SOME OF THE PRISONERS HELD AT
SPECIAL CAMP 11

NAME: General der Pioniere Walter Kuntze

PW NO:           B237450  

RANK:            General der Pioniere

CAPTURED:   Elverdingen, Belgium

DATE:             9 May 1945 

 

PERSONAL
DATE OF BIRTH:     23 February 1883

PLACE OF BIRTH:   Pritzerbe

DATE OF DEATH:   1 April 1960

PLACE OF DEATH:          

NATIONALITY:        German

RELIGION:                Evangelical

OCCUPATION:         Regular Soldier

HEIGHT:                    5'10.5"

WEIGHT:                   168 lbs

HAIR COLOUR:        Bald Grey

EYE COLOUR:          Blue

NEXT OF KIN:          Frau Hertha Kuntze (British Zone )

• Was a German general and war criminal during World War II who commanded the 12th Army.
• He was the commanding officer responsible for the execution of men and teenage boys in the Kragujevac massacre, when Serbian civilians were murdered in reprisal for an attack on German troops, at the ratio of one hundred Serbs for every German soldier killed.
• Kuntze was assigned Deputy Wehrmacht Commander Southeast and Commander-in-Chief of the 12th Army on 29 October. This was a temporary appointment, until Wilhelm List could return to duty.
• On 31 October, Franz Böhme submitted a report to Kuntze in which he detailed the shootings in Serbia:

"Shooting: 405 hostages in Belgrade (total up to now in Belgrade, 4,750). 90 Communists in Camp Sebac. 2,300 hostages in Kragujevac. 1,700 hostages in Kraljevo."

• Executions of Serbian civilians continued well into the following year. Kuntze stated the following in a directive of 19 March 1942:

"The more unequivocal and the harder reprisal measures are applied from the beginning the less it will become necessary to apply them at a later date. No false sentimentalities! It is preferable that 50 suspects are liquidated than one German soldier lose his life…If it is not possible to produce the people who have participated in any way in the insurrection or to seize them, reprisal measures of a general kind may be deemed advisable, for instance, the shooting to death of all male inhabitants from the nearest villages, according to a definite ratio (for instance, one German dead: 100 Serbs, one German wounded: 50 Serbs)."

• Known Transfers:
  • 24 January 1946 transferred to Island Farm Camp 1111 from Camp 24 (Knutsford Medical Hospital, Cheshire)

   

  
  
  
  

  • 31 January 1947 transferred to LDC (London District Cage) from Island Farm Camp 11
  • Tried at the Hostages Trial in 1947. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released on medical parole in 1953.

• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 18 October 1941 as General der Pioniere and commander of XXXXII. Armeekorps