Killers in Cold Blood

by Ray Black

  Estimates of how many actually died are varied. Some put the figure at one million, while a large majority claim it is much higher at three million. The campaign of terror lasted for 267 days and took place across eighteen districts in the former East Pakistan. There are reports that the West Pakistan army killed roughly one person in every sixty-one in Pakistan overall, and one out of every twenty-five in East Pakistan. More than eighty per cent of those killed were male and it is estimated that 600,000 children of both sexes died as a result of atrocities.

  In a bold move, the surviving leaders of the Awami League declared Bangladesh independent on April 10, 1971. Liberation forces, Mukhta Bahini, were mobilised in an attempt to curb the West Pakistan military which they managed with skill and efficiency. However, the genocide continued side by side with the efforts of the Liberation forces who were fighting against arms provided by the USA. The USA was slammed when it was revealed that they had sent military equipment to West Pakistan after the genocide had started. They were further criticised when it emerged that this took place after a government minister had officially stated that all shipments to General Khan’s militia had been halted.

  Bengalis, particularly Hindus, were killed by soldiers who were fuelled by anti-Bengali racism. Seen as lower class citizens, Bengalis faced willing executioners in the name of General Khan’s regime.

  In December 1971, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sought to return the Bengali refugees back to Bangladesh. A full scale military assault was launched on West Pakistan to secure Bengali independence. The West Pakistani militia, tired and demoralised, didn’t take long to collapse and the final atrocities took place on December 16, after which there was an unconditional surrender. Awami leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returned to Dacca in January 1972 to a hero’s welcome. Sadly, there were many reprisal killings and many Bengali men, who had been forced to collaborate with the Pakistani army, were killed in revenge attacks. No one has been brought to trial for the atrocities that took place in 1971 and several attempts to bring General Khan and his followers to court have failed.

  Soviet Prisoners of War

  While the Nazis’ treatment of Jews in concentration camps during World War II has been much publicised, especially in the high-profile Steven Spielberg film Schindler’s List (1993), the fate suffered by millions of Soviet prisoners of war in eight short months of 1941–42 has perhaps not been brought to the level of worldwide attention that it deserves.

  Preparations for the invasion of Russia and the overthrow of Joseph Stalin, codenamed Operation Barbarossa, began in July 1940, but it would be almost a year before the military might of the Third Reich was eventually unleashed on the Soviet Union. The goals were simple, to say the least: the political hierarchy was to be executed; the civilian population was to be reduced by twenty or thirty million; while those who survived were to be classed as slaves for the benefit of Germany. The newly acquired land was to be utilised as extra living space (Lebensraum) for the German population as the country waged war on Judaism and Communism.

  Obviously, this directive went against the recognised and generally accepted rules of international warfare, but German soldiers were openly encouraged (and even ordered) to: treat Soviet prisoners of war as political criminals who had ‘lost every right to treatment according to the Geneva Convention’; ‘defend themselves ruthlessly against every threat by the hostile civilian population’; and ‘finish off political commissars with weapons immediately as a matter of principle’.

  It wasn’t, however, just military personnel who were targeted in this manner. The German forces on the ground were working under the initiative that every man between the age of fifteen and sixty-five was a potential threat and should therefore be treated as a prisoner of war. Often, civilians were accused of being saboteurs and faced the same fate as their countrymen in uniform.

  Such was the hatred that the Nazis felt for the Soviets, that soldiers on the battlefront had been given carte blanche to do whatever they felt was necessary at the time. They had also been informed that it was extremely unlikely there would be any retribution from their superiors for their actions if they claimed that they had carried them out in the name of Third Reich policy.

  In the end, it came down to the opinion of the officer on the scene as to who was executed and who survived, but this blanket order was countermanded in May 1942 after the Soviet troops fought harder on the battlefield once this became common knowledge in their ranks.

  The Germans denounced any responsibility to care for Soviet prisoners of war because the Soviet Union had failed to formally sanction the 1929 Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War. They had also failed to publicly commit to the 1907 Hague Convention and therefore Germany felt no international obligation to provide humane living conditions.

  Operation Barbarossa, the largest military operation ever, was launched without a formal declaration of war on June 22, 1941, and the Soviet forces – made up largely of conscripts – crumbled in the face of the 6th Army. The attack was based on three spearheads intended to push quickly and deeply into the Soviet Union, with victory expected in a matter of weeks following the minimal resistance they had previously encountered during their Blitzkrieg of Poland and France. By September, the German army had gained control over Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and the following month claimed the Russian cities of Minsk, Kiev and Odessa, thereby cutting off the Soviet forces from their supplies. In a little over six months since the initial attack, the advance was already closing in on Moscow but that is as far as they progressed.

  The unfortunate souls who had been captured by their enemies were treated appallingly and thousands died during their transfer to places of internment. Many were forced to walk hundreds of miles – and those who were too weak to complete the trip were shot where they had fallen – while others were crammed into open railway trucks that were simply too small for the numbers they contained. It was alleged that between twenty-five and seventy-five per cent of those soldiers who were sent to camps by rail were dead by the end of their journey.

