page_title: War crimes of the Wehrmacht
section_title: Massacres of Polish POWs
hierarchical_section_title: War crimes of the Wehrmacht / Poland / Massacres of Polish POWs
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Polnische Kriegsgefangene exekutiert durch Soldaten des Infanterie-Regiment (mot.) 15 in Ciepielów am 09.September 1939 English: About 300 Polish prisoners of war executed by the soldiers of the German 15th motorized infantry regiment in Ciepielów on September 9th, 1939. Polski: Egzekucja około 300 polskich jeńców wojennych przez żołnierzy niemieckiego 15-stego pułku zmotoryzowanego; Ciepielów, 9 IX 1939.
context_page_description: During World War II, the Germans' combined armed forces committed systematic war crimes, including massacres, mass rape, looting, the exploitation of forced labor, the murder of three million Soviet prisoners of war, and participated in the extermination of Jews. While the Nazi Party's own SS forces of Nazi Germany was the organization most responsible for the genocidal killing of the Holocaust, the regular armed forces of the Wehrmacht committed many war crimes of their own, particularly on the Eastern Front in the war against the Soviet Union. According to a study by Alex J. Kay and David Stahel, the majority of the Wehrmacht soldiers deployed to the Soviet Union participated in war crimes.
context_section_description: Numerous examples exist in which Polish soldiers were killed after capture; for instance, at Śladów, where 252 prisoners of war (POW)s were shot or drowned, at Ciepielów, where some 300 POWs were killed, and at Zambrów, where a further 300 were killed. Polish POWs of Jewish origin were routinely selected and shot on the spot.
  The prisoners in the POW camp in Żyrardów, captured after the Battle of the Bzura, were denied any food and starved for ten days. In many cases Polish POWs were burned alive. Units of the Polish 7th Infantry Division were massacred after being captured in several individual acts of revenge for their resistance in combat. On September 11, Wehrmacht soldiers threw hand grenades into a school building where they kept Polish POWs. According to German historian Jochen Böhler, the Wehrmacht mass murdered at least 3,000 Polish POWs during the campaign.
  The killing of POWs by Wehrmacht soldiers started during the September 1939 Poland campaign. In many cases large groups of Polish soldiers were murdered after capture. Hitler's Commando Order, issued in 1942, provided "justification" for the shooting of enemy commandos, whether uniformed or not.
caption: About 300 Polish POWs executed by the soldiers of the German 15th motorized infantry regiment in Ciepielów on September 9, 1939.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.10.8", "Image DateTime": "2019:03:13 15:21:12", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "158", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "252", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "256", "Thumbnail BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail PhotometricInterpretation": "6", "Thumbnail SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "320", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "16449", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB"}