1958 was 20,000, including 5,000 children.

During the Lithuanian restoration of independence in 1990, the Soviet army killed 13 people in Vilnius during the January Events.

Poland

1939–1941

In September 1939, the Red Army invaded eastern Poland and occupied it in accordance with the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Soviets later forcefully occupied the Baltic States and parts of Romania, including Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.

Soviet policy in all of these areas was harsh towards the people under its control, showing strong elements of ethnic cleansing. NKVD task forces followed the Red Army to remove "Soviet-hostile elements" from the conquered territories. Polish historian Tomasz Strzembosz has noted parallels between the Nazi Einsatzgruppen and these Soviet units. Many tried to escape from the Soviet NKVD; those who failed were taken into custody and afterwards deported to Siberia and vanished into the Gulag.

Torture was used on a wide scale in various prisons, especially those in small towns. Prisoners were scalded with boiling water in Bobrka; in Przemyslany, people had their noses, ears, and fingers cut off and eyes put out; in Czortkow, female inmates had their breasts cut off; and in Drohobycz, victims were bound together with barbed wire. Similar atrocities occurred in Sambor, Stanislawow, Stryj, and Zloczow. According to historian Jan T. Gross:

"We cannot escape the conclusion: Soviet state security organs tortured their prisoners not only to extract confessions but also to put them to death. Not that the NKVD had sadists in its ranks who had run amok; rather, this was a wide and systematic procedure."

During the years 1939–41, nearly 1.5 million inhabitants of the Soviet-controlled areas of former eastern Poland were deported, of whom 63.1% were Poles or other nationalities and 7.4% were Jews. Only a small number of these deportees survived the war. According to American professor Carroll Quigley, at least one third of the 320,000 Polish prisoners of war captured by the Red Army in 1939 were murdered.

It's estimated that around 35 thousand Polish prisoners were killed either in prisons or on prison trail to the Soviet Union in few days after 22 June 1941 (prisons: Brygidki, Zolochiv, Dubno, Drohobych, and so on).

1944–1945

In Poland, Nazi atrocities ended by late 1944, but they were replaced by Soviet oppression with the advance of Red Army forces. Soviet soldiers often engaged in plunder, rape and other crimes against the Poles, causing the population to fear and hate the regime.

Soldiers of Poland's Home Army (Armia Krajowa) were persecuted, sometimes imprisoned and in many cases, executed, following staged trials. In 1945 alone the number of members of the Polish Underground State deported to Siberia and various labor camps in the Soviet Union reached 50,000.

Units of the Red Army carried out campaigns against Polish partisans and civilians. During the Augustów chase in 1945, more than 2,000 Poles were captured and about 600 of them are presumed to have died in Soviet custody. For more information about postwar resistance in Poland see the Cursed soldiers.

The attitude of Soviet servicemen towards ethnic Poles was better than towards Germans. The scale of rape of Polish women is only a matter of guessing (see Rape during the liberation of Poland). In Kraków, the Soviet entry into the city was accompanied by mass rapes of Polish women and girls, as well as the plunder of private property by Red Army soldiers. This behavior reached such a scale that even Polish communists installed by the Soviet Union were preparing to send a letter of protest to Joseph Stalin himself, while church masses were held in expectation of a Soviet withdrawal.

In October 2013 a 26 year-old Polish art student Jerzy Bohdan Szumczyk erected a statue next to a Soviet WWII memorial in the Polish city of Gdansk. The statue shows a Soviet soldier attempting to rape a pregnant woman; he is pulling her hair whilst he pushes a gun into her mouth. Authorities removed the artwork because it had been erected without an official permit, but there was widespread interest in many online publications. The act promoted an angry reaction from the Russian ambassador in Poland.

Finland

Between 1941–1944, Soviet partisan units conducted raids deep inside Finnish territory, attacking villages and other civilian targets. In November 2006, photographs showing atrocities were declassified by the Finnish authorities. These include images of slain women and children. The partisans usually executed their soldier and civilian prisoners after a minor interrogation.

Around 3,500 Finnish prisoners of war, of whom five were women, were captured by the Red Army. Their mortality rate is estimated about 40 percent. Most common causes of deaths were hunger, cold and oppressive transportation.

Soviet Union

Retreat by Soviet forces in 1941

Deportations, summary executions of political prisoners and the burning of foodstocks and villages took place when the Red Army retreated before the advancing Axis forces in 1941. In the Baltic States, Belarus, Ukraine, and Bessarabia, the NKVD and attached units of the Red Army massacred prisoners and political opponents before fleeing from the advancing Axis forces.

