In late 1941, the German military advance into the Soviet Union brought with it the mobile killing units of the SS and police. These units followed the front lines with a specific mission: the mass murder of Jews, Communists, and others deemed threats to German occupation.
The city of Kharkov, one of the Soviet Union’s largest industrial centers, fell to German forces on October 24, 1941. Before the occupation, the city had a population of around 1.5 million. By the time of its liberation in August 1943, fewer than 200,000 people remained alive.
Among the German personnel stationed in Kharkov was Reinhard Rlof. Born in Berlin in 1907, Rlof was a civilian official who worked as an assistant manager of distribution for a newspaper before the war. He served with the 560th group of German secret field police in the occupied city.
Rlof’s duties were brutal. He specialized in loading women and children into gas vans, which were trucks modified to serve as mobile gas chambers. Victims were beaten with clubs and rifle butts as they were forced inside, then suffocated by carbon monoxide channeled into the sealed compartment.
Rlof later described the process during an inspection visit in March 1942. He noted that prisoners sometimes resisted when the van was loaded, but they were beaten into submission. He admitted to personally taking part in the loading of victims on two occasions, once in March and again in July 1942, with about 20 people loaded each time.
He also recalled a scene where women wept loudly and dropped to their knees, begging to be sent back to prison. They were all murdered.
Beyond the gas vans, Rlof took part in the burning of bodies and the torture of Soviet civilians. His methods included plucking out hair and torturing victims with needles. He later stated that every person detained by the secret field police was beaten first, and that those who refused to give evidence were beaten further, often to death.
In the town of Dergachi, about 12 kilometers from Kharkov, Rlof ordered the shooting of 20 innocent women after they refused to confess. He described how the women were stripped, beaten with sticks, and then killed. He also admitted to burning a mother and her three children alive in the city of Bavar.
Kharkov was temporarily retaken by the Red Army in February 1943, then recaptured by German forces in April of the same year. By the time the city was permanently liberated in August 1943, virtually no Jews had survived the occupation.
In December 1943, four men faced justice for the crimes committed in Kharkov. Reinhard Rlof, Wilhelm Lal, Hans Ritz, and Soviet collaborator M. Petrovic Bulanov were accused of participating in the murders of Soviet citizens. Bulanov was also charged with treason for collaborating with the Germans.
All three German defendants were charged with taking part in mass shootings, hangings, burnings, and the use of gas vans. All pleaded guilty. Rlof stated that he pleaded guilty to all crimes committed on orders, but noted that if he had refused, he would have been placed in the same position as his victims.
The defense argued that the accused were following orders. The prosecution acknowledged this but rejected it as a sufficient defense. During the trial, Rlof admitted that cases were often trumped up and evidence faked, calling it a normal procedure.
The trial concluded on December 18, 1943, with all four men sentenced to death. They filed petitions for clemency. Lal, who admitted to beating women to death, said the entire German Army was like that. Rlof asked for a pardon so he could return to Germany and open the eyes of the German people to the deeds of the fascist invaders.
The petitions were rejected. The execution took place in Kharkov City Square on December 19, 1943, at 11 a.m., and was held publicly. Around 50,000 people witnessed the hangings in the snow-covered square.
American journalist Edmund Stevens described the scene. The four prisoners were hoisted onto the backs of open trucks and stood on stools. Nooses were looped around their necks, and there was no blindfolding. Three of the four had to be propped up. Bulanov had fainted, while Rlof and Ritz had turned pale and drooled at the mouths. Only Lal remained stiff throughout.
At a signal, the trucks pulled away, leaving the four men dangling and kicking in midair. Loud cheers broke out from the crowd. The short-drop method of hanging caused a slow death by strangulation that lasted anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes.
The Kharkov trial was the first time German personnel had been tried for war crimes by the Allies during World War II. There were no tears shed for the Nazi murderers.