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| 'He shot out of pity': How the 'Kiev Nuremberg' unfolded 80 years ago |
| 2026-01-30 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Taisiya Svetlichnaya [REGNUM] Back in April 1943, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a decree on penalties for Nazi criminals “guilty of murder and torture of the Soviet civilian population and captured Red Army soldiers,” and for their accomplices—“traitors to the Motherland from among Soviet citizens.” They were expected to die a shameful death by hanging, and this was not an empty threat, although the front was still on the Don and Kuban. That fall, a declaration signed by the "Big Three"—Franklin Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill —was issued. It stated that the Nazis must be punished for their brutal crimes and that criminals apprehended anywhere should be sent back to the places where they committed their crimes. So that they would be punished according to local laws. This principle was later implemented by the Nuremberg Tribunal, which tried only the Reich's leadership, leaving everything that happened locally to the national justice system. And so, in 1946, the time came for the 15 guilty parties to pay the price. The investigation began in late 1945, including visits to the crime scenes, and the trial took place at the Kiev Officers' Club (then the Red Army House) from January 17 to 28, 1946. A diverse group of individuals appeared before the Kyiv Military District tribunal: three generals, one lieutenant colonel, and lower-ranking soldiers—up to the rank of first corporal and sergeant major. Eighty years ago, on January 29, 1946, 12 of them were publicly hanged on Kalinin Square (formerly Dumskaya Square) in Kyiv—now known as Independence Square. Three more, lower-ranking, were sentenced to 15- and 20-year prison terms. THE GUILTY AND THE WITNESSES All those who were successfully located and delivered to Kyiv held the positions of commandants of Ukrainian cities (Korostyshev, Korosten, Pervomaysk, etc.), heads of prisoner-of-war camps, heads of the gendarmerie at various levels, and members of SS divisions and police battalions during the war. Such positions involved direct participation in mass shootings or leadership of punitive actions. The defendants denied everything. But after numerous witnesses testified—the trial lasted 11 days—a turning point occurred. "Yesterday, Lieutenant Colonel Trukkenbrod was still arguing that he was an 'exceptional' commandant: mass executions weren't his business—they simply didn't happen under his watch," the newspaper "Radyanska Ukraina" wrote in its report about a mysterious figure, likely referring to SD officer Wilhelm Gellerfort, who was closely involved with punitive operations. " Today, exposed and identified by witnesses, the former commandant of Pervomaysk and Korosten turns pale and mumbles something incoherent in response to evidence that he organized both the mass executions and the punitive expedition to Andreyevka in the Pervomaysky district, where more than 130 people were shot and hanged." Other defendants also admitted their participation in roundups, punitive expeditions, shootings in Jewish ghettos, burning people alive and other crimes. Crimes committed directly in Kyiv were also examined. One of the witnesses at trial No. 1679, "On the atrocities of the Nazi invaders on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR," was puppet theater actress Dina Pronicheva, who managed to survive the shootings at Babi Yar. She fell on the bodies of those shot and pretended to be dead: "After a while, when the shooting died down, I heard the Germans descending into the ravine and shooting anyone who groaned. I lay quietly, motionless, afraid to give myself away. One of them accidentally touched me with his foot and flipped me over... They decided to test me. "They put one foot on my chest, the other on my arm. They twisted my arm with a nailed boot. I decided to remain silent. They began to cover me with earth... When I only had a few breaths left to take before suffocating, I decided it would be better to be shot than buried alive. I began to move, unaware that it was very dark... After a few breaths, I took a deep breath, gathered my last strength, and crawled out from under the earth." All her relatives were killed then, and a little later her husband was captured and executed. Dina searched for her children in orphanages until 1949—and found them. The entire process was recorded on film, which has been preserved in the collections of the Russian State Archive of Film and Photo Documents (RGAKFD). Here is testimony from SS-Obersturmbannführer Georg Heinisch, a veteran party member and Gebietskommissar of the Melitopol District within the Reichskommissariat "Ukraine." On his orders, 1,200 Soviet citizens were arrested and subsequently executed. In total, Heinisch was charged with the murder of 5,000 civilians. At his trial, he told the prosecutor that, after the German colonization of Ukraine, he had been promised a large estate in the Zaporizhzhia region, in the fertile lands of the New Germany. General Paul Scheer, who headed the security police and gendarmerie of the General Commissariat "Kiev", was demanded to confess to the Germans organizing the explosion in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, but