Russian Federal Security Service Publishes Archive Documents on Nazi War Crimes
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has released archival documents detailing the war crimes of a German Wehrmacht soldier, Stabsgefreiter Martin Feuerbach, during World War II. According to the documents, Feuerbach, a native of Austria, was arrested on March 20, 1944, in Kertsch on the Crimean Peninsula. Through multiple interrogations, investigators found that Feuerbach was involved in the killing of Soviet, Hungarian, Polish, and Yugoslavian partisans and civilians.
According to his own statements, Feuerbach was personally involved in executions, in which he hanged 120 people, amputated the limbs of 80, and severed the hands and feet of 10. He committed these atrocities between 1941 and 1943 in Warsaw, Lwow, Kiev, Smolensk, and Odessa.
In a statement from the Soviet Military Intelligence Service (SMERSH), which arrested and interrogated Feuerbach, he is described as “a hangman beyond anything we have seen in this area so far.”
Initially, Feuerbach attempted to pass himself off as a member of the Austrian Communist Party, allegedly persecuted by German authorities, according to the FSB documents. However, his comrades had revealed other information about his past.
Ultimately, Feuerbach confessed that he had joined the Nazi Stormtrooper in Austria in August 1935. In 1938, he was involved in the killing of up to 170 people, arrested in a mass raid against communists and Nazi opponents in Vienna. Feuerbach hanged six people and, in total, executed around 40 in 1938. The following year, he was involved in four more executions in Vienna.
Feuerbach stated that he had meticulously noted the number of people he killed in a pocket calendar, which he would read every evening to recall the events of the day.
In World War II, Feuerbach initially served in a security regiment in Vienna, which later became part of a unit responsible for punitive actions against partisans and civilians on occupied territories.