by J. Lee Ready
On 19 May a bomb exploded at Gestapo headquarters in Warsaw. Six days later the Kripo headquarters in Warsaw was blown up. In retaliation the staff of Oberfuehrer Arpad Wigand, SSPF for Warsaw, ordered the Gestapo and Kripo to arrest two hundred and one Polish men and twenty-two Polish women right off the street and shoot them.
Yet the sabotage continued. E.g. on 23 July in Warsaw fifteen army trucks in a garage were burned.
A new SSPF was appointed for Warsaw: Oberfuehrer Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg. In desperation the 62nd Battalion of the OT was ordered to lay down their picks and shovels and take up rifles to hunt partisans. They were redesignated 3/4th Police Regiment: which destroys the lie that all German policemen were volunteers.
On 30 September a factory was burned down. On 8 October all rail lines leading out of Warsaw were cut by explosions. Polish police arrested Jerzy Wysniewski, certain he was a member of the resistance, and beat him for hours, but got nothing. They handed him to the Gestapo, who beat him for another two days. Still he did not talk. So they sent him to the SS KZL who enslaved him at one of the Auschwitz camps. Jerzy prayed that his torturers would not tickle his feet. Had they done so he might have told them everything about his contacts, code names, safe houses etc. The Gestapo had no finesse.
Throughout the summer of 1942 Polish policemen, Polish forest rangers and German policemen made periodic forays into the Parvczew Forest searching for runaway Jews. There were two small Jewish partisan bands operating here, but the majority of Jews that were captured were unarmed.
In Poland in order for Jews to resist the Nazis they either had to form their own partisan bands or join the Polish Communist bands, which welcomed them. Most of the Polish partisan bands were devout Roman Catholic and thus hated Communists and Jews. Indeed some bands hunted down Jews as avidly as the Nazis did.
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At the beginning of April 1942 Eicke was informed that a relief force was on the way, and that the SS Totenkopf should try to break out of the Demiansk Pocket. At last the snow had melted, and when Eicke’s men attacked they were able to cover about a mile per day. On 22 April they linked up with the relief force. There was jubilation as they were no longer trapped.
However, the situation was still tenuous to say the least. Eicke wanted relief for himself and his men, but instead he was ‘rewarded’ with the command of a provisional corps of his own division and all the army troops in the western part of the pocket. It says a lot for the performance of Eicke and his men that the army generals allowed Eicke to control some of their units.
Yet, this did not please the officers commanding the other Waffen SS divisions. They disliked Eicke as much as the army generals did. Himmler was happy about the promotion, the first Waffen SS officer to command a corps, and he sent Eicke another 3,000 replacements as a reward. Since coming to Russia the SS Totenkopf Motorized Division had suffered over 100% casualties. However, those who survived were true warriors, such as Otto Baum, who proved to be an outstanding battalion commander.
Himmler also attached the Danish Frikorps to Eicke’s command. Christian Kryssing had resigned from the Frikorps, evidently over his aversion to Nazi ideology. However, he believed in the struggle against Communism, so he joined the Waffen SS. The Frikorps’ new chief, Count Christian Frederick von Schalburg, reported to Eicke for orders. He was not a Frikorps member, but rather a veteran of the SS Wiking, but he was Danish.
All the Axis formations on the Russian Front were in terrible condition, but in April 1942 they started to receive back those wounded and sick that had recuperated in hospitals. The Netherlands Legion had suffered eighty per cent casualties, but now received a major influx of replacements: 2,600 members of the Weer Afdeling militia. These men had only volunteered to serve but a few hours per week in their hometowns. Suddenly they were whisked away to Russia. The Legion veterans wondered if these new ‘conscripts’ would make good soldiers.
The Flanders Legion also received healed soldiers and new volunteers to bring it up to a strength of 1,116, and this helped morale considerably, but the greatest uplift in morale came when their arrogant commander, Obersturmbannfuehrer Lippert, was wounded and evacuated. He was replaced by an Austrian, Standartenfuehrer Josef Fitzhum, who had seen action in World War One, had returned to Austria after the German invasion to be a senior policeman, and lately had been the commander of the Allgemeine SS 4th Regiment.
The Norwegian Legion had gotten off to a shaky start, and their Waffen SS overseers had sent home some men who lacked sufficient ‘spirit’, but by April 1942 this was a veteran unit. Sturmbannfuehrer August Dickmann’s battalion of the SS Wiking was subordinated to the army’s 100th Division for a mission. This brought Dickmann the Knight’s Cross.
