Crimes of the final phase of the Second World War

The term commonly used in academic research is 'crimes of the final phase'. The terms 'final war crimes' or 'end of war crimes’ can also be found. The crimes of the final phase were mainly characterized by the fact that the end of the Second World War and thus the collapse of the Nazi state was palpable and within reach.

“Civil order broke down, bureaucratic and military hierarchies crumbled, competences and responsibilities were shifted to middle and lower decision-making levels, and the perpetrators acted autonomously. Crimes were increasingly committed as individual acts and outside the established machinery of prosecution Different personal motives and specific individual interests, even beyond ideological beliefs, became increasingly important for the use of lethal force. Decisions about life and death were frequently taken exclusively on the spot, often spontaneously or in the heat of emotion.” (Keller, p.4).

Definition of the Final Phase
In the post-war period, the ‘final phase’ was set by the legislature for the period from October 1, 1944 to July 31, 1945 and could have a mitigating effect for defendants (Impunity Act, July 17,1954). The long period can be explained by the advance of the Allied troops on the ‘Old Reich’ (the borders of the German Reich prior to the start of the annexations in 1938). Thus, it resulted in a long end phase of the war. At the end of March 1945 Allied troops reached the present borders of Bavaria, but Munich was only handed over to American troops on April 30, 1945. The approach of the front was often characterized by chaotic conditions, and acts of violence were due to the particular situation, which can be described with the keywords: dissolution, apocalyptic mood, hysteria, panic and willingness on the part of the Nazi rulers to use violence and terror to suppress defeatism.

Martial Law
Some of the executions were carried out according to martial law. Martial law was a simplified legal process introduced in various contexts and originating from the military sector. On April 11, 1945, readers in Munich of the Völkischer Beobachter found out that martial law had been declared over the Munich and Upper Bavaria Region. The sentence of the court under the chairmanship of Gauleiter Paul Giesler and with two assessors (each from the circle of the Nazi Party and the Wehrmacht, police or Waffen-SS), could be acquittal, the death penalty or referral to the ordinary courts. However, even these procedural rules were often not observed.

Number of Victims
Due to the dearth of sources, it is not possible to determine an exact number of victims. “Among the German civilian population, the total number of victims can be assumed to be between 750 and 1,000”, in the case of German soldiers the number of victims is “in the high four-figure, perhaps even five-figure range”, and among foreign forced laborers and prisoners of war the number of victims “must be assumed to be at least in the five-figure range” (Keller, pp. 51-53).

Suppression of the Freedom Action Bavaria uprising (FAB)
The crimes in the wake of the FAB uprising must also be seen in this context. In the night of April 27/28, 1945, the FAB occupied the radio stations Freimann and Ismaning  Radio appeals called on listeners to take action and eliminate Nazi functionaries. When SS units from Munich approached, FAB members left the transmitter sites and hid in the surrounding area. A short time later, the regional Gauleiter and the Mayor of Munich, Karl Fiehler broadcast their denials on the same frequency. This meant that listeners had to accept that the FAB had failed and no change in government had taken place.

Even during the FAB transmissions, the regional leadership had already started to prosecute suspected FAB supporters and sympathizers. A total of 22 people were taken to the bunker of the Central Ministry (today the Ministry of Agriculture) on Ludwigstraße. Of these, 15 were released, seven prisoners were killed, some in the courtyard of the building and the others in the Perlacher Forest, where another two bodies were found after the war.

According to the present state of knowledge, the radio appeals triggered a total of 78 acts of resistance in Munich and southern Bavaria. About 990 people took part in them. Their basic motive was to protect their neighborhood or town from acts of war and destruction. The acts of resistance ranged from the hoisting of white flags to the capture of Nazi functionaries or the handing over of towns to US troops. While 58 of the acts of resistance ended peacefully, 20 of them escalated: In four situations, FAB sympathizers threatened Nazi supporters. This resulted in three Nazis being shot in direct confrontations. In 16 further cases, people who had responded to the FAB calls for action, were killed by Nazi supporters. This brings the total number of fatalities to 57 people. In most cases, those taken prisoner were either shot or hanged on the spot without a summary court-martial. A similar basic pattern can be discerned in the sequence of events: Nazi supporters informed party offices, who called in soldiers of the People’s Storm, Wehrmacht or SS and helped to identify and prosecute the insurgents.

As in the Central Ministry, no martial law sentences had been handed down before the executions took place. The executions were mostly carried out by members of the armed forces summoned from outside the locality. After the end of the war, they justified their actions by saying they had simply obeyed orders and were themselves threatened with death if they had refused.