1943–1945

After the Battle of Stalingrad, a major turning point in the war, the Red Army steadily regained lost territory on the Eastern Front. This resulted in action against any person accused of being a collaborator during the German occupation. Civilians opposing Soviet occupation and repression were considered "collaborators". While in France this part of its history is generally well-documented, debated, and is the subject of academic review, very little is known or discussed about what happened in the path of the Red Army.

Germany

According to historian Norman Naimark, statements in Soviet military newspapers and the orders of the Soviet high command were jointly responsible for the excesses of the Red Army. Propaganda proclaimed that the Red Army had entered Germany as an avenger to punish all Germans.

Some historians dispute this, referring to an order issued on 19 January 1945, which required the prevention of mistreatment of civilians. An order of the military council of the First Byelorussian Front, signed by Marshal Rokossovsky, ordered the shooting of looters and rapists at the scene of the crime. An order issued by Stavka on 20 April 1945 said that there was a need to maintain good relations with German civilians in order to decrease resistance and bring a quicker end to hostilities.

Murders of civilians

On several occasions during World War II, Soviet soldiers set fire to buildings, villages, or parts of cities, and used deadly force against locals attempting to put out the fires. Most Red Army atrocities took place only in what was regarded as hostile territory (see also Przyszowice massacre). Soldiers of the Red Army, together with members of the NKVD, frequently looted German transport trains in 1944 and 1945 in Poland.

For the Germans, the organized evacuation of civilians before the advancing Red Army was delayed by the Nazi government, so as not to demoralize the troops, who were by now defending their own country. However, German civilians were well aware that the Red Army was attacking noncombatants from reports by their friends and relatives who had served on the Eastern front. Furthermore, Nazi propaganda — originally meant to stiffen civil resistance by describing in gory and embellished detail Red Army atrocities such as the Nemmersdorf massacre — often backfired and created panic. Whenever possible, as soon as the Wehrmacht retreated, local civilians began to flee westward on their own initiative.

Fleeing before the advancing Red Army, large numbers of the inhabitants of the German provinces of East Prussia, Silesia, and Pomerania died during the evacuations, some from cold and starvation, some during combat operations. A significant percentage of this death toll, however, occurred when evacuation columns encountered units of the Red Army. Civilians were run over by tanks, shot, or otherwise murdered. Women and young girls were raped and left to die.

In addition, fighter bombers of the Soviet air force flew bombing and strafing missions targetting columns of refugees.

While serving as an Red Army Captain in East Prussia, future Soviet dissident and Nobel Prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn commanded an artillery unit which participated in crimes against civilian noncombatants. In The Gulag Archipelago, he wrote, "There is nothing that so assists the awakening of omniscience within us as insistent thoughts about one's own transgressions, errors, mistakes. After the difficult cycles of such ponderings over many years, whenever I mentioned the heartlessness of our highest-ranking bureaucrats, the cruelty of our executioners, I remember myself in my Captain's shoulder boards and the forward march of my battery through East Prussia, enshrouded in fire, and I say: 'So were we any better?'"

The Red Army's violence against the local German population during the occupation of eastern Germany often led to incidents like that in Demmin, a small city conquered by the Soviets in the spring of 1945. Despite its surrender, nearly 900 civilians committed suicide, fueled by instances of pillaging, rape, and executions.

Although mass executions of civilians by the Red Army were seldom publicly reported, there is a known incident in Treuenbrietzen, where at least 88 male inhabitants were rounded up and shot on 1 May 1945. The incident took place after a victory celebration at which numerous girls from Treuenbrietzen were raped and a Red Army lieutenant-colonel was shot by an unknown assailant. Some sources claim as many as 1,000 civilians may have been executed during the incident.

Walter Kilian, the first mayor of the Charlottenburg district in Berlin after the war, who was himself placed in office by the Soviets, reported extensive looting by Red Army soldiers in the area: "Individuals, department stores, shops, apartments ... all were robbed blind."

In the Soviet occupation zone, members of the SED reported to Stalin that looting and rape by Soviet soldiers could result in a negative reaction by the German population towards the Soviet Union and towards the future of socialism in East Germany. Stalin reacted angrily: "I shall not tolerate anybody dragging the honour of the Red Army through the mud."

Accordingly, all evidence—such as reports, photos, and other documents of looting, rape, the burning down of farms and villages by the Red Army—was deleted from all archives in the future GDR.

A study published by the German government in 1989 estimated the death toll of German civilians in eastern Europe at 635,000. With 270,000 dying as the result of Soviet war crimes, 160,000 deaths occurring at the hands of various nationalities during the expulsion of Germans after World War II and 205,000 deaths in the forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union. These figures do not include at least 125,000 civilian deaths in the Battle of Berlin.

Mass rapes

Western estimates of the total number of rape victims range from tens of thousands to two million. According to Antony Beevor, following the Red Army's capture of Berlin in 1945, Soviet troops raped German women and girls as young as eight years old.

