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

by J. Lee Ready

  __________

  The most high profile guerilla raid of 1943 was a UPA ambush of a German police battalion, because the partisans killed the man that the police were supposed to protect: Viktor Lutze, the commander of the SA. Hitler was embarrassed by the incident, so he had Goebbels put out the story that Lutze had died accidentally.

  __________

  When the Druzhina suffered a major revolt, with a portion deserting to the Communist partisans, Himmler feigned anger and demanded that the German Army disband all osttruppen. He knew they would not, and in fact he hoped to gain control of all of them himself. As the argument came to a head and began to involve Hitler, the army had to admit its dependence on the hiwis and osttruppen. They told Hitler that two thirds of all ‘Germans’ currently hunting partisans in the occupied zones of Poland and the Soviet Union were in fact osttruppen or hiwis. Indeed on one particular day, of the 253,000 troops that were hunting partisans only 15,000 were Germans. Even then the term ‘German’ was used loosely, as it included many Volksdeutsch that had never seen Germany.

  Following this shocking revelation Hitler agreed that Himmler could send teams of SS officers to inspect the reliability of these units and disband those that did not meet his requirements. This order was a Godsend to Himmler, for the inspectors he chose were in fact his recruiters, and their mission was to change the allegiance of these men to serve Himmler rather than Hitler.

  Hitler issued another order that aided Himmler, declaring that the osttruppen should serve in central and western Europe as well as in the east, putting them far away from their homes and the temptation to desert. Himmler’s recruiters offered to provide the ‘home away from home’ comforts for these units that no one else was bothering to supply, including safe adequate housing for their families. This proved to be a powerful recruitment tool.

  __________

  In Summer 1943 a new front line was created and a new partisan war began, both of them in Italy. This came about because of the overthrow of Mussolini. Unlike Hitler who had decimated his stormtroopers, the Italian leader had retained his stormtroopers [the Blackshirts] and had tried to turn them into a military force, but his attempts had failed with embarrassing results. Himmler had urged him to create an SS of his own for his own protection. The Italian dictator claimed that would not be necessary because surely no one would want to harm him.

  However, in July 1943 the Italian king overthrew Mussolini. Upon hearing the news Himmler must have had that ‘I told you so’ feeling. Fortunately for the Axis the new Italian government proclaimed it would continue the war as Germany’s partner. But Hitler was in complete anguish. Despite the fact that he had bullied Mussolini on occasion, he genuinely respected the man and had modeled much of his empire on that of the Italian. Furthermore, if the Italian people could rid themselves of this dictator so easily, perhaps the German people might try to do the same with Hitler. The Fuehrer was always paranoid, believing the people were plotting to kill him, probably because a good segment of them was, and he knew he had to rescue Mussolini and prop him up in Italy. He asked Admiral Canaris’ Abwehr and Himmler’s SD to find Mussolini and rescue him. Himmler ordered Otto Skorzeny to put a commando force together to accomplish this, calling it the SS Friedenthal Hunting Group.

  Meanwhile Hitler did not trust the Italian generals, so he ordered large army formations into Italy, ostensibly to help keep out the Anglo-Americans, but these soldiers were told that upon the single code word ‘Axis’ they were to disarm all Italian troops at once.

  Himmler informed Sturmbannfuehrer Karl Gesele’s SS Reichsfuehrer Brigade of the situation. Himmler had sent this Allgemeine SS formation to the French island of Corsica that had recently been occupied by the Italians. Though there was an anti-Fascist guerilla movement on the island and the odd Anglo-American air raid now and then, Gesele’s men found this place to be an ideal duty station. It was as if they were on vacation, which was just as well for these fellows had been kept out of military service on Himmler’s claims that they were his personal bodyguard. They were not trained to fight.

  When German Army units began entering Italy in July Himmler sent the 1st SS LAH Panzer Division and I SS Panzer Corps to Northern Italy. These troops honestly believed they were here to help their Italian friends defend their homeland.

  However, on the afternoon of 8 September 1943 the Allies announced to the world that the Italian government had surrendered. Hitler went into a rage and issued the code word ‘Axis’. Stunned for a few seconds, the Germans nonetheless did as ordered. Throughout Italy German soldiers walked up to Italian sentries with a kindly word, then suddenly pointed their weapons at them and arrested them. Then they rushed to the arms rooms, following which they arrested entire barracks full of unarmed Italians. Using such deception they captured hundreds of thousands within hours!

