by J. Lee Ready
Steiner was pleased by his next reinforcement: the 3rd Company of the 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Detachment armed with Tiger tanks.
Far to the south on the Latvian-Russian border at Kamenka soldiers of the 15th SS Lettische Grenadier Division now led by Gruppenfuehrer Nikolas Heilman still kept the Soviets at bay. When attacked in the rear at Sokolji, the division calmly withdrew to prepared defenses at Poljiste- Veljikaja.
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As Lithuania was also threatened by the Soviet hordes, the German government announced that Lithuanian men should volunteer for the German Army. There were many Lithuanian hiwis, but few Lithuanian osttruppen units. Those that existed were mostly engineers. The Lithuanian council demanded an actual Lithuanian ‘army’ that would defend the nation. Initially the German Army generals compromised - they would accept such a deal if 5,000 men stepped forward to join it. About 19,000 did so, whereupon the generals kept their word, forming an ‘army’ with the name Lithuanian Guard Corps. However, only 5,000 of the volunteers were sent to this 'army', and the remaining 14,000 volunteers were sent to new osttruppen units of the German Army. This caused a new round of political wrangling.
Himmler put a stop to the arguing by confiscating all 19,000 volunteers to establish fourteen new schuma battalions. However, Himmler then ran afoul of Goering, who wanted these new battalions to be used as airfield defense units with excess personnel sent to Luftwaffe flak batteries. Ultimately Goering won the verbal contest, but once he had his greedy hands on the volunteers he ordered all 19,000 to become flak gunners. Actually only 3,000 of the Lithuanians reported for flak training. The remainder got tired of switching uniforms and they deserted! In other words despite the fact that the Soviets were breaking down the door, the Nazi bosses were still playing politics like spoiled children.
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Chapter Thirty-two
HIMMLER’S WAR IN ITALY
In September 1943 with the beginning of the Italian civil war Himmler connived to have his right hand man, Obergruppenfuehrer Karl Wolff, placed in command of all internal security in Italy as HSSPF for Italy. [Actually HteSSPF – Highest SS and Police Fuehrer]. His BdS would be Wilhelm Harster. His BdO was to be Polizei Generalleutnant Juergen von Kamptz. This was an affront to Mussolini, who by the end of the month had formed a new government with his own police, militia and armed forces. Thus Wolff really only controlled those anti-partisan forces wearing German uniform. Some of these were Italians, who found the Germans paid better. Indeed some Italians trusted Hitler far more than they did Mussolini.
Wolff and Himmler constantly tested Mussolini. The Gestapo arrested Italian Police General Riccardo Maraffa on a trumped up charge and sent him to Dachau concentration camp. Mussolini overlooked this petty but brutal insult.
Though Mussolini had not made Rome his capital since his rescue, he did have followers and an efficient police force in that city, but the real power in the city was Standartenfuehrer Eugen Dollman, ostensibly the head of the German embassy’s security section. One reason for his clout was that he was the darling of the Rome social scene.
Dollman’s deputy, Obersturmbannfuehrer Herbert Kappler, who was also chief of the Gestapo here, was a much more studious individual, who shunned the limelight, but he too soon made some friends in Rome, especially in the Vatican.
Himmler placed the office of the Italian Jewish affairs section of the SS RSHA in the town of Verona, and one of the staff there was none other than Obersturmfuehrer Theodor Dannecker. His fanatic anti-Semitism might be too much for most SS officials, but to Himmler it was a virtue.
In fact Dollman and Kappler ran afoul of Dannecker immediately, when the latter demanded the round up of Rome’s Jews. Dollman used Kappler’s Vatican connections to ask the pope to intervene, while Kappler gathered a ransom in gold from the Jews of the city and then sent it to Kaltenbrunner [chief of the SS RSHA] hoping to buy their lives. Meantime German diplomats in Rome urged the Jews to hide. Kaltenbrunner refused the deal, and the pope remained silent, and the Jews did not heed the warning. Even at this stage most Jews thought the rumors of exterminations were stories made up by lunatics or Allied spies. As a result the Gestapo and SD finally had to obey Dannecker’s order and they began mass arrests. Kappler’s Gestapo even employed Jews to help in the round up. One of the more successful Jew catchers was Celeste di Porto, an eighteen year old Jewess. Evidently she spent her pay on the latest fashions!
