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

by J. Lee Ready

  The offensive was launched on 28 August and after just one day the Estonians of Augsberger’s SS Estnische Division were surprised to meet partisan resistance at Povaska Bystrica and Trencin, towns that supposedly were in friendly hands. A further surprise came when the Slovakian Army High Command declared this move to be an invasion of Slovakia’s sovereignty, and ordered all Slovaks to resist the Germans!

  Naturally these German Army and SS troops felt betrayed. They had come to aid the Slovaks, to prevent these Roman Catholic people from being overrun by atheist Communists, and now they were being ‘stabbed in the back’. Understandably they fought back ruthlessly. Yet the Germans also found they had many friends here. First of all the Volksdeutsch of Slovakia helped the Germans, and many Slovakians also sided with them, including the Hlinka Guard and the Slovakian police. As devout Roman Catholics they had no desire to be occupied by a Communist army. The combat was therefore confusing to say the least.

  After one week of battle the invading ‘Germans’ had disarmed 24,000 soldiers of the Slovakian Army and sent them to prison camps, and they had accepted 9,000 Slovakians as volunteers to be placed into German-run battalions. The Germans had yet to inflict major losses on the actual partisans. About 18,000 Slovak soldiers had joined the partisans, and 42,000 just went home, neither wishing to fight for the Nazis nor for the Communists.

  To add more confusion Himmler created the position of HSSPF for the country and gave the job to Obergruppenfuehrer Gottlob Berger. In turn, Berger created a field force of anti-partisan troops drawn from the SD, Kripo and Gestapo, which he named SS Einsatzgruppe H under Obersturmbannfuehrer Josef Witiska.

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  Chapter Thirty-seven

  SEPTEMBER 1944

  The staff of Kulmhof concentration camp was ordered to destroy all evidence that the camp had ever existed. Himmler did not want a repeat of the Majdanek fiasco where the Soviets found enough evidence to realize what had been going on. So at Kulmhof the staff ordered their sonderkommando to dig up the hundreds of thousands of corpses in the camp environs and burn them. The horrific job would take weeks.

  Smaller corpse burnings now began all over Poland. Hauptsturmfuehrer Amon Goeth directed the one at Cracow, until he was arrested by the Kripo, who had long suspected him of embezzling funds. He was sent back to Germany to await trial. His ‘friend’ Oskar Schindler did not intervene on his behalf, probably hoping he had seen the last of him.

  The reason for Himmler’s destruction of evidence was that the Third Reich was shrinking. By 1 September 1944 the Germans were retreating in Belgium, France, Romania, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland.

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  The 6th SS Nord Mountain Division pulled out of northern Russia and began retreating westwards across Finland. This was no easy feat and their new commander Gruppenfuehrer Karl Brenner had his job cut out for him. He and his men now had to retreat for a thousand miles across a forested landscape with few villages, and cross high mountains in freezing rain and do it one jump ahead of the Finnish Army, which now turned on the Germans. Obviously these SS men were bitter that their ally had betrayed them, and perhaps they were also disillusioned when their division was chosen to man the rearguard for all the Germans in Finland. The Germans were under orders to make for the Norwegian port of Mo-I-Rana then sail to Denmark for some well-earned rest and relaxation. But getting to the port would be a nightmare, and in any case the British Royal Navy controlled the sea.

  Moreover, Denmark was volatile. There was a massive industrial strike in that country in June 1944, which was put down brutally by the Gestapo. Himmler’s HSSPF for the nation, Obergruppenfuehrer Guenther Pancke, decided that the Danish police was now only going through the motions of obeying German orders and its policemen were untrustworthy. Following consultations with Danish members of the Gestapo and SD, he ordered the disarming and dismissal of all 12,000 Danish policemen, and once done his Gestapo arrested 1,680 individually named cops and shipped them off to a concentration camp. The Danish policemen at Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen refused to be dismissed and they fought back with handguns. They were, of course, quickly overcome by German policemen and troops, but Pancke was impressed by their courage and he actually allowed them to retain their jobs as palace guards!

  Pancke conscripted the entire Schalburg Korps [Denmark’s SS-style organization] into the German SS and he expanded the ET, the anti-terrorist unit of that force. And to ensure their compliance he ordered the arrest of Knud Martinsen, hero of the Danish Frikorps and founder of the Schalburg Korps.

