The order came, and the firing squad raised their rifles. But one soldier stepped back. “No,” he said. For most of us, that’s the end of the story.
We assume he’d be shot on the spot. But historians digging through post-war investigation files have uncovered over 85 verified cases of German soldiers and officers who refused to take part in mass murder. And here’s the part that challenges everything we thought we knew: not a single one of them was executed for saying no. Dr.
Albert Battel, a lawyer and reserve major in the German army, joined the Nazi Party in 1933. A Catholic, he had previously been denounced by party members for lending money to a Jewish colleague in 1936. By the summer of 1942, he was stationed in Przemyśl, where the SS and security police were preparing the “resettlement” of local Jews—which everyone knew meant mass execution. On July 24, 1942, Battel persuaded his superior to issue an order placing Jewish workers employed by the Wehrmacht under military protection.
Then he took direct action. He blocked the bridges across the river to prevent SS units from entering the city and evacuating 80 to 100 Jews from the ghetto to the army headquarters. His defiance only delayed the deportations. The Jews were eventually handed over to the SS.
But his intervention had temporarily saved their lives. Himmler personally ordered an investigation. Battel was reprimanded and transferred to a frontline unit. Himmler even planned to have him arrested after the war.
But Battel survived the conflict and was later recognized by Israel as Righteous Among the Nations. Bernhard Griese took a different approach. A retired major of the order police, he was recalled to service when war broke out. In 1941, he commanded a police battalion near Georgenburg.
When an SD officer asked him to provide men for an execution of Jewish civilians, Griese refused. He ordered his senior captain to stay at headquarters and forbade anyone in his battalion from participating without his direct authorization. Then he traveled to Königsberg to secure a written confirmation from his superiors that he was only to follow orders issued through official channels. He got the document.
It blocked the SD’s request. The SS had to carry out the murder of 365 Jews themselves while Griese was away. An investigation into his refusal was opened, then dropped. Soon after, Griese was awarded the Knight’s Cross.
One of the most striking cases took place in late June 1941, just days after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. SS Obersturmführer Franz Dan commanded a battalion formed from Himmler’s personal escort. He received orders to send a company to a meeting point on the Vistula River. When the detachment returned, the company commander reported that part of his unit had been forced to take part in executions of Jews and Poles that day.
He told Dan that he refused to carry out any more such executions, and he would not compel his men—trained as combat troops, not killers—to participate again. That same evening, Dan wrote to Berlin, stating clearly that he would not allow his battalion to be used for executions in the future. Within days, Berlin ordered the dissolution of the entire battalion. Its companies were reassigned.
But Dan was not punished. He was summoned to Berlin, reprimanded for disobeying orders, and then reassigned to command another battalion. He continued serving in high command positions throughout the war. Perhaps the most remarkable case is that of Dr.
Nikolaus von Hornik, a lawyer and first lieutenant in the Wehrmacht. On November 1, 1941, his battalion commander ordered him to execute 780 Soviet prisoners of war who had been separated from Stalag 325. They were to be killed with a shot to the neck in a small forest. Hornik refused.
He told his commander that as a lawyer, a Catholic, and an army officer, he could not participate in such an act. He assembled his men and informed them of his refusal, telling them that shooting defenseless people was not only a crime but reminiscent of the methods of the Soviet secret police. None of his men took part in the killings. Hornik was arrested in May 1942.
The charge was not disobedience. It was undermining military morale by setting an example that might encourage others to refuse. He was sentenced to imprisonment. In November 1942, he was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp.
But because he had based his refusal on German military law, Himmler considered the sentence too lenient and refused to sign it. Hornik was treated unusually well for a concentration camp prisoner. He kept his officer rank and pay. His detention was classified as investigative arrest rather than punishment.
He remained in Buchenwald until the end of the war. His imprisonment was not for refusing to shoot prisoners. It was for teaching his soldiers that military law gave them the right to reject illegal orders. Kitterman’s investigation covered 85 cases from every level of the German armed forces and security apparatus—army generals, police officers, SS and SD officers, even members of the Einsatzgruppen.
The reasons for refusal varied. Almost half of the time, no reason was given. A quarter cited conscience. Others called the orders illegal.
Some claimed emotional disturbance. A few said it wasn’t within their role. Officers made up roughly two-thirds of successful refusals. They knew the legal procedures and the military hierarchy.
Some demanded legal proof before agreeing to executions. Others sought transfers to combat units or resigned from police roles. Enlisted men used creative evasions—hiding during shootings, missing on purpose, or claiming logistical excuses. In Christopher Browning’s famous study *Ordinary Men*, Reserve Police Battalion 101 was ordered to round up the 1,800 Jews of Józefów in Poland.
This time, the women, children, and elderly were to be shot on the spot. Only men capable of work would be sent to labor camps. Lieutenant Heinz Buchmann, a 38-year-old Hamburg businessman and reservist, was horrified when he learned what the mission involved. He told the battalion adjutant that he refused to take part in the shooting of defenseless civilians and requested another duty.
He was reassigned to escort the Jewish men selected for labor instead. Before the massacre began, the battalion commander reassembled his men, explained the orders, and remarkably offered anyone who couldn’t bear the task the chance to step aside. Only a dozen men accepted his offer. So what consequences did these refusals bring?
Not a single person lost his life because of his refusal. More than half faced no negative consequence at all. A dozen were reprimanded or threatened with transfer to the front. Some were transferred to another unit or sent back to Germany.
One was sent to a concentration camp—but as we’ve seen, that imprisonment was for teaching soldiers about military law, not for refusing to kill. A handful were sent to combat units. One officer’s unit was broken up. Historians dispute the cases of soldiers like Josef Schulz, who allegedly refused to take part in an execution and was shot with the hostages.
Many consider the story a legend rather than verified fact. The same goes for Otto Schimek, an Austrian soldier said to have been executed for refusing to participate in an execution of Polish civilians. But among the verified cases, the pattern is clear. Saying no did not mean death.
More often than not, it meant a reprimand, a transfer, or nothing at all. These men found themselves inside the machinery of terror. And despite it all, some of them still found the courage to say no.