  The SS LAH obeyed the ‘Axis’ order too, and did not have too much trouble, but they were fired upon by solitary Italian soldiers and by civilians armed with shotguns and hunting rifles.

  On Corsica the SS Reichsfuehrer Brigade was outnumbered by two Italian divisions, so Gesele did not implement ‘Axis’, but simply backed off and awaited events.

  However, in some places the Italians had been forewarned and they opened fire on the approaching Germans, so that by morning of the 9th throughout the length and breadth of Italy, on Corsica, on Sardinia, in Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece full-scale combat had broken out between Italians and Germans. All weapons were used including aircraft and warships. However, most of the Fascists among the Italians asked the Germans to be allowed to join them and fight against these anti-Fascist ‘traitors’. The Germans accepted these Fascist Italians and immediately gave some of them hiwi status and others ‘osttruppen’ status. The latter were soon known as kampfwillige or kawis [combat volunteers]. Within days almost every German infantry battalion in this vast region had put together at least one platoon of Italian kawis, and every German unit had some Italian hiwis.

  German reinforcements were rushed into Italy. Anybody handy was grabbed and sent there, including the new 15th SS Police Regiment and the Sudetens of the 1/20th SS Police Regiment. To command all German police in Italy Himmler chose Polizei Generalleutnant Juergen von Kamptz. Himmler even sent an Allgemeine SS battalion from Austria, the ‘Karstein’. These men had signed up to arrest their fellow Austrians if suspected of anti-Nazi activity and also to swagger through the streets of their hometowns in a handsome uniform, but they had never agreed to risk their lives. Yet suddenly Himmler thrust them into the middle of a war. Arriving in Italy they found that anti-Fascist Italian troops and civilians were fleeing to the mountains to begin partisan warfare.

  When two soldiers of the SS LAH were kidnapped by anti-Fascist Italians, Sturmbannfuehrer Jochen Peiper, commander of the division’s 3rd SS Panzergrenadier Battalion, was alerted to the situation and he sent a rescue force, but the troops were fired upon near some houses and forced to fall back. Believing that an overwhelming show of force was necessary, as after all these Germans were surrounded by millions of Italians, Peiper ordered an artillery battery to shell the houses. He got his men back, but 34 Italian civilians were killed and many were wounded. This was butchery. To most Italians Peiper was responsible, but to the SS and their Fascist Italian hiwis the responsibility lie with the partisans that had started a battle in a built-up area.

  Dietrich’s I SS Panzer Corps was stationed just inside Italy at Merano, but there was no trouble here as the locals were Volksdeutsch and they welcomed the German intervention. This was just as well for all Dietrich had with him were rear echelon personnel, some artillerymen and military policemen. He had no divisions.

  On 12 September Skorzeny, who had been on Mussolini’s trail for two months, landed his SS Friedenthal Hunting Group by glider high atop Gran Sasso Mountain in Italy and they rescued Mussolini. Then Skorzeny, Il Duce and a pilot took off in a hair-raising flight in a single-engine aircraft to take the dictator to Hitler. This operation made Sko
rzeny Hitler’s golden boy.

  Ironically as soon as Hitler and Mussolini were reunited they were at loggerheads as to who should control Italian manpower. Hitler wanted to keep the Italian kawis and hiwis and enlist more of them. Reports claimed they were good soldiers. Mussolini thoroughly intended to rebuild his armed forces and he demanded the ‘return’ of these volunteers.

  However, Hitler did seize the chance to slice off the Volksdeutsch district of Italy’s South Tyrol, plus the Trient region and the coastal district around Trieste, areas that the Italians had conquered from Austria in 1919. Hitler annexed these areas to the Reich and gave the people German citizenship. Hitler’s move was owing to his long standing declaration that the people of the Germanic tribe were all one and should be united. But this was a ridiculous lie, for Hitler had already been offered plenty of opportunities to ‘liberate’ the South Tyrol from Italian oppression. He could have demanded this as a price for assisting Mussolini in Greece or North Africa. The fact that Hitler put politics above race proved that he was in the end just another politician - a man of lies. Over the years several of the inhabitants of these regions had moved to Austria rather than submit to Italian rule, and many had joined the Austrian Nazi party. Some had taken Nazi jobs in Germany, such as Walther Oberhaidacher, who became police chief of Dresden [and an SS reservist].

