List of war crimes
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This article lists and summarizes war crimes committed since the Hague Convention of 1907. In addition, those incidents which have been judged in a court of justice to be Crimes Against Peace that have been committed since these crimes were first defined are also included.[1]
Since many war crimes are not ultimately prosecuted (due to lack of political will, lack of effective procedures, or other practical and political reasons[2]), historians and lawyers will often make a serious case that war crimes occurred, even if there was no formal investigations or prosecution of the alleged crimes or an investigation cleared the alleged perpetrators.
War crimes under international law were firmly established by international trials such as the 1945 Nuremberg Major War Crimes Trials and the Tokyo trial of 1946, in which German and Japanese leaders were prosecuted for war crimes committed during World War II. For purpose of selectivity, only war crimes since the customary laws of war were clarified in the Hague Conventions of 1907 are included, because in the judgment at the Major War Crimes Trial in Nuremberg in 1945, it was stated that "by 1939 these rules laid down in the Hague Convention of 1907 were recognised by all civilised nations, and were regarded as being declaratory of the laws and customs of war".[3]
1914-1918: World War I
World War I was the first major international conflict to take place following the codification of the majority of the laws, customs, usages, rules and articles of war by the Hague Regulations of 1907 (though the laws and customs of war have been in force amongst the civilized nations since time immemorial; their codification is a recent phenomenon). As the Kellogg-Briand Pact and the United Nations Charter had not yet been conceived, never mind signed--and the Nuremberg Trial had not yet taken place--crimes against peace (waging a war of aggression for territorial conquest) was not considered to be a violation of the customary law of nations, or the laws of war. Therefore, this section shall confine itself to the consideration of war crimes, including derived war crimes, such as the use of poisons as weapons, as well as crimes against humanity, and derivative crimes against humanity, such as torture, and genocide.
| Armed conflict | Perpetrator | ||
| World War I | All belligerents | ||
| Incident | Type of crime | Persons responsible | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Invention and employment of poison gas | Use of poisons as weapons (All major belligerents used poisonous gasses against enemy personnel in combat.) | No prosecutions | Poison gas was invented by the Germans and subsequently used by all major belligerents in the war against enemy soldiers, in violation of the customary law of war, adhered to by all civilized nations and armed groups, thereby constituting the Use of poisons as weapons. |
| World War I | Ottoman Empire | ||
| Incident | Type of crime | Persons responsible | Notes |
| Armenian Genocide | War crimes, Crimes against humanity, Crime of genocide (Extermination of Armenians in Anatolia) | Unknown; trials were planned, but not carried out in full. | The Sublime Porte ordered the wholesale extermination of Armenians living within Anatolia. This was carried out by certain elements of their military forces, who either massacred Armenians outright, or deported them to Syria and then massacred them. Nearly one million Armenians perished. |
1937-1945: Second Sino-Japanese War
This section includes war crimes up to and through December 6, 1941 when the Second Sino-Japanese War became the Asian Theater of World War II, due to certain events of December 7, 1941. For war crimes after this date see the section called World War II: Japan perpetrated crimes.
| Armed conflict | Perpetrator | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Second Sino-Japanese War | Japan | ||
| Incident | Type of crime | Persons responsible | Notes |
| Attack on China in 1937 | Crimes against peace (Waging unprovoked war against China (count 27 at the Tokyo Trials)[4]) | Sadao Araki, Kenji Doihara, Kingoro Hashimoto, Shunroku Hata, Kiichiro Hiranuma, Koki Hirota, Naoki Hoshino, Seishiro Itagaki, Okinori Kaya, Koichi Kido, Heitaro Kimura, Kuniaki Koiso, Jiro Minami, Akira Muto, , Hiroshi Oshima, , Mamoru Shigemitsu, Shigetaro Shimada, , Toshio Shiratori, Shigenori Togo, Hideki Tojo, Yoshijiro Umezu | |
| Nanking Massacre,[4] China, 1937-38 | Crimes against humanity; War crimes (Mass murder of civilian population & POWs, rape, looting) | General Asaka Yasuhiko, commander, Japanese Shanghai Expeditionary Force, Imperial Japanese Army. General Iwane Matsui, Commanding general of Japanese forces in China, Imperial Japanese Army. Chief of staff of the Army Kotohito Kan'in, Minister of War Hajime Sugiyama. Debate still is ongoing as to the culpability of Emperor Hirohito in the events. | After the Battle of Nanking, on 13 December 1937, Japanese entered the city virtually resistance free. From then for a period of about 6 weeks after, until early February 1938, widespread war crimes were committed including mass rape, looting, arson, the killing of civilians and prisoners of war. Most estimates put deaths at between 150,000 and 300,000 with newly declassified US government documents estimating an additional 500,000 outside Nanking before its fall. |
| Hankow massacre,China, 1938 | War crimes (Mass execution of POWs) | General Shunroku Hata, commander, China Expeditionary Army , Imperial Japanese Army. | War crimes were committed including the killing of civilians and prisoners of war[5]. |
1939-1945 World War II
Axis powers (listed by country)
The Axis Powers (particularly Germany and Japan) were perhaps the most systematic perpetrators of war crimes in human history. Contributing factors included Nazi race theory, a desire for "living space" that justified the eradication of native populations, and militaristic indoctrination that encouraged the terrorization of conquered peoples and prisoners of war. The Holocaust, the German attack on Russia and occupation of Western Europe, and the Japanese occupation of Manchuria and attack on China contributed to well over half of the civilian deaths in World War II and the conflicts that led up to the war.
