The first Germans’ Hans Rietz, Wilhelm Langfeld and Reinhard Retzlaff, were put on trial by Soviet officials for offences (war crimes) that took place by German forces in the Kharkov region.

The first Germans’ Hans Rietz, Wilhelm Langfeld and Reinhard Retzlaff, were put on trial by Soviet officials for offences (war crimes) that took place by German forces in the Kharkov region.

Only a month after the Tehran Conference, the Soviets set out to demonstrate in practice their determination to punish war criminals.

In December 1943, a military tribunal in Kharkov charged four alleged culprits—three Germans and a Soviet collaborator—with war crimes.

Although by the time of the trial a substantial number of German officers and soldiers had fallen into Soviet captivity, only a few were tried in open or closed military tribunals.

As a rule, these trials did not receive much publicity beyond the areas where they took place.

In contrast, the Kharkov trial was reported in the principal Soviet newspapers, which referred to it as "the beginning of the great and terrible trial of all Germans who have transgressed human laws."

By grouping the defendants together the tribunal sent an unequivocal message to the Allies, the Germans, and the Soviet people: Soviet justice will punish all foreign and domestic war criminals.

The German defendants were selected to represent an assortment of military ranks and branches of the German armed forces: an NCO of the Secret Field Police, a captain of military counterintelligence, and an SS second lieutenant.

They appeared in court in full military regalia—a rare practice in Soviet trials. Such a display, however, did not betoken that the tribunal would take into consideration the defendants' low ranks in the German military hierarchy.

On the contrary, the prosecution pointed out that the decorations were rewards received for the atrocities committed against the Soviet people.

The Soviet defendant, a chauffeur at the Khar'kov SD, was charged with high treason, and his fate was to serve as a grim warning to residents of the German-occupied territories.

Closely following the pattern established in Krasnodar, the prosecution stressed the culpability of the entire German army in war crimes.

The defense pleaded that the main guilt rested with those who had inspired these crimes—the Nazi regime.

While a dozen witnesses appeared in the courtroom, they were not asked to identify the defendants but rather to describe German crimes in the Khar'kov region. As in the Krasnodar case, the defendants fully admitted their guilt.

All four (3 Germans and one Ukrainian collaborator)were sentenced to death and promptly hanged in public.