Herzner was a reserve officer of the 9th Infantry Regiment and had also acted as a Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter (civilian scientific assistant) to the Wehrmacht’s regional command in Breslau. He had also become involved in a plot to force Hitler’s resignation during the Sudetenland crisis of 1938, formulated by several high-ranking officers and police officials. Generaloberst Erwin von Witzleben had been an ardent anti-Nazi since the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ and the death of Ferdinand von Bredow. Part of Oster’s circle of conspirators, he had determined to enter the Reich Chancellery escorted by reliable officers of his headquarters staff, gain access to Hitler and demand his resignation and subsequent trial. Painstaking chronicles of the excesses committed by the SS and Gestapo were to be used as evidence against him, while psychiatrist Karl Bonhoeffer was prepared to provide a professional opinion of Hitler’s mental health. Canaris was amongst these high-level conspirators and, while he himself argued for Hitler to be arrested, an escorting ‘raiding party’ had gone as far as to plan a provocation of the Führer that could justify his being shot lest the SS manage to stage a counter-coup.1 This ‘raiding party’ was led by officers who included Herzner as well as Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz – who had argued forcefully for the assassination of Hitler – and Hans-Wolfram Knaak, also of the Abwehr. The group assembled in Berlin during September in preparation for their attempted coup before British acceptance of Hitler’s Sudeten gamble threw the conspirators into enough confusion to cancel their attempt, justifying it by presuming an Anglo-French declaration was imminent that they would stage military intervention should Hitler move to invade the remainder of Czechoslovakia.
On 24 August 1939 Herzner crossed the German–Slovakian border from Breslau by car, under the assumed identity of businessman Heinrich Herzog. He was headed to a rendezvous with his men, twenty-four members of ‘Abwehrstelle Breslau’ designated Kampforganisation Jablunka. The Abwehr operated three types of organisation during 1939:
•Kampforganisation: tasked with capturing and protecting important strategic objectives such as bridges, railway stations, tunnels and the like to enable a German military advance;
•Sabotageorganisation: tasked with destroying objectives behind the enemy’s front line to sever reinforcement links;
•Fallschirmorganisation; involving air-dropped saboteurs to carry out operations behind the front lines.
Herzner’s command was a Kampforganisation tasked with the capture and safeguarding of the 300m-long railway tunnel at the Jablunka Pass through the Beskids mountains, as well as the Mosty railway station in the pass itself. Defensive demolition of the tunnel that sat on the main single-track Vienna–Warsaw railway line would severely impede German invaders attempting to enter southern Poland. The Poles, fully aware of the strategic significance of this western Carpathian pass, had mined the tunnel during June and, every day after the final train had passed through, the fuses were made live and ready for firing.
Dressed in civilian clothes, Kampforganisation Jablunka proceeded from Čadca northwards across the Slovakian border, accompanied by a hundred men of the Slovakian fascist militia, the Hlinka Guard. Passing over the Polish frontier just after midnight, they travelled through densely wooded country where, due to faulty navigation and difficult topography poorly illuminated by the waxing moon, Herzner’s men had become scattered into small groups, he himself arriving west of the train station with Gefreiter Jung and twelve men slightly behind schedule at 0245hrs.
