Massacre of Lviv Professors - Responsibility

Responsibility

According to an eyewitness the executions were made by an Einsatzgruppen unit (Einsatzkommando zur besonderen Verwendung) under the command of SS-Brigadeführer Karl Eberhard Schöngarth with the participation of Ukrainian translators, who were dressed in German uniforms.

The decision was taken by the highest level of the Third Reich authorities. The direct decision maker concerning the massacre was the commander of the Sicherheitspolizei (Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD- BdS) in Krakau District Generalgouvernement, Brigadeführer Karl Eberhard Schöngarth. The following Gestapo officers also participated: Heinz Heim (Chief of Staff Schöngarth), Hans Krüger, Walter Kutschmann, Kurt Stawizki, and Felix Landau. They were never punished for that crime. Walter Kutschmann lived under a fake identity in Argentina until January 1975, when he was found and exposed by journalist Alfredo Serra in the resort town of Miramar. He was arrested ten years later in Florida, Buenos Aires province, by Interpol agents, and died of myocardial infarction in jail before he could be extradited, on 30 August 1986.

Some sources contend that members of the Ukrainian auxiliaries from the Nachtigall Battalion were responsible for the murders. According to others, this claim originated with the Soviet sources (Soviet propaganda campaign against the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) and has been disputed. Memorial has published documents which claim to document the Nachtigall participation in those events as a KGB disinformation. Stanisław Bogaczewicz from the Institute of National Remembrance said that Nachtigall soldiers took part in the arrests, but not in the murders, and that their role in this event needs further investigation. Tadeusz Piotrowski notes that while Nachtigall role is disputed, they were present in the town during the events, their activities are not properly documented, and that at the very least they are guilty of the passive collaboration in this event, for not opposing the atrocities.

According to Lviv historian Vasyl Rasevych, the statement that Ukrainians participatied in the massacre of the Polish professors is nonsense and that no archival evidence exists regarding this.