Abstract
Between May 1940 and August 1944, at least 900 prisoners were executed in German-occupied Belgium and northern France following a death sentence; 420 others were shot as hostages in reprisal for unsolved acts of violence against members of the Wehrmacht or their local collaborators. According to German military law, all convicts and hostages facing execution could ask for the assistance of a clergyman. In occupied Belgium and northern France, it was Monsignor Otto Gramann, head chaplain to the German military administration, who assisted most of these inmates during their last hours. Gramann kept detailed records of his encounters with the executed, documents which have never been studied before. They do not only give an insight into the study of execution of the death penalty in occupied Belgium and northern France from a grass-roots perspective. The case of Otto Gramann also provides the opportunity to research the complex relationship between the military chaplaincy and the Nazi regime in general.
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Notes
- 1.
Prayer cards of the executed (Breendonk Memorial, n° 378).
- 2.
Records on Mgr. Gramann, 1945–1965 (Breendonk Memorial, n° 372); prayer cards and drawings, given to Mgr. Gramann (Breendonk Memorial, n° 377, 378 and 379); missal (Breendonk Memorial, n° 780 and 841). For more details on the content of the archive, see the unpublished inventory preserved at the Breendonk Memorial (www.breendonk.be).
- 3.
Collection of newspaper clippings on Otto Gramann’s mother Rosalia (Gramann-Groven collection, n° 4).
- 4.
Door signs on Gramann’s office in the Wehrmachtuntersuchungsgefängnis Saint-Gilles (Breendonk Memorial, n° 375); diary for the year 1942 (Gramann-Groven collection, n° 23).
- 5.
Reichsgesetzblatt, Teil I, Kriegsstrafverfahrensordnung, 26 August 1939.
- 6.
Notebook (Gramann-Groven collection, n° 26).
- 7.
Ibid.
- 8.
Ibid.
- 9.
Gramann’s notebook offers an interesting insight into the religious, civil and familial views of the inmates. See also the analysis by Emmanuel Debruyne and Laurence Van Ypersele of about 100 last letters of civilians facing execution in occupied Belgium during World War I (Debruyne and Van Ypersele 2011).
- 10.
List of the executed buried at Maria ter Heide (War Victims Brussels, Rap. 599 Tr. 33.403); Gräbnisliste für Begräbnisplatz II Tir National in Brüssel, Bd. Auguste Reyers (War Victims Brussels, Rap. 497 Tr. 137.889); Report on the exhumation of the executed at the prison of Arlon, 28 November 1945 (War Victims Brussels, Rap. 148 Tr. 39.358); List of the executed buried at Hechtel (War Victims Brussels); List of the executed buried at the Citadelle of Liège (War Victims Brussels); Duitsche Gruwelen in het Vlaamsche Land. Oorden van Verschrikking en Beproeving: Vinkt-bij-Deinze, Oostakker, Antwerpen, Maria-ter-Heide, Zwijndrecht, Oud-Turnhout, Beverloo, Merksem, Bevrijding nr. 5, Antwerpen: Uitgeverij ‘Ontwikkeling’ [1945].
- 11.
Notebook (Gramann-Groven collection, n° 26).
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
Minutes of the hearing of Mgr. Gramann, 25 March 1946 (Breendonk Memorial, transcripts of the trial against the former camp personnel of Breendonk).
- 14.
Hearing of Otto Gramann, 1946 (Breendonk Memorial Willebroek, digital copy of the judicial files on the Breendonk-trial of 1946).
- 15.
Notebook (Gramann-Groven collection, n° 26).
- 16.
Fragments published in Volksblatt, 1 June 1963. The original documents, however, are missing. The correspondence was borrowed by Dr. Franz Loidl from the Vienna Salesianerinnen Abbey but never brought back.
- 17.
Liste über Bestätigung und Aufhebung von Urteilen XI–XIII (War Victims Brussels, archives of the Oberstkriegsgerichtsrat beim Militärbefehlshabers in Belgien und Nordfrankreich); documents on the execution of hostages in occupied Belgium (War Victims Brussels, Rap. 497 Tr. 22.397).
- 18.
Diary for the year 1942 (Gramann-Groven collection, n° 23).
- 19.
Notebook (Gramann-Groven collection, n° 26).
- 20.
Correspondence of Paul Lévy regarding Mgr. Gramann (Breendonk Memorial, n° 372).
- 21.
La Libre Belgique, 7 February 1946.
- 22.
Collection of newspaper clippings (Gramann-Groven collection, n° 13).
- 23.
La Nouvelle Gazette, 15 and 18 November 1947; In memoriam card of Mgr. Gramann (Breendonk Memorial, n° 645); funeral oration pronounced by Comte d’Aspremont Lynden (Breendonk Memorial, n° 693).
- 24.
In memoriam cards of fallen Belgian collaborators (Gramann-Groven collection, n° 57); Le Pays Réel, 22 May 1942.
- 25.
Letter addressed to Mgr. Gramann, 1946 (Gramann-Groven collection, n° 35).
- 26.
Pan, 23 September 1964.
- 27.
Pan, 23 September 1964.
- 28.
Newspaper clipping of an article by Cyprien Neybergh (Breendonk Memorial, n° 380).
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Roden, D. (2021). ‘Ich habe noch nie sterben gesehen, wie man in Belgien stirbt’: Military Chaplain Otto Gramann and the Execution of Hostages and Convicts in German-Occupied Belgium and Northern France (1940–1944). In: Bost, M., Vrints, A. (eds) Doing Justice In Wartime. Studies in the History of Law and Justice, vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72050-6_8
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