For decades, Western scholars have generally excused these atrocities in Germany and Hungary as revenge for German atrocities in the territory of the Soviet Union and for the mass killing of Soviet POWs (3.6 million dead out of total a 5.2 million POWs) by German armed forces. This explanation is now disputed by military historians such as Antony Beevor, at least with regard to the mass rapes. Beevor claims that Red Army soldiers also raped Russian and Polish women liberated from concentration camps, and contends that this undermines the revenge explanation.

Beevor's claims have encountered some criticism from historians in Russia and the Russian government. The Russian ambassador to the UK said "It is a disgrace to have anything to do with this clear case of slander against the people who saved the world from Nazism." O.A. Rzheshevsky, a professor and President of the Russian Association of World War II Historians, has charged that Beevor is merely resurrecting the discredited and racist views of Neo-Nazi historians, who depicted Soviet troops as subhuman "Asiatic hordes".

According to Russian historian Yelena Senyavskaya, the subject of mass rape by the Soviet Army in 1945 is one of the most widespread myths in the West. It started from Goebbels' propaganda and then was picked up during the Cold War by the former Western allies of the USSR. Senyavskaya criticizes the use of the estimations of the number of rape victims, arguing that these were derived by using a dubious method of calculation that does not hold up. According to her: "those found guilty of these crimes account for no more than two percent of the total number of servicemen. However, authors like Beevor spread their accusations against the entire Soviet Army."

Other prominent Western historians, such as Richard Overy, have criticized the viewpoint held by the Russians and defended Beevor. Overy accused the Russians of refusing to acknowledge Soviet war crimes, "Partly this is because they felt that much of it was justified vengeance against an enemy who committed much worse, and partly it was because they were writing the victors' history".

According to Norman Naimark, after the summer of 1945, Soviet soldiers caught raping civilians were usually punished to some degree, ranging from arrest to execution. However, Naimark contends that the rapes continued until the winter of 1947–48, when Soviet occupation authorities finally confined troops to strictly guarded posts and camps. Naimark also writes that not only did each victim have to carry the trauma for the rest of their days, but it also inflicted a massive collective trauma on the former East Germany. Naimark concluded that "The social psychology of women and men in the Soviet zone of occupation was marked by the crime of rape from the first days of occupation, through the founding of the GDR in the fall of 1949, until, one could argue, the present."

Hungary

During the Siege of Budapest in Hungary, some 40,000 civilians were killed, with an unknown number dying from starvation and diseases. During the occupation of the city, it is estimated that 50,000 women were raped, although estimates vary from 5,000 to 200,000. According to Norman Naimark, Hungarian girls were kidnapped and taken to Red Army quarters, where they were imprisoned, repeatedly raped and sometimes murdered.

A report by the Swiss legation in Budapest describes the Red Army's entry into the city:

During the siege of Budapest and also during the following weeks, Russian troops looted the city freely. They entered practically every habitation, the very poorest as well as the richest. They took away everything they wanted, especially food, clothing and valuables... every apartment, shop, bank, etc. was looted several times. Furniture and larger objects of art, etc. that could not be taken away were frequently simply destroyed. In many cases, after looting, the homes were also put on fire, causing a vast total loss... Bank safes were emptied without exception—even the British and American safes—and whatever was found was taken.

According to historian James Mark, memories and opinions of the Red Army in Hungary are mixed. Nationalists, conservatives and anti-Communists tend to demonized the Soviets, while Jews, left-wingers and liberals generally downplay stories of crimes.

Yugoslavia

Although the Red Army crossed into only the northeastern part of Yugoslavia in 1944, its activities there caused concern for the Yugoslav communist partisans, who feared that stories of rapes committed by their Soviet allies would weaken their standing with the population. According to Yugoslav politician Milovan Djilas, at least 121 cases of rape were documented, 111 of which also involved murder. A total of 1,204 cases of looting with assault were also documented. Djilas described these figures as, "hardly insignificant if it is borne in mind that the Red Army crossed only the northeastern corner of Yugoslavia.

Djilas writes that in response, Yugoslav partisan leader Joseph Broz Tito summoned the chief of the Soviet military mission, General Korneev, and formally protested. Despite having been invited "as a comrade", Korneev exploded at them for offering "such insinuations" against the Red Army. Djilas, who was present for the meeting, spoke up and explained the British Army had never engaged in "such excesses" while liberating the other regions of Yugoslavia. General Korneev responded by screaming, "I protest most sharply at this insult given to the Red Army by comparing it with the armies of capitalist countries."

