German army policy for deterring partisan or "bandit" activities against its forces was to strike "such terror into the population that it loses all will to resist."[14] Even before the Nazi campaign in the east had begun, Hitler had already absolved his soldiers from any responsibility for brutality against civilians, expecting his soldiers and police forces to kill anyone that even "looked askance" at the German forces.[14] Much of the partisan warfare became an exercise of anti-Semitism, as military commanders like General Bechtolsheim exclaimed that whenever an act of sabotage was committed and one killed the Jews from that village, then "one can be certain that one has destroyed the perpetrators, or at least those who stood behind them."[14] When the Wehrmacht entered Serbia in 1941, they carried out mass reprisals against partisans by executing Jews there.[15] The commander responsible for combating partisan warfare in 1941, General Böhme, reiterated to the German forces, "that rivers of German blood" had been spilled in Serbia during the First World War and the Wehrmacht should consider any acts of violence there as "avenging these deaths."[16]