German war crimes The government of Germany ordered , organized and condoned innumerable war crimes in both World War I and World War II . The most notable of these is the Holocaust in which millions of people were murdered or died from abuse and neglect , 60 % of them ( approximately 6 million out of 10 million ) Jews . However , millions also died as a result of other German actions in those two conflicts . The true number of victims may never be known , since much of the evidence was destroyed by the perpetrators , by burning of bodies , murder of witnesses and destruction of documentation in an attempt to conceal the crimes . Pre - World War I . The Herero and Namaqua Genocide is considered to have been the first genocide of the 20th century . It took place between 1904 and 1907 in German South - West Africa ( modern day Namibia ) , during the scramble for Africa . On January 12 , 1904 , the Herero people , led by Samuel Maharero , rebelled against German colonial rule . In August , German general Lothar von Trotha defeated the Herero in the Battle of Waterberg and drove them into the desert of Omaheke , where most of them died of thirst . In October , the Nama people also rebelled against the Germans only to suffer a similar fate . In total , from 24 , 000 up to 100 , 000 Herero and 10 , 000 Nama died . The genocide was characterized by widespread death by starvation and thirst because the Herero who fled the violence were prevented from returning from the Namib Desert . Some sources also claim that the German colonial army systematically poisoned desert wells . World War I . Chemical weapons in warfare . Poison gas was introduced by Imperial Germany , and was subsequently used by all major belligerents in the war against enemy soldiers , in violation of the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases and the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare , which explicitly forbade the use of " poison or poisoned weapons " in warfare . Belgium . In August 1914 , as part of the Schlieffen Plan , the German Army invaded and occupied the neutral nation of Belgium without explicit warning , which violated a treaty of 1839 that the German chancellor dismissed as a " scrap of paper " and the 1907 Hague Convention on Opening of Hostilities . Within the first two months of the war , the German occupiers terrorized the Belgians , killing thousands of civilians and looting and burning scores of towns , including Leuven , which housed the country ' s preeminent university , mainly in fear of Belgian resistance fighters , or " francs - tireurs " . This action was in violation of the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare provisions that prohibited collective punishment on civilians and looting and destruction of civilian property in occupied territories . Bombardment of English coastal towns . The raid on Scarborough , Hartlepool and Whitby , which took place on December 16 , 1914 , was an attack by the German navy on the British seaport towns of Scarborough , Hartlepool , West Hartlepool , and Whitby . The attack resulted in 137 fatalities and 592 casualties . The raid was in violation of the ninth section of the 1907 Hague Convention which prohibited naval bombardments of undefended towns without warning , because only Hartlepool was protected by shore batteries . Germany was a signatory of the 1907 Hague Convention . Another attack followed on 26 April 1916 on the coastal towns of Yarmouth and Lowestoft but both were important naval bases and defended by shore batteries . Unrestricted submarine warfare . Unrestricted submarine warfare was instituted in 1915 in response to the British blockade of Germany in the North Sea . Prize rules , which were codified under the 1907 Hague Convention — such as those that required commerce raiders to warn their targets and allow time for the crew to board lifeboats — were disregarded and commercial vessels were sunk regardless of nationality , cargo , or destination . Following the sinking of the on 7 May 1915 and subsequent public outcry in various neutral countries , including the United States , the practice was withdrawn . However , Germany resumed the practice on 1 February 1917 and declared that all merchant ships regardless of nationalities would be sunk without warning . This outraged the U . S . public , prompting the U . S . to break diplomatic relations with Germany two days later , and , along with the Zimmermann Telegram , led the U . S . entry into the war two months later on the side of the Allied Powers . Attempts to destroy evidence of German crimes . During World War II , after occupying France , Nazis seized Allied documentation regarding German war crimes in World War I and destroyed monuments commemorating them . See also . http : / / www . enotes . com / topic / War _ crimes _ of _ the _ Wehrmacht