Defending yourself? | Blogotariat

Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe1 was a typographer by training and owned a printing business prior to entering the German Army in 1934, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant. After his service in the Army was over, he joined the Waffen-SS as an Untersturmführer on November 11, 1939, the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch. On January 30, 1940 he was promoted to Obersturmführer and in 1942 he was promoted to Hauptsturmführer (captain). He saw service on the Russian Front and was the commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion, 4th SS-Panzergrenadier Der Führer Regiment of the Das Reich Division. On September 1, 1943, he was promoted to Sturmbannführer (major). The Das Reich Division was withdrawn from Russia and sent to France for refitting in preparation to shore up defences in that country for the expected Allied invasion. It was sent to Southern France to begin operations against the French Resistance, the Maquis, who were very active in the area. The Maquis caused the division to remain in the area longer than planned and prevented them from being present in Normandy on the 6th of June when the Allies landed. On the 9th of June, Kämpfe was captured by a Maquis group and the following day he was executed and his body burned. This occurred in the area of Cheissoux in the Limousin region of France. When it was clear that he had been kidnapped, the Germans sent out units to try to locate him. Among these was a unit under the command of Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann, the commander of the 1st Battalion, 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment and a close personal friend of Kämpfe. On June 10th, Diekmann was told of Kämpfe‘s capture by the Maquis in the Oradour-sur-Vayres area and that they were planning to execute Kämpfe by ceremoniously burning him alive. In response to this information, Diekmann took two platoons of his battalion and went mistakenly to another village Oradour-sur-Glane, near the village of Oradour-sur-Vayres. Upon arrival outside of the town, a German military ambulance was found that contained the burned bodies of several German soldiers2.

Diekmann’s troops murdered all 642 people found in the village at the time, as well as people brought in from the surrounding area and those who were merely passing through the village at the time of the Diekmann’s SS company’s arrival. Men were taken into barns and sheds where they were machine-gunned and the buildings torched. Women and children were herded into a church that was set on fire; and those who tried to escape through the windows were machine-gunned3.

This is collective punishment and is illegal in international law. Collective punishment is a punishment or sanction imposed on a group or whole community for acts allegedly perpetrated by a member of that group, which could be an ethnic or political group, or just the family, friends and neighbours of the perpetrator. Because individuals who are not responsible for the acts are targeted, collective punishment is not compatible with the basic principle of individual responsibility. The punished group may often have no direct association with the perpetrator other than living in the same area and cannot be assumed to exercise control over the perpetrator’s actions. Collective punishment is prohibited by treaty in both international and non-international armed conflicts, more specifically Common Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Article 4 of the Additional Protocol II4.

I have read much about the Second World War in which my father and many of his friends fought, and in which some 60 million people died, but I do not ever recall reading any apologetic ‘the Nazis should be able to defend themselves’, in response to the atrocity in Oradour-sur-Glane. However, the people of many nations have heard their governments parrot this ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’5 in response to the genocide being perpetrated on the people of Gaza by Netanyahu’s IDF, even after this had been going on for nearly a year and the huge death toll was known.

While the appalling attack on Israeli citizens by Hamas is indefensible, what the IDF is doing in Gaza is also indefensible. It is now estimated that well over 40,000 Gazans have been killed directly by the IDF6. If this is not collective punishment, nothing is.

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