Editing Commando Order (section)

==Background==
[[File:Commandos archery.jpg|thumb|British commandos during [[Operation Archery]] on [[Vågsøy (island)|Vågsøy]] island, Norway, 1941]]
The Commando Order cited alleged violations of the [[Geneva Conventions]] by Allied commandos as justification, following incidents at the recent [[Dieppe Raid#Prisoners of war|Dieppe Raid]] and on a small raid on the [[Channel Islands|Channel Island]] of [[Sark]] by the [[No. 62 Commando|Small Scale Raiding Force]], with some men of [[No. 12 Commando]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Hitler Issues Commando Order |url=http://www.nww2m.com/2012/10/hitlers-commando-order/ |date=12 October 2012}}</ref>

===Dieppe Raid ===
{{Main|Dieppe Raid}}
On 19 August 1942, during a raid on Dieppe, a [[Canadian Army|Canadian]] [[brigadier]], William Southam, took a copy of the operational order ashore against explicit orders.{{sfn|Margaritis |2019|p=447}}<ref>{{Citation | last = Robertson | first = Terence | title = The Shame and the Glory}}.</ref>{{Rp | needed = yes | date =November 2012}} The order was subsequently discovered on the beach by the Germans and found its way to [[Adolf Hitler]]. Among the dozens of pages of orders was an instruction to "bind prisoners". The orders were for Canadian forces participating in the raid, and not the commandos. Bodies of shot German prisoners with their hands tied were allegedly found by German forces after the battle.<ref>{{Cite journal | journal = Legion Magazine | title = Horror Beyond Dieppe | date = September 1, 2002 | first = Robert | last = Waddy | url = http://www.legionmagazine.com/en/index.php/2002/09/horror-beyond-dieppe/ | access-date = 14 April 2010 | archive-date = 26 March 2013 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130326183834/http://legionmagazine.com/en/index.php/2002/09/horror-beyond-dieppe/ | url-status = dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |page= 57 |last1= Poolton |first1=V |last2=Poolton-Turvey |first2=Jayne |title=Destined to Survive: A Dieppe Veteran's Story |year= 1998 | publisher = Dundrun Press}}</ref>

===Sark Raid===
{{Main|Operation Basalt}}
On the night of 3–4 October 1942, ten men of the Small Scale Raiding Force and No. 12 Commando (attached) made an offensive raid on the German-occupied isle of Sark, called "[[Operation Basalt]]", to [[Reconnaissance|reconnoitre]] the island and to take prisoners.<ref name="Marshall">{{cite book |last=Marshall |first=Michael |publisher=Paramount-Lithoprint |title=Hitler envaded Sark |year=1967}}</ref>{{rp|26}}

During the raid, five prisoners were captured. To minimise the task of the guard left with the captives, the commandos tied the prisoners' hands behind their backs. According to the commandos, one prisoner started shouting to alert his comrades in a hotel and was shot dead.<ref name=Marshall/>{{rp|28}} The remaining four prisoners were silenced by stuffing their mouths, according to [[Anders Lassen]], with grass.<ref name="ELOB">{{cite book |last=Lee |first=Eric |title=Operation Basalt the British Raid on Sark and Hitler's Commando Order |date=2 March 2016 |publisher=The History Press |isbn=978-0750964364}}</ref>{{rp|73}}

En route to the beach, three prisoners made a break. Whether or not some had freed their hands during the escape has never been established, and it is unknown whether all three broke at the same time.<ref name="ELOB"/>{{rp|73}} One was shot and another stabbed, while the third managed to escape. The fourth was conveyed safely back to [[England]].<ref name="ELOB"/>{{rp|73}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Fowler |first=Will |title=Allies at Dieppe: 4 Commando and the US Rangers |year=2012 |publisher=Osprey Publishing |isbn=9781780965963 }}</ref>

===German response and escalation===
[[File:Canadian POWs, Dieppe.jpg|thumb|alt=|Canadian prisoners being led away through Dieppe after the failed raid]]
A few days after the Sark raid, the Germans issued a communiqué claiming that at least one prisoner had escaped and two were shot while they were escaping, having had their hands tied. They also claimed the "hand-tying" practise was used at Dieppe. Then, on 9 October Berlin announced that 1,376 Allied prisoners (mainly Canadians from Dieppe) would henceforth be shackled. The Canadians responded with a similar-in-practise shackling of German POWs in [[Canada]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Vance |first1=Jonathan F | jstor =2944619 |title=Men in Manacles: The Shackling of Prisoners of War, 1942–1943 |journal=The Journal of Military History |volume=59 |number=3 |date=July 1995 | pages=483–504|doi=10.2307/2944619 }}</ref>

The tit-for-tat shackling continued until the [[Switzerland|Swiss]] achieved agreement with the Canadians to desist on 12 December and with the Germans some time later after they received further assurances from the British. However, before the Canadians ended the policy, there was [[Battle of Bowmanville|an uprising of German POWs]] at [[Bowmanville POW camp]].

On 7 October, Hitler personally penned a note in the ''Wehrmacht'' daily communiqué:
{{blockquote|In future, all terror and sabotage troops of the British and their accomplices, who do not act like soldiers but rather like bandits, will be treated as such by the German troops and will be ruthlessly eliminated in battle, wherever they appear.{{citation needed|date=July 2018}}}}