Italy was plagued by the civil war - namely north of the front line anti-Fascist partisans [partigiani] sniping at Mussolini’s troops and the Germans, and south of the line Fascist partisans sniping at the Allies and pro-Allied Italian forces. Italy was also plagued by air raids. The Allies bombing north of the line, the Germans bombing south of it.
The British Eighth Army had invaded Italy at the toe on 3 September 1943 and the US Fifth Army had invaded Italy on the west coast at Salerno six days later. However, it was mid-October before these two Allied armies met and secured Naples and Foggia and joined forces with that part of the Italian Army in southern Italy that had opted to fight against the Nazis/Fascists.
The German Army in Italy had performed magnificently in September and October, though it never had more than five divisions with which to fight the invading Anglo-Americans. Indeed by December the Germans had brought the Allies to a halt along the line Gaeta-Cassino-Ortona. A month later the Allies launched another amphibious invasion, this time at Anzio further up the west coast, obviously hoping to strike Gaeta and Cassino from the rear, but once ashore they allowed paltry German forces to keep them at arm’s length.
It is no wonder that Stalin informed the Anglo-Americans that as far as he was concerned this was not a second front. They would have to do better than this, he demanded.
Hitler gave General von Mackensen the responsibility for throwing the Allies at Anzio back into the sea, and Mackensen launched an attack on 3 February 1944 with this in mind, using his 4th Parachute and 65th Infantry Divisions of I Parachute Corps and the Hermann Goering Panzer, 26th Panzer, 3rd Panzergrenadier, 715th Security and 71st Infantry Divisions of the LXXVI Panzer Corps. Many of these soldiers were in fact Polish Margarine Germans, and every unit had some Italian kawis. For an entire month they gallantly butchered themselves in front of the Allied guns. Von Mackensen eventually brought in the 114th Jaeger and 362nd Infantry Divisions to join the horror. He also received a panzergrenadier regiment and a flak detachment both of the 16th SS Reichsfuehrer Panzergrenadier Division. This marked the first time the Waffen SS went into action against American GIs.
On 4 March Mackensen had to call a halt, the slaughter was so sickening. Yet this was just a breather.
Himmler had become intrigued by the fate of the Italian Nembo Parachute Division. Its members had begun shooting at each other on 8 September 1943, fascist versus anti-fascist, following which about 2,000 of the fascists had retreated with the Germans. They renamed themselves the Vendetta Legion and were reequipped by the Luftwaffe. Himmler did not want Goering to get his mitts on such fine human specimens, so he commandeered the unit, renaming it SS Italien Sturmbrigade. At least with SS status these soldiers were no longer orphans. Of course this was a direct slap in the face of Mussolini, who claimed they were his soldiers.
On 17 March 1944 von Mackensen launched a new effort to destroy the Anzio beachhead, and this time charging alongside the Germans and kawis was the 1st Battalion of the SS Italien Sturmbrigade commanded by Obersturmbannfuehrer Frederico degli Oddi. Over the next eight days these 650 Italians suffered an incredible 340 killed, with most of the others wounded. The remainder of the sturmbrigade was now brought up to hold a static line. The Germans praised the bravery of the Italians. [Stories of Italian cowardice in World War Two should be assigned to the trash can of history and left there.]
Meanwhile Wolff was becoming ever more frustrated because Italian partisan attacks were increasing and Mussolini’s forces seemed unable to handle the situation. Naturally Wolff did not blame his own shortcomi
ngs. But in one sphere he was probably correct. Industrial strikes had broken out in Mussolini’s Italy. On the face of it the workers were demanding more money and better conditions etc, but Italian informers in the pay of the Gestapo assured Wolff they were really trying to damage the Axis war effort.
Wolff and Himmler convinced Hitler to intervene. On 6 March 1944 Hitler ordered Wolff to punish all strikers in the following manner: first of all any striker known to be a Communist would be arrested and executed, secondly the instigators would be sent to a concentration camp, and thirdly twenty per cent of the strikers would be sentenced to slave labor. The new law worked, for as soon as the rules were published the strikers went back to work.
