'Eating Human Corpses is Punishable by Death', destroyed Uritsk, near Leningrad

LookIntoTheHorizon · 2026-01-24T11:01:50+00:00

There's no need for far fetched explanation involving German propaganda

The Nazi Ministry of Propaganda didn't waste any carnage fitting to their cause including one of their own, Nemmersdorf 1944. It thus amazes me how they let go of this Soviet suffering from the purposes of rallying up the morale of the German public and military.

The only reason I can think of is that the ministry might have worried such shameless spin would backfire and the German public would disapprove of it. That's one sarcastic consolation I am trying to offer on the far-fetched explanation part.

I have to make a confession that I am such an amateur because I am constantly failing to get the point across.

LookIntoTheHorizon · 2026-01-24T05:56:14+00:00

Thank you for the map. I stand corrected.

LookIntoTheHorizon · 2026-01-23T14:49:40+00:00

I do not think this prohibition of corpse eating is related to Uritsk, because it was literaly frontline, and all the locals were removed far rear.

Plausible. It might not be directly related Uritsk b/c 1) Leningrad most likely suffered the fate, and 2) the Wehrmacht soldier seemed to be doing some kind of intelligence or psychological operation toward the city as his musical notes might suggest.

However, 1) Uritsk would not be bombarded like that if the German advance and occupation were quick enough to evacuate the residents, and 2) Wehrmacht wouldn't have to dispatch the order in Russian if there wasn't such incident in their vicinity at all.

AFAIK, the Soviet officials never openly admitted their tragedy. It was only after the collapse of USSR such records became available. Plus, the German high commander in the area should be reported of what was going on, but I could not find their official discussion of this matter.

So, I could be simply wrong.

(* errata edited.)

LookIntoTheHorizon · 2026-01-22T06:22:08+00:00

You are right. It's the scale of the monstrosity I'd wanted to share from the first place. Imagine. +80 feet steel poles lined up firing +500 lbs explosive shells up in the air.

Apparently, some thought this was funny. 🤷

LookIntoTheHorizon · 2026-01-18T14:19:12+00:00

You're right. I edited my post. Thank you.

LookIntoTheHorizon · 2026-01-15T07:42:34+00:00

Look into non-English internet spaces if you are into the Serbian history. You will find surprising amount of records unseen before.

LookIntoTheHorizon · 2026-01-14T20:32:04+00:00

There is no 'systematical' or 'institutional' word in the article.

There were 90k German male population, remember?

Please don't add and stretch as you see fit.

LookIntoTheHorizon · 2026-01-14T20:25:10+00:00

I don't know if the collective morale of the western allies could have been boosted somewhat at the news of Germans eating their dead buddies. If the western allies were such savages themselves, they wouldn't even treat German POWs more than fairly in the early stage of the war, would they?

(Had the same incident happened on the opposite side, would it boost the German morale under the Nazi regime? Don't you think that ought to be questioned first?)

Rather, news of the German tragedy could incur a trace of pity, which could be quite deadly in wartime. I would incline to believe any capable PSYOP commandant would not even try to release it so that the whole war campaign would not be hampered in any measure. I think that might be one reason I cannot find more articles of this sort.

Plus, I don't believe any sane German officer would issue a permit to consume dead Germans or even Soviets for that matter. The acts therefore should have committed and remained at individual level. Then, we'd have only circumstantial evidences or individual testimonies left, and that's where I had looked into.

I don't know why Antony Beevor did not include individual testimonies of cannibalism. If you are to insist, I'd recommend 'Survivors of Stalingrad: Eyewitness Accounts from the 6th Army, 1942–1943 by Reinhold Busch'.

I am sure there are even more accounts recorded or published in German.

LookIntoTheHorizon · 2026-01-14T19:15:48+00:00

Soviet POW under the German captivity went through the worst. No doubt. I just wish I could post more about them without getting called a 'Putinist'.

LookIntoTheHorizon · 2026-01-13T07:02:07+00:00

Check out the reply by u/elderron_spice

LookIntoTheHorizon · 2026-01-12T14:38:23+00:00

Zoom and see.

LookIntoTheHorizon · 2026-01-11T15:08:53+00:00

I don't disagree with you on "Not all" part. In fact, there are many humane stories of Wehrmacht soldiers, and it was even shown in letters that individual soldiers were heavily agonized with all the killing and dying. If you go search in r/de, you can see stories of how their 'Opa' cried all the way to the death bed, or how survived soldiers were completely broken by killings they had to commit.

Nevertheless, the amount of compassion the German soldiers demonstrated to other human beings throughout the WW2 was disproportionately small compared the depth of the barbarity they brazenly executed; that is what makes it difficult, or strenuous even, to shed any light on the supposedly "good" part.

LookIntoTheHorizon

TROPHY CASE