  No accurate count of the numbers of Danes who served in the Gestapo, SD and Kripo has come to light, but when the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen was hit by an Allied air raid, of the 100 Gestapo personnel killed, half were Danes.

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  The Germans in Greece, including the 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division and the various detachments of the SD, Gestapo and Kripo plus the 18th SS Police Mountain Regiment were already driving northwards towards Yugoslavia. They were braving partisan ambushes and Allied air raids not because they were taking the offensive, but because the Soviet advance into Romania threatened to cut them off from Germany. In other words the Germans in Greece were on the run! Brigadefuehrer Hermann Franz had been made HSSPF for Greece just in time to leave the nation in headlong flight.

  And now, just as the Romanian Army had switched sides, so the Bulgarian Army joined the Soviets and began attacking the Germans. Bulgaria had never been at war with the Soviets, but had fought alongside the Germans against Tito.

  Yugoslavia soon became part of the Eastern Front, as Germans retreated here from Greece, Bulgaria and Romania to lick their wounds. Everyone saw gloom, except Himmler who saw an opportunity here and sent recruiters to Yugoslavia to interview refugee Greek, Bulgarian and Romanian Fascists, and they soon established three regiments: the 1st and 2nd SS Romanian and the 1st SS Bulgarian; and sent them to Dollershein in Austria for training. The SS also hired many Romanians and Bulgarians as hiwis. The recruiters were not impressed by the Greeks, and used them as hiwis or workers.

  Understandably this move displeased the Romanian Volksdeutsch currently serving in the SS. Unlike the Hungarian Volksdeutsch, who had their own 22nd SS Maria Theresa Cavalry Division, the Romanian Volksdeutsch had never been allowed SS units of their own and yet now actual ethnic Romanians were getting their own SS units. This was a serious bone of contention among them that hurt morale, especially as it came at the same time that the Soviets overran their home towns, yet Himmler never seemed to understand their grievance. This was yet more evidence that the concept of Volksdeutsch tribalism preached by Hitler was just another lie, for here was Himmler giving ethnic Romanians and Bulgarians a greater honor that he gave to Volksdeutsch from these nations. The SS VOMI department now had its hands full trying to resettle the millions of Volksdeutsch civilians who were fleeing the Soviet advance. This department was led by Brigadefuehrers Horst Hoffmeyer and Edmund von Thermann, and Standartenfuehrers Franz Wehofsich, Harro With, Ernst Wulff and Hans Weibgen.

  Inside Yugoslavia the V SS Mountain Corps, now led by Obergruppenfuehrer Friedrich-Wilhelm Krueger, was spread out with the 7th SS Prinz Eugen Mountain Division at Sarajevo [with corps headquarters], the 13th SS Handschar Mountain Division in the Drina Valley and the 21st SS Skanderbeg Mountain Division between Nis and Scutari. The 23rd SS Kama Mountain Division was undergoing retraining, as it had been judged to be unreliable and had suffered a very high desertion rate. Tito had agreed to accept into his ranks any defector from the SS with no questions asked. The SS Handschar and SS Skanderbeg also suffered desertions because of this. In fact the SS Handschar retreated, unable to prevent the Titoists from actually occupying the city of Tuzla.

  To prepare for the coming titanic struggle inside Yugoslavia, as the Titoists and the Red Army were surely to link up, Himmler approved a pruning of his SS units here, recognizing that Yugoslavians for the most part did not make good soldiers. O
r more accurately, Tito had all the good Yugoslavian soldiers. As a result most members of the SS Handschar were dismissed from the SS, though they could remain as hiwis or join some other Axis paramilitary formation. Only a few tried and true warriors within the division were allowed to retain SS status. As for the SS Kama, the entire division was completely disbanded. The few valuable soldiers of the SS Kama, who were invariably Volksdeutsch, were transferred to the SS Handschar.

  Some Croats and Slovenians now joined the SS as sentries.

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  As newly promoted HSSPF for the Siebenbuergen district of western Romania, Obergruppenfuehrer Phleps went on a reconnaissance, but he was captured by Soviet scouts. They executed him. Since leaving home as a boy the previous century he had fought in four armies, and in a cruel twist of fate he was killed just a few miles from his boyhood home.