By March 1944 Himmler’s new pet unit, the SS Police Regiment Bozen, had detachments stationed all over Italy, including Bologna, Florence, Perugia and Rome. Frankly, their duties were more ceremonial than real police work. E.g. every day a company of the Bozen marched through the streets of Rome along the same route. The Italians saw them as a symbol of the German presence in Italy. On the morning of 25 March 1944 (chosen because it was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Mussolini’s Fascist Party) a team of male and female partisans set off a bomb near the Spanish Steps as the company of the Bozen paraded past. The resulting impact caused horrific casualties: thirty-two policemen were killed and 102 were severely maimed, many suffering loss of limbs.
The Rome police and Mussolini’s blackshirt militia were shocked and embarrassed and they demanded action at once. Himmler took the attack personally and he too ordered retaliation. Also, the Nazis in the South Tyrol, the home of the Bozen, demanded a response. Under such pressure Hitler ordered Herbert Kappler, head of the Gestapo in Rome, to execute ten of his prisoners for every one of the policemen killed.
Kappler was visibly shaken by this order, for he was one of the few Gestapo members left who still believed he was a policeman charged with the mission of keeping the rule of law. ‘Ah, but who’s law’ was the question’. Ten times 32 made 320, but he had only 280 political prisoners in his jail. So he asked Pietro Caruso, the Rome police chief, to let him have enough Socialists, Communists, trade unionists and general anti-fascists to make up the difference. Caruso happily complied, throwing in a few extra for good measure. Then Kappler and his deputy Erich Priebke and a team of Gestapo and SD drove the 335 prisoners in trucks to the Ardeatine Caves [catacombs] near Rome, and inside away from prying eyes they shot each one in the back of the neck. Kappler, Priebke and the executioners were highly nervous and sick at the stomach and as a result they aimed badly. They ended up having to climb over piles of corpses to shoot those who were still wriggling.
On 1 April 1944, following a tip off by an informer that the village of Cumiana was helping the partisans, members of the Gestapo and SD from depots at Pinerolo and Turin drove into the village and arrested one hundred and thirty men aged 16 to 70 at random. Next day they shot 51 of them.
On 22 April 1944 Mussolini met Hitler at Klessheim in Germany. The topic for discussion was Italy’s role in the war. Il Duce was beaming, happy to report the degree of fascist ardor among his people. He had recreated his air force, which was now bombing the Allies as well as defending the homeland, and it was preparing a squadron for the Russian Front. He had reestablished his navy, albeit only manning torpedo boats at the moment, but the navy’s Condottieri Infantry Division was fighting partisans, and one of its battalions was at the front facing the Anglo-Americans. His marine corps had been reconstituted and a division was training in Germany. He had reformed his army, some of which was in action against partisans, some manning coastal defenses, and three divisions were training in Germany. His National Police was back in operation performing normal police work such as security, traffic control and criminal detection, but it also had 25,000 policemen in partisan hunting units. And his Blackshirt flak units had been grouped together as the Etna Flak Division and were defending Italy from Allied air raids. Lastly he had created a new formation, the GNR - National Guard, which including the Carabinieri military police numbered 150,000 personnel and was busy hunting partisans. Thus about 270,000 fascists were serving in Mussolini’s forces.
Part of the talks centered on the number of Italians in German uniform. The German Army now admitted that they were using over 100,000 Italian hiwis and kawis serving in Italy, Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia. The Luftwaffe acknowledged they possessed 51,000 Italian hiwis, some of them manning flak batteries in German cities. The German Kriegsmarine was found to have several thousand Italian hiwis and kawis serving at naval bases and aboard German warships and submarines. The SS admitted to having 20,000 Italian hiwis and kawis plus the SS Italien Sturmbrigade, but the Gestapo refused to declare how many Italians were working for them. The Civic Guard and Trient Security Corps together accounted for 3,000 Italian policemen under German orders. In addition thousands of Italians served in the NSKK and OT. Therefore, roughly 190,000 Italians were wearing German uniform. So in total about 450,000 Italians were ‘fighting’ on the Axis side. This was of great significance, for Hitler could ill afford to send reinforcements to Italy. One of the few units he did send in summer 1944 was the new SS Police Regiment Alpenvorland formed from Germans and Italian Volksdeutsch. He later followed this with SS Police Regiment Defregger.