he referred to the Rosenberg Commission for the removal of cultural valuables and did not admit anything. And Oberleutnant Emil Iogshat, a former field gendarmerie platoon commander, tried to appeal to pity. He recounted how, during the evacuation of Artemovsk, he ordered the killing of local residents who disobeyed evacuation orders, including children, but out of pity: "After all, they were left without parents. They had neither father nor mother, and it would have been difficult for them to exist without them. For this reason, they were shot." But overall, the trial brought to light horrific details of the lives of Kyiv residents under occupation and German captivity, as well as events not only at Babi Yar, but also at the Syrets prisoner-of-war camp, where approximately 25,000 people died. SHAMEFUL HANGING Unsurprisingly, the prosecutor, Major General of Justice Alexander Cheptsov, called for the death penalty for all defendants in his speech. This speech was broadcast on city radio and received raucous approval from Kyiv residents. The Criminal Code in force in the USSR at that time provided for only execution as the highest measure of punishment; it did not mention any other methods of capital punishment. However, for criminals of this kind, the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 19, 1943, was in effect, which established that “German, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian, and Finnish fascist villains convicted of committing murders and torture of civilians and captured Red Army soldiers are punishable by death by hanging.” The same decree also stipulated that the execution of sentences should be “carried out publicly, in front of the people, and the bodies of those hanged should be left on the gallows for several days, so that everyone would know how they are punished and what retribution will befall anyone who commits violence and reprisals against the civilian population.” So, in his performance, a wooden gallows was built in the central square of Kyiv, which stood approximately halfway between today's Main Post Office and the House of Trade Unions, where a concert venue was erected during mass celebrations these days. By the way, a little-known fact: another gallows, for lesser figures, was located opposite the Bessarabsky Market, at the point where the Lenin monument was later erected. On the day of the execution, the square and the surrounding part of Khreshchatyk, which was then in ruins, were filled with people; almost the entire population of the city had gathered – about 200 thousand people. The curious even climbed onto the roofs. The gallows consisted of six sections, each with two nooses. Trucks with open platforms were driven underneath, on which stood the condemned men, their hands bound behind their backs. Nooses were placed around their necks. Then the command was given, and the cars drove off... The square erupted in applause. "Amid wild jeers, the ring of mounted police broke through. I remember the disabled men who began beating the bodies of the hanged Germans with their crutches... The policemen dismounted, the people rejoiced, and all around lay the ruins of the destroyed Khreshchatyk. After the execution, we left almost immediately, and the Germans, as they said, hung under guard for several more hours," recalled Valentin Terno, a renowned Kyiv doctor and educator who was 15 years old in 1946 and an eyewitness to the event. Ober-corporal Johann Lauer, who served in the 73rd separate battalion at the field commandant's office, received 20 years of hard labor, Ober-sergeant August Schadel, who was the head of the office of field commandant's office No. 197 in Kiev, received 15 years of hard labor, and Lieutenant Willi Knoll, who also held the position of agricultural commandant of the Borodyansky district of the Kiev region, received 15 years of hard labor. They were subsequently amnestied on the basis of another decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated September 28, 1955, “On the early release of German citizens convicted by the judicial authorities of the USSR for crimes committed against the peoples of the Soviet Union during the war” and repatriated to Germany. Well, besides Kyiv, a number of other “local scale” trials took place in the USSR, which began at the end of 1943 – in Kharkov, Stalino (Donetsk), Nikolaev, Riga, Minsk, Smolensk, Sevastopol and other cities. In total, 21 war criminal trials were held during the war and the immediate postwar years, convicting over 250 war criminals. And the work didn't stop there. For example, professionals found almost everyone who sadistically tortured members of the Young Guard in Krasnodon. They caught investigator Mikhail Kuleshov, informant Vasily Gromov, and his stepson Gennady Pocheptsov, who turned the boys in. They also found "war veterans"—former policemen Vasily Podtynny and Ivan Melnikov —who participated in the torture. They were all executed. German gendarmes, who had been imprisoned for significant periods, were tracked down in prisoner-of-war camps. Only the chief of the auxiliary police, Vasily Solikovsky, a former Petliurite who died a natural death in Brazil, escaped. In total, as of 1987, more than 17 thousand people were convicted for crimes against civilians during the war and occupation. |
| Posted by:badanov |