Did German reprisals ever actually work in WW2?

Did German reprisals ever actually work in WW2?

  • Not at all

    Votes: 8 57.1%
  • Sometimes but mostly it didn't

    Votes: 5 35.7%
  • It worked

    Votes: 1 7.1%

  • Total voters
    14
  • Poll closed .

Wendigo

Banned
The Wehrmacht/Waffen SS during WW2 from 1941 on had a policy where if a German was killed or wounded by partisans or a civilian they would kill 50 to 100 people for EVERY German death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane_massacre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sant'Anna_di_Stazzema_massacre

This policy was particularly extreme in Poland and the USSR where the citizens were seen as "subhuman." Thousands of villages were destroyed with their inhabitants as a part of anti partisan warfare resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

My question is did the German policy of reprisals ever actually work in stopping people from aiding the local resistance/partisans or was it just senseless brutality that hindered rather than helped the Wehrmacht and German administration?
 
Per John Keegan

"Historians of the resistance are naturally reluctant to put figures to the size of the German security forces (civilian Sicherheitdienst, military Feldgendarmerie) which were the resistance group's enemies, but it is probable that their total strength in France did not exceed 6500 at any stage during the war; the German police garrison of Lyon, the second largest city of France, comprised about 100 secret policemen and 400 security troops in 1943. The divisions of the German Army stationed in France (sixty in June 1944) took no part whatsoever in security duties..."

Form page 411, The Second World War

Essentially the evidence was that it did but the overall effectiveness tended to vary by region due largely to how easily guerilla/partisan forces could operate in the local geography.
 
The Wehrmacht/Waffen SS during WW2 from 1941 on had a policy where if a German was killed or wounded by partisans or a civilian they would kill 50 to 100 people for EVERY German death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane_massacre
...
My question is did the German policy of reprisals ever actually work in stopping people from aiding the local resistance/partisans or was it just senseless brutality that hindered rather than helped the Wehrmacht and German administration?

That one produced a very angry response from the two Army Group Commanders in France, the local German Army commander in Limoges, and the Vichy government. When you have enough political heat that two Field Marshals are demanding the heads of the SS officers involved and one of them demanding he lead the court martial I don't think it was militarily or politically helpful.
 
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