SS und Polizei: Myths and Lies of Hitler's SS and Police

by J. Lee Ready

  By 9 March Hausser’s corps had almost encircled Kharkov. The SS LAH advanced in three battlegroups commanded by Teddi Wisch, Fritz Witt and Kurt Meyer. For a couple of hours Meyer was pinned down in a ditch alongside Gerd Bremer and twenty of his men, until a Stuka squadron blasted apart the enemy defenses, whereupon the twenty-two men jumped up and charged the Soviet infantry! The enemy collapsed.

  By the 13th Hausser had secured Kharkov, and the SS Totenkopf sat astride the Donets River, where it annihilated a Soviet division that was trying to cross. The SS LAH drove on and captured Belgorod on the 18th. Obersturmfuehrer Hermann Weiser won the Knight’s Cross for his daring leadership of a motor cycle detachment of the SS LAH.

  Once again von Manstein praised the fighting capabilities of the Waffen SS. Hitler was elated, and he decorated many SS men, including Sepp Dietrich who was also promoted, and he agreed to the expansion of the Waffen SS. Unbelievably Himmler made sure Brigadefuehrer Tensfeld was also decorated.

  However, the losses among Hausser’s corps in the last two months had been calamitous, over 4,500 in the SS LAH alone. Heinz Harmel, a Lorraine German and commander of the SS Deutschland of the SS Das Reich, had been wounded. The Das Reich’s commander, Herbert Vahl, had also been wounded. At Dergatschi Hauptsturmfuehrer Walter Reder, an Austrian panzergrenadier of the SS Totenkopf, was wounded performing heroic deeds. Hausser hoped these heroes would return from hospital soon and he recommended them for decorations.

  Also devastating to morale was the realization that with the expansion of the Waffen SS many a veteran would have to be reassigned to provide a cadre for the new units. Max Wuensche felt like he was leaving his family when he received his transfer orders.

  Sepp Dietrich was given permission to raise his own corps, which would be named I SS Panzer Corps, relegating Hausser’s existing corps to number II. Perhaps this petty little insult was because Hausser had talked back to Hitler?

  Dietrich agreed that thirty-six year old Teddi Wisch, who had been with him since 1933, should take over his SS LAH, thus becoming one of the youngest divisional commanders in the German forces. In fact Dietrich showed just how much ‘pull’ he had at this moment, by insisting on and getting Oberst Fritz Kraemer from the army as his chief of staff for the new corps. Kraemer, who had fought in World War One and had then served as a policeman in the interwar years, had seen considerable action in this war with the army’s 13th Panzer Division. He was not a Nazi. He accepted this new assignment, but did not join the SS.

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  South of Leningrad SS Battlegroup Fitzhum was in rough shape. The Flanders and Latvian Legions had been almost wiped out holding back local frenzied onslaughts by waves of Soviets. Furthermore the Flanders Legion had been ordered to send a company to the 4th SS Polizei Division. On 25 February 1943 the Danish Frikorps counterattacked at Moschino. A few days later the Flanders Legion, now able to field only one company, was struck by a serious enemy attack along the Neva River, but they held, counterattacked and actually gained ground! Only when the Flemish were down to forty-five men was the legion withdrawn for a rest!

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  Chapter Twenty-three

  HIMMLER’S ARMY

  In March 1943 Hitler gave Himmler carte blanche to increase the number of Waffen SS units and he gave him sufficient equipment to make them powerful formations. However, he did not give him the manpower. Himmler would therefore have to use every method possible to fill his ranks. Naturally he badgered Hitler about this and finally Hitler changed his mind. To be sure the German Kriegsmarine [navy] and Luftwaffe really did not need to conscript as many people as they were doing by 1943, for the navy was running out of ships and the Luftwaffe was running out of aviation fuel. Already Goering was using unemployed air force ground crews to form his own panzer and infantry formations, in addition to the parachute divisions he already had. Therefore, Hitler agreed that the other branches must turn over to Himmler any of their members who wished to join the Waffen SS, and furthermore Himmler was allowed a small percentage of the conscription class, which by this date meant seventeen-year old males. If his allotted percentage was filled by draftees who asked for the Waffen SS, so be it, but if not then some would be forcibly conscripted into the Waffen SS. So much for the volunteer spirit that SS pamphlets and posters still mentioned. Another lie.

