A Brief History
On June 10, 1942, and again on June 10, 1944, the German army committed atrocities in Czechoslovakia (Lidice), France (Oradour-sur-Glane), and Greece (Distomo, Boeotia) in separate incidents. Slaughtering or massacring innocent civilians or prisoners of war was a sadly not uncommon practice of one of history’s most brutal regimes. Here we list 10 such examples of how rotten the Nazis really were, and thus why there should be no romanticizing about their “glory days.” Indeed, with good reason, multiple Nazis appear on the list of most evil people in history due to their many atrocities. Most of these atrocities were committed by the SS, political Nazi fanatics, and not the regular German troops. (Note: The Soviets and the Japanese were pretty awful as well. Although the US, Britain, and other countries had incidents of their military engaging in barbarism, none of that was state sanctioned or normal behavior.)
Digging Deeper
10. Belarus, 1941-1945.
So many villages were burned and their occupants murdered that about 25% of all the population of Belarus died during Nazi occupation, a staggering amount. Although the Nazis brutalized the people of any Slavic country they invaded, Belarus was the hardest hit.
9. Imprisoning/Killing “Undesirables,” 1933-1945.
Not only Jews were the target of Nazi hate. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsy (Roma), homosexual, the retarded, people with severe birth defects, communists, dissenters, and even loyal Germans that were suspected of “defeatism’ were likely to be imprisoned or murdered. The persecution of non-Jews resulted in about 5 million deaths, almost as many as with the Jewish Holocaust. Non-Jews that were married to a Jew were forced to divorce or end up herded into death camps with the Jews. People of African descent were at a minimum sterilized. Of course, hiding or helping any of these people would get you arrested and or murdered as well.
8. Killing Children, 1941-1945.
So many massacres that included or consisted of the slaughter of children were perpetrated by the Nazis that we do not have room to list them. Suffice to say, time and again the Nazis showed no hesitation to murder kids.
7. SS Units Murdering POW’s, 1941-1945.
Again, as with killing children, the SS committed so many massacres of troops that had surrendered that we do not have room to discuss individual cases. Just a couple of the more famous (in the US) are the Malmedy Massacre and the Wereth Massacre (where African-American US soldiers were murdered after surrendering). Joachim Pieper, commander of an SS unit responsible for many of these massacres was himself murdered and burned at his home in France in 1976, finally getting justice. It became fairly common for US troops to shoot any SS officer they captured toward the end of the war in retaliation for these murders.
6. Orders to Kill, 1941-1945.
Hitler himself ordered that all Soviet communist party officials (commissars) captured should be immediately shot. He also ordered that any allied commandos that were captured should also be shot even if they were in full uniform and following the laws of war.
5. Human Experiments, 1941-1945.
Once work and death camps were established it did not take long for Nazi pseudo-medical “researcher” to start conducting barbaric and bizarre experiments on people. “The Angel of Death,” Joseph Mengele is the usual suspect in this practice, but there were plenty of others. Freezing people to see how long it took them to die, seeing how long people could live eating sawdust, sewing on arms and legs on the opposite side of the body or to other people (after amputating perfectly sound limbs), and torturing twins to see if the other one felt the pain from a distance were all in their bag of tricks. Psychotic experiments with poisons and poison gas were conducted, and people were given only seawater to drink until they died. (Note: The Japanese had a similar human experiment unit, Unit 731.)
4. V-Weapons, 1944-1945.
Consisting of the V-1 cruise missile and the V-2 rocket, each carried about a ton of explosive and neither was accurate enough for targeting anything of military value, so they were just aimed at cities in order to terrorize the civilians. England, mainly the London area, suffered most of the attention, but once the allies started liberating countries on the continent those came under attack as well. This was pure hateful vindictiveness as the cost to operate this campaign was enormous for so little gain. Killing and terrorizing civilians was the only goal and only result.
3. Bombing Rotterdam, 1940.
On the same day that the Netherlands (Holland) surrendered to Germany, the Luftwaffe bombed Rotterdam into rubble to punish the Dutch for having the audacity to resist. A ceasefire had already been negotiated, but the heartless Nazis killed 900 civilians and made another 30,000 homeless just to make a point.
2. Invading the Soviet Union, 1941.
In spite of having a “non-aggression pact” treaty with the Soviets and having collaborated with them to divide Poland, the Nazis betrayed their trust and broke their word by mounting a surprise invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. On top of it, despite their earlier cooperation and trade agreements, the Nazis were particularly brutal, often slaughtering prisoners, conducting reprisals anywhere partisan activity took place, and starving the prisoners they did take.