The meeting with Korneev not only "ended without results", but caused Stalin to personally attack Djilas during his next visit to the Kremlin. In tears, Stalin denounced "the Yugoslav Army and how it was administered." He then "spoke agitatedly about the sufferings of the Red Army and about the horrors it was forced to undergo fighting for thousands of kilomenters through devastated country." Stalin climaxed with the words, "And such an Army was insulted by no one else but Djilas! Djilas, of whom I could least have expected such a thing, a man whom I received so well! And an Army which did not spare its blood for you! Does Djilas, who is himself a writer, not know what human suffering and the human heart are? Can't he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle?"

According to Djilas, Soviet refusal to address protests against Red Army war crimes in Yugoslavia enraged Tito's Government and was a contributing factor in Yugoslavia's subsequent exit from the Soviet Bloc.

Czechoslovakia (1945)

Slovak communist leader Vlado Clementis complained to Marshal Ivan Konev about the behavior of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia. Konev's response was to claim it was done mainly by Red Army deserters.

China

On 9 August 1945, the Soviet Union declared a war on Japan and launched an invasion of Japanese puppet state Manchukuo (Manchuria). Upon occupation of this territory, the Soviets laid claim to Japanese valuable materials and industrial equipment in the region. A foreigner witnessed Soviet troops, formerly stationed in Berlin, who were allowed by the Soviet military to go at the city "for three days of rape and pillage." Most of Mukden was gone. Convict soldiers were then used to replace them; it was testified that they "stole everything in sight, broke up bathtubs and toilets with hammers, pulled electric-light wiring out of the plaster, built fires on the floor and either burned down the house or at least a big hole in the floor, and in general behaved completely like savages."

According to some Western sources, the Soviets made it a policy to loot and rape civilians in Manchuria. The same Soviet troops from Germany had been sent to Manchuria and looted, killed and raped. In Harbin, the Chinese posted slogans such as "Down with Red Imperialism!" Soviet forces ignored protests from Chinese communist party leaders on their mass rape and loot policy.

Russian historian Konstantin Asmolov argues that such Western accounts of Soviet violence against civilians in the Far East are exaggerations of isolated incidents and the documents of the time don't support the claims of mass crimes. Asmolov also points out that the Soviets, unlike the Germans and Japanese, prosecuted their soldiers and officers for such acts.

Treatment of prisoners of war

Although the Soviet Union had not formally signed the Hague Convention, it considered itself bound by the Convention's provisions. Even so, torture, mutilation, and mass murder were frequently carried out.

Throughout the Second World War, the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau meticulously investigated reports of crimes against Axis POWs. According to Alfred Maurice de Zayas, "For the entire duration of the Russian campaign, reports of torture and murder of German prisoners did not cease. The War Crimes Bureau had five major sources of information: (1) captured enemy papers, especially orders, reports of operations, and propaganda leaflets; (2) intercepted radio and wireless messages; (3) testimony of Soviet prisoners of war; (4) testimony of captured Germans who had escaped; and (5) testimony of Germans who saw the corpses or mutilated bodies of executed prisoners of war. From 1941 to 1945 the Bureau compiled several thousand depositions, reports, and captured papers which, if nothing else, indicate that the killing of German prisoners of war upon capture or shortly after their interrogation was not an isolated occurence. Documents relating to the war in France, Italy, and North Africa contain some reports on the deliberate killing of German prisoners of war, but there can be no comparison with the events on the Eastern Front."

In a November 1941 report, the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau accused the Red Army of employing "a terror policy... against defenseless German soldiers that have fallen into its hands and against members of the German medical corps. At the same time... it has made use of the following means of camoflage: in a Red Army order that bears the approval of the Council of People's Commissars, dated 1 July 1941, the norms of international law are made public, which the Red Army in the spirit of the Hague Regulations on Land Warfare are supposed to follow... This... Russian order probably had very little distribution, and surely it has not been followed at all. Otherwise the unspeakable crimes would not have occured."

According to the depositions, Soviet massacres of German, Italian, Spanish, and other Axis POWs were often incited by unit Commissars, who claimed to be acting under orders from Stalin and the Politburo. Other evidence cemented the War Crimes Bureau's belief that Stalin had given secret orders about the massacre of POWs.

During the winter of 1941–42, the Red Army captured approximately 10,000 German soldiers each month, but the death rate became so high that the absolute number of prisoners decreased (or was bureaucratically reduced).

Soviet soldiers rarely bothered to treat wounded Germans POWs. A particularly infamous example took place when the Crimean city of Feodosia was briefly recaptured by Soviet forces on December 29, 1942. 160 wounded soldiers had been left in military hospitals by the retreating Wehrmacht. After the Germans retook Feodosia, it was learned that all wounded soldiers had been massacred by Red Army, Navy, and NKVD personnel. Some had been shot in their hospital beds, others clubbed to death, still others were found to have been thrown from hospital windows before being repeatedly drenched with freezing water until they died of hypothermia.