Croatian perpetrated crimes
- See also: Ustaša
Numerous concentration camps were built in Croatia, most notably Jasenovac (in Croatian: Logor Jasenovac in Serbian: Логор Јасеновац / Logor Jasenovac), the largest, where hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Gypsies (Roma), Jews and Croatian dissidents died. It was established by the Ustaša regime of the Independent State of Croatia in August 1941 and not dismantled until April 1945, shortly before the end of the war. Other concentration camps were in Gospić, Pag, Đakovo, Jastrebarsko and Lepoglava.
According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center (citing the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust), "Ustasa terrorists killed 500,000 Serbs, expelled 250,000 and forced 250,000 to convert to Roman Catholicism. They murdered thousands of Jews and Gypsies."[6]
Jasenovac was a complex of five subcamps and three smaller camps spread out over 240 square kilometers (93 square miles), in relatively close proximity to each other, on the bank of the Sava river. Most of the camp was at Jasenovac, about 100 km (62 miles) southeast of Zagreb. The complex also included large grounds at directly across the Sava River, a camp for children in Sisak to the northwest, and a women's camp in Stara Gradiška to the southeast.
Ante Pavelić, leader of the Ustasha, fled to Argentina and Spain which gave him protection, and was never extradited to stand trial for his war crimes.
German perpetrated crimes
According to the Nuremberg Trials, there were four major war crimes that were alleged against German military (and Waffen-SS and NSDAP) men and officers, each with individual events that made up the major charges.
1. Participation in a common plan of conspiracy for the accomplishment of crimes against peace
2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace
- Planning and executing a campaign of invasion of its European neighbors, as well as the conspiracy to violate the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Saint-Germain through the remilitarization of the Rhineland, and the annexations of Austria and Czechoslovakia.
3. War Crimes These were limited to atrocities against combatants or conventional crimes committed by military units (see War crimes of the Wehrmacht), and include:
- Invasion of Poland, in the period of 1 September - 25 October 1939 German Wehrmacht during its military actions engaged in executions of Polish POWs, bombed hospitals, murdered civilians, shot refugees, executed wounded soldiers. The cautious estimates give a number of at least 16,000 murdered victims[4]
- Pacification Operations in German occupied Poland, during the occupation of Poland by German Reich, Wehrmacht forces took part in several pacification actions in rural areas, that resulted in murder of at least 20,000 Polish villagers
- Le Paradis massacre, May 1940, British soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, captured by the SS and subsequently murdered. Fritz Knoechlein tried, found guilty and hanged.
- Wormhoudt massacre, May 1940, British and French soldiers captured by the SS and subsequently murdered. No one found guilty of the crime.
- d'Ardenne Massacres, June 1944 Canadian soldiers captured by the SS and murdered by 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend. SS General Kurt Meyer (Panzermeyer) sentenced to be shot 1946; sentence commuted; released 1954
- Malmedy massacre, December 1944, United States POWs captured by Kampfgruppe Peiper were murdered outside of Malmedy, Belgium.
- Gardelegen (war crime)
- Marzabotto massacre
- Sant'Anna di Stazzema
- Cefalonia Massacre
- Oradour-sur-Glane
- The annihilation of the Czech city of Lidice
- Massacre of Kalavryta
- Distomo massacre
- The suppression of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising and subsequent leveling of the whole city
- The treatment of Soviet POWs throughout the war, who were not given the protections and guarantees of the Geneva Convention
- Unrestricted submarine warfare against merchant shipping
- Vinkt Massacre
- Heusden; town hall massacre (November 1944).
