Imagine standing in a firing squad in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. The order comes: “Shoot the civilians.” But one soldier steps back and says no. What happens next? Most of us assume he’d be shot on the spot… In this video, we uncover the stories of German soldiers and officers who refused to kill and what consequences they faced.
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Let’s start! During World War II, it was widely believed among German soldiers, SS and SD members, and police personnel that every order from a superior had to be obeyed no matter what. Disobeying could supposedly lead to death, imprisonment, or even danger for one’s family. Many historians of Nazi Germany have long shared this view.
But was it truly impossible for a German soldier to refuse to take part in the murder of Jews, Roma, Soviet POWs, or other unarmed civilians and still survive? Could one say “no” without being executed or sent to a concentration camp? While it’s difficult to know every case due to limited documentation, historian David Kitterman uncovered over a hundred verified instances where individuals refused to shoot unarmed civilians or prisoners.
What happened to these soldiers? Kitterman’s findings come from detailed postwar investigations and trial records held in German state archives and the Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg. Drawing on these records, Kitterman documented at least eighty-five confirmed cases of refusal, expanding on earlier research.
Kitterman’s study not only examined what happened to those who refused but also how they resisted, why they made that choice, and what legal and personal factors influenced their decisions. His work sheds light on a rarely discussed aspect of Nazi Germany: that some individuals, even within the machinery of terror, found the courage to say no. Dr.
Albert Battel, a lawyer and reserve major in the German Army, used his military authority to try to stop the SS and Security Police in Przemyśl from carrying out the so-called “resettlement” of Jews in the summer of 1942—an operation that was, in reality, a mass execution. Born in 1891 in Upper Silesia, Battel joined the Nazi Party on May 1, 1933, at age 42, and also belonged to the National Socialist Lawyers’ League.
A Catholic, he had previously lent money to a Jewish colleague in 1936–1937, an act that led to a denunciation within the Party. As punishment, he was formally reprimanded and his Party membership was suspended for a year. Investigations later revealed that Battel had shown willingness to help Jews even before the war.
On July 24, 1942, Battel persuaded his superior officer, Major Liedtke, to issue an order placing Jewish workers employed by the Wehrmacht under military protection: “In view of the previous actions against the Jews [“resettlement”], the local commander gives orders to bring all Jews working for the Wehrmacht into barracks and place them under military protection. They are to be fed and housed, etc., so that they remain able to work.
” Battel then took direct action: blocking bridges across the river to prevent SS and Security Police units from entering Przemyśl, and evacuating 80–100 Jews from the ghetto to the army headquarters. Although this defiance only delayed the deportations, and the Jews were later handed over to the SS, Battel’s intervention temporarily saved their lives.
His actions drew complaints to Himmler, who personally ordered an investigation. Battel was eventually reprimanded and transferred to a front-line unit, and Himmler even planned to have him arrested after the war and expelled from the Party. Battel survived the conflict and was later recognized by Israel as Righteous Among the Nations for his courageous stand.
His deeds went beyond simply refusing orders, they represented direct resistance to the SS and SD’s operations, all while facing remarkably mild punishment for such defiance. Bernhard Griese managed to avoid taking part in the execution of Jews by strictly following military protocol and immediately protesting to his superiors.
Born in 1887 in Ribnitz, he had retired in 1936 as a major in the Schutzpolizei (Order Police). When war broke out, he was recalled to service and became acting commander of the Schutzpolizei in Rostock. In early 1941, he trained a police recruit battalion in Tilsit (Battalion No. 323) which later operated under his command near Georgenburg and in the Białowieża Forest.
Griese’s unit was subordinate to the Befehlshaber der Ordnungspolizei (BdO) in Königsberg. At one point, an SD officer personally asked Griese to provide men for an execution of Jewish civilians in the Georgenburg area. Griese refused. He ordered his senior captain to stay at headquarters and forbade anyone in his battalion from participating without his direct authorization.
