Captured Soviet Female Soldiers - Germans should be ashamed

The German army could not reconcile to the fact that women wore uniforms and on the 29th of June 194i, Field Marshall Gunther von Kluge, commander of the 4th army issued an order that captured women soldiers were to be summarily shot dead.

This was an illegal order and was rescinded but individual commanders continued passing orders and women taken as POWs were shot. This was not the end and in October 1941, when many women were captured from behind German lines indulging in partisan activities, Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau issued specific orders that women along with captured Russian soldiers were to be immediately shot dead. Further down the line, the commander of the 75th division General Earnst Hammer issued another order stating roughly the same thing.

The net result of these orders is that the woman soldiers taken his POW were summarily shot dead though a few were captured and suffered sexual abuse. The sad part is that these orders were not issued by the Gestapo or the SS but by the so-called professional German army for which there is no excuse.