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Chapter Seventeen
RUSSIAN SPRING 1942
In May 1942 the Soviets launched their spring offensive, which they hoped would dash any plans Hitler had of advancing further into Mother Russia. Their South West Front attacked on both sides of Kharkov, but within a day they had been stopped. The Germans counterattacked with but two panzer divisions, for they were stretched thin. Even the Sumy detachment of the UNS - Ukrainian Popular Self-Defense Corps was mobilised and brought into this fight and they did well under loose German supervision. German ordinary policemen had to rush to the defenses as well, and the commander of the German 323rd Police Battalion, Polizei Major Bernhard Griese, won the Knights Cross for leading his men in combat. [The men of the 323rd must have thought their next assignment was a reward for their heroism. They were suddenly transferred to Paris to join the 4th Police Regiment.]
Though the German response to the offensive was small, the speed of the reaction came as a tremendous shock to the Soviets. Furthermore, German Army Group South did not have to put off its own intended offensive by so much as a day, making its attack right on schedule, swinging around the Soviets near Kharkov, and within days killing or capturing upwards of 300,000 Soviets!
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In the north the SS Totenkopf Motorized Division was still locked in a bitter struggle near Demiansk, and the Danish Frikorps was fighting and dying alongside them. The Danish commander, von Schalburg, was killed, and a Danish officer Knud Martinsen led them into their next attack on 4 June. He was soon replaced by a German, but that man was killed on 11 June, whereupon Martinsen took over again. The Danes lost forty per cent casualties in three weeks.
Near Leningrad the 102nd Police and 305th Police Battalions were sent into the front line.
On 1 May the SS Polizei Motorized Division helped trap an enemy formation north of the Volkhov Pocket. Soon afterwards the SS Polizei was taken out of the line and sent to the Czech Protectorate to rest and regroup. Rudolf Pannier of the division was awarded the Knights Cross. He insisted on using his police rank of major rather than its SS equivalent.
In June Eicke was brought home for a well-earned rest. He was relieved by Oberfuehrer Max Simon, who immediately began begging for the relief of the entire division. He was afraid his men would be annihilated. As it was, most of the original members of the division had long since been killed or maimed. By this date its percentage of men who had actually guarded a concentration camp at one time or another was no greater than in any other Waffen SS division.
German Army Group North ordered an offensive around Volkhov, and as per orders on 16 June the Flanders Legion attacked towards Ossiye, while the Netherlands Legion and German and Spanish troops attacked on their flanks. By the last week of June the Soviets of the Volkhov Front were collapsing, and Dutch troops captured Andrei Vlasov the commander of the Soviet Eleventh Army. The Norwegian Legion now advanced on the Soviet flank, and within days the Soviets inside the Volkhov Pocket were destroyed.
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During these battles the SS LAH and SS Wiking Motorized Divisions had remained passive along the Mius River. This was just as well, for by June 1942 the Waffen SS was desperate for manpower. A third of those who had invaded the Soviet Union one
year earlier had been killed or wounded or completely incapacitated with frostbite or illness. This was actually about the same rate of casualties as the German Army, which had lost 830,000 men to all causes on the Russian Front by 31 December 1941, and another 175,000 by 1 March 1942. In order to keep up the strength of his Waffen SS, Himmler had been forced to send Volksdeutsch replacements to the divisions. Many of these replacements knew nothing of Germany, having never lived there, and often their dialect of German was so obscure that it was understood only with repeated questions and hand signals. They certainly did not know anything of the SS. And some of the actual German replacements had been but fifteen year-old schoolboys at the time of the invasion of Poland and mere babies when the SS was formed. They did not have a clue what they were getting themselves into.
In addition to cannon fodder the armed forces needed officers. Oberscharfuehrer Michael Wittman’s superiors were proud to recommend him for officer training. He had been twice decorated and had been wounded.