  Himmler tried to conscript the Schutzkommando of Organisation Todt for the Waffen SS, but Albert Speer Hitler’s Minister of Armaments reacted vociferously. He needed these people to guard construction sites. Himmler backed down.

  There is no doubt that the army generals had to admit that more often than not the Waffen SS had proven themselves to be the elite of the battlefield. This was certainly true of the SS LAH, SS Das Reich, SS Totenkopf and SS Wiking.

  One of the first new divisions Himmler created was the 12th SS HJ [Hitler Jugend] Panzer Division raised from seventeen year old volunteers, hence its name Hitler Youth, though its officers, sergeants and technicians would be veterans transferred in from other units. Commanded by thirty-five year old Brigadefuehrer Fritz Witt, the division was soon transferred to Belgium for training. Witt was fortunate to gain so many experienced comrades in arms for his senior commands: Wuensche, Bremer, Meyer and Mohnke, the latter assuring everyone that he was able to function with an artificial foot.

  Himmler also created the 101st SS Vielfacherwerfer Battery, equipped with a weapon the SS was forced to invent. It was similar to the Soviet Katyusha rocket launcher and the German Army Nebelwerfer. [UK ‘Moaning Minnie’, US ‘Screaming Meemie’.] The invention came about because Himmler had tried to buy Nebelwerfers, but the army had refused him. Himmler settled on a design created by the Skoda-Brno industrial concern in the Czech Protectorate and had them manufacture the weapon. Of course, Hitler could have settled the matter, but here is an example of his divide and rule policy. The Allies saw Himmler as all powerful, but in truth he dangled on a puppet string just like all the other civil servants and generals in the Third Reich.

  Himmler also turned to those foreign volunteers he had been nurturing for some time. Himmler had initially paid lip service to the foreign spokesmen of these fascists, nationalists and Christian ultra-conservatives, such as Degrelle, Mussert and Quisling, but now he was tiring of their demands. He needed warm bodies and he had no time for foreign sensitivities.

  The Norwegian Legion had used replacements to try to keep a strength of 800 men, which was hard to do as 158 had been killed so far and hundreds had been wounded and hundreds more incapacitated with sickness. Himmler now ordered the unit to be disbanded and its personnel were ordered to ‘volunteer’ to serve in the new 2nd SS Grenadier Norge [Norwegian] Regiment. Obviously much soul-searching was required from these legionnaires, who had been fighting for God and Norway not for Hitler or Himmler, and indeed some had fought against the Germans in 1940. But most of them concluded they had no choice [they didn’t] and so they volunteered. A little persuasion was needed here and there before they all took the SS oath.

  The Flanders Legion was made the same offer. These legionnaires ‘volunteered’ to join the new 6th SS Langemarck Sturmbrigade. [Langemarck, a World War I battle.] This legion already contained some SS personnel.

  The Netherlands Legion was made a similar offer, and most of its men joined the new SS Nederland [Netherlands] Panzergrenadier Brigade commanded by the Alsatian Obersturmbannfuehrer Juergen Wagner. Some of these Dutch refused and were allowed to return to the Netherlands to join Nazi organizations there.

  The Danish Frikorps got the same offer, its members entering the new 1st SS Danmarck Regiment, despite the fact that these men were supposedly soldiers of the Danish Army. This was confusing to them. Could they serve Denmark and Germany at the same time?

  The Walloon Legion had 1,600 members, many of them recuperating in hospital. They had never been approached by SS recruiters because they had been considered racially inferior, an opinion that did not bother these devout Catholics one whit, for they fought for
Christ not Hitler. However, they were now made the same offer as the other legions. Thus they mutated into the 5th SS Wallonie Sturmbrigade. Leon Degrelle was accepted as a hauptsturmfuehrer. Two years earlier he had been a mere grenadier. Indeed Degrelle had pushed Himmler for the right to expand the Walloon military force in numbers and to be accepted as equals in the SS. He even convinced Himmler to allow the sturmbrigade to have its own Roman Catholic chaplains. Again, busting the myth that all SS were Godless.