4. Crimes against Humanity These were crimes that were committed well away from the lines of battle and were unconnected in any way to military activity.
- The major crime was the Holocaust, including:
- The construction and use of Vernichtungslagern, most prominently at Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Treblinka, Majdanek, Belzec, Sobibór, and Chełmno
- The employment of other camps across Europe, including Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen and Bergen-Belsen which served unofficially as death camps to a degree
- Death marches of prisoners, particularly in the last months of the war when the aforementioned camps were being overrun by the Allies
- The widespread use of slave labor and forced/unfree labor by the Nazi regime, including the use of concentration camp and extermination camp prisoners as slaves
- The establishment of Jewish Ghettos in Eastern Europe
- The use of SS Einsatzgruppen, mobile extermination squads
- Babi Yar
- Rumbula
- Dnepropetrovsk
- Ninth Fort
- Simferopol
- The massacre of 100,000 Jews and Poles at Paneriai
- The suppression of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising which erupted when the SS came to clear the ghetto and send all of the occupants to extermination camps
- Izieu Massacre
- The construction and use of Vernichtungslagern, most prominently at Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Treblinka, Majdanek, Belzec, Sobibór, and Chełmno
Other crimes against humanity included:
- The Porajmos, the Nazi pogrom against the Romany peoples of Europe
- The Łapanka or "Catching Game," – Nazi roundups of Poles in the major cities for slave labor and other purposes
- Operation Tannenberg, the AB Action and the Massacre of Lwów professors, all Nazi actions in Poland meant to mass murder the Polish intelligentsia and other potential leaders of resistance.
- The Nazi T-4 Euthanasia Program, an aborted eugenics program meant to kill German children who were mentally or physically handicapped. 200,000 people were gassed to death due to this program.
At least 10 million, and perhaps over 20 million innocent non-combatants were systematically murdered by the Nazi regime in the commission of crimes against humanity, of which the Holocaust lives on in particular infamy, since the largest amount of deaths happened among Jewish citizens of states invaded or controlled by the Nazi regime. At least 5 to 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, although a complete count may never be known. Though much of Continental Europe suffered from the Nazi murders, in particular, Poland and Russia were the states most devastated by these crimes, with many of their Jewish and a good number of their Christian citizens slaughtered by the Nazi aggressor. After the war, the Nazi regime was put on trial in two tribunals in Nuremberg, Germany by the victorious Allied powers from 1945 to 1949. The first tribunal indicted 24 major Nazi war criminals, and resulted in 19 convictions (of which 12 led to death sentences) and 3 acquittals, 2 of the accused died before a verdict was rendered. The second tribunal indicted 185 members of the military, economic, and political leadership of Nazi Germany, of which 142 were convicted and 35 were acquitted. In subsequent decades, approximately 20 additional war criminals who escaped capture in the immediate aftermath of World War II were tried in West Germany and Israel. In Germany and many other European nations, the Nazi Party is outlawed.
Italian perpetrated crimes
- War crimes in the Balkans, in France, Italy and on the Eastern Front
- No one has been brought to trial for war crimes, although in 1950 the former Italian defense minister was convicted for collaboration with Nazi Germany.
Japanese perpetrated crimes
This section includes war crimes from 8 December 1941 when the United States declared war on Japan so entering World War II. For war crimes before this date which took place during the Second Sino-Japanese War please see the section above called 1937-1945: Second Sino-Japanese War.
