Career
Heinrich Kittel was wounded and captured by American troops on 22 November 1944 during the Battle of Metz. He was held in captivity until 1947. According to one review of Soldaten: Secret World World War II Transcripts of German POWs by Sönke Neitzel & Harald Welzer, Heinrich Kittel"s transcripts (in conversation with another Prisoner Of War) illustrate his culpable passivity while observing mass executions without intervening at all despite his rank: "Kittel (very excited): "They seized three-year old children by the hair, held them up and shot them with a pistol and then threw them in.
I saw that for myself.
One could watch it; the South Dakota had roped the area off and the people were standing watching from about 300 m. official The Latvians and the German soldiers were just standing there, looking on"." Kittel, according to the reviewer, ignobly, perhaps criminally, failed to act, despite the presumption that his high rank could have enabled him to do southern
Iron Cross (1914) Order of the Cross of Liberty with Swords (23 August 1942) Bibliography.