  The 5th SS Wiking Panzergrenadier Division was now restructured. Its SS Nordland Regiment was dissolved, the Norwegian members being reassigned to the 2nd SS Grenadier Norge Regiment, and the Danish members being sent to the 1st SS Danmarck Regiment. A German battalion commander, Sturmbannfuehrer Albrecht Kruegel, transferred to the SS Norge. The Wiking’s SS Westland Regiment was also disbanded, its Dutch and Frisian members going to the SS Nederland Panzergrenadier Brigade, which would soon have 5,500 personnel. Obersturmbannfuehrer Adolf Ax was made operations chief for the brigade. Though born in Belgium he had spent much of his life in Germany and by now had thirteen years SS service. The brigade’s artillery commander would be Oberfuehrer Kurt Brasack, an artillery veteran who had begun his service as a gefreiter in World War One and in this war had handled the artillery of the SS Wiking and SS Das Reich.

  The SS Westland’s Flemish troops went to the 6th SS Langemarck Sturmbrigade.

  Thus these new units would have legion veterans and SS veterans.

  This left the SS Wiking Division, now led by Brigadefuehrer Herbert Gille, with just one regiment: the SS Germania of Lichtensteiners, Swiss and Swedes and Volksdeutsch from all over. To keep the division combat capable two new regiments were formed from Volksdeutsch volunteers and German conscripts. Attached to the division was the new SS Narva Battalion of Estonians, many of them veterans of the SS Ost Battalion.

  The SS Norwegen Ski Battalion was assigned to the 2nd SS Grenadier Norge Regiment. Though one ski company remained attached to the 6th SS Nord Mountain Division.

  The Finnish troops of the SS Nordost Regiment that had been fighting alongside the Wiking were requested by Field Marshal Mannerheim for the Finnish Army, and in a spirit of goodwill Hitler acquiesced, to Himmler’s anger.

  Additionally another ‘foreign’ division was created, the 11th SS Nordland Infantry Division. For commander of the Nordland Himmler settled upon Brigadefuehrer Friedrich Scholz Edler von Rarancze, a Sudetenlander. His infantry component would be the 1st SS Danmarck Regiment and the 2nd SS Grenadier Norge Regiment. The remainder of the division would consist of Danes, Norwegians, German conscripts and volunteers from the Volksdeutsch communities of Hungary and Romania. Hitler had bullied Hungary’s dictator, Miklos Horthy, and Romania’s dictator, Ion Antonescu, into allowing their Volksdeutsch to join the SS if they so wished.

  Von Rarancze’s division also had enough Swedes to fill a reconnaissance platoon under the command of Swedish Untersturmfuehrer Hans-Goesta Pehrsson, who had earned his spurs serving with the SS Wiking. One of the Swedes, Unterscharfuehrer Erik Wallin, was a veteran anti-Communist, who had fought for the Finns against the Soviets 1939-40 and again 1941-42, then had returned home to fulfill his obligatory Swedish military service, following which he had joined the Waffen SS to kill more Reds.

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  Himmler had become impressed by the fanaticism of some of the Bosnian Moslems, which was in fact merely an eagerness to survive, so he ordered his recruiters to induct such people into the new 13th SS Handschar [scimitar] Mountain Division. Eventually this force would be commanded by Karl Sauberzweig, a professional German army officer and veteran of World War One and the German Civil War, whose hometown had been annexed by the Poles, and who had seen considerable action in the current war already and had reached the rank of army oberst. But now he suddenly transferred to the Waffen SS as an oberfuehrer. He was not a Nazi and his decision to do this does seem odd. However, as the Waffen SS was expanding, whereas the German Army was shrinking, the promotional prospects were much greater in the Waffen SS. The SS Handschar was to be cadred by veterans of the 7th SS Prinz Eugen Mountain Division. The recruits were shipped off to train in France, because Bosnia was judged to be too unhealthy for the men owing to Titoist partisan raids. Himmler agreed the division could have Moslem chaplains. By allowing actual Moslem clergymen into the SS as well as Degrelle‘s Roman Catholic priests, Himmler was admitting that SS soldiers could be religious as well as loyal. In fact almost all SS had voluntarily declared some sort of religious belief.

  Himmler broke more of his own rules in his eagerness to find troops. In July 1943 he agreed to accept Frenchmen and he established the SS Frankreich [France] Regiment with new volunteers and transferees from the French Legion under the command of fifty-nine year old Obersturmfuehrer Paul Gamory, a long time French Fascist. The regiment soon looked so promising that Himmler enlarged it into the 1st SS Charlemagne Sturmbrigade, named after a medieval king of a united France/Germany. One of the volunteers was Henri-Joseph Fenet. Twice wounded in action against the Germans, he had then spent two years in a German prison camp. Some of the ‘French’ were native Africans from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia [French colonies], both Moslems and Christians. Thus the SS now had Africans in its ranks!