He then traveled to Königsberg to secure a written confirmation from his superiors that he was only to follow orders issued directly through official channels. He obtained such a document. This move effectively blocked the SD’s request, forcing them to carry out the execution of 365 Jews themselves while Griese was away. Although the SS and police opened an investigation into his refusal, it was dropped after Griese gave testimony at the Ordnungspolizei’s main office in Berlin.
Remarkably, soon after this episode, Griese was awarded the Knight’s Cross, despite having openly resisted SS involvement in mass executions. There are other similar cases of officers of units of the Ordnungspolizei and Schutzpolizei that protested against the fact that their men were about to be used for mass executions. In one instance an order came directed at all units of the Schutzpolizei that these units were not to be involved in executions.
A remarkable case of formal refusal by two Waffen-SS officers took place in Poland just days after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in late June and early July 1941. Friedrich Dern, commander of the Begleit-Bataillon Reichsführer-SS (a unit formed in May 1941 from Himmler’s personal escort), received orders from the Higher SS and Police Leader in Lemberg (Lviv) to send one of his companies to a meeting point on the Vistula River for further instructions.
The detachment, led by Second Lieutenant (Untersturmführer) Schreiber, rejoined the main battalion in Lublin later that evening. Schreiber reported to Dern that part of his company had been forced to take part in the execution of Jews and Poles earlier that day. He told his commander he refused to carry out any more such executions, adding that he would not compel his soldiers, trained as combat troops, not killers, to participate again.
That same evening, Dern wrote to the SS Leadership Office (SS-Führungs-Hauptamt) in Berlin, clearly and explicitly stating that he would not allow his battalion to be used for executions in the future. His report included Schreiber’s written account of what had occurred. Within days, Berlin ordered the immediate dissolution of the entire battalion.
Its companies were reassigned to various SS regiments (Standartes Deutschland, Germania, and Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler). Dern was summoned to Berlin to report personally to SS-Gruppenführer Pohl, who reprimanded him for disobeying orders but did not punish him further. Instead, Dern was reassigned as a major (Sturmbannführer), he was later promoted to commander of the SS Jäger Battalion 9 in December 1941 and subsequently of the 14th Galician Volunteer Regiment No. 7, a post he held until the end of the war.
Despite his open defiance of SS directives, Dern faced no serious consequences and continued serving in high command positions throughout the war. One particularly striking case involves an officer who refused to take part in the execution of Soviet prisoners of war and consequently spent about three years in a concentration camp. The officer was Dr.
Nikolaus Ernst Franz Hornig, a lawyer and first lieutenant in the Wehrmacht, who had previously served in the police before joining the army. In October 1941, Hornig was sent east as a platoon leader. On November 1, 1941, his battalion commander ordered him to execute 780 Russian POWs who had been separated from Stalag 325. The plan was to kill them with a shot to the neck in a small forest between Lublin and Lviv.
Hornig refused to carry out the order, explaining to his commander that as a lawyer, a Catholic, and an army officer, he could not participate in such an act. He assembled his men and informed them of his refusal, telling them that shooting defenseless people was not only a crime but reminiscent of the “GPU methods” of the Soviet secret police.
None of his men took part in the killings, though they were ordered to guard the perimeter of the execution site. Soon after, Hornig was recalled to Germany and arrested in May 1942 on the orders of the SS and Police Court Chief, Josias zu Waldeck. He was charged not primarily for disobedience but for “undermining military morale” (Wehrkraftzersetzung) by setting an example that might encourage refusal among others.
His first trial in November 1942 resulted in a sentence of three to four years in prison for undermining morale; a second trial in March 1945 increased the sentence to six or seven years. During this time, from November 1942 until the end of the war, Hornig was imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp. Because Hornig based his refusal on German military law, Himmler reportedly considered the sentences too lenient and refused to sign them.
As a result, Hornig was treated unusually well for a concentration camp prisoner: he kept his officer’s rank and pay, and his detention was classified as “investigative arrest” rather than punishment. Hornig remained in Buchenwald until the end of the war. His imprisonment, ironically, was not for refusing to shoot Soviet POWs, but for teaching his soldiers that military law gave them the right to reject illegal orders, a lesson the SS and Police Court deemed an act of “undermining the war effort.
