Execution by Hanging in the Nazi Occupiers’ System of Terror: Kyiv 1941—1943
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15407/uhj2025.04.099Keywords:
Kyiv, Nazi occupation, occupation policy, terror, public execution, hanging, gallows, victims, World War II.Abstract
The goal is to study the place and role of the death penalty by hanging in the system of Nazi terror during the occupation of the capital of the Ukrainian SSR.
The objectives are to analyse the genesis of public punishment, the practice of its application, to establish the locations of execution sites, the social categories of the population that most often became victims of this type of execution; to study the impact of public executions on the psychological state of Kyiv residents.
Methodology. Several scientific methods were used, including historical and comparative analysis, problematic and chronological method and content analysis of documentary sources.
Scientific novelty. The article is one of the first attempts to analyse the use of public hangings in Kyiv by the occupiers as a tool for the annihilation of the local population. It expands our knowledge about the system of Nazi terror in the occupied territories and summarises information about the places where this type of execution was carried out in the capital of the Ukrainian SSR.
Conclusions. It is proved that Nazi Germany began to use hanging as a public punishment in the occupied Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, earlier than in the territory of the Third Reich itself. The capital of the Ukrainian SSR, along with other Ukrainian cities, became a testing ground for the most brutal policy of exterminating civilians and resistance fighters. The Nazis used this medieval method of execution not only to inflict as much suffering as possible on the victim, but also to intimidate involuntary witnesses. The selected victims often came from different social groups, the idea being to symbolise the inevitability of punishment for anyone who did not obey the new government. The publicity of these executions had a profound psychological impact on Kyiv residents, causing fear and despair and at the same time increasing hatred for the occupiers.
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