Polish farmers killed by German forces, German-occupied Poland, 1943

February 17, 1942 WW2: Hitler's Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Alfred Rosenberg, issues guidelines for when to punish and when to murder those who object, in any way, to German occupation and rule of their respective countries:

1. The death penalty, or, in lesser cases, penal servitude will be inflicted upon: Those who undertake to use violence against the German Reich or against the high authority established in the occupied territories; those who undertake to commit violence against a Reich citizen or a person of German nationality for his or her belonging to this German nationality; those who undertake to use violence against a member of the Wehrmacht or its followers, the German police including its auxiliary forces, the Reich Labor Service, a German authority or institution, or the organizations of the NSDAP; those who appeal or incite to disobedience of orders or directives issued by the German authorities; those who with premeditation damage the furniture of German authorities and institutions or things used by the latter for their work or in the public interest; those who undertake to assist anti-German movements or to maintain the organizational connection of groups prohibited by the German authorities; those who participate in or incite hostile activity and thus reveal anti-German mentality or who by their behavior lower or injure the authority or the welfare of the German State and people; those who premeditatively commit arson and thereby damage German interests in general or the property of a Reich citizen or persons of German nationality.

2. Furthermore, the death penalty and, in lesser cases, penal servitude is to be inflicted upon: Those who agree to commit any punishable action as foreseen by Paragraph 1; those who enter into serious negotiations on that subject; those who offer their services to commit such an action or accept such an offer; or those who possess credible information on such an action or its intention at a moment when the danger can still be averted, and willfully refrain from warning the German authorities or the menaced person in due time.

3. An offense not coming under Paragraphs 1 and 2 is to be punished by death, even if this penalty is not provided for by the general German criminal laws and by decrees of German authorities, if the offense is of a particularly base type or for other reasons is particularly serious. In such cases the death xenalty is also permissible for juvenile hard criminals. 

(1) If there is insufficient justification for turning the case over to competent courts-martial, the special courts are competent. 

(2) The special instructions issued for the Armed Forces are not hereby affected."