  Once the prisoners arrived, they were left to survive without shelter or proper food. Although officially given a ration of 2,200 calories a day, many received a meagre 700 (just twenty-five per cent of the amount a person needs to survive) and were still expected to labour for their captors. As a result, the prisoners began to eat the grass and leaves that were growing in their enclosures, in a desperate attempt to gain the nutrition that their bodies craved. Even when the Germans did prepare food for the prisoners, it wasn’t enough to sustain life; around 65,000 perished in the concentration camp at Gross-Rosen after having been fed a diet of grass soup, water and salt for six months.

  This systematic starvation was a premeditated strategy whose roots dated back to World War I. It was believed that many German citizens suspected the Great War was lost because of food shortages that led to riots in the homeland rather than because their military strategy was ineffective on the battlefields. So, it was decided by the High Command that there would be no risk of repeating this fate twenty years later, and prisoners of war would be forced to exist on subsistence rations in order for there to be sufficient food for the population in Germany.

  But it wasn’t just the unfortunate souls who were left to die in the prison camps who were suffering. The Germans had originally planned on utilising the vast amounts of Ukrainian crops to bolster their supplies, with their soldiers being able to live off the land as they were only issued with enough rations for twenty days. This, however, proved to be an unrealistic aim and the transportation of food back to Germany left soldiers on reduced rations and millions of civilians foraging for food. As a result, looting became commonplace and the advancing German forces razed entire villages as they progressed.

  With thousands of prisoners of war dying in captivity, the survivors turned to cannibalism in a vain attempt to cling to life. This suited the German propaganda machine perfectly, as they had long described the Slavs as Untermenschen (subhumans
). They began eating their dead comrades, and diseases like typhoid and dysentery were rife, but it was the arrival of the harsh Russian winter that decimated the numbers in the camps. Forced to live in the open air with temperatures often reaching -30ºC, it wasn’t long before the cold weather – added to the malnutrition factor – sent the death toll soaring. Indeed, it is estimated that deaths averaged 5,000 per day during October 1941.

  One Hungarian tank officer later remarked: ‘Behind the wire were tens of thousands of prisoners. Many were on the point of expiring. Few could stand on their feet. Their faces were dried up and their eyes had sunk deep into their sockets. Hundreds were dying every day, and those who had any strength left dumped them in a vast pit.’

  Not content with the effect that ‘natural causes’ were having on the prisoners of war, the Germans also organised mass executions. Up to half a million men were shot then buried in trenches – locals in Mauthausen (Austria) complained that the waters of their streams and rivers ran red with blood – or were simply buried alive by the SS. But that inhumanity pales in comparison with the gas chambers that later claimed the lives of millions of Jews.

  Heinrich Himmler organised the establishment of ‘extermination’ camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek, with the sole purpose of disposing of the Soviet prisoners of war. A total of 600 were chosen for execution in September 1941, as the Germans experimented with hydrogen cyanide. They realised they had discovered a way of carrying out mass murder with minimal effort and sought to perfect their routine. In early 1942, however, few of the original 10,000 Soviets who had been transported to Auschwitz were still alive – indeed, the Germans had succeeded in killing two million of the 3.3 million prisoners of war they had captured – so Himmler ordered that 150,000 Jews should be detained in the camp.

  Other Soviet prisoners of war found themselves at the mercy of vivisectionists (practitioners who thought nothing of dissecting or operating on a living human) and were also used as guinea pigs for other scientific experiments.

  Estimates put the death toll as high as nearly three million, with the victims dying mainly from starvation and exposure as well as execution. But some experts claim that a total of 5.5 million Soviet soldiers were captured by the Germans and more than 3.5 million of those had died by 1944 as the prisoners of war became the second largest group – after the Jews – that the Nazis killed as a result of their racial beliefs.

  The Germans themselves fared little better at the hands of the Russians, with an estimated one third of the three million-plus prisoners of war perishing in captivity through starvation, exposure, overwork and execution.

  In an unbelievable twist of fate, the two million prisoners of war who survived to see the end of hostilities were repatriated to their native country. On their arrival, the majority were arrested and accused of collaborating with the enemy. Having survived the German concentration camps, they were sent to the now notorious Soviet death camps where many perished during their sentences.

  Hiroshima and Nagasaki

  The art of modern warfare took on a sinister face on August 6, 1945, with the USA’s decision to unleash the power of the atom on the people of Japan. That was the day when an atom bomb nicknamed ‘Little Boy’ was dropped on Hiroshima, while three days later a second trademark mushroom cloud was seen over Nagasaki as the USA continued in their efforts to batter Japan into surrender.

  The race to design the first successful atom bomb had been contested by the USA and Germany throughout World War II. Instigated by a number of European scientists – several of whom later denounced the bombings – who had sought refuge in the United States (including Albert Einstein), it was codenamed ‘The Manhattan Project’ and, at its peak, employed the talents of more than 130,000 people. It was also granted a budget of around two billion dollars which made it the most expensive research programme at the time. As it turned out, Germany was eventually found to be lagging far behind the USA in terms of achievement and their atomic programme was nowhere near as extensive as that of the Americans.

