During my archival research I have stumbled upon this album depicting the shooting(s) of hostages in WWII Serbia in 1941. I know where they are and around that time there were Whermacht units as well as a Reserve Police Battalion operating in the area. Since the sources are unclear, I want to know if the people depicted in these pictures are Wehrmacht soldiers or members of the Reserve Police Battalion. Not being an expert in German uniforms, can anyone help me out?
Pictures not safe for work because of the graphic depiction of violence.
I can safely say that these are not Military Police, and here is why.
The Feldgendarmerie, or Kettenhunde (Chain-dogs) wore gorgets, which were miniature breast plate looking things with a chain necklace. Now, they have been known to take these off in some operations, but it was rare. The men in these pictures did not wear those gorgets nor were they wearing SS uniforms. As a result, I conclude that these men were Wehrmacht regular forces.
Doesn't look like Orpo to me. Noone seems to be wearing the wreathed police-eagle on their left sleeve (though not on the greatcoat) or cap, and in the 4th-to-last picture you can see the private, the one turning towards the camera in the lower left, wearing a Wehrmacht-eagle on his tunics right breast pocket, which the Ordnungspolizei did not wear; as well as the sleeve insignia of a private and not the Ordnungspolizei-police eagle. Otherwise, Wehrmacht and police uniforms look quite similar.
Who are the victims?
The first photographs certainly look like the scene and place described here. The Germans making Photos of the shooting, the poles (which seem to be smaller than in the testimony), workers carrying the dead into the ditch. The ground certainly is swampy and it's imaginable that the place of the execution is near a river. Sadly the testimony gives us no clue to the identity of the murderer other than "soldiers", which could be everything.
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