1. The Holocaust (The Final Solution), 1933-1945.
At first the Nazis were using the Jews as scapegoats to rally the masses. Then it was forced movement to ghettos and concentration camps, including work camps where prisoners would be worked to death. Then it became clear to the Nazi party elite; the “final solution” was to exterminate the Jews from Europe, killing as many as they could, whether they were German Jews or from occupied countries. Even Jewish war heroes from World War I were targets! The number of Jews murdered is usually given as 6 million, and although other groups suffered under Hitler and the Nazis, none so much as the Jews.
Question for students (and subscribers): What do you think was the worst things the Nazis ever did? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to subscribe to History and Headlines by liking us on Facebook and becoming one of our patrons!
Your readership is much appreciated!
Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Brustein, William. The Logic of Evil: The Social Origins of the Nazi Party, 1925-1933. Yale University Press, 1998.
Roland, Paul. Nuremberg Trials: The Nazis and Their Crimes Against Humanity. Arcturus Publishing Limited, 2012.
Sarti, Wendy Adele-Marie. Women and Nazis: Perpetrators of Genocide and Other Crimes During Hitler’s Regime,1933-1945. Academica Press,LLC, 2012.
Segev, Tom. Soldiers of Evil: The Commandants of the Nazi Concentration Camps (English and Hebrew Edition). McGraw-Hill, 1988.
Walters, Guy. Hunting Evil: The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring Them to Justice. Broadway Books, 2010.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="2550 http://www.crackedhistory.com/?p=2550">58 Comments
I usually just focus on the Jews being the ones attacked by the Nazi’s. Reading this i remembered that even people with birth defects and homosexuals etc. were to be attacked and murdered too.
The terrible things humans can accomplish is sobering. This is a horribly dark part of history and I always wonder how it is taught in German schools. It would be so hard to have to learn about something your own country did that was so evil.
So many cruel acts were performed by the Nazis. I cannot believe the experiments they did on humans. Truly horrifying.
I agree with this list. I can’t believe the Nazis experimented on human subjects and kill children. So sad.
All of these facts are terrifying and shocking. I was completely unaware that the Nazi’s were responsible for killing up to 25% of the population of Belarus.
I can not understand how anyone can kill another human being without great cause, and what makes someone hate others this much.
These facts are disturbing and stomach churning. The Nazi’s were so cruel.
This list is horrifying. It’s hard to imagine that people could do this against each other and get away with it.
I find it disturbing that the Nazis preformed human experiments like freezing people to see how long it took them to die or seeing how long people could live eating sawdust.
The most disturbing part about this whole thing for me is the experiments that were done on people, such as identical twins. Some of the things I have heard hat were done sound sick and excruciating.
This is honestly horrifying. I can’t even imagine how people can do this to others it so cruel.
reading about all of this makes me physically sick
this is so sad i could ever imagine anyone having to go through these things. it is so disturbing what these Nazis did the facts just make you cringe
The Nazis have always been known as bad. I don’t think calling these tings rotten is harsh enough.
After reading all of the terrible things that the Nazi party did I cannot believe that people still believe that the holocaust was all a hoax.
I never knew that Jehovah’s Witnesses where a part of the mass killing, it’s truly sick how he treated people and how terrible it was that people went along with his torturing towards others such as killing them as soon as they were captured.
Everything the Nazis did were horrible and evil things. No list could completely convey the terrible things they did.
It is difficult to watch the videos and read about all the horrific things the Nazis did. Before they were killed the Nazis degraded them by stripping their clothes off. How sad too for the children. Not only did the Nazis take their lives, but they took their innocence.
I was unaware that the Nazis did so many other cruel and inhumane things to people. I did not realize that they were crude to more people than just the Jews.
I was unaware of all of the other horrific events that the Nazi were the cause of. The worst part is to see how many innocent lives were taken, especially children.
It is so disturbing to think that people’s lives were valued so little that they would be used as human experiments that would torture them to death. It is so incredibly sad and disappointing to think that people thought it was okay to perform these experiments. Nothing like this should ever happen again in history.
I find it sickening that people can be so heartless and and inhumane. It is sad to see how many innocent lives were taken. I could not imagine being the person in charge of the experiments or in charge of killing so many people. I am sure that some of those people did not want to do those things but they had to do so to protect their own lives. This would be a frightening time to live in.
I have heard about the child abuse that the Nazis had done before. Perhaps one of the scariest things that I remember was that they would use the little Jewish children as experiments for many medical experiments.
