Holocaust Nonsense #2: Improbable German Atrocities against Soviet POWs

In yet another instance of ludicrous claims being made about the Germans in World War II. I quote a British assertion regarding bestial German conduct to captured Soviet soldiers.

This is reproduced from the wildly popular history of 'Nazi atrocities' named 'The Scourge of the Swastika' authored by Edward Russell (aka Lord Russell of Liverpool) who was a key figure in the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crime Trials.

I quote:

'Many instances of brutality towards Russian prisoners of war have been investigated and confirmed. Some were tortured with bars of red-hot iron; their eyes gouged out, their stomachs ripped open; their feet, hands, fingers, ears, and noses hacked off, mutilation more suited to Mau-Mau savagery than German Kultur.

After the Germans had retreated on the Dnieper, the bodies of a Russian battalion commander and his commissar were found. Their arms and legs had been nailed to stakes and on their bodies five-point stars had been cut, apparently with knives; lying near them was the body of another Russian soldier, his feet had been burnt and his ears cut off.

Captured female hospital nurses and orderlies were frequently abused and violated. Large numbers of Russian prisoners near Smolensk were bayoneted or shot where they lay awaiting treatment.' (1)

This is sort of thing that one would expect in the lurid horror fiction of the day. It also smacks of World War One anti-German propaganda from the British and French, which produced a slew of similar claims about bestial German treatment of Belgians.

I mean think about it for a minute. These are non-sourced anecdotal claims – in spite of the broad appeal to authority by Russell (for which he doesn't even produce an actual reference) – and as such should be treated with scepticism anyway.

The implication Russell is making is that the Germans tortured and/or bayoneted to death captured Soviet soldiers, while raping and murdering captured local women. However if you think about a lot of the injuries described (i.e., body parts being hacked off and hands burnt). Then it isn't difficult to realize that these are the sort of fatal injuries that are common enough in chaotic combat situations and so therefore could very easily have just been normal casualties of war if these bodies even existed.

While claims that German soldiers staked Soviet officers to the ground and tortured them are possible of course. The fact that we don't have any actual evidence to support such an assertion – which the USSR had every reason to fabricate for purposes of war propaganda incidentally – suggests that while it could plausibly have happened; it is extremely improbable that it did and no evidence has actually been offered to prove its authenticity.

This is in complete juxtaposition to the Wehrmacht who had a secret and significant war crimes bureau operating throughout the war documenting all instances of alleged or real occurrences of this kind in infinitesimal detail. (2) The Soviets had nothing like this and most of their war crimes investigation were undertaken with propandistic intent and gave rise to a lot of what we now regard as 'Holocaust history'.

References

(1) Edward Russell, 1972, [1956], 'The Scourge of the Swastika', 14th Edition, Corgi: London, p. 57

(2) Cf. Alfred de Zayas, 1989, 'The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1945', 1st Edition, University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln