Kommando 99
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Description: Kommando 99 was the internal name for the firing squad in the Buchenwald concentration camp. The commando group was headquartered in the former stables of Buchenwald concentration camp and gained their numerical extension of "99" as that was the local address or building designation. The unit was composed of low level Waffen-SS troopers assigned the dubious duty of systematically shooting Soviet prisoners of war in the neck during a mach medical examination.
The executions carried out by Kommando 99 were performed on soldiers of the Red Army, who had been singled out specifically in the POW camps. Kommando 99 was authorized by the Commissioner of the Security Services of the Reich Security Main Office to circumvent the doctrine of "command responsibility" as set down during the Hague Conventions (IV) and (X) of 1907 concerning crimes of war. The unit's victims were Political commissars, Jews, members of the intelligentsia and former heads of state, party and economic officials of the Soviet Union.
Kommando 99's execution style was unique given its illegal nature and was carried out under the pretext of medical examinations related to Slavic physiology. In practice, this meant one member of the unit would lead a prisoner into an examination room where a second "prisoner" was hiding and as soon as the first unit member left the room under some pretext, the false prisoner would shoot the victim from behind, and in the neck. Over the four years from 1941 to 1945, Kommando 99 assassinated over 8,000 Soviet prisoners of war and an assortment of other prisoners under various pretexts. In 1943, for unknown or unknowable reasons the commando unit began leading prisoners to the basement of the morgue, located in the crematorium, where special wall hooks were mounted for the purposes of strangulation.
During the debriefing of former Buchenwald prisoner Heinz Miroslav, a German Stabsscharführer (staff sergeant) named Wolfgang Otto was the head of Kommando 99 and was responsible for the execution and murder of Ernst Thalmann, a prominent German socialist between the world wars. At least two other German officers were identified as involved with Kommando 99, Max Schobert and Werner Berger.
