MFDJ 01/18/25: The Commisar Order

Today’s Eliminationist Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

The Nazi war against the Soviet Union was waged from the beginning as a war of extermination. The “Commissar Order” authorized, in contravention of international law, the murder of the Red Army’s “political officers.” Of 5.7 million Soviet prisoners of war, approximately 3.3 million died in German custody because the Wehrmacht intentionally let them perish of hunger, cold, and illness.

With the Nazi invasion of the USSR, National Socialist “Jewish policy“ assumed a clearly eliminationist character. The systematic mass murder of the Jews in the occupied territories took place as part of the Nazis’ war of extermination under gruesome circumstances, primarily in the form of mass shootings. By March 1942, SS and police killing squads had murdered over 600,000 Jews in the occupied Soviet territories.

During the Second World War, more than 18 million Germans served in the army. In 1943 alone, over 13 million people served in the German armed forces. Most of them served for at least some time in the Polish and Soviet territories where by far the greatest number of Holocaust victims were murdered. Not just the police and the SS, but frequently also members of the Wehrmacht, participated in mass shootings of Jews and “Gypsies,” including women and children. The extent of the Wehrmacht personnel’s involvement in crimes against the civilian population and the murder of Jews depended on several factors: the unit to which they belonged, where they were at what time, what their official rank and title was, as well as their personal behavior.


Liepaja, Latvia, December 1941 – Women before they were executed

More than a few of the soldiers who served “in the East” participated directly in genocidal acts. The majority of soldiers did not assist physically in the mass shootings of Jewish men, women and children, but they often witnessed the scenes of cruelty and murder that accompanied the clearing of ghettos and Jewish residential districts as well as mass shootings. Even those soldiers that became involuntary witnesses to such acts, or were accidental witnesses, learned sooner or later of the murders. As perpetrators and eyewitnesses sat together in full train cars for days on their way home for a furlough or convalescent leave, they told frequently boastful stories and passed around photographs that made the systematic character and extent of the shootings of Jews increasingly obvious. Little by little, most of the Wehrmacht learned one way or another about the murder of the Jews, and this information about the genocide was transmitted through them to the “home front“.

Culled from: Topography of Terror

 

Prisoner Du Jour!

Prisoners: Murder, Mayhem, and Petit Larceny is a collection of seventy portraits of turn-of-the-century prisoners in the town of Marysville, California and the fascinating contemporary newspaper and prison accounts describing the crimes of which they were accused. The photos themselves are more fascinating than most of the crimes. There’s something magical about glass plate negatives that you just can’t reproduce with modern photography.  And I think people just had more character back in the day – or at least it seems that way.

EUGENE ROBAGE

NEWS EPITOMIZED

Deputy Sheriff Anderson arrived from Wheatland last evening and returned this morning with Eugene Robage, where he will answer in Justice Manwell’s court to a charge of petit larceny. He has admitted the theft of some tools from a Horstville barber.  [September 2, 1902]

NEWS EPITOMIZED

Eugene Robage, sentenced to 30 days for petty larceny, was delivered at the county jail by Deputy Sheriff Anderson last evening. [September 3, 1902]

 

Garretdom!

There’s no racism in this article at all.  None whatsoever.  

HOW HE WAS CUT.

Frederick Steward Tells the Story of a Fight on a Street Corner.

Frederick Steward, a colored man twenty-six years old, whose home is at 1209 Kater street, was admitted to the Pennsylvania Hospital last evening suffering from a wound in the abdomen, received during a quarrel at Eleventh and Locust streets, in which several men were interested.

“‘Twas Abe Scott cut me,” said Steward after his wound was dressed. “Me and Bill Auter had some talk, but it all blowed over, an’ then Abe Scott cum ovah to whar I was an’ he wanted to fight. I told him to ‘way, fur I didn’t want anything to do with him, an’ then Charlie Polk he cum up an’ mashed me in de jaw. While I was attendin’ to him Abe he cums up behind me an’ throwed his arms around me jist so so an’ cut me. Then him and Charlie both run away.”

Auter was arrested and held as a witness but neither Scott nor Polk had been secured up to a late hour last night. The wound is a severe one, but is not considered of a dangerous character by the surgeons, although they were unwilling last night to give an opinion as to the probable result further than that the chances were favorable for his recovery.

Steward is said to be a quiet, peaceable fellow, while neither of his assailants bears a good reputation.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

Here’s another article (from the September 20, 1886 issue of the Philadelphia Times) that presents the story in a less sympathetic light to Mr. Steward:

STABBED ON LOCUST STREET.

One of a Gang of Colored Roughs Receives a Knife-Thrust in the Abdomen.

A gang of colored roughs were standing on the corner of Eleventh and Locust streets last night. One of the number, Abe Scott, who lives in Brier place, offered to fight Frederick Steward, of 1209 Kater street. The latter told his belligerent companion that he didn’t want to fight. Scott, however, became so anxious to show the crowd how Sullivan knocked out Hearld that Steward attempted to walk away. Charles Polk, another one of the loungers, stopped him and called him a coward, and he and Steward clinched. Scott watched the altercation until he saw that Polk was being worsted, and then he sailed in to his assistance. Steward’s back was turned and Scott pulled out a formidable jack-knife and opened the blade. Steward heard the warning cries of his friends, but before he could turn around he received a knife-thrust in the abdomen, which sent him to the ground. A Fifth district officer was seen approaching and the entire gang took to their heels, except William Anter, who lives in Poplar court, and he was arrested on suspicion of having been implicated in the stabbing. Scott and Polk escaped, though the police are looking for them. The injured man was conveyed to the Pennsylvania Hospital. The wound is serious.

I could find no confirmation of whether Steward lived.

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