  Having terrorised the world for almost six years since their invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Germany capitulated to Soviet forces on May 2, 1945, just two days after the death of Adolf Hitler in a Berlin bunker. Today it is perhaps hard to comprehend but, by the time the USA dropped the first atom bomb on Hiroshima, a staggering fifty million people had lost their lives in the worldwide conflict that had been predicted two decades earlier. When the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, several prominent people had labelled it as a ‘peace for twenty years’ and that turned out to be uncannily true.

  The Japanese, however, refused to surrender and continued their own hostilities in the Pacific. Their political leaders realised that they had already lost the war but refused to accept the fact and were prepared to defend themselves on home soil if necessary rather than admit defeat.

  World War II had been different from the Great War in that it was the first time it was deemed ‘acceptable’ for there to be civilian casualties, as the two sides sought to disable their enemies’ vital industries and demoralise the general populace. German aircraft bombed European cities such as Warsaw, Rotterdam and London while the Royal Air Force had come in for severe criticism when 60,000 died in an air raid on the German industrial town of Dresden in February 1945. Japan had already been targeted by US planes and more than 100,000 people are thought to have perished in an attack on Tokyo in March 1945. With residences built close together and constructed out of paper and wood, it’s no wonder that so many perished.

  The USA tested their first atomic bomb on July 16 in the desert at New Mexico and, with its success, they began planning to utilise their new technology. A last ditch attempt at peace was brokered by the Allied forces with the issuing of the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, which outlined the terms of surrender for Japan but this was summarily rejected.

  There were four choices of targets – Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama and the Kokura arsenal – but the committee charged with deciding upon a city ruled out a strictly military focus because of the chance of missing. Hiroshima was eventually chosen as the drop site for several reasons: it was a city large enough to make the Japanese government sit up and take notice; it was a port and army base so had legitimate military targets; there were no prisoner-of-war camps there; and the terrain was flat in the immediate area but was surrounded by hills which would allow the full force of the atom bomb to be utilised.

  As a military target, it had been expected that Hiroshima would be attacked at some point during the campaign but it had so far emerged virtually unscathed. On the morning of August 6, the inhabitants (estimates put this total between 255,000 to 320,000 at the time of the strike) were going about their business, oblivious to the terror that was about to descend from the skies. Commuters were travelling to work while schoolchildren were enjoying the day, helping to make firebreaks between buildings. If they had looked towards the heavens, they would have seen three tiny specks of silver in the sky – the B-29s that had come to deliver their deadly payload.

  The plane that created history was the Enola Gay and the crew’s observations and reactions were recorded. Tail gunner Sergeant Robert Caron described seeing fires ‘springing up everywhere, like flames shooting out of a huge bed of coals… The mushroom is spreading out. It’s maybe a mile or two wide and half a mile high… The city must be below that. The flames and smoke are billowing out, whirling out into the foothills…’

  Once the bomb exploded at 8.15 a.m. local time, the first the inhabitants knew was a flash that was brighter than 1,000 suns. Thousands were annihilated instantly as they were vaporised, many leaving behind just a shadow burnt onto a wall. Further away from the point of impact, people had a chance of surviving but they paid an enormous price as their hair and skin was burnt off, their eyes were blinded or their clothes were fused to their skin. The blast that followed the flash flattened buildings for a ten-mile radius and killed even more civilians. With fires raging all around them
, many jumped into the river only to drown in their attempt to escape.

  Japanese forces were sent to the area to find out why there was no contact with Hiroshima and they could not believe the scale of the destruction. But it was not until the White House issued a public announcement sixteen hours later that they fully understood the nature of the attack.

  The American President, Harry S. Truman, was ecstatic that the plan had worked and warned the Japanese that, ‘If they do not accept our terms, they can expect a rain of ruin from the air the likes of which has never been seen on this earth’. That turned out to be partially true with the dropping of the second bomb on Nagasaki.

  On August 9, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria but the United States had already scheduled the attack on Nagasaki – one of the largest ports in the south of the country – for two days later. This was, however, brought forward to avoid bad weather and the ‘Fat Man’ bomb was dropped shortly after 11.00 a.m.. It exploded 1,540 feet above the ground and generated winds of over 600 mph and a temperature of 7,000ºF.

  Estimates of the extent of the casualties are vague and unreliable due to several factors: the Japanese allegedly inflated the figures as a propaganda exercise; the records kept at the time were not as accurate as they would be today; and it is not known how many died as an after-effect of radiation poisoning in the years following the attack. Needless to say, the 140,000 estimated to have perished at Hiroshima, added to the 74,000 who were killed at Nagasaki – mainly civilians – are probably conservative figures, and tens of thousands were also seriously injured.

  The Americans had more raids in the pipeline and were anticipating another device to be functional in the third week of August with another six bombs being readied for September and October. As it turned out, these were not required because the Japanese government surrendered on August 15 with the treaty being signed on board the USS Missouri on September 2. In his declaration, Emperor Hirohito stated: ‘the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilisation. Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects, or to atone Ourselves before the spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors?’