Hitler had to resort to several measures to patch up his bleeding army. He lowered the conscription age to eighteen, called back many reservists who had been let go after the conquest of France, reduced many divisions from nine infantry battalions to seven, and called up 370,000 essential workers [shipbuilders, aircraft factory workers etc], whose jobs would have to be taken by foreigners - either volunteer workers or forced labor. As yet, Hitler did not want to ask German women to work in the factories. Hitler’s power base was the women of Germany, and he even allowed cosmetics and fashions to be listed as essential products like ammunition and bandages. Both the Soviets and British conscripted female labor for war work. The Americans did not conscript women, but did launch a massive publicity campaign called ‘Rosie the Riveter’ to recruit female volunteer workers.
Himmler decided to amalgamate some of his police battalions into regiments, because they were being ordered to engage large bands of partisans and patrol large areas. The 2nd, 3rd and 10th Police Battalions went into the 1st Police Regiment. The 11th, 13th and 22nd Police Battalions and three police artillery batteries went into the 2nd Police Regiment [The 11th had been Jew hunting.] The 66th and 68th Police Battalions were put into the 3rd Police Regiment. The 316th and 323rd Police Battalions entered the 4th Police Regiment. [The 316th had been massacring Jews. The 323rd had been on the Russian Front.] The 64th and 322nd Police Battalions became the 5th Police Regiment. [The 322nd had been involved in executing Jewish civilians, and more recently together with the 64th had been fighting Titoist partisans.] The 123rd, 309th and 317th Police Battalions went into the 7th Police Regiment. [The 309th had been killing Jewish civilians.] The 91st, 111th and 134th Police Battalions entered the 8th Police Regiment. The 304th, 315th and 320th Police Battalions were placed into the 11th Police Regiment. The 103rd, 104th and 105th Police Battalions went to the 12th Police Regiment. [The 103rd and 104th had been expelling Jews from their homes.] The 6th, 85th and 301st Police Battalions entered the 13th Police Regiment. [The 6th had been expelling Jews and Poles. The 301st was an execution unit.] The 51st, 63rd and 122nd Police Battalions went into the 14th Police Regiment. The 305th, 306th and 310th Police Battalions and three police artillery batteries went to the 15th Police Regiment. [The 305th had been serving on the Russian Front.] The 56th, 102nd and 121st Police Battalions were put into the 16th Police Regiment. [The 102nd had been serving on the Russian Front.] The 302nd, 312th and 325th Battalions went into the 18th Police Mountain Regiment. [Most of these were Volksdeutsch from Yugoslavia and had been fighting partisans there]. The 83rd, 93rd and 153rd Police Battalions entered the 24th Police Regiment [with the regimental staff coming from Police Regiment Radom.] The 308th and 313th Police Battalions went into the 25th Police Regiment [with the regimental staff coming from Police Regiment Lublin].
In addition existing police regiments took numbers. Police Regiment Northern Norway [254th, 255th and 256th Police Battalions] became the 26th Police Regiment. Police Regiment Southern Norway [44th, 319th and 321st Police Battalions] became the 27th Police Regiment. Behind the Russian Front Police Regiment North was renamed the 9th Police Regiment, and Police Regiment South became the 10th Police Regiment. In Czechia Police Regiment Boehmen was retitled the 20th Police Regiment, while Police Regiment Maehren was redesignated the 21st Police Regiment. In Poland Police Regiment Warsaw was restructured as the 22nd Police Regiment, with Police Regiment Krakau [Cracow] taking the number 23rd Police Regiment.
Another way to beef up the German forces was to use more Soviet citizen volunteers. By spring 1942 every German formation on the Russian Front was using hiwis, but they were usually not listed in strength reports. If they had been, some units might not have been eligible for replacements. E.g. if a German battalion commander claimed he was down to a hundred men, which was true if he only counted actual members of the German Army, he might also have twenty or thirty hiwis too. A unit’s hiwi budget was hidden by false purchases. It all depended on the local German commander. Some units had few. Others were practically more hiwi than German. Probably by 1942 about ten per cent of the German Army on the Russian Front consisted of hiwis. Supposedly they were purely rear-echelon troops, but by spring 1942 hiwis could be found doing everything including fighting as infantry.
Another source of manpower was the actual osttruppen, i.e. Soviet citizen combat soldiers that served in their own units. By spring 1942 these included the Estonian ERNA, Pannwitz’s Cossack companies, the 102nd Cossack Cavalry Regiment, the Russian Einwohnerkampfverbaende of Army Group North, the Russian-Byelorussian Ordnungsdienst of Army Group Center, von Tresckow’s six battalions of Ukrainians and Byelorussians, the Russian Lokot militia, the Russian Graukopf Battalion, the Armenian Legion, the Byelorussian BNS, the Ukrainian UNS, the Georgian Legion, the Turkestani Legion, the Caucasus Moslem Legion, and the Sicherungabteilungen of fourteen battalions of Russians, Karelians, Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians. There were many smaller formations.