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  The eastern Hungarian border was also in danger of being overrun by the Soviets, so a counteroffensive was organized for 5 September by the entire Hungarian Army aided by sixteen German divisions. Among the Germans were the 8th SS Florian Geyer Cavalry Division of Brigadefuehrer Rumohr and the 22nd SS Maria Theresa Cavalry Division. The latter was now fighting in two halves, one as the main body under Oberfuehrer August Zehender and the other as SS Battlegroup Ameiser led by thirty-seven year old Sturmbannfuehrer Anton ‘Toni’ Ameiser. Hungarian Volksdeutsch made up seventy per cent of the SS Maria Theresa. The SS Florian Geyer contained Volksdeutsch from all over Eastern Europe including the Ukraine and had some Cossack hiwis. As their part of the offensive these two SS divisions attacked into Romania south of Tirgu Mures and quickly advanced to the Tirnava Mica River despite fierce opposition from the Soviet 2nd Ukrainian Front and the Romanian VI Corps.

  However, on 8 September the SS Florian Geyer was counter attacked by a Romanian Mechanized Corps, and within a day the SS cavalry began a fighting withdrawal. On 10 September the Hungarians of SS Battlegroup Deak were also committed to the front line in Romania. The German units were slowly forced back across the Mures River.

  On the 17th the SS Florian Geyer repelled a Romanian attempt to cross the Mures at Iernut, and they continued to hold this river for the remainder of the month.

  By 22 September SS Battlegroup Deak had retreated to Batschka east of Budapest.

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  Things were not going well in Western Europe. In France everyone who had supported the government of President Henri Petain and/or the Germans was now fleeing towards Germany or in hiding. The French guerillas of the FFI were out in the open now, hunting with a vengeance. Members of the SD, Gestapo and Kripo, whether German or French, stood no chance if caught by them. E.g. Obersturmfuehrer Walter Schmald was executed by guerillas at Tulle. The only hope for those Axis personnel unable to flee was to surrender to regular Allied forces once they arrived - Americans, British, Canadians, Poles or Free French – who almost always treated their prisoners humanely.

  On 7 September the SS Indian Legion arrived at Dun on the Berry Canal only to run into Free French regulars. During this skirmish, Untersturmfuehrer Ali Khan was killed. The legion continued retreating through Dijon and Colmar to Oberhofen in Germany, their new home.

  Only by 7 September were all the components of the 17th SS GvB Panzergrenadier Division finally united at Metz, including the 49th SS Panzer and 51st SS Panzergrenadier Regiments. The division now received orders to rush up to the Moselle River to stop the US 5th Infantry Division at Dornot. They managed to do it, but then the US 80th Infantry Division attacked their flank at nearby Arnaville, and it was touch and go for a week, following which the SS GvB had to retreat to the suburbs of Metz.

  This city was the hometown of many SS personnel including Johannes Muehlenkamp and Heinz Harmel. The city’s defenders now mobilized, including the SD, Gestapo, police, Kripo, SA Wehrmannschaft and Allgemeine SS 125th Regiment. Additionally a militia was formed of all men aged 16 to 45 not already serving. These men had been French citizens from 1919 to 1940!

  The 1st SS LAH Panzer Division had also retreated due east into Germany. All of these retreats were made under constant harrowing air attacks and partisan ambushes.

  In Belgium too the offices of the Gestapo, Kripo and SD were soon emptied, their occupants having no ambition to risk their lives by waiting to do battle with the Allies, and on 2 September a British armored column reached Brussels. Suddenly every Belgian who had supported the Axis had to run for it. The HSSPF for Belgium, Gruppenfuehrer Richard Jungclaus, was ordered to shoot his 600 political prisoners before leaving, but this professional SS officer, who had fought with the SS Wiking and had been Himmler‘s liaison officer with the Dutch and Flemish, looked into his soul and found that he was not a murderer, and instead he released the prisoners. Hitler soon found out and as a punishment he sent him back to the Waffen SS. Jungclaus reported to the SS Prinz Eugen as an obersturmfuehrer.

  Belgian guerillas now came out into the open and began ambushing convoys with impunity. As the vehicles of the 12th SS HJ Panzer Division began moving from northern France into Belgium they ran a gauntlet of snipers. One of the fatalities was Sturmbannfuehrer Erich Olboeter, a valuable veteran still only twenty-seven. In an ambush Obersturmbannfuehrer Hans Waldmueller was killed, days shy of his thirty-second birthday.