Herzner determined that Polish machine-gun positions and a defensive trench were unmanned though he could see that the tunnel’s northern end was guarded by a pair of sentries, the opposite end also patrolled by four riflemen of the 21st Mountain Division. At 0300hrs gunfire from another assault group was heard from the direction of the tunnel and Herzner attacked the train station shortly afterwards, the building being successfully taken along with a group of Polish steel workers inside. Unfortunately for Herzner and unbeknown to the attackers, there was a military communications centre in the station basement and a female Polish telegraphist alerted local troops who immediately took up defensive positions. As these Polish troops foiled the initial German attempt on the tunnel itself, a small group of Herzner’s men endeavoured to take control of the situation in the tunnel using a stolen locomotive but were defeated by Polish machine-gun fire. Herzner was painfully aware that the attempted operation had failed and he then discovered that the entire invasion had been postponed following a message from Major Paul Reichelt, Chief of Staff of the Wehrmacht’s 7th Infantry Division that manned that portion of the Polish border. Herzner’s small group prepared to retreat, though they remained pinned down until midday the following day, after which they managed to break away and retrace their path into Slovakia with two wounded men. The commander of the 7th Infantry Division, Generalmajor Eugen Ott, apologised to his opposite Polish number General Józef Rudolf Kustroń of the 21st Mountain Division for the attack, blaming a single ‘insane individual’ for the action. Herzner was recommended for the EK II by Canaris but Wilhelm Keitel blocked the award as the action had occurred during peacetime and Herzner only belatedly received the decoration on 29 October 1939.2
While Herzner’s premature private invasion had been foiled, the Ebbinghaus Organisation began subsequent operations on schedule upon receipt of the code word ‘Falcon’. At 0300hrs on 1 September they attacked and seized several vital industrial and mining complexes as well as the railway transport hub at Katowice. The latter was taken and held by Grabert’s eighty men of the Deutsche Kompanie who came under heavy Polish attack throughout the day. Speaking fluent Polish, Grabert and his troops had crossed over the border during the last day of August, assisted by local volunteer guides who led them to the road to Chorzhow. The men were disguised as Polish railway workers and carried concealed small arms and explosives. By midnight they had reached the freight station of the Katowice railway yards which they successfully occupied, though the Deutsche Kompanie was thinly spread as it attempted to hold several key buildings. The arrival of Polish troops by train to counter-attack ten Germans in the main warehouse was observed at some distance by Grabert, who ordered a handful of his men to stage a diversionary attack on a nearby bridge. With Polish attention elsewhere, Grabert, assisted by a man named Schmittainsky, managed to creep aboard the locomotive that had brought the Polish troop train into the station and incapacitate the two drivers. Shouting to attract the attention of the enemy troops assaulting the warehouse, Grabert convinced their officer that German forces were now attempting to destroy the bridge, the Poles reboarding the train that headed at speed towards the new conflagration. Grabert and Schmittainsky subsequently took the train from the station and headed west, handing over the nearly 800 men aboard to advancing Wehrmacht troops. The Poles that had been left to contain the Deutsche Kompanie troops in the warehouse were too few to dislodge the invaders and subsequently Wehrmacht spearheads captured the railway station and its yards intact later that day.
Elsewhere the Ebbinghaus units suffered greater losses. While attempting to capture the ‘Max’ mine at Michałkowice, fierce Polish defence that involved pitched battles throughout the mining complex killed twenty-eight men including ‘Kampfgruppe Pisarski’ leader SA-Hauptsturmführer Wilhelm Pisarski and wounded a further twelve. Sixty-four others were subsequently taken prisoner while only a small number, including Pisarski’s deputy Hargut, managed to escape. Those captured were, of course, later released by the advancing Wehrmacht. Polish losses during the battle were also significant and ultimately the German aim was accomplished as the mine was captured intact. Elsewhere, Ebbinghaus units and men from Abwehrstelle XVII (Vienna) that attacked the Huta Hubertus Steelworks, Chorzów power station and Orzeł Biały mines were defeated with heavy casualties, though Polish defenders were unable to sabotage any of the valuable objectives, which were likewise captured intact by the Wehrmacht. To the north near Danzig the two parallel bridges over the Vistula at Dirschau were successfully demolished by Polish
troops, despite a combined attack by Luftwaffe, Wehrmacht, SS and Abwehr troops from Abwehrstelle I (Königsberg). In total the Ebbinghaus Organisation lost 174 men killed and 133 wounded on the first day of the invasion of Poland; nine others were killed by 4 September and a further two wounded.
On 2 September 1939 Ebbinghaus troops were subordinated to Grenzschutz-Ahschnitts-Kommando 3 in Gliwice, combining with SS Standarte ‘Germania’ and troops of the 239th Infantry Division the following day. That same morning, Ebbinghaus ordered the surviving men under his command to ‘cleanse’ the area of Orzesze of Silesian insurgents while also safeguarding the flank of the Wehrmacht advance. At 1645hrs Ebbinghaus men seized and held the Katowice radio station, the remainder of their involvement in the Polish campaign seeming to be the occupation and pacification of Katowice and the surrounding area.