It is really horrific to see what human beings are capable of. This war was so tragic for so many reasons but the murdering of so many between Stalin, Hitler and the Japanese is something I hope we never experience again. It is really unimaginable.
I was beyond disgusted by the “science” experiments done by the Nazis. These experiments of freezing people, seeing how long people could live eating sawdust, and sewing on arms and legs on the opposite side of the body or to other people were just forms of torture and absolutely appalling.
Overall, I am disgusted on what the Nazis did to the Jewish people. These are unthinkable crimes that should never be repeated in the future of any society. One thing that really struck out to me was the killing of children. This is unheard of in today’s society and should always be looked down upon.
I have heard of the “research” that the Nazi’s have done before. It is by no means ethical, or have much actual value to the scientific community.
It takes a heartless person to kill innocent children, let alone any living being. I can’t believe the Nazis were able to do these things for so many years.
It is difficult to read about the Nazis and their evil acts. I can not fathom how any human could view these acts as appropriate.
the gross experiments they did for science only provided pain for those who fell under the nazi regime
I do not like reading these types of articles, it makes me sick. I do not understand how a group of people like the Nazis could commit so many evil acts such as the Kill orders and murders for no valid reason. I especially cannot believe that numerous other innocent children were killed.
I have never heard that there are so many sins Nazis did. Before I read this article, I only know about Holocaust. Nazi is a sign of evil which fight against human nature.
That was so terrible to hear how Nazis killed those innocent children. And their evil acts on Jewish Holocaust.
In high school I had taken a class about the Holocaust and had heard several terrible things that the Nazi party had committed. The experiments on twins, the killing of children, and so many other horrible things like that. I can’t imagine doing something like that to other humans.
I do not like reading about the Holocaust and the terrible things the Nazi’s did to innocent people.
It’s still so shocking that this is a real tragedy that was a part of our history. It’s disturbing and disgusting.
It was a shocking tragedy that this is a part of our history, I find the Holocaust fascinating and disturbing at the same time.
The different acts that the Nazi’s committed were unlawful and should never be allowed to happen in history again.
Nazis were so horrible! I cannot wrap my head around using humans for bad experiments.
This is absolutely disgusting, how could people do these types of things to other people,horrible.
So many awful things happened to innocent people.
The Nazis were an awful group of people.
Nothing more to say but the Nazi’s were terrible people.
The death of innocent children is always the saddest. A leader who has no understanding and compassion for children should never be a leader.
It truly is sad that we are all of the same species. These groups of individuals were so manipulated and brainwashed into thinking their own kind was their worst enemy. We see it still today in America and all throughout the world. Hate crimes, terrorist attacks, mass murders. Hopefully someday we will see progress and come to the conclusion that we all come from the same God and we all have a purpose to live.
Such a horrible period of time in history. Reading about the Holocaust never gets easier to stomach.
It is hard to imagine that such brutality and senseless violence was ever done. Hitler’s Nazi party was a nightmare.
The videos in this one were very interesting. REally gives you an idea of what it was like.
Jewish people prefer not to refer to the extermination of their people as “the holocaust”, but rather, as the Shoah, or catastrophe, as the biblical meaning of holocaust is: ” burnt offering prescribed by God.”
What is the point of all the killing. Dictators of several countries did similar things to their own people. We still have a few left that would do the same thing to their own people, given the chance.
I couldn’t imagine living in those times. I feel bad about all the crime and killings we have now and couldn’t imagine it killing our own people.
This was a hard read especially the video of the children. It amazes me people can have so little respect for human life. A child hasn’t even lived yet and to take their life because of something out of their control is ridiculous.
I hope that my children would never have to live during a time such as that. I hate to think what a modern day World War would be like.
This makes me so sad I just don’t understand how humans can treat other humans this way.
The story is very sad to read about. I didn’t realize that the experiments were done on the captured people. Of course everyone knows about the concentration camps and of the murders but I didn’t know that they tested people in the sick way that they did.
We all know the that the Germans did horrible things during the war, but sometimes I think we forget about them. The science experiments that were performed on people are still notorious to this day with some even being the source of urban legends. I knew about Belarus, but didn’t realize that 25% of the population had been killed by the Nazis by the end of the war.
I cannot fathom why anyone would want to support Hitler when the Nazis caused so mich destruction.
This story was a hard one to read. The medical testing that occurred in these concentration camps were so horrific that it made being shot by the Nazis a lucky fortune.