Walter Kuntze ( 23 February 1883 – 1 April 1960 ) was a German general and war criminal during World War II who commanded the 12th Army . He was the commanding officer responsible for the execution of men and teenage boys in the Kragujevac massacre , when Serbian civilians were murdered in reprisal for an attack on German troops , at the ratio of one hundred Serbs for every German soldier killed . Kuntze was assigned Deputy Wehrmacht Commander Southeast and Commander-in-Chief of the 12th Army on October 29 . This was a temporary appointment , until Wilhelm List could return to duty . On October 31 , Franz 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 . No false sentimentalities ! It is preferable that 50 suspects are liquidated than one German soldier lose his life … If it is not possible to produce the people who have participated in any way in the insurrection or to seize them , reprisal measures of a general kind may be deemed advisable , for instance , the shooting to death of all male inhabitants from the nearest villages , according to a definite ratio ( for instance , one German dead : 100 Serbs , one German wounded : 50 Serbs ) . " Kuntze surrendered to the 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 . He died on 1 April 1960
Kragujevac massacre
Kragujevac massacre
Walter Kuntze