The Lviv Pogroms Controversy (1941) - Allegations - Review of Investigation By Alfred-Maurice de Zayas (1979)

Review of Investigation By Alfred-Maurice De Zayas (1979)

In his book, The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1945, legal historian Alfred-Maurice de Zayas wrote that during the last 3 days of the Soviet occupation prior to the occupation by German forces on 29 June 1941, the Ukrainians of the Nachtigal battalion did not kill 5 to 6 thousand Jews in the city of Lviv.

"In the early hours of 30 June 1941 the Polish-Ukrainian city of Lvov was occupied by the 1st Mountain Division of the German 49th Army Corps. There was little resistance, since Soviet troops had already abandoned the area. The intelligence section of the 49th Army Corps observed in its first report, dated that same day: 'According to the account of Major Heinz, commander of a battalion of Regiment 800, thousands of brutally murdered persons were found in the Lvov prisons. The 1st and 4th Mountain Divisions are hereby ordered to assign journalists and photographers to cover these atrocities. The chief military judge of the Corps and the liaison officer of the Foreign Office with the High Command of the 17th Army have been sent to Lvov to carry out in-depth investigations.'".

According to de Zayas, one important non-German organization that participated in the investigations was the Ukrainian Red Cross. According to de Zayas, on 7 July 1941 the Ukrainian Red Cross addressed an appeal to the German city commander:

Over 4,000 corpses have been found in Lvov's prisons ... it is hardly possible to describe the condition in which the bodies were found ... ull of anguish and consternation because of the fate of all Ukrainians who remain in prisons and concentration camps throughout the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian Red Cross requests that the entire civilized world be informed by radio of theses atrocities. In particular we urge the Swiss, Swedish, and Dutch Red Cross societies to take measures to protect the lives of those who are endangered so that they may still be saved."

Zayas states that "the period prior to German occupation was dedicated to the mass killing" by what he claims as the "Jewish-dominated NKVD" of Ukrainians and Poles, and that "any Ukrainian-Polish murders" of thousands of Jewish civilians and Polish professors that took place during the German occupation, "were in retaliation for the NKVD massacres, and were of comparatively small scale".

According to Zayas, these massacres were carried out exclusively by Ukrainian and Polish civilians, and the German authorities came to the rescue of Jews from the local civilian population. He wrote:"In affidavits given for the Nuremberg defense, senior German officers who had been in Lvov briefly after its capture confirmed the SD and SS reports of the bodies found in the prisons and the reaction of local civilians, but also testified that the German military authorities had issued orders to prevent violence against the Jewish population ... General Egbert Picker: "In the courtyard of the state prison I saw many rows of corpses, laid next to each other, many of them with the most grotesque mutilations ... I also saw in a small courtyard ... some 15 corpses, apparently Jews who had been killed as reprisal by the local population shortly after the Russians evacuated the town ... Jews were being taken to the prison by local civilians wearing armbands, and in one case they were being beaten with a bat ... General Kübler ... told me ... that he had ordered such acts of violence by the civilian population against Jewish persons to be immediately stopped".

According to de Zayas, in the fall of 1959, the Soviet Ukrainian press unfairly accused German Nazis, including the Adenauer cabinet minister Theodor Oberländer, of participating in these murders in Lviv. Oberländer was an advising officer of the Nachtigall Battalion.

On 5 September 1959, the Radianska Ukraina newspaper wrote: "Eighteen years ago the fascists committed a horrendous crime in Lviv in the night of 29–30 June 1941. The Hitlerites arrested on the basis of prepared lists hundreds of Communists, Communist youth, and non-party members and murdered them in brutal fashion in the courtyard of the Samarstinov Prison." These accusations were picked up by the Western press and eventually led to Oberländer's resignation. An investigation by the district attorney's office in Bonn completely cleared Oberländer of these allegations.

According to de Zayas, an international commission was set up at The Hague in the Netherlands to carry out independent investigations. The members were four former anti-Hitler activists, Norwegian lawyer Hans Cappelen, former Danish foreign minister and president of the Danish parliament Ole Bjørn Kraft, Dutch socialist Karel van Staal, Belgian law professor Flor Peeters, and Swiss jurist and member of parliament Kurt Scoch. Following its interrogation of a number of Ukrainian witnesses between November 1959 and March 1960, the commission concluded:"After four months of inquiries and the evaluation of 232 statements by witnesses from all circles involved, it can be established that the accusations against the Battalion Nachtigall and against the then Lieutenant and currently Federal Minister Oberländer have no foundation in fact."

Veterans of the group testified that the Nachtigall Battalion was attached to the Wehrmacht and not to any SS formation and that during the 4 days in which the pogroms are claimed to have taken place (30 June to 3 July) they were relaxing and waiting for next military operation under Wehrmacht command.