Engaged in paramilitary combat in which racial identity and its incumbent deeply ingrained hatreds were to the fore, the men also appear to have been involved in the massacre of Poles including seventeen defenders of Pszczyna (including Boy Scouts from the Pszczyna secondary schools), twenty-nine citizens of Orzesze and six more in Siemanowice on 8 September. On 1 October, they shot eighteen people in Nowy Bytom and larger atrocities are believed to have been carried out in and around Katowice. SA Sturmführer Karl Rolle and others were also known to have been involved in the torture and murder of Polish captives in Bytom. The SS Einsatzgruppen were already active immediately behind the front lines, rounding up Jews and Poles that fitted their target demographics. Though also tasked with intelligence work involving the recovery of documents, they, alongside the Ebbinghaus Organisation and other paramilitary units, provided a clear vision of Poland’s immediate future.
The Ebbinghaus Organisation was disbanded following its role in the Polish campaign, some of the more meritorious survivors being absorbed into 1. Baulehr Kompanie z.b.V. which was formed at the existing base of the Deutsche Kompanie in Sliač. Hauptmann Putz gave the new unit its first orders; the men were to assemble in their base without attracting the attention of Slovakian border guards, the country’s new government having sealed the borders with military units, police and customs men. Travelling in small groups, once successfully in Sliac they again donned Slovakian Army uniforms with the ‘Deutsche Kompanie’ armbands. The company commander was the recently promoted Hauptmann Verbeek, with his chief instructors the now battle-experienced Leutnants Siegfried Grabert and Dr Gottfried Kniesche assisted by NCOs Feldwebel O.A. Süss and Gefreiters Fritz Buchholz and Pasche Klüver. Their intensive training included techniques for the taking and holding of bridges and other strategic objectives, as well as demolition and sabotage methods.
Meanwhile, on 27 September 1939, Adolf Hitler summoned his military chiefs to the Reich Chancellery. He ordered plans prepared for invasion of The Netherlands, Belgium and France during October in a knockout blow before Britain could fully mobilise its military. Though an impossible task, given the fact that the Wehrmacht had already expended vast energy subjugating Poland – the country surrendering on that day but the final battle at Kock not concluding until 6 October – the campaign strategy was slowly drawn up, while Army heads attempted to persuade their Führer to postpone the attack. Amidst the planning for war were instructions issued by Canaris to Hippel for the creation of a company of sabotage troops for commitment in the West. Hippel ordered the transfer of the Abwehr’s 320-man strong 1. Baulehr Kompanie z.b.V. from Slovakia to Germany, now officially redesignated ‘Baulehr Kompanie z.b.V. 800’ (800th Special Purpose Construction Training Company) on 25 October. He had even secured the ideal training ground for his sabotage troops.
In the Prussian province of Brandenburg, west of Berlin, the small town of Brandenburg an der Havel was chosen as the headquarters of Hippel’s troops, he himself having been quartered there during his time as an officer in the 43rd Engineer Battalion until 1937 and his transfer to the Abwehr. There, on the eastern shore of the Quenzsee, on an estate crowned by a three-winged manor house, the Abwehr established a ‘Training and Sabotage School’, known as ‘Quenzgut’, under the command of Hauptmann Seeliger.3 The rural estate was surrounded by a high wall and the grounds would eventually boast weapons ranges, a laboratory for the development of explosives, an explosives testing bunker (Sprengbunker), a locksmith’s workshop, models and mock-up bridges and traffic installations, a gymnasium, lakeside quay and various sports fields. All three branches of the Abwehr would send men to the school, ranging from specialised training for Hauptmann Verbeek’s soldiers to agents and spies (‘ V-Mann’ – Vertrauens man – a paid informer whose task it was to infiltrate political movements, or a spy). Explosives specialist Major Hans Maguerre, a First World War veteran of 2nd Engineer Battalion – and who had been engaged in work that had included potential biological sabotage – was responsible for procuring and maintaining equipment for the school, including enemy uniforms, arms, radio gