Franz Riedel (August 9, 1907 – 1943) was a German Waffen-SS Scharführer (Staff Sergeant) who served in the 15th Einsatzkommando Brigade and participated in the Perekhody village massacre.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Franz Holbein Riedel was born on August 9, 1907, in Stuttgart, Germany, to a lower-middle-class family. His father, Heinrich Riedel, was a World War I veteran who worked as a mechanic, and young Riedel was drawn to machinery from an early age.
During the struggles of the Weimar Republic, Riedel briefly joined the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, a paramilitary group of nationalist veterans. As Nazi influence grew, he transitioned into the SA (Sturmabteilung) in the late 1920s before being recruited into the Schutzstaffel (SS) in 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II. His mechanical expertise earned him an early position in SS logistics and motorized units, where he gained experience driving Opel Blitz trucks, motorcycles, and armored half-tracks.
Military Career[]
With the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Riedel was reassigned to the Einsatzgruppen, Nazi paramilitary death squads responsible for mass executions in occupied territories. By 1942, he had become a Scharführer in the 15th Einsatzkommando, a sub-unit operating under Sturmbannführer Walter Stein. His unit was tasked with "anti-partisan actions," which were systematic mass murders of suspected partisan sympathizers.
Riedel took part in several attacks across Belarus, but his prominent role came in the Perekhody Massacre in 1943. As second-line support, he stood with his MP40 overseeing the executions from a distance while sharing wheat crackers with the Opel Blitz truck driver, casually observing as men, women, children and the elderly were herded into barns and set ablaze, or executed by firing squads.
His participation in logistical support during the anti-partisan strikes earned him several awards, including the War Merit Cross 1st Class with Swords for his “service in the fight against Bolshevik terror” and the Silver Infantry Assault Badge, awarded for participation in anti-partisan raids with his motorcycle.
Capture and Demise[]
In the later half of 1943, as the tides of war turned, Soviet partisans intensified last second ambushes on German soldiers. During one such operation, Riedel and his men were traveling through a wooded area when they were attacked by partisans. The ambush was swift and brutal; Riedel was thrown from his motorcycle as gunfire tore through them.
Disoriented and wounded, he was dragged by partisans who recognized him as apart of the men involved in the Perekhody Massacre. Resistance fighters did not offer him the mercy of a trial. Witnesses recounted that he did not beg for his life nor display remorse. Instead, he remained eerily calm, glancing down with quiet resignation as his Obersturmführer comrade went into a tirade of how the fighters are “subhuman Slavs” and deserved to die under the righteous genocide.
The execution was carried out immediately, with Riedel and the surviving SS men shot hastily after the partisan Captain found it disgusting to stoop down their level and burn them alive. His body was left in the forest, unburied, as the partisans left. The remains were never identified to him or his comrades specifically after clean up.