Following the return of the last war prisoners from Soviet captivity, on 7 October 1955, 600 former members of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS swore a public oath in the Friedland Barracks that received a strong media reaction. The oath said: " [W]e swear that we have neither committed murder, nor defiled, nor plundered. If we have brought suffering and misery on other people, it was done according to the Laws of War".[61]