Commissar Order

Commissar Order
Chef des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht · Public domain · source
Name	Commissar Order
Date issued	June 6, 1941
Issued by	Adolf Hitler, OKW, Heer (Wehrmacht)
Jurisdiction	Eastern Front (World War II)
Subject	Treatment of Soviet political commissars and partisans

Commissar Order

The Commissar Order was a 1941 directive issued in the run-up to Operation Barbarossa that prescribed the summary execution of captured Soviet political commissars and influenced Wehrmacht conduct on the Eastern Front (World War II), shaping interactions among the Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS, OKW, and OKH. It intersected with plans by Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Walther von Brauchitsch, and Friedrich Paulus and became a focal point in later Nuremberg Trials, postwar historiography, and debates involving Hans Frank, Ernst von Weizsäcker, and scholars of war crimes.

Background and Origin

The directive emerged amid strategic planning for Operation Barbarossa, linked to discussions at Führer Headquarters with Adolf Hitler, Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl, Franz Halder, and Erwin Rommel; it reflected ideological conflict between Nazism, Communism, and perceptions shaped by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Spanish Civil War, and intelligence assessments from Abwehr and Sicherheitsdienst. Concerns about partisan warfare, memories of the Winter War, and experiences in the Invasion of Poland (1939) influenced advisors including Ernst von Weizsäcker and Walter Warlimont to prioritize ruthlessness. Military planners debated directives with leaders of Heer (Wehrmacht), Waffen-SS, Reichssicherheitshauptamt, and OKW staff officers such as Walther von Brauchitsch and legal advisers tied to Reich Ministry of Justice.

Text and Directives

The written order directed frontline units to identify and execute personnel designated as political officers, aligning with parallel instructions from Heinrich Himmler and Reich Main Security Office policies toward Jewish Commissars and suspected Bolsheviks. The language of the order invoked classifications used by Soviet Union leadership and referenced roles within the Red Army and Soviet institutions such as the People's Commissariat for Defence and figures like Kliment Voroshilov and Yakov Sverdlov in propaganda framing. Issued alongside memoranda from OKW and discussions at Wolfsschanze, it was distributed to divisional commanders including members of the General Staff (Germany), corps commanders, and brigade leaders in units such as the 1st Panzer Division and 6th Army (Wehrmacht). The order intersected with other directives including the Barbarossa Decree and security orders from Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei.

Implementation and Compliance

Implementation varied across formations from strict enforcement by some Waffen-SS and Police Battalion 101 units to selective application by certain Wehrmacht commanders like Feldmarschall Fedor von Bock and battalion leaders. Compliance was shaped by command climate, examples set at headquarters such as Army Group North, Army Group Centre, and Army Group South, and interactions with Einsatzgruppen detachments led by figures like Heinrich Müller and Otto Ohlendorf. Field documentation shows incidents near Smolensk, Bialystok, Kiev, and Leningrad where captured Red Army commissars were executed immediately or transferred to Gestapo custody. Resistance to the directive occurred in some units under commanders like Günther von Kluge and through protests by officers citing the Laws of War (1907) and military honor, while orders from higher echelons—transmitted by staff officers such as Friedrich Paulus—often compelled obedience.

Impact on Military Conduct and Atrocities

The directive contributed to the erosion of legal protections for prisoners and intersected with broader genocidal and counterinsurgency policies enacted by Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Einsatzgruppen, SS-Totenkopfverbände, and Heinrich Himmler's apparatus, amplifying massacres of political prisoners, POWs, and civilians in occupied territories like Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. It operated alongside the Final Solution infrastructure, facilitating coordination with Reich Main Security Office and local collaborators including anti-Soviet formations and units such as the Cossack units and auxiliary police. The order influenced incidents during sieges and encirclements—examples include operations around Vyazma, Kursk (precursor actions), and Kharkov—and complicated relations between professional officers and ideologically driven elements within the Waffen-SS. Contemporary Soviet reports and later archives from the Foreign Office and War Crimes Office document patterns linking the order to higher rates of extrajudicial killings and reprisals.

Legal and Ethical Responses

Legal advisers in the Reich Ministry of Justice and some military jurists argued the directive contravened customary law under instruments like the Hague Conventions and prior rulings involving military tribunals; protests reached figures including Carl Schmitt-associated jurists and legal officers in the OKH. Ethical objections came from conservative monarchists, Catholic military chaplains linked to the Confessional Church, and diplomats in embassies such as those of Switzerland and neutral states who noted violations. International denunciations by the Soviet Union and later Allied governments framed the order within broader counts of systematic violations, influencing postwar legal frameworks like the development of definitions employed at the International Military Tribunal and shaping debates in postwar bodies including the United Nations and emerging International Criminal Law discourse.

Postwar Trials and Historical Assessment

The directive was examined during the Nuremberg Trials, particularly in prosecutions targeting leaders of the OKW, Reichssicherheitshauptamt, and Waffen-SS; defendants such as Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl, and Ernst Kaltenbrunner faced evidence linking issuance and complicity. Subsequent trials, including those in the High Command Trial and proceedings against Einsatzgruppen leaders like Otto Ohlendorf, referenced the order as indicative of criminal policy. Historians—among them Ian Kershaw, Omer Bartov, Timothy Snyder, Richard J. Evans, Gerhard Weinberg, Christopher Browning, and Andreas Hillgruber—have debated its role in Wehrmacht criminality, contributing to literature across archives in Bundesarchiv, National Archives (United Kingdom), United States National Archives and Records Administration, and Russian State Military Archive. Contemporary assessments weigh documentary evidence from the OKW files, testimonies at trials, and unit war diaries to evaluate responsibility among military and political leaders, influencing reconciliation and memory in countries such as Germany, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

Category:World War II war crimes