| Incident | Type of crime | Persons responsible | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| World War II[] | Crimes against peace (Overall waging and/or conspiracy to wage a war of aggression for territorial aggrandizement, as established by the Tokyo Trials) | General Doihara Kenji, Baron Hirota Koki, General Itagaki Seishiro, General Kimura Heitaro, General Matsui Iwane, General Muto Akira, General Hideki Tojo, General Araki Sadao, Colonel Hashimoto Kingoro, Field Marshal Hata Shunroku, Baron Hiranuma Kiichiro, Hoshino Naoki, , Marquis Kido Kōichi, General Koiso Kuniaki, General Minami Jiro, Admiral , General Oshima Hiroshi, General , Admiral Shimada Shigetaro, Shiratori Toshio, General , General Umezu Yoshijiro, Togo Shigenori, Shigemitsu Mamoru | Were tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East |
| Attack on the United States in 1941[4] | Crimes against Peace (Waging aggressive war against the United States (count 29 at the Tokyo Trials))[4]) | Kenji Doihara, Shunroku Hata, Kiichiro Hiranuma, Naoki Hoshino, Seishiro Itagaki, Okinori Kaya, Koichi Kido, Heitaro Kimura, Kuniaki Koiso, Akira Muto, , , Mamoru Shigemitsu, Shigetaro Shimada, , Shigenori Togo, Hideki Tojo, Yoshijiro Umezu[4] | Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet was ordered by his Militarist superiors to start the war with a bloody sneak attack on a U.S. Naval Base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. |
| War started with attacks on Hong Kong and Malaya | Crimes against peace (Waging aggressive war against the British Commonwealth (count 31 at the Tokyo Trials))[4] | Kenji Doihara, Shunroku Hata, Kiichiro Hiranuma, Naoki Hoshino, Seishiro Itagaki, Okinori Kaya, Koichi Kido, Heitaro Kimura, Kuniaki Koiso, Akira Muto, , , Mamoru Shigemitsu, Shigetaro Shimada,, Shigenori Togo, Hideki Tojo, Yoshijiro Umezu[4] | |
| Crimes against peace (Waging aggressive war against the Netherlands (count 32 at the Tokyo Trials))[4] | Kenji Doihara, Shunroku Hata, Kiichiro Hiranuma, Naoki Hoshino, Seishiro Itagaki, Okinori Kaya, Koichi Kido, Heitaro Kimura, Kuniaki Koiso, Akira Muto, , , Mamoru Shigemitsu, Shigetaro Shimada,, Shigenori Togo, Hideki Tojo, Yoshijiro Umezu[4] | ||
| Crimes against peace (Waging aggressive war against France in Indochina (count 33 at the Tokyo Trials))[4] | Mamoru Shigemitsu, Hideki Tojo[4] | ||
| Crimes against peace (Waging aggressive war against the USSR (counts 35 and 36 or both at the Tokyo Trials))[4] | Kenji Doihara, Kiichiro Hiranuma, Seishiro Itagaki[4] | ||
| War crimes ("ordered, authorized, and permitted" inhumane treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) and others (count 54 at the Tokyo Trials))[4] | Kenji Doihara, Seishiro Itagaki, Heitaro Kimura, Akira Muto, Hideki Tojo[4] | ||
| War crimes, Crimes against humanity, Crime of torture ("deliberately and recklessly disregarded their duty" to take adequate steps to prevent atrocities (count 55 at the Tokyo Trials))[4] | Shunroku Hata, Koki Hirota, Heitaro Kimura, Kuniaki Koiso, Iwane Matsui, Akira Muto, Mamoru Shigemitsu[4] | ||
| "Black Christmas", Hong Kong, December 25, 1941,[7] | Crimes against humanity (Murder of civilians; mass rape, looting) | no specific prosecutions, although the conviction and execution of Takashi Sakai included some activities in Hong Kong during the time frame | On the day of the British surrender of Hong Kong to the Japanese, Japanese soldiers also terrorised the local population by murdering many, raping an estimated 10,000 women, and looting. |
| Banka Island Massacre, Dutch East Indies, 1942 | Crimes against humanity (Murder of civilians) | no prosecutions | The merchant ship Vyner Brooke was sunk by Japanese aircraft. The survivors who made it to Banka Island were all shot or bayonetted, including 22 nurses ordered into the sea and machine-gunned. One nurse Vivian Bullwinkel survived the massacre and later testified at a war crimes trial in Tokyo in 1947[8] |
| Bataan Death March, Philippines, 1942 | Crime of torture, war crimes (Torture and murder of POWs) | General Masaharu Homma was convicted by an Allied commission of war crimes, including the atrocities of the death march out of Bataan, and the atrocities at Camp O'Donnell and Cabanatuan that followed. He was executed on April 3, 1946 outside Manila. | Approximately 75,000 Filipino and US soldiers, commanded by Major General Edward P. King, Jr. formally surrendered to the Japanese, under General Masaharu Homma, on April 9, 1942, which forced Japan to accept emaciated captives outnumbering them. Captives were forced to march, beginning the next day, about 100 kilometers north to Nueva Ecija to Camp O'Donnell, a prison camp. Prisoners of war were beaten randomly and denied food and water for several days. Those who fell behind were executed through various means: shot, beheaded or bayoneted. Deaths estimated at 650-1,500 U.S. and 2,000 to over 5,000 Filipino-,[5] |