Yet even these were not enough. Hitler only intended to make one major offensive in 1942, but it was ambitious in scale. His intention was to advance through Stalingrad into the Caucasus oilfields all the way to the Caspian Sea. In order to do it, despite all his conscription efforts and the employment of hiwis and osttruppen and the use of many western European legions fighting alongside his troops, Hitler still had to ask his Axis partners for help. As a result the offensive would be launched by nine armies, of which only five were German, and each of these five contained some non-German units. The remaining armies were two Romanian, one Italian and one Hungarian.
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The SS LAH was so worn out, Himmler brought them out of Russia to rest and refit. The SS Das Reich was already in Germany recuperating under the capable hands of Gruppenfuehrer Keppler. Meanwhile Himmler had made some behind the scenes deals with various Nazi leaders to acquire sufficient equipment to turn the SS LAH, SS Das Reich, SS Totenkopf and SS Wiking into panzergrenadier divisions. Specifically this meant that each division would consist of a flak battalion, a reconnaissance battalion equipped with armored cars and tanks [Mark I and Mark II], a StuG battalion, a pioneer battalion, an artillery regiment of four battalions [mostly self-propelled], a panzer regiment of two battalions of tanks [38t, Mark III, Mark IV], and two panzergrenadier regiments. Each panzergrenadier regiment was made up of three battalions of panzergrenadiers supported by anti-tank guns, self-propelled flak guns and StuGs. Panzergrenadiers, unlike normal infantrymen, had access to vehicles and a plethora of automatic weapons. These divisions thus went from twelve infantry battalions to six, but the increase in firepower more than compensated for the decrease in riflemen. Moreover, the greater the number of vehicles, the greater the need for mechanics, fueling personnel and recovery teams, so that the four SS divisions actually increased their overall manpower to 21,000 men apiece. Though taking the designation ‘panzergrenadier’, these divisions were in fact as powerful as any army panzer division. In addition to tanks manned by the panzer troops, the di
visional artillerymen eventually possessed a myriad of self-propelled guns. Invariably when fired upon by these weapons the Allied infantry always described them as ‘tanks’.
It was at this time that the SS divisions also began to take numerical designations: 1st SS LAH Panzergrenadier, 2nd SS Das Reich Panzergrenadier, 3rd SS Totenkopf Panzergrenadier, 4th SS Polizei Motorized Infantry, 5th SS Wiking Panzergrenadier, 6th SS Nord Mountain and 7th SS Prinz Eugen Mountain.
Furthermore, Himmler gained permission from Hitler to expand the command and control responsibilities of the Waffen SS, and as a result Gruppenfuehrer Paul Hausser was ordered to form a permanent corps headquarters. Hausser had beaten the odds by surviving his terrible wounds, though sixty-one years old. He showed up at his new headquarters wearing an eye patch. Moreover three more Waffen SS divisions were to be raised: the 8th SS Florian Geyer Cavalry, the 9th SS Hohenstaufen Panzergrenadier and 10th SS Karl der Grosse Panzergrenadier. Florian Geyer was a 16th century German revolutionary. Hohenstaufen was a German aristocratic family. Karl der Grosse = Charlemagne, a medieval king of a united France/Germany.
The SS Florian Geyer was given to Brigadefuehrer Willi Bittrich, who had survived his illness. This division was built around the SS Totenkopf [horse] Cavalry Brigade, which was beefed up to divisional size by an influx of recruits, many of them from the Melitopol Volksdeutsch community of the Ukraine. It was ready before the other two new divisions and was given some front line duty under the Ninth Army in the Vjasma-Briansk sector of the Russian Front. One of its regimental commanders was Obersturmbannfuehrer Gustav Lombard, who was soon decorated for bravery in action. On occasion he was temporarily in command of the division. Another regimental commander was Obersturmbannfuehrer August Zehender, who had been decorated for courage in the Polish and French campaigns. The Florian Geyer’s artillery was commanded by Obersturmbannfuehrer Joachim Rumohr, who had been decorated in 1940.