Soviet sources list the deaths of 474,967 of the 2,652,672 German Armed Forces taken prisoner in the War. Dr. Rüdiger Overmans believes that it seems entirely plausible, while not provable, that an additional German military personnel listed as missing actually died in Soviet custody as POWs, putting the estimates of the actual death toll of German POW in the USSR at about 1.0 million.

Some German prisoners were released immediately after the war. Many others, however, remained in the GULAG as late as 1956.

After World War II

Hungarian Revolution (1956)

According to the United Nations Report of the Special Committee on the problem of Hungary (1957): "Soviet tanks fired indiscriminately at every building from which they believed themselves to be under fire." The UN commission received numerous reports of Soviet mortar and artillery fire into inhabited quarters in the Buda section of the city, despite no return fire, and of "haphazard shooting at defenseless passers-by."

According to many witnesses, Soviet troops fired upon people queuing outside stores. Most of the victims were said to be women and children.

Czechoslovakia (1968)

During the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, 72 Czechs and Slovaks were killed (19 of those in Slovakia), 266 severely wounded and another 436 slightly injured.

Afghanistan (1979–1989)

Pressure in Azerbaijan (1988-1991)

Black January (Template:Lang-az), also known as Black Saturday or the January Massacre, was a violent crackdown in Baku on 19–20 January 1990, pursuant to a state of emergency during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and following pogroms and violence against the Armenian population in Baku.

In a resolution of 22 January 1990, the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan SSR declared that the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 19 January, used to impose emergency rule in Baku and military deployment, constituted an act of aggression. Black January is seen as the rebirth of the Azerbaijan Republic. It was one of the occasions during the glasnost and perestroika era in which the USSR used force against dissidents.

In media

• A movie A Woman in Berlin about war rapes in Berlin was made based on the diary by Marta Hillers.
• The Beast (1988) about the War of Afghanistan
• Katyń (2007) about the Katyn massacre

See also

• Allied war crimes during World War II
• Demmin
• Destruction battalions
• Einsatzgruppen
• Evacuation of East Prussia
• Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union
• German war crimes
• Japanese POWs in the Soviet Union
• Japanese war crimes
• List of Soviet Union perpetrated war crimes
• Mass graves in the Soviet Union
• Mass operations of the NKVD
• Nemmersdorf massacre
• NKVD prisoner massacres
• Operation Frühlingserwachen
• Population transfer in the Soviet Union
• Red Scare
• Soviet occupation
• War crimes and atrocities of the Waffen-SS
• War crimes of the Wehrmacht

Notes

1. "Der Umgang mit den Denkmälern." Brandenburgische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung/Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur des Landes Brandenburg. Regina Scheer: Documentation of State headquarters for political education / ministry for science, research and culture of the State of Brandenburg, p. 89/90
2. From a Swiss embassy report (Ungváry 2005, p. 350): "The worst suffering of the Hungarian population is due to the rape of women. Rapes — affecting all age groups from ten to seventy are so common that very few women in Hungary have been spared."