  Himmler appointed Gruppenfuehrer Odilo Globocnik as SSPF for Kuestenland [coast land] with his headquarters at Trieste. This was quite a homecoming for Globocnik, who was born and bred in Trieste. Having left in 1919 rather than serve the Italians he now returned with the power of life or death over everyone. To keep order Globocnik used an Italian-manned police force, known as the Civic Guard.

  Oberhaidacher may have been in the running for a job in the South Tyrol, but he chose to remain in Dresden. Himmler appointed Brigadefuehrer Karl Bruenner as SSPF for the South Tyrol. A veteran of the Bavarian Army in World War One, then the Freikorps, Bruenner had progressed from the SA to the SD and then to the Gestapo. One of his first acts in the South Tyrol was to establish SS Police Regiment Bozen of local Volksdeutsch with an age requirement of 17-55. To help staff it Himmler combed his SS and police for personnel who had grown up in this district, thus the regiment soon had a mixture of old and young, SS and police.

  The third ex-Austrian district to be annexed was the Italian-speaking Trient [Trento]. Himmler set up an Italian police force here called the Trient Security Corps.

  Meanwhile Allied French troops had landed on Corsica and together with the Italians had begun to push the German Army, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine off the island. The SS Reichsfuehrer Brigade was happy to sail away from this paradise turned nightmare.

  In Yugoslavia the city of Split [Spoleto] was garrisoned by the Italian Bergamo Division, which declared for the Allied cause. The 7th SS Prinz Eugen Mountain Division was ordered to disarm the Bergamo. A real battle broke out between the two divisions including the use of artillery and air support. The SS soldiers fought a cruel fight, extremely angry that their comrades in arms were dying at the hands of a supposed Axis partner. The main advantage of the SS over the Italians was that their supply lines were open, whereas the Bergamo was surrounded. Moreover Italian fascists serving as kawis and hiwis were able to provide the SS with keen intelligence.

  After two weeks of bloody battle the Bergamo ran out of ammunition and surrendered. Both Mussolini and Hitler ordered all captured officers shot. The SS willingly obeyed.

  Interestingly enough the SSPF of Bosnia, Oberfuehrer Werner Fromm, complained about the atrocities committed by the Prinz Eugen. Fromm, who had served in the army 1939-40 and later had become SSPF for Bialystok, must have been privy to the enormous atrocities committed in Bialystok, but perhaps he felt he could do nothing there, whereas here in Bosnia the Prinz Eugen’s commander, Brigadefuehrer Carl Reichsritter von Oberkamp, might listen to him. He was a World War One veteran and an aristocrat. It is also possible that Fromm had started belatedly to gain a modicum of a conscience. Either way his complaints were ignored, except by the SD who would henceforth keep an eye on Fromm. Fromm was soon transferred to the SS Reichsfuehrer Division as a sturmfuehrer.

  As the Italians in Montenegro were disarmed, killed or forced into the mountains, Brigadefuehrer Richard Fiedler was made SSPF for Montenegro. This thirty-five year old had served with the SS Wiking in Russia as a junior officer.

  By autumn 1943 the Germans in Yugoslavia were in dire need of reinforcements. Not only were they expected to take over occupational duties from the Italians, but they were expected to fight the Italians. Himmler sent them Polizei Oberst Griese’s new 14th SS Police Regiment [built by using the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 1st Police Regiment and 3/24th SS Police Regiment]. He also sent the new 11th SS Nordland Infantry Division, which would be based at Zagreb in Croatia.

  __________

  In Albania, where Italian authority also collapsed in September, the Germans took over that nation, recognizing the autonomy of that government and allowing it to maintain its small army and police, though in real terms the Albanian policemen now took orders from Brigadefuehrer Josef Fitzhum the new HSSPF for Albania. Actually the Germans and Albanian government forces only controlled the valleys: the mountains were still controlled by partisans. Many of the Italians had joined the Communist partisans. Fitzhum set about trying to woo the Nationalist partisans away from the Communists. This was not hard to do.

