List of war crimes

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This article lists and summarizes some of the war crimes committed since the Hague Convention of 1907. In addition, those incidents which have been judged in a court of justice to be Crimes Against Peace that have been committed since these crimes were first defined are also included.^[1]

Since many war crimes are not ultimately prosecuted (due to lack of political will, lack of effective procedures, or other practical and political reasons^[2]), historians and lawyers will often make a serious case that war crimes occurred, even if there was no formal investigations or prosecution of the alleged crimes or an investigation cleared the alleged perpetrators.

War crimes under international law were firmly established by international trials such as the 1945 Nuremberg Trials and the Tokyo trial of 1946, in which German and Japanese leaders were prosecuted for war crimes committed during World War II. For purpose of selectivity, only war crimes since the customary laws of war were clarified in the Hague Conventions of 1907 are included, because in the judgment at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945, it was stated that by 1939 these rules laid down in the Hague Convention of 1907 were recognised by all civilised nations, and were regarded as being declaratory of the laws and customs of war.^[3]

[edit] 1914-1918: World War I

World War I was the first major international conflict to take place following the codification of war crimes at the Hague Convention of 1907, including derived war crimes, such as the use of poisons as weapons, as well as crimes against humanity, and derivative crimes against humanity, such as torture, and genocide.

[edit] Aftermath of World War I

The political reorganization that followed from World War I led to several events that could possibly be considered War crimes or crimes against humanity, with forced displacements of large groups of population mainly based on ethnic criteria.

[edit] 1935-1937 Second Italo-Abyssinian War

• Italian use of mustard gas against Ethiopian soldiers, violating Geneva conventions forbidding its use
• Yekatit 12 -- In response to the unsuccessful assassination of Rodolfo Graziani on 19 February 1937, thousands of Ethiopians were killed, including all of the monks residing at Debre Libanos, and over a thousand more detained at Danan who were then exiled either to the Dahlak Islands or Italy.^[12]

[edit] 1936-1939: Spanish Civil War

At least 50,000 people were executed during the Spanish Civil War.^[13][14] In his updated history of the Spanish Civil War, Antony Beevor writes, Franco's ensuing 'white terror' claimed 200,000 lives. The 'red terror' had already killed 38,000.^[15] Julius Ruiz concludes that although the figures remain disputed, a minimum of 37,843 executions were carried out in the Republican zone with a maximum of 150,000 executions (including 50,000 after the war) in Nationalist Spain.^[16] César Vidal puts the number of Republican victims at 110,965.^[17] In 2008 a Spanish judge, Socialist Baltasar Garzon, opened an investigation into the executions and disappearances of 114,266 people between 17 July 1936 and December 1951. Among the executions investigated was that of the poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca.^[18][19]

[edit] 1937-1945: Second Sino-Japanese War

This section includes war crimes up to and through December 6, 1941 when the Second Sino-Japanese War became the Asian Theater of World War II, due to the Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. For war crimes after this date see the section called World War II: Japan perpetrated crimes.

[edit] 1939-1945 World War II

[edit] Axis powers (listed by country)

The Axis Powers (particularly Germany and Japan) were perhaps some of the most systematic perpetrators of war crimes in modern history. Contributing factors included Nazi race theory, a desire for living space that justified the eradication of native populations, and militaristic indoctrination that encouraged the terrorization of conquered peoples and prisoners of war. The Holocaust, the German attack on the Soviet Union and occupation of much of Europe, the Japanese occupation of Manchuria and the Philippines and attack on China all contributed to well over half of the civilian deaths in World War II and the conflicts that led up to the war. Even before post-war revelations of atrocities, both nations were notorious for their brutal treatment of captured combatants.

[edit] Croatian perpetrated crimes

Numerous concentration camps were built in Croatia, most notably Jasenovac (in Croatian: Logor Jasenovac in Serbian: Логор Јасеновац / Logor Jasenovac), the largest, where hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Gypsies (Roma), Jews and Croatian dissidents died. It was established by the Ustaša regime of the Independent State of Croatia in August 1941 and not dismantled until April 1945, shortly before the end of the war. Other concentration camps were in Gospić, Pag, Đakovo, Jastrebarsko and Lepoglava.

According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center (citing the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust), Ustasa terrorists killed 500,000 Serbs, expelled 250,000 and forced 250,000 to convert to Roman Catholicism. They murdered thousands of Jews and Gypsies.^[22]

Jasenovac was a complex of five subcamps and three smaller camps spread out over 240 square kilometers (93 sq mi), in relatively close proximity to each other, on the bank of the Sava river. Most of the camp was at Jasenovac, about 100 km (62 mi) southeast of Zagreb. The complex also included large grounds at Donja Gradina directly across the Sava River, a camp for children in Sisak to the northwest, and a women's camp in Stara Gradiška to the southeast.

Ante Pavelić, leader of the Ustasha, fled to Argentina and Spain which gave him protection, and was never extradited to stand trial for his war crimes.

[edit] German perpetrated crimes

According to the Nuremberg Trials, there were four major war crimes that were alleged against German military (and Waffen-SS and NSDAP) men and officers, each with individual events that made up the major charges.

1. Participation in a common plan of conspiracy for the accomplishment of crimes against peace

2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace

• Planning and executing a campaign of invasion of its European neighbors, as well as the conspiracy to violate the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Saint-Germain through the remilitarization of the Rhineland, and the annexations of Austria and Czechoslovakia.

3. War Crimes These were limited to atrocities against combatants or conventional crimes committed by military units (see War crimes of the Wehrmacht), and include:

• Invasion of Poland, in the period of 1 September - 25 October 1939 German forces during their military actions engaged in executions of Polish POWs, bombed hospitals, murdered civilians, shot refugees, executed wounded soldiers. The cautious estimates give a number of at least 16,000 murdered victims^[23]
• Pacification Operations in German occupied Poland, during the occupation of Poland by German Reich, Wehrmacht forces took part in several pacification actions in rural areas, that resulted in murder of at least 20,000 Polish villagers
• Le Paradis massacre, May 1940, British soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, captured by the SS and subsequently murdered. Fritz Knoechlein tried, found guilty and hanged.
• Wormhoudt massacre, May 1940, British and French soldiers captured by the SS and subsequently murdered. No one found guilty of the crime.
• d'Ardenne Massacres, June 1944 Canadian soldiers captured by the SS and murdered by 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend. SS General Kurt Meyer (Panzermeyer) sentenced to be shot 1946; sentence commuted; released 1954
• Malmedy massacre, December 1944, United States POWs captured by Kampfgruppe Peiper were murdered outside Malmedy, Belgium.
• Gardelegen (war crime)
• Marzabotto massacre
• Sant'Anna di Stazzema
• Cefalonia Massacre
• Oradour-sur-Glane
• The annihilation of the Czech city of Lidice, as an act of vengeance for the assassination Reinhard Heydrich.
• Massacre of Kalavryta
• Distomo massacre
• Kragujevac massacre
• The suppression of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising and subsequent leveling of the whole city
• The treatment of Soviet POWs throughout the war, who were not given the protections and guarantees of the Geneva Convention
• Unrestricted submarine warfare against merchant shipping
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