| Operation Sankō (Three Alls Policy) | Crime of genocide, Crimes against humanity (Extermination of civilians) | General Yasuji Okamura | Authorized in December 1941 to implement a scorched earth policy in North China by Imperial General Headquarters. According to historian Mitsuyoshi Himeta, "more than 2.7 million" civilians were killed in this operation that began in May 1942.[9] |
| Parit Sulong massacre, Malaysia, 1942 | War crimes (Murder of POWs) | Lieutenant General Takuma Nishimura, was convicted for this crime by an Australian Military Court and hanged on June 11, 1951.[10] | Recently captured Australian and Indian POWs, who had been too badly wounded to escape through the jungle, were murdered by Japanese soldiers. Accounts differ on how they were killed. Two wounded Australians managed to escape the massacre and provide eyewitness accounts of the Japanese treatment of wounded prisoners of war, as did locals who witnessed the massacre. Official records indicate that 150 wounded men were killed. |
| Laha massacre, 1942 | War crimes (Murder of POWs) | In 1946, the Laha massacre and other incidents which followed the fall of Ambon became the subject of the largest ever war crimes trial, when 93 Japanese personnel were tried by an Australian tribunal, at Ambon. Among other convictions, four men were executed as a result. Commander , who was in direct command of the four massacres, was hanged; Rear Admiral , who was found to have ordered the killings, died before he could be tried.[11] | After the battle Battle of Ambon, more than 300 Australian and Dutch prisoners of war were chosen at random and summarily executed, at or near Laha airfield in four separate massacres. "The Laha massacre was the largest of the atrocities committed against captured Allied troops in 1942.".[12] |
| Alexandra Hospital massacre, Battle of Singapore, 1942 | Crimes against humanity (Murder of civilians) | no prosecutions | At about 1pm on February 14, Japanese soldiers approached Alexandra Barracks Hospital. Although no resistance was offered, some of them shot or bayoneted staff members and patients. The remaining staff and patients were murdered over the next two days, 200 in all.[13] |
| Sook Ching Massacre, 1942 | Crimes against humanity (Murder of civilians) | In 1947, the British Colonial authorities in Singapore held a war crimes trial to bring the perpetrators to justice. Seven officers, were charged with carrying out the massacre. While Lieutenant General , Lieutenant Colonel received the death penalty, the other five received life sentences | The massacre (estimated at 25,000-50,000)[14] was a systematic extermination of perceived hostile elements among the Chinese in Singapore by the Japanese military administration during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore, after the British colony surrendered in the Battle of Singapore on 15 February 1942. |
| Changjiao massacre,China, 1943 | Crimes against humanity, War crimes (Mass murder of civilian population & POWs, rape, looting) | General Shunroku Hata, commander, China Expeditionary Army , Imperial Japanese Army. | War crimes were committed including mass rape, looting, arson, the killing of civilians and prisoners of war.[15][16][17] |
| Manila Massacre | Crimes against humanity (Murder of civilians) | Tomoyuki Yamashita commander, Akira Muto chief of staff | As commander of the in the Philippines, Gen. Yamashita failed to stop his troops from killing over 100,000 Filipino citizens of Manila[18] while fighting with both native resistance forces and elements of the Sixth U.S. Army during the capture of the city in February, 1945. Yamashita pleaded inability to act and lack of knowledge of the massacre, due to his commanding other operations int the area. The defense failed, establishing the Yamashita Standard, which holds that a commander who makes no meaningful effort to uncover and stop atrocities is as culpable as if he had ordered them. His chief of staff Akira Muto was condemned by the Tokyo tribunal. |
| Unit 100[] | Crimes against humanity; Use of poisons as weapons (biological warfare experiments on humans) | no prosecutions | |
| Unit 731 | Crimes against humanity; War crimes; Crime of torture; Use of poisons as weapons (biological warfare testing, manufacturing, and use) | 12 members of the Kantogun were found guilty for the manufacture and use of biological weapons. Including: General Yamada Otsuzo, former Commander-in-Chief of the Kwantung Army and Major General Kawashima Kiyoshi, former Chief of Unit 731. | During this biological and chemical weapons' program over 10,000 were experimented on without anesthetic and as many as 200,000 died throughout China. The Soviet Union tried some members of Unit 731 at the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials. However, those who surrendered to the Americans were never brought to trial as General Douglas MacArthur, |