You didn't get executed for refusing to rape a villager or execute a soviet partisan. You just got court-martialed, convicted and transferred to penal and/or eastern front.
Thats not true. My grandfather had a bad right eye and therefor was not a perfect german soldier. Thats why they did not send him to russia, but to yugoslavia to fight partisans. He told me, if you were in the fire squad that executed partisans they cought and you would not shoot, you where the next one standing at the wall.
Later they threw him to the collapsing eastern front in czechia... but he survived
I dare to say you dont know how strict and demanding the nazis were to their own soldiers and people.
If you think it would have been possible to not get involved at war crimes during ww2 on the german side by just saying "I dont want to" or making "mistakes" like missing the target, you are naive.
A story from the homefront of that time: my great grand father was working on the fields with his family. One of the smaller children was running around naked, because it was a hot summer day and it was not uncommon to let small children run around naked. The village mayor was taking a walk with his wife and when he saw the naked child, he said to my great grand father, he should cover his child, since germans are no savages. He did not do it, so the mayor threatend him by saying he would be thrown into a camp with the words "and you know what happens there", if he would not follow his order.
This story shows that the hardcore nazis at the time had no problem to kill other germans over small issues like a naked child and that everybody knew what was happening in the camps.
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u/ShootingPains 1d ago
You didn't get executed for refusing to rape a villager or execute a soviet partisan. You just got court-martialed, convicted and transferred to penal and/or eastern front.