The commissar order was an order given by Adolf Hitler prior to Operation Barbarossa that any captured Russian political officer be immediately shot.
Field Marshal von Manstein in his memoirs, while acknowledging that he gave his written assent to the order, states that he, along with some other field commanders, instructed the units under his command not to follow it, despite the prevailing opinion among the German officer corps that the commissars were a species of war criminal.
The commissar order has been of interest for historians of the Holocaust, as many believe that the order was gradually interpreted more and more broadly and eventually provided justification for the extermination of all Jews.
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