Curt Bruns

Curt Bruns (March 12, 1915 – June 15, 1945) was a Wehrmacht captain and war criminal.

He was the first war criminal to be executed by the United States Army for war crimes after World War II.

Bruns was shot for having ordered the executions of two U.S. prisoner of war during the Battle of the Bulge after learning they were Ritchie Boys (German Jews).

When giving the order, he said, "The Jews have no right to live in Germany."

Bruns was born in Juist, German Empire, in 1915.

He was a grocery clerk in Stuttgart before joining the Wehrmacht in 1936.

Bruns became an officer in 1939.

He obtained the rank of Hauptmann in September 1943.

He got married and had a child.

Between December 16, 1944, and December 20, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, U.S. soldiers captured about 30 Wehrmacht soldiers, including Corporal Heinrich Kauter, captured on December 16.

During this time, Kauter and his fellow POWs were interrogated by two U.S. soldiers who spoke German fluently.

On December 20, 1944, about 300 U.S. soldiers, including the two interrogators, were captured by the German 2nd Battalion, 293rd Volksgrenadier Regiment, 18th Volksgrenadier Division.

The Germans were led by Curt Bruns, who was operating in Bleialf and Schoenberg.

The American POWs were immediately marched to a customs house.

Kauter went ahead of them.

Bruns was in the street in front of the customs house when the POWs arrived.

Shortly after the POWs arrived, two of the recently freed German POWs informed Bruns that two of the American POWs spoke fluent German.

Bruns was captured on February 7, 1945, and was identified shortly after.

During questioning, he admitted to speaking with Jacobs and Zappler, but denied involvement in their deaths.

He said he was told about their deaths, which had been carried out under the orders of his superior, a Lieutenant Colonel whose last name was Witte.

The interrogators didn't believe Bruns.

Witte was viewed as a convenient scapegoat since he had been killed in action.

Officials placed Anton Korn, another conscripted Communist, into a cell next to Bruns, hoping to obtain a confession.

Korn was given a cover story that he was in custody under suspicion of murdering Belgian civilians.

On February 13, 1945, U.S. soldiers from the 12th Infantry Regiment found the bodies of Jacobs and Zappler in a small hole about 100 yards away from the road.

Kauter had said the murders happened somewhere in the town of Bleialf.

These men were both Ritchie Boys assigned to 106th Infantry Division Interrogation of Prisoner of War (IPW) Team #154: Staff Sergeant Richard Jacobs and Technician 5th Grade Murray Zappler.

Bruns immediately ordered the two soldiers to retrieve Jacobs and Zappler.

They were lined up against the wall of the house by Sergeant Werner Hoffmann.

Bruns had all of the other American POWs marched in the direction of Bleialf.

Bruns asked Jacobs and Zappler if they had interrogated his men in German.

After they said yes, Bruns then asked them several more questions.

At some point, the men said they were German Jews.

Bruns then remarked, "Juden haben kein Recht, in Deutschland zu leben" ("Jews have no right to live in Germany.") He and Hoffmann had a brief conversation, after which Hoffmann immediately convened a firing squad composed of five or six non-commissioned officers, marched Jacobs and Zappler down the road, and had them shot.

This crime was exposed by Corporal Heinrich Kauter, another soldier in Bruns's unit.

Kauter was a Communist who had been sent to a concentration camp, then conscripted near the end of war due to a lack of manpower.

After being captured, Kauter said he wanted to report a war crime.

He said he'd witnessed the murders of two American POWs who were shot after saying they were "Jews from Berlin."

Officials put Captain Bruns on a wanted list for suspected war criminals.

The next day, an investigator questioned Kauter about the incident.