References

1. Statiev, Alexander (2010). The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands. Cambridge University Press. p. 277.
2. Hannikainen, Lauri; Raija Hanski; Allan Rosas (1992). Implementing humanitarian law applicable in armed conflicts: the case of Finland. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-7923-1611-4.
3. Grenkevich, Leonid D.; Glantz, David M. (1999). Glantz, David M. (ed.). The Soviet partisan movement, 1941-1944: a critical historiographical analysis. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-7146-4874-3.
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13. de Zayas, Alfred M., The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939–1945, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE, 1989, 3rd revised edition Picton Press, Rockland, Maine 2003
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27. Eesti rahva kannatuste aasta. Tallinn, 1996, p. 234.
28. Jüri Liim: Kautla lahingud
29. Mart Laar: Tavaline stalinism, printed in Postimees 16 August 2007
30. occupation of Lithuania Soviet occupation of Lithuania, Misplaced Pages
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32. International Commission For the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Mass Arrests and Torture in 1944-1953, pp. 2-3 (=10%+ of 142,579 arrested)
33. International Commission For the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Deportations of the Population in 1944-1953, paragraph 14
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40. Carroll Quigley, Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, G. S. G. & Associates, Incorporated; New Ed edition, June 1975, ISBN 0-945001-10-X
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42. "W czterdziestym nas Matko na Sibir zesłali". Polska a Rosja 1939-42. Wybór i opracowanie Jan Tomasz Gross, Irena Grudzińska-Gross. Wyd. I krajowe Warszawa 1990, Wyd. Res Publica i Wyd. Libra ISBN 83-7046-032-1., s.60.
43. Gottfried Schramm, Jan T. Gross, Manfred Zeidler et al. (1997). Bernd Wegner, ed. From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia and the World, 1939-1941. Berghahn Books. pp. 47–79. ISBN 1-57181-882-0.
44. Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Basic Books, 2010. ISBN 0-465-00239-0 p. 194
45. Grzegorz Baziur, "Armia Czerwona na Pomorzu Gdańskim 1945–1947" Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej” 2002, nr 7
46. Janusz Wróbel, "Wyzwoliciele czy Okupanci. Żołnierze Sowieccy w Łódzkim 1945–1946" Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej 2002, nr 7.
47. Łukasz Kamiński "Obdarci,głodni,żli, Sowieci w oczach Polaków 1944–1948" Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej 2002, nr 7
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50. Rzeczpospolita, 02.10.04 Nr 232, Wielkie polowanie: Prześladowania akowców w Polsce Ludowej (Great hunt: the persecutions of AK soldiers in the People's Republic of Poland). Retrieved June 7, 2006.
51. Agnieszka Domanowska, Mały Katyń. 65 lat od obławy augustowskiej,, Gazeta Wyborcza, 2010-07-20. Template:Pl icon
52. Joanna Ostrowska, Marcin Zaremba (2009-03-07). ""Kobieca gehenna" (The women's ordeal)". No 10 (2695) (in Polish). Polityka. pp. 64–66. Retrieved April 21, 2011. Generally speaking, the attitude of Soviet servicemen toward women of Slavic background was better than toward those who spoke German. Whether the number of purely Polish victims could have reached or even exceeded 100,000 is only a matter of guessing. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help) 
    Dr. Marcin Zaremba of Polish Academy of Sciences, the co-author of the article cited above – is a historian from Warsaw University Department of History Institute of 20th Century History (cited 196 times in Google scholar). Zaremba published a number of scholarly monographs, among them: Komunizm, legitymizacja, nacjonalizm (426 pages), Marzec 1968 (274 pages), Dzień po dniu w raportach SB (274 pages), Immobilienwirtschaft (German, 359 pages), see inauthor:"Marcin Zaremba" in Google Books.
    Joanna Ostrowska of Warsaw, Poland, is a lecturer at Departments of Gender Studies at two universities: the Jagiellonian University of Kraków, the University of Warsaw as well as, at the Polish Academy of Sciences. She is the author of scholarly works on the subject of mass rape and forced prostitution in Poland in the Second World War (i.e. "Prostytucja jako praca przymusowa w czasie II Wojny Światowej. Próba odtabuizowania zjawiska," "Wielkie przemilczanie. Prostytucja w obozach koncentracyjnych," etc.), a recipient of Socrates-Erasmus research grant from Humboldt Universitat zu Berlin, and a historian associated with Krytyka Polityczna.
53. ^ Rita Pagacz-Moczarska (2004). "Okupowany Kraków - z prorektorem Andrzejem Chwalbą rozmawia Rita Pagacz-Moczarska". Alma Mater, No 4 (in Polish). Jagiellonian University. Retrieved January 5, 2014. An interview with Andrzej Chwalba, Professor of history at the Jagiellonian University (and its prorector), conducted in Kraków by Rita Pagacz-Moczarska, and published by an online version of the Jagiellonian University's Bulletin Alma Mater. The article concerning World War II history of the city ("Occupied Krakow"), makes references to the fifth volume of History of Krakow entitled "Kraków in the years 1939-1945," see bibliogroup:"Dzieje Krakowa: Kraków w latach 1945-1989" in Google Books (ISBN 83-08-03289-3) written by Chwalba from a historical perspective, also cited in Google scholar. {{cite web}}: External link in |quote= (help); Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
54. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/16/polish-artist-in-hot-water-over-soviet-rapist-sculpture/
55. http://www.news.net/article/572837/Technology/
56. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/skulptur-einer-vergewaltigung-in-polen-schockiert-russischen-botschafter-a-928457.html
57. Helsingin Sanomat – International Edition – Home – Too awful an image of war
58. Iltalehti | Kuvagalleria: Partisaani-iskut
59. Iltalehti | Kuvagalleria: Venäläiset desantit ja pakenijat
60. Nikkilä, Reijo (2002). Alava, Teuvo; Frolov, Dmitri; Nikkilä, Reijo (eds.). Rukiver!: Suomalaiset sotavangit Neuvostoliitossa (in Finnish). Edita. p. 17. ISBN 951-37-3706-3.
