FSB declassified documents on Hitlerite crimes in Kursk region

The Federal Security Service (FSB) has declassified and published archive documents testifying to the crimes of the Nazi German army against civilians of the Kursk region of the USSR in 1943. This was reported in the Public Relations Center (PRC) of the FSB of Russia.

"The archive of the Department of the Federal Security Service of Russia in the Kursk region declassified documents testifying to atrocities against Soviet civilians of the Kursk region, committed by soldiers of the 596th Grenadier Regiment of the 327th Infantry Division of Nazi Germany under the command of Colonel Friedrich August Weinknecht," - said in the department.

For the first time Weinknecht's division set foot on the Kursk land in February 1943 after it was transferred from the Mediterranean theater of military operations to the Eastern Front. Upon arrival, the Wehrmacht soldiers unloaded at Suja station and took up defensive positions 20 km. east of the town of Suja.

"On February 27, 1943, the regiment arrived in Sujansky district and settled in the settlements: Ivnitsa, Isakovka, Generalovka, Mashkino. On the night of February 27-28, 1943, the reconnaissance of the Red Army's advanced units destroyed the personnel of the German regiment's howitzer battery wagon in the village of Ivnitsa", - it follows from the archive documents.

A little later, on the afternoon of February 28, Weinknecht's subordinates massacred Soviet civilians on his orders.

"This shooting of Soviet civilians took place at the end of February 1943 in a village, the name of which is unknown to me, which is two to three kilometers south of the village of Mashkino <...> The shooting of Soviet civilians, among whom were women and children, was carried out on the orders of Colonel Weinknecht," - said later on under interrogation German Sergeant Sedlacek Johann Stephan, who served in the headquarters company of the 596th Grenadier Regiment.

Documents show that the regiment personnel shot 48 civilians of the Voroshilov collective farm, including women, children and old people in the building of the village council. After the massacre the punishers set fire to the building together with the bodies of the killed.

Subsequently, the 596th Grenadier Regiment retreated through Korenevo and took up defenses on the right bank of the Seim River in the settlements of Yurasovo, Vysokoye, Nizhny Mordok and Rzhava in the Glushkovsky district of Kursk region.

Arriving on the spot, Weinknecht gave orders to steal the civilian population of the area to the German rear.

"With regard to Soviet civilians who evaded being taken to the rear areas and to German penal servitude, there was an order coming from the commander of the 596th Infantry[otnoy] Regiment, Colonel Weinknecht, that they should all be shot without any trial," Sedlacek Johan Stefan also reported to Sedlacek under interrogation.

Later, the German colonel himself also partially confessed to the crimes committed.

"As I have previously shown, <...> indeed the personnel of my regiment carried out shootings of civilians, and there was a recruitment of civilians for defense work..." - Weiknecht's testimony is recorded in the interrogation report.

Also as a result of such massacres 46 inhabitants of the village of Yurasovo, 30 inhabitants of the village of Nizhny Mordok, as well as 13 inhabitants of the village of Vysokoye were killed. In addition, the punishers of the 596th regiment burned 110 houses in the village of Mashkino and all public buildings of the collective farm "Novaya Zhizn".

Weiknecht himself, with the rank of lieutenant general, was captured on August 29, 1944 by Soviet troops during the Iasi-Kishinev operation. For his crimes, he was sentenced to 25 years in a correctional labor camp. In 1955 he was released and repatriated to his homeland.

The FSB representatives specified that a total of six documents had been declassified and published. Including the indictment of Lieutenant-General F.-A. Weinknecht, his photo, taken not earlier than July 15, 1944, as well as an excerpt from the protocol of interrogation of the prisoner of war Efreyator I.S. Sedlacek.

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Before that, on February 4, the FSB Central Committee published declassified archival documents dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Yalta Conference of the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition countries: the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain.