Reprisals against Russian POWs

31st August 1941: A Waffen SS account of the murder of 4,000 men

A unit of the Waffen SS Totenkopf Division in Russia in 1941.

Huge numbers of prisoners were being taken by the Germans in the encirclement battles, where whole armies were captured. The Wehrmacht was totally unprepared to handle them all and a very high proportion of those captured in the early battles would die by the end of the year - from starvation,…