61. Malmi, Timo (2005). "Jatkosodan suomalaiset sotavangit". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Jatkosodan pikkujättiläinen (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö. pp. 1022–1032. ISBN 951-0-28690-7.
62. article by Bogdan Musial: Ostpolen beim Einmarsch der Wehrmacht nach dem 22. Juni 1941 on the website of "Historisches Centrum Hagen"
63. Bogdan Musial: Konterrevolutionäre Elemente sind zu erschießen, Propyläen 2000, ISBN 3-549-07126-4 Template:De icon
64. Norman M. Naimark Cambridge: Belknap, 1995 ISBN 0-674-78405-7
65. http://actualhistory.ru/51
66. http://gpw.tellur.ru/page.html?r=books&s=beevor
67. http://svpressa.ru/war/article/8271/
68. ^ Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0-670-88695-5
69. ^ Documentary on German public TV (ARD) of 2005
70. Thomas Darnstädt, Klaus Wiegrefe "Vater, erschieß mich!" in Die Flucht, S. 28/29 (Herausgeber Stefan Aust und Stephan Burgdorff), dtv und SPIEGEL-Buchverlag, ISBN 3-423-34181-5
71. Ericson, The Solzhenitsyn Reader; New and Essential Writings, 1947-2006, page 266.
72. article in Berliner Zeitung of 1998
73. Claus-Dieter Steyer, "Stadt ohne Männer" (City without men) , Der Tagesspiegel at
74. Hubertus Knabe (2005). Tag der Befreiung? Das Kriegsende in Ostdeutschland (A day of liberation? The end of the war in Eastern Germany) (in German). Propyläen. ISBN 3-549-07245-7.
75. ^ Wolfgang Leonhard, Child of the Revolution ,Pathfinder Press, 1979, ISBN 0-906133-26-2 Cite error: The named reference "Leonhard, Revolution" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
76. Norman M. Naimark. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Harvard University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-674-78405-7
77. Vertreibung und Vertreibungsverbrechen 1945–1978. Bericht des Bundesarchivs vom 28 Mai 1974. Archivalien und ausgewälte Erlebenisberichte, Bonn 1989
78. Clodfelter, Michael, Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1500–2000, 2nd Ed. ISBN 0-7864-1204-6
79. Hanna Schissler The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949–1968
80. 'They raped every German female from eight to 80', The Guardian
81. Red Army troops raped even Russian women as they freed them from camps
82. telegraph.co.uk
83. telegraph.co.uk
84. Rzheshevsky, Oleg A. (2002). Берлинская операция 1945 г.: дискуссия продолжается. Мир истории (in Russian) (4). {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
85. Senyavskaya, Yelena, "Красная Армия в Европе в 1945 году в контексте информационной войны", histrf.ru, Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, retrieved 1 June 2014 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
86. Red Army rapists exposed
87. Naimark, Norman M. (1995). The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Cambridge: Belknap. p. 92. ISBN 0-674-78405-7.
88. Naimark 1995, p. 79.
89. Naimark 1995, pp. 132-133.
90. ^ Mark, James (August 2005). "Divided Social Memory and the Red Army in Hungary 1944–1945". Past and Present (188). Oxford University Press: 133–161. doi:10.1093/pastj/gti020.
91. Ungvary, Krisztian; Ladislaus Lob; John Lukacs (11 April 2005). The Siege of Budapest: One Hundred Days in World War II. Yale University Press. pp. 348–350. ISBN 0-300-10468-5.
92. Bessel, Richard; Schumann, Dirk (5 May 2003). Life After Death: Approaches to a Cultural and Social History of Europe. Cambridge University Press. p. 129. ISBN 0-521-00922-7.
93. Naimark, Norman M. (1995). The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Cambridge: Belknap. pp. 70–71. ISBN 0-674-78405-7.
94. Montgomery, John Flournoy (1947). Swiss Legation Report of the Russian Invasion of Hungary in the Spring of 1945. New York: The Devin Adair Co. p. Appendix III. ISBN 1-931313-57-1. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
95. Djilas (1962), Conversations with Stalin, Harcourt, Brace, & World, Inc., New York. pp. 88-89.
96. ^ Naimark (1995), pp. 70–71.
97. Djilas (1962), pp. 87-89.
98. Djilas (1962), page 95.
99. F. C. Jones (1949). "Chapter XII - Events in Manchuria, 1945-47". Manchuria since 1931 (PDF). London, Oxford University Press: Royal Institute of International Affairs. pp. 224–5 and pp.227–9. Retrieved 17 May 2012.
100. Hannah Pakula (2009). The last empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and the birth of modern China. Simon and Schuster. p. 530. ISBN 1-4391-4893-7. Retrieved 2010-06-28.
101. Dieter Heinzig (2004). The Soviet Union and communist China, 1945-1950: the arduous road to the alliance. M.E. Sharpe. p. 82. ISBN 0-7656-0785-9. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
102. Robyn Lim (2003). The geopolitics of East Asia: the search for equilibrium. Psychology Press. p. 86. ISBN 0-415-29717-6. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
103. Ronald H. Spector (2008). In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia. Random House, Inc. p. 33. ISBN 0-8129-6732-1. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
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105. Jacob Robinson. Transfer of Property in Enemy Occupied Territory. The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Apr., 1945), pp. 216-230
106. Isvestiya, 28 April 1942.
107. Bergström 2007, p. 18.
108. Hall and Quinlan 2000, p. 53.
109. Zayas (1990), The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1945, University of Nebraska Press. pp. 164-165
110. Zayas (1990), page 178.
111. Zayas (1990), pp. 162-210.
112. Hubertus Knabe Tag der Befreiung? Das Kriegsende in Ostdeutschland, Propyläen 2005, ISBN 3-549-07245-7
113. Zayas (1990), pp. 180-186.
114. Rossiiskaia Akademiia nauk. Liudskie poteri SSSR v period vtoroi mirovoi voiny:sbornik statei. Sankt-Peterburg 1995 ISBN 5-86789-023-6
115. Rüdiger Overmans. Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Oldenbourg 2000. ISBN 3-486-56531-1
116. United Nations Report of the Special Committee on the problem of Hungary (PDF). 1957.
117. "Springtime for Prague". Prague Life. Lifeboat Limited. Retrieved 30 April 2006.
118. Williams (1997), p 158
119. Kushen, Neier, p. 45
120. Hintergrund "Anonyma". Die ungeheure sexuelle Gewalt der Roten Armee (German)], Template:Ru icon