” Kitterman investigated 85 cases from individuals ranging from every level of the German armed forces and security apparatus: from generals in the Army and Police to officers in the Waffen-SS, SD, and even the Einsatzgruppen (the groups that were designated to perform the mass executions of Jewish civilians behind the Eastern Front), as well as enlisted men and even Party officials.
Here you see the reasons. Almost half of the time the reason for refusal was not given. A quarter of the cases were based on conscience. Fifteen times it was seen as illegal. Others believed it caused emotional disturbance. Some claimed it was not within the role and two claimed the murders were politically disadvantageous.
Out of 85 documented cases, over half involved direct refusal, with some men formally protesting to superiors to protect themselves from future involvement. Others relied on moral, religious, or psychological reasons, claiming emotional distress, citing conscience, or arguing that such acts violated military or international law. A few invoked the Geneva Convention or German military codes, while others faked illness, incompetence, or madness to evade participation.
Knowledge of legal procedures and the military hierarchy helped officers more than enlisted men, officers made up roughly two-thirds of successful refusals. Some demanded legal proof or court documents before agreeing to executions. Others sought transfers to combat units, resigned from police roles, or used creative evasions like hiding during shootings, missing on purpose, or claiming logistical excuses.
A few soldiers even threatened force when coerced or refused to serve as “executioners” for other units. In the book of Christopher Browning named Ordinary Men, Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Reserve Police Battalion 101, under Major Wilhelm Trapp was ordered to round up the 1,800 Jews of Józefów (in Poland).
This time, however, the majority of the Jews were not to be deported. Only men capable of work would be sent to labor camps near Lublin; the women, children, and elderly were to be executed on the spot. One officer, Lieutenant Heinz Buchmann, a 38-year-old Hamburg businessman and reservist, was horrified when he learned what the mission involved.
He told Trapp’s adjutant that he refused to take part in the shooting of defenseless civilians and requested another duty. Hagen reassigned him to escort the Jewish men selected for forced labor instead. In the early hours of July 13, the battalion set out for Józefów. Before the massacre began, Trapp assembled his men, explained their orders, and remarkably offered any who couldn’t bear the task the chance to step aside.
Only a dozen men accepted his offer and were reassigned, while the rest prepared to carry out the killings. So what were in general the consequences for those officers and rank-and-file men that refused to carry out the killings? Of the investigated cases not a single person lost his life because of his refusal.
In more than half of the cases there was no negative consequence at all! Reprimands or threats to be sent to the front, a camp or put on report happened in a dozen of cases, as well as the transfer to another unit or transfer back to Germany. In one instance a person was sent to a concentration camp, but as discussed before: this imprisonment was not for refusing to shoot people, but for teaching his soldiers that military law gave them the right to reject illegal orders.
In a handful of cases they were actually sent to a combat unit, received house arrest or in the case of an officer refusing: the unit was broken up. Demotion, forced resignation or being assigned to a side task did occur as well. This doesn’t mean that severe punishment was never meted out. There is the case of Josef Schulz, a German soldier of the 714th Infantry Division, who allegedly refused to take part in an execution of Yugoslav civilians and was shot with the hostages.
However, historians dispute the veracity of the story, and some consider it to be a legend rather than fully verified fact. There is also the case of Otto Schimek, an Austrian soldier in the Wehrmacht who served on a firing squad. He was reportedly executed for refusing to participate in the execution of Polish civilians, and over time has become a symbol of pacifism and Austrian opposition to Nazism.
However, the accuracy of this account has been questioned, with some critics claiming that it lacks credible documentary evidence and may have been invented or exaggerated. An interesting case occurred in occupied-Netherlands where a German Luftwaffe soldier was ordered to shoot Dutch resistance fighters who were captured.
He refused and did NOT live to tell about it. Wonder what happened? Click here for my video about the tragic liberation of the city of Deventer. Thanks for watching and the History Hustler is signing off.
