MOSCOW, July 4. /TASS/. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has published an archival document detailing the atrocities of an elite SS division involved in the mass extermination of Jews from Lvov to Kiev in 1941; it is a copy of the transcript of the December 29, 1945 interrogation in Kiev by Deputy Chief Military Prosecutor of the Red Army Alexander Cheptsov of Obergefreiter of the SS Wiking Division Hans Isenmann.
"During World War II, Nazi propaganda and later a number of West German historians claimed that the Waffen’s SS members were just run-of-the-mill soldiers from the German armed forces (Wehrmacht). Thus, they tried to conceal the war crimes committed by the Waffen SS against prisoners of war and civilians in the territories temporarily occupied by Nazi Germany. One of the Waffen SS units was a motorized division of the SS Wiking (since 1943 - the 5th SS Panzer Division ‘Wiking’)," the FSB noted. The division was formed in June 1940 by order of SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler. It was part of the elite Waffen SS units and was the first to employ mercenaries from "racially acceptable nations," primarily from Belgium, Denmark, Holland and Scandinavian countries.
Isenmann's testimony
Isenmann testified during his interrogation that his platoon, part of the Wiking Division, arrived in Lvov immediately after the Germans occupied it - at the end of June and the beginning of July 1941. "Our unit made four roundups of Lvov within two days. As a result, up to 800 Jewish people, among them men, women, the elderly and children, were rounded up," he reported. All of them were taken to the east of Lvov and shot. Isenmann personally shot approximately 120 people.
Two days later, the platoon was sent to Berdichev (now the Zhitomir Region, which was part of the Ukrainian SSR before the war began, unlike Lvov). "In Berdichev, roundups were also organized. Up to 800 men were rounded up and taken in groups outside the city and shot. The operation in Berdichev <...> lasted only two days. The shooting was carried out in broad daylight. In Berdichev, I shot about the same number - 120 people," said Isenmann. Local residents assisted in the shootings. "The unit was divided into groups of two people. Each group was given one local resident who would point out Jewish apartments and houses," Isenmann testified.
"During arrests, we offered to take all valuables with us and, before reaching the place of execution, we took away all valuables and put them in a pile. These valuables were guarded by sentries and then, apparently, handed over to the command," he said. In Tarashcha (the Kiev Region), he said, about 400 people were shot, 60 of them by Isenmann himself.
Executions were a common practice of the elite SS unit. According to Isenmann, in September 1943 he took part in the hanging of 25-30 patriots of Yugoslavia in the town of Metkovic. According to the FSB, after the Wikings left Lvov, the SS Einsatzkommando - punitive groups operating in the rear of the German troops - joined the extermination of Jews.
Hans Isenmann got his start in the Hitler Youth Nazi movement. Just 23 years old at the time, he was charged under the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 19, 1943 "On punishment measures for Nazi villains guilty of killing and torturing the Soviet civilian population and capturing Red Army soldiers, for spies, traitors to the motherland from among Soviet citizens and for their accomplices." Due to the "many instances of terrible atrocities and monstrous violence" discovered in the towns and villages liberated by the Red Army, it established the death penalty by hanging for "German, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian, Finnish fascist villains found guilty of murder and torture of the civilian population." At the trial in Kiev on January 17-28, 1946, Isenmann was sentenced to death by hanging alongside 12 other former German servicemen. On January 29, the sentence was carried out.