  However, the French Legion remained in being as not all its members agreed to transfer to the SS, and Himmler did not push the matter. Several of these men had fought against the Germans in 1940.

  Another method of gaining units for the SS, which on the face of it appeared contradictory, was to recognize the independence or autonomy of some of the ethnic groups fighting alongside the Nazis, groups that cared not a fig for Hitler and his gang, but who dearly wished to live in a free homeland. These ethnic groups knew they could not trust Hitler nor Himmler any further than they could throw either one, but they all needed each other, especially after the Axis forces had been run out of the Caucasus.

  Therefore from his home in exile in Prague Pyotr Krasnov formed the Cossack National Council, naming Hitler as titular head [in order to keep the Gestapo off his back] and he asked all Cossacks that were currently osttruppen or hiwis to acknowledge his council so that the Cossacks could have a collective voice. Krasnov aged 75, an ex-hetman of the Don Cossacks, had fought the Communists in the Russian Civil War 1917-21. He possessed a mystique that drew followers.

  Von Pannwitz, though a German officer, urged his Cossacks to acknowledge Krasnov. He was currently in the process of increasing his Cossack force from two regiments to divisional size by inducing hiwis and osttruppen of other units to join him and by recruiting from Cossack civilians who had retreated alongside the German Army. In time von Pannwitz would assemble 15,000 Cossacks for his 1st Cossack Division, who almost to a man acknowledged Krasnov’s Cossack National Council.

  There were also several independent Cossack osttruppen battalions and the 102nd Cossack [Horse] Cavalry Regiment. At Smolensk Hauptmann Boeselager was forming a Cossack horse cavalry regiment, while in the Kuban, a piece of the Caucasus still held by the Germans, the Kuban Cossack Militia was doing sterling service.

  Everyone knew that the osttruppen should be standardized and Himmler was eager that one of his cronies should get this mission, just as Zelewski had taken control of the partisan war. Unfortunately, Himmler lost out on this one, and the German Army was able to name the first Inspector-General of Osttruppen, namely Generalleutnant Heinz Hellmich.

  The first things Hellmich wanted to learn were why did anyone join the osttruppen, who were they and how many were there? One thing he found was that the desertion rate was ten per cent, a very low figure indeed when one realizes they were often near their homes, were subjected to Communist propaganda, were in constant fear for the safety of their loved ones and were perfectly aware that the Nazis were cold-blooded killers. The overriding magnetism that kept them together was their love of their own ‘country’, a belief in God and their hatred of communism.

  In early 1943 Hellmich learned that the Azerbai
jani Legion had 36,500 personnel serving in independent companies and battalions. They had a political council eager for recognition.

  The Georgian Legion was similar with 19,000 members, but their politicians had been in exile in Paris for years and had better contacts than the Azerbaijanis.

  The Armenian Legion of 7,000 had as yet no political council. A minor mutiny by Communist infiltrators within its ranks had been put down by the Gestapo.

  The Turkestani Legion of 20,550 troops was divided into independent companies and battalions according to ethnic groupings. A council called the Turkestani Liberation Movement looked after their political aspirations. E.g. they had complained to Hitler that SS Einsatzgruppe D while briefly in the Caucasus had murdered some Turkestani Moslems thinking they were Jews. Of course Hitler would have reminded the council that the SS einsatzgruppe in question did not exist and was a figment of Allied propaganda.

  The largest unit within the Turkestani Legion was the 162nd Infantry Division, which consisted of six infantry battalions each containing 950 Turcomans and 27 German advisers. In truth not all the ‘Turcomans’ were Turcomans. Well-meaning but ill-informed German recruiters had assigned people of many different ethnicities to the division. The division was assembled together with German support personnel and was training in Germany.

  The Caucasus Moslem Legion had 15,000 men divided into independent companies and battalions and the 450th Regiment. They had no council as the legion consisted of several ethnic groups.

  The Kalmyks had volunteered to protect their homeland when the Germans liberated it, and they had been accepted and formed into a militia with excellent horse cavalry. However, the Germans had then retreated and the Kalmyk militiamen had to follow them and bring their families. About 5,000 were formed into the Kalmyk Legion and sent to patrol the Dniestr River. They had a small political representation.