  When the division passed through Durnal, guerillas cut off several vehicles and offered the trapped SS occupants a chance to surrender or die. The SS threw up their hands. One of them was Oberfuehrer Kurt Meyer the divisional commander. The SS HJ was temporarily taken over by its operations chief, Obersturmbannfuehrer Hubert Meyer.

  When British armor reached Antwerp, the great Belgian river port, they cut off a large force inside the city, which chose to hold out. The trapped defenders included units of the German Army, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine, plus Gestapo, SD, Kripo, Allgemeine SS and various paramilitary units, every one of which had recruited at least some Flemish Belgians. They were joined by members of the local police and the various Flemish Nazi militias in the city. By holding this major port on the Scheldt River they denied it to the Allies. The opposite bank was still in German hands so the defenders were able to resupply at night.

  In the remainder of Belgium those Flemish who had supported the Germans for whatever reason had four options: fight to the death, surrender and take their chances, hide or flee. Most fled. Himmler ordered all Flemish men that had managed to retreat alongside the Germans to report to the 6th SS Langemarck Sturmbrigade at Swinemuende in Germany. These men had all previously volunteered to serve ‘the cause’, whether as members of the NSKK, OT, Luftwaffe, Fascist party militias, Kriegsmarine, Gestapo, police, SD, Kripo, Allgemeine SS or whatever. In addition many of the Flemish workers in Germany, both volunteer workers and forced labor, had enlisted into the SS reserve. Now Himmler called them all to active duty and ordered them to report to the Langemarck. In this manner Himmler was able to expand the size of the Langemarck and he renamed it the 27th SS Langemarck Grenadier Division. Naturally the German bosses of these members and workers complained about the loss of their people, but Hitler approved Himmler’s orders.

  Himmler gave similar orders to the Belgian Walloons. They were to report to the 5th SS Wallonie Sturmbrigade just outside Hanover. Few of these Walloons were fascists. Most were extremely devout Roman Catholics and/or staunch Belgian Monarchists. The Belgian king had fled with them to Germany! With its expansion the sturmbrigade was retitled the 28th SS Wallonie Grenadier Division. The divisional commander would be Leon Degrelle, who had begun his service as a common grenadier.

  When the Americans reached the French-Spanish border the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco suddenly got cold feet and he withdrew his military support for Hitler. However, about 400 of these Spanish soldiers serving alongside the Germans refused to desert their partner in this shameful fashion. They formed the Ghost Battalion of the German Army and tried to attract Spaniards who had been working for German employers in France and Germany. They even recruited i
n Spain in violation of Franco’s orders. The Germans sent them to the Italian-Yugoslavian border to fight Italian and Titoist partisans.

  Meanwhile perhaps as many as 1,500 Spanish members of the Gestapo and SD had fled France and were now in Germany looking for a meaningful job. Himmler ordered many of them into the new 101st and 102nd SS Spanish Companies, and he also convinced about half of the members of the Ghost Battalion to join these companies. He chose Miguel Ezquerra Sanchez to command the two companies, and sent them to Degrelle’s division. The Walloons were happy to welcome these Spaniards, because they were devout Roman Catholics.

  By now even Himmler had given up on his propaganda statements that all SS were fanatic Nordic blonde warriors.

  By the middle of September 1944 the 2nd SS Das Reich Panzer Division had retreated across southern Belgium until it reached the German border. Here in the vast Ardennes Forest the division turned and launched a riposte against the Americans who were hot on their heels. The Americans stopped, then staggered backwards, and the SS troops then dug in along the Schnee Eiffel, a ridge running more or less north-south which marked the border of Belgium and Germany - the border as far as the Allies were concerned, but Germany considered the villages west of the ridge around Eupen to be a part of Germany too.

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  The front in central Poland had been stable throughout August. The Germans of General von Vormann’s Ninth Army could not believe their luck - the Soviets had stopped because they had outrun their supplies. Moreover the Soviets had made no attempt to aid the insurgents inside Warsaw, not even dropping parachuted supplies. Only the British and Americans were doing this. The Germans suspected that Stalin was deliberately allowing the Polish resistance to be annihilated.