The two Russians were dressed in Soviet military combat uniforms. After the Charikov offensive, they were executed in Kharkiv, Ukraine, as irregular civilian partisans following their command of grenade attacks against German forces.

  The two Russians were dressed in Soviet military combat uniforms. After the Charikov offensive, they were executed in Kharkiv, Ukraine, as civilian partisans fighting irregularly, following their command of grenade attacks against German forces. German anti-partisan units acted without mercy against partisans.

  Under the September 1941 Expiation Order, German forces were temporarily ordered in Serbia at the end of 1941 to execute 100 civilians for every German soldier killed. Adolf Hitler later repeated this order multiple times. Guerrillas could be executed as snipers after capture. The perpetrators of massacres were never held criminally responsible for the execution of captured partisans. For every German soldier wounded or killed, ten Cretans were shot. German forces were ordered to burn down farms and villages that fired back and to take hostages everywhere.

  In Europe, repressive measures against enemy civilians had become customary law over centuries. Both the British Army Manual of Military Justice and the U.S. Army Field Manual (Rules of Land Warfare) permitted reprisals against civilians. Within the German Wehrmacht, a quota of ten civilians massacred for each German soldier killed was commonly accepted. Conversely, in the French Army of Southern Germany under the Allied forces, four civilians were shot for every French soldier killed in 1945.

   Under modern international law, the military is an independent legal entity and the only state organ granted the authority to wage war. Individuals who are not members of the military or who do not submit to the corresponding established authority cannot take up arms, fight, or resist in any form.