Massacre of Lwów professors

In July 1941, 25 Polish academics from the city of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) along with the 25 of their family members were killed by Nazi German occupation forces.

[1][2] By targeting prominent citizens and intellectuals for elimination, the Nazis hoped to prevent anti-Nazi activity and to weaken the resolve of the Polish resistance movement.

Many of those killed were prominent leaders of Polish society: politicians, artists, aristocrats, sportsmen, scientists, priests, rabbis and other members of the intelligentsia.

During the night of 3/4 July, several dozen professors and their families were arrested by German detachments – each one consisting of an officer, several soldiers, Ukrainian guides and interpreters.

[6] In the early morning of 4 July, one of the professors and most of his servants were set free while the rest were either brought to the Wulka hills or shot to death in the courtyard of the Bursa Abrahamowiczów building.

The following Gestapo officers also participated: Walter Kutschmann, Felix Landau, Heinz Heim (Chief of Staff Schöngarth), Hans Krueger and Kurt Stawizki.

He was arrested ten years later in Florida, Buenos Aires, by Interpol agents but died of a heart attack in jail before he could be extradited to then West Germany, on 30 August 1986.

[19] Stanisław Bogaczewicz, of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance said that Nachtigall soldiers took part in the arrests, but not in the murders, and that their role in this event needs further investigation.

[16] According to a Lviv historian, Vasyl Rasevych, the claims that Ukrainians participated in the July 1941 massacre are untrue and that no archival evidence exists to support this contention.

[21] After World War II the leadership of the Soviet Union made attempts to diminish the Polish cultural and historic legacy of Lwów.