External links

• The forgotten victims of WWII: Masculinities and rape in Berlin, 1945, James W. Messerschmidt, University of Southern Maine
• Book Review: A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City, ISBN 0-8050-7540-2
• Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907
• Swiss legation report of the Russian invasion of Hungary in the spring of 1945
• German rape victims find a voice at last, Kate Connolly, The Observer, June 23, 2002
• "They raped every German female from eight to 80", Antony Beevor, The Guardian, 1 May 2002
• doi = 10.1093/pastj/gti020 Remembering Rape: Divided Social Memory and the Red Army in Hungary 1944–1945, James Mark, Past & Present (2005) (The crimes during the Battle of Budapest)
• Excerpt, Chapter one The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent 1945–2002 – William I. Hitchcock – 2003 – ISBN 0-385-49798-9 ( The occupation of East Prussia)
• Description of the atrocities of the Red Army in East Prussia, quotations from Ilya Ehrenburg, poems by anti-cruelty Red Army officers and details of suicides and rapings of German women and children in East Prussia.
• Book Review: The Siege of Budapest: 100 Days in World War II
• HNet review of The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949.
• Mark Ealey: As World War II entered its final stages the belligerent powers committed one heinous act after another History News Network (Focus on the Asian front)
• 27 Jan 2002 on-line article regarding author Antony Beevor's references to Soviet rapes in Germany
• Report of an eye witness: Erika Morgenstern, who survived Königsberg 1945 as a child (in German): part 1 on YouTube, part 2 on YouTube, part 3 on YouTube

References

• Marta Hillers, A Woman in Berlin: Six Weeks in the Conquered City Translated by Anthes Bell, ISBN 0-8050-7540-2
• Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0-670-88695-5
• Bergstrom, Christer (2007). Barbarossa – The Air Battle: July–December 1941. London: Chervron/Ian Allen. ISBN 978-1-85780-270-2. Bergstrom does make a point of noting that crimes against PoWs, and specifically against captured aircrew, were pretty universal in World War II.
• Hall and Quinlan (2000). KG55. Red Kite. ISBN 0-9538061-0-3
• Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944–1945, Chapter 10: Blood and Ice: East Prussia ISBN 0-375-41433-9
• Fisch, Bernhard, Nemmersdorf, Oktober 1944. Was in Ostpreußen tatsächlich geschah. Berlin: 1997. ISBN 3-932180-26-7. (about most of the Nemmersdorf atrocity having been set up by Goebbels)
• John Toland, The Last 100 Days, Chapter Two: Five Minutes before Midnight ISBN 0-8129-6859-X
• Norman M. Naimark, The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Harvard University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-674-78405-7
• Catherine Merridale, Ivan's War, the Red Army 1939–1945, London: Faber and Faber, 2005, ISBN 0-571-21808-3
• Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939–1945. Preface by Professor Howard Levie. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. ISBN 0-8032-9908-7. New revised edition with Picton Press, Rockland, Maine, ISBN 0-89725-421-X
• Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, A Terrible Revenge. The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944–1950, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1994, ISBN 0-312-12159-8
• Elizabeth B. Walter, Barefoot in the Rubble 1997, ISBN 0-9657793-0-0

• Aftermath of World War II in the Soviet Union and Russia
• Soviet World War II crimes
• War crimes committed by country