Career
Armee. Serbian civilians were selected merely to fill the quota of one hundred Serbs for every German soldier killed. General Walter Kuntze was assigned Deputy Wehrmacht Commander Southeast and Commander-in-Chief of the 12th Army on October 24. This was a temporary appointment, until List could return to duty.
On October 31, Böhme submitted a report to Kuntze in which he detailed the shootings in Serbia: “Shooting: 405 hostages in Belgrade (total up to now in Belgrade, 4,750).
90 Communists in Camp Sebac. 2,300 hostages in Kragujevac.
1,700 hostages in Kraljevo.” Executions of Serbian civilians continued well into the following year. Kuntze stated the following in a directive of March 19, 1942: "The more unequivocal and the harder reprisal measures are applied from the beginning the less it will become necessary to apply them at a later date.
Number false sentimentalities! Walter Kuntze was captured by Allied troops in 1945 and was tried at the Hostages Trial in 1947.
He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released in 1953 due to ill health. He died on 1 April 1960. Bibliography.
