- Masacre de Vinkt
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Vinkt es un pueblo pequeño de Bélgicasituado 20 km al sudoeste de Ghent formando parte de la ciudad de Deinze . Actualmente tiene una población cercana a los 1200 habitantes. Fue cerca del puente sobre el Canal de Schipdonk que en mayo de 1940 al menos 86 civiles fueron asesinados por la Wehrmacht en un incidente conocido en Bélgica como la Masacre de Vinkt.
Contenido
La situación del 25 de mayo
As the German Army continued to advance west, pushing back both the British Expeditionary Force (trying to escape to Dunkirk) and the Belgian army, the village of Vinkt became an important target, as it lay both on the road south from Gent to Lille, y montado en el Canal de Schipdonk que bloquearon el avance alemán hacia el oeste. Sin embargo, el 25 de mayo, ambas partes ya sabían el resultado de la batalla por Francia: el ejército francés se había derrumbado y el ejército belga se había reducido a la prolongación de la guerra con el único propósito de proteger a los británicos.
The bridge over the Schipdonk Canal was being guarded by the 1st Belgian Division of Chasseurs ardennais (que en el ejército belga de la época significaba un regimiento de tanques de los cinco regimientos de la división - el resto son pilotos de motor y ciclistas). Coincidentemente, esta división resultó ser uno de los más motivados en el ejército belga. El comando belga decidió no destruir sino proteger el puente, con el fin de ayudar a los rezagados británicos como sea posible en su camino al oeste, y como muchos refugiados belgas como sea posible en su camino hacia el sur: más de un millón de belgas (la mayoría de ellos en pie, ya que los coches y los caballos habían sido requisados por los diferentes ejércitos) se convirtieron en refugiados. La noticia de lo ocurrido en Vinkt causaría un millón más a huir al sur o al oeste. A mediados de junio, de acuerdo con cifras de la Cruz Roja, el 30% de la población belga se había ido del país.
Arriving near the bridge on May 25, the German 225th Division, consisting mostly of badly trained soldiers from Itzehoe in the North of the Hamburg area, found it impossible to cross. They then took 140 civilians hostage and used them as human shields. As the Chasseurs ardennais managed to continue to harass the German positions with great precision, and crossing remained impossible, a grenade exploded among the hostages, killing 27.
May 26
On this Sunday, The Germans took hostages both at the Meigem and Vinkt church, and at various farms in the neighbourhood. Some hostages were killed on the spot, but the most horrible event happened at Meigem church, where an explosion killed 27 hostages.
May 27
Adolf Hitler, on German radio, demanded Belgium's immediate and unconditional surrender. Belgian King Leopold III announced to his government that he would use his authority as Supreme Army Commander to lay down arms. For the constitutional crisis following this, see the History of Belgium.
Meanwhile, the Chasseurs ardennais, completely in the dark about all this, were still holding and defending the bridge against vastly superior odds. For unclear reasons, the 225th Division now started to execute their hostages, and taking new ones, executing them on the spot. Refugees were taken out at random from the endless columns on the trek south and executed immediately. One priest managed to escape buried under two dead colleagues. He was one of four such victims managing to escape to tell the tale.
May 28
Leopold III and the Belgian army capitulated in the early morning (4 am, 5 am German time).
This did not stop the carnage in Vinkt. Nine hostages were shot after the capitulation. In a style that would subsequently become all too familiar on the Eastern Front, the last five victims had to dig their own graves first.
Total number of victims
Most sources claim between 86 and 140 victims, 86 being the total number of executed victims. The divergence stems from the fact that other historians include the victims in front of the bridge and those 27 killed by the explosion at the church in Meigem. Whereas the exploded grenade on May 25 was almost certainly German, the explosion at the church has usually been attributed to Belgian artillery. However, there remains a controversy over the church explosion, as some victims later claimed they saw German officers throw hand grenades into the church, and all women hostages were taken out of the church just before the explosion - ensuring that all 140 victims of the incident were male.
A very different picture was painted by the priest who managed to escape on May 27: he claimed to have seen dead women and children, even babies. Since no corpses of women or children were later found, this would imply, if true, that the scene was later cleaned up, and the real death toll of the executions is much higher than the 86 or 140 usually claimed. However, most Belgian historians believe that any additional refugee victims the priest saw, were killed in crossfire, and not intentionally.
The Vinkt massacre shares some strange similarities with the later massacre at Nemmersdorf (today Mayakovskoye) in East Prussia, where there are similar accusations of embellishment and manipulation after the fact and an attempt was made to include refugees killed in crossfire before a bridge among those executed.
Aftermath
As news of the carnage spread, German press sources denied it or excused it, claiming that Belgian civilians had dressed up as soldiers. Although British newspapers knew the exact story, they refused to press the point - because this had happened in Belgium, they were afraid of being accused that they were repeating the war propaganda claims they had made in 1914 with the gross exaggeration of "the rape of little Belgium".Plantilla:Fact
On the Western Front, the Vinkt massacre was not only the first major infraction of the Geneva Convention by the German army, but also unique in that it was committed by an ordinary Wehrmacht unit, and not by a special SS unit, not even by the Waffen SS. It may be the only notable war crime of the Wehrmacht committed on the Western Front before 1944.
Although largely ignored outside Belgium, it did not go entirely unpunished: the German officers Major Kühner and Lieutenant Lohmann were tried, convicted and sentenced to 20 years forced labour. They were both released after five years.
See also
- List of massacres in Belgium
Referencias
Enlaces externos
- The story of four bloody days - from the Vinkt memorial website - in Dutch
- Chasseurs Ardennais in May 1940, also hinting at a more terrible massacre - in French
- Pictures of the carnage - in Dutch, some French
Coordenadas:
Categorías:- Crímenes de guerra Nazi
- Masacres en Bélgica
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