Kragujevac Massacre - Arrests and The Massacre

Arrests and The Massacre

On 18 October 1941, all of the Jewish males in Kragujevac were arrested, and along with some alleged communists this group numbered about 70 men. As this number was insufficient to meet the quota, over the period of 18–21 October, the entire city was raided. Around 10,000 male civilians, aged 16–60, were arrested by German troops, members of the 5th Detachment of the Serbian Volunteer Command under the command of Marisav Petrović, and the Serbian State Guard. A whole generation of high school students was taken directly from their classes. The executions started at 6pm on the following day. People were shot in groups of 400. The shootings continued into the next day, at a lesser pace. The remaining prisoners were not released, but held as hostages for further reprisals. On 31 October 1941, Franz Böhme, the Commanding General in Serbia, sent a report to Walter Kuntze of the shootings that took place in Serbia: "Shooting: 405 hostages in Belgrade (total up to now in Belgrade, 4,750). 90 Communists in Camp Sebac. 2,300 hostages in Kragujevac. 1,700 hostages in Kraljevo."

Kuntze issued a directive on 19 March 1942: "The more unequivocal and the harder reprisal measures are applied from the beginning the less it will become necessary to apply them at a later date. No false sentimentalities! It is preferable that 50 suspects are liquidated than one German soldier lose his life... If it is not possible to produce the people who have participated in any way in the insurrection or to seize them, reprisal measures of a general kind may be deemed advisable, for instance, the shooting to death of all male inhabitants from the nearest villages, according to a definite ratio (for instance, one German dead 100 Serbs, one German wounded 50 Serbs)." Franz Böhme went on trial for the Kragujevac massacre among other war crimes.