In the meantime, on 16 September 1941 Field Marshal [[Wilhelm Keitel]] issued an order applying to all Europe to kill 50–100 hostages for every German soldier killed.<ref name=Beckett/> German commander [[Franz Böhme]] ordered Keitel’s directive to be carried out in Serbia in the most drastic manner and that with no exception one hundred hostages would be executed for every German killed.<ref>[[#Roberts_1973|Roberts (1973)]], pp.31–32</ref> Invested by Hitler with total authority and told to "restore order for the longer term in the entire area by the most radical means", Böhme made it clear from the beginning that he intended if necessary to wage war against the whole Serbian population by considering all civilians as enemies.<ref>[[Hannes Heer,]] Heerand [[Klaus Naumann, (historian)|Klaus Naumann]], [https://books.google.fr/books?id=Sh77amvItIMC&pg=PA42&dq=%22franz+bohme%22%22one+hundred%22%22serbia%22&cd=2#v=onepage&q=%22franz%20bohme%22%22one%20hundred%22%22serbia%22&f=false ''War Of Extermination: The German Military In World War II''], Berghahn Books, 2004, pp.43–45</ref> He was also instructed to apply the order directive concerning the taking of hostages not just to attacks concerning German military personnel, but also ethnic Germans, Bulgarian military personnel, individuals in the service of the occupation authority, and eventually to members of the Serbian administration. Each act of insurgency was to be considered of "communist" origin. The German military declared Serbia a war zone, and villages began to be torched.<ref>[[#Pavlowitch_2008|Pavlowitch (2008)]], p.60</ref> Ten German soldiers having been killed in a joint Partisan-Chetnik attack on [[Kraljevo]], 1,700 hostages were shot on 20 October. Several other thousand hostages were executed during the following weeks in reprisals against the insurgents’ attacks.