  __________

  In September 1943 as the Italian garrison in Greece collapsed, some of the Italians joined the Greek partisans. It fell to the Germans to regain control. Polizei Oberst Hermann Franz’s 18th SS Police Mountain Regiment had only just arrived here following six months on the Finnish front, and while they were glad to have some sunshine and heat they soon found themselves overburdened trying to secure the roads from partisans. Franz had to take orders from the new HSSPF for Greece, Brigadefuehrer Stroop, fresh from his ‘victory’ over the Warsaw ghetto. One of Stroop’s first orders was that all Jews had to register. He also dictated orders to the Greek government, to the German Army and the Luftwaffe, so that within a month of his arrival he had alienated everyone by his arrogance and brutality. Kaltenbrunner, commander of the SS RSHA, received so many complaints about him he was forced to dismiss Stroop and replace him with the less fanatic Brigadefuehrer Walter Schimana. Stroop was placated with a promotion to gruppenfuehrer and given a job as HSSPF for the Rhineland in Germany, where hopefully he would not rock the boat. Yet, he succeeded in making trouble there too, ordering the execution of captured American flyers.

  The Germans still needed a BdO for Greece, so they chose Polizei Oberst Franz, who would henceforth be addressed as standartenfuehrer, his reservist SS rank. His 18th SS Police Mountain Regiment was taken over by Polizei Oberstleutnant Hoesl.

  __________

  Soon after arriving in Croatia the SS Nordland began a sweep of the Okitsch Mountains. They ran into partisan rearguards. In mid-November the division was counterattacked by thousands of Titoist partisans equipped with artillery and tanks, which came as a real surprise. Entire Italian units had defected to the Titoists taking their artillery and armor with them. A Norwegian SS platoon was wiped out. Von Rarancze and his divisional staff had to swallow their pride and call in air support.

  __________

  In November in Ukrainia two German army divisions tried to destroy a large force of UPA partisans by trapping them in the Carpathian Mountains. They failed. Obviously if the army could not do this, there was even less likelihood of German policemen doing it, yet on 4 December 1943 two police regiments attacked a UPA band at Sambir. They were repulsed, leaving 316 dead on the field. A week later two police regiments tried to catch guerillas at Kropyvnik. They too were repelled.

  __________

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  HIMMLER IN WESTERN EUROPE

  The Netherlands.

  Once the initial shock of the German conquest of the Netherlands in May 1940 had subsided, many Dutch decide
d to go with the flow, and as a result pro-German and pro-Nazi organizations flourished. One might have assumed the Frisians would have clamored for autonomy at this point, but the vast majority chose to accept their fate alongside their Dutch-speaking countrymen. A quarter of a million Dutchmen volunteered to work for private firms in Germany. Dutch policemen assisted German policemen and helped the Germans organize a Dutch schuma battalion in Amsterdam. Polizei Oberst Boehmer’s German 3rd Police Regiment had only two battalions and had to rely considerably on the Dutch police. The Germans ruled the country with a carrot and stick policy. They released their Dutch prisoners of war, but conscripted all eighteen-year old males for six months labor service in the Netherlands or Germany.

  When guerillas bombed a German officer’s club, the Dutch Police arrested 300 Jews as a reprisal and handed them to the SS KZL, who took them to Mauthausen concentration camp. Still anti-Nazi guerilla activity increased.

  Anyone caught by the Dutch or German police in an anti-Nazi endeavor was imprisoned, and by 1941 the Netherlands had a score of concentration, labor and transit camps. Most were guarded by the German SS KZL, which soon acquired many Dutch volunteers. Other camps were guarded by the Special Service Corps, a branch of the Dutch SS, which was advised by the German SS KZL so that these Dutchmen would better understand what was required of them. E.g. the commander of the Dutch guards at Amersfoort camp was an Austrian, Sturmbannfuehrer Paul Helle, who had learned his trade at Oranienburg and Mauthausen. Himmler’s liaison officer with the Dutch SS was Oberfuehrer Richard Jungclaus, a veteran of the SS Wiking Division. In addition some Dutch schumas were used as outer perimeter guards.

  By the end of 1941 the Dutch and German authorities had executed thirty-five ‘terrorists’ and had sent thousands to concentration camps.