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Chapter Thirty-three
1944 YEAR OF DECISION
The 6th SS Langemarck Sturmbrigade of Flemings had gone into action around Zhitomir and had found the winter of early 1944 to be bitter and the Soviet ‘Ivans’ just as fanatic as ever. Within a few weeks the sturmbrigade was ordered to aid the 1st SS LAH Panzer Division in its retreat towards Jambol. But no sooner had they retreated to that town, than they were kicked out by a renewal of the Soviet onslaught on 3 March. The SS Langemarck retreated alongside the 2nd SS Das Reich Panzer Division. On the 8th the SS Langemarck’s commander Standartenfuehrer Schellong was wounded. These Flemings had suffered 75% losses in a month and they were now withdrawn for a well earned rest. Days later one of the SS Das Reich’s heroes was killed: Hauptsturmfuehrer Alfred Lex. This Austrian battalion commander had been awarded the German Cross in Gold and the Knight’s Cross.
By March the 19th SS Lettische Grenadier Division was ready, and led by Oberfuehrer Heinrich Schuldt it was sent to the Russian-Latvian border to aid the 15th SS Lettische Grenadier Division. The two divisions united at Sapronovo on 15 March, but almost at once Schuldt was killed. For a few days he was replaced by Obersturmbannfuehrer Friedrich Bock, the policeman turned SS soldier, until Gruppenfuehrer Bruno Streckenbach could arrive, a man who had come into Himmler’s inner circle after massacring the Polish intelligentsia.
Also ready for combat were the new 9th SS Hohenstaufen Panzer and 10th SS Karl der Grosse Panzer Divisions. The latter was renamed ‘Frundsberg’, after a 16th century German general.
In late March they went into action together on the Eastern Front attacking towards the Zbruz River east of Tarnopol. Gruppenfuehrer Karl Fischer von Treuenfeld, commanding the SS Frundsberg, did not like the fact that he had been ordered to leave half his tanks in France. At age 59 Treuenfeld was older than most SS divisional commanders. Wounded in World War One he was a professional soldier and had never joined the Nazi Party. The combat here was fearsome and each day veteran commanders were being lost, such as thirty-four year old Sturmbannfuehrer Robert Frank, to be replaced by younger greener soldiers who would need time to learn their trade. Time they did not have.
Meanwhile every day somewhere along the Eastern front the Soviets were attacking, and when it came the turn of the 3rd SS Totenkopf Panzer Division to be assaulted, these SS warriors were soon forced out of Krivoy Rog by the 2nd Ukrainian Front and made to withdraw to a point northeast of Odessa.
At the same time to the northwest of Cherkassy the 2nd SS Das Reich Panzer Division had been forced back again passed Vinitsa by the 1st Ukrainian Front.
Meantime Gruppenfuehrer Herbert Gille the hero of the Cherkassy Pocket ha
d gone ahead to Kowel with his staff to prepare for the arrival of his 5th SS Wiking Panzer Division, which was in need of a good refit, but in mid-March he was radioed that his division had run into Soviet troops on their way, signifying that Gille and his staff were surrounded in Kowel!
At once Hitler did his bit to ensure that Kowel held out: i.e. he declared the city to be a fortress and gave Gille the command. But Gille knew this was no fortress. Gille’s staff officers wondered what had gotten into the Fuehrer that he thought that mere words could stop the enemy. This was a ‘fortress’ without a garrison - only a hodge podge of army units, mostly rear-echelon. Nonetheless Gille and his SS staff did what they could.
Outside the city the SS Wiking was finally reequipped, and these SS veterans wasted no time in trying to rescue their commander, their new armored vehicles going into action the very instant they arrived by train. Together with the army’s 131st Infantry Division and 190th StuG Brigade, the SS Wiking attacked in order to save Gille and the Kowel garrison. However, it was soon apparent that a small mixed army-SS battlegroup might have a better chance of sneaking into the city than would a broad offensive, so this was put together and on its first day of operations this small battlegroup captured Cherkassy and 300 prisoners, but at dusk the army commander of the force ordered a halt. Obersturmfuehrer Karl Nicolussi-Leck knew time was of the essence. Gille and the Kowel garrison might be running low on ammunition. But Nicolussi-Leck commanded only the SS portion of the battlegroup. Nevertheless he ordered his men to continue to attack throughout the night, disregarding army orders. By late the following day Nicolussi-Leck had lost half his men, and he now received SS orders to halt, but he was just 3,000 yards from the city! He chose to ignore all orders and pressed on, and he succeeded in reaching Gille. The garrison was glad to see the supplies that Nicolussi-Leck had brought, but of course now he too was trapped.