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The pacification actions in German-occupied Poland during World War II were one of many punitive measures designed to inflict terror on the civilian population of local villages and towns with the use of military and police force.〔 They were an integral part of the war of aggression against the Polish nation waged by Nazi Germany since September 1, 1939. The projected goal of pacification operations was to prevent and suppress the Polish resistance movement in World War II nevertheless, among the victims were children as young as 1.5 year old, women, fathers attempting to save their families, farmers rushing to rescue livestock from burning buildings, patients, victims already wounded, and hostages of many ethnicities including Poles and Jews.〔 War crimes committed during pacification actions in occupied Poland were probed by the West German Central Office of Justice in Ludwigsburg in September 1959 and, in accordance with the German Criminal Code (§ 78/3 pt. 2, and § 212), ultimately thrown out as already expired due to German statutes of limitations.〔 No further investigations were conducted until June 1971 when the 1939 crimes of the 1st Panzer Division in Poland (''Polenfeldzug'') were also thrown out as unlikely after statement by Major Walther Wenck, which was accepted on good faith. The inquiries by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance into massacres in specific locations are ongoing.〔 Historical data collected in Poland confirms the complete destruction of 554,000 farms valued at 6.062 million złoty (1938 level) with 8 million dead cattle and horses, on top of terrible human losses. Several hundred villages were wiped off the map. In just a year and a half between January 1, 1943, and July 31, 1944, the Wehrmacht army alone conducted 1,106 pacification actions in occupied Poland, independent of the killing operations by ''Einsatzgruppen'' and auxiliary forces, and the ongoing Holocaust of the Jews. ==Background== The so-called "pacification operations" were introduced along with all other extermination policies directed against Poland already in September 1939, and were of a large scale, resulting in the confirmed murder of approximately 20,000 villagers. Massacres were conducted in the areas of General Government, Pomorze, and in the vicinities of Białystok and Greater Poland. The number of Polish settlements targeted in these operations is approximately 825. The regular German army conducted 760 mass executions during their march across central Poland. Material losses from wanton destruction of Polish countryside unrelated to military maneuvers are estimated at 30 million złoty in the area of General Government alone. Notably, in the eyes of those who have written about it, the pacification actions were not a part of the indiscriminate killings by the mobile ''Einsatzkommando'' squads active during the invasion of Poland of 1939, characterized by often deliberate targeting of civilian population by the invading forces, with the active participation of the German minority living in the Second Polish Republic whose men joined the SS armed ''Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz'' battalions in West Prussia, Upper Silesia and Warthegau. In total, up to 200,000 Poles lost their lives at the beginning of war regardless of the nature of the conflict. Likewise, over 100,000 Poles died in the Luftwaffe's terror bombing operations. The pacification actions were conducted in west-central Poland as well in the eastern Kresy regions re-captured from the USSR in 1941, including in the Polesie Voivodeship, Nowogródek Voivodeship and others, comprising most of contemporary West Belarus. These tactics were the main local means of the Holocaust in occupied Poland. Some 627 villages were razed in eastern Poland by the ''SS'' with the help of collaborationist battalions including Belarusian, Ukrainian and others, during 60 pacification and 80 punitive operations there.〔 History of Belarus, mid 18th century until the 20th century (Historia Białorusi od połowy XVIII do XX w.)〕 The battalions of Belarusian Home Defence (BKA) alone massacred some 30,000 Jews during pacification of villages. Collective punishment was used during such operations to discourage offering shelter to Soviet POWs and providing aid to any guerrilla forces. Pacifications included the extermination of entire villages including women and children, expulsions, the burning of homes, confiscation of private property, and arrests. In many instances the operations of this kind conducted jointly by the ''Einsatzgruppen'' and the German Order Police battalions, were characterized by extreme brutality. An example of such tactics was the burning alive of 91 hostages including 31 women and 31 children in the village of Jabłoń-Dobki in the Białystok region on March 8, 1944. Once the fire got going, a grenade was thrown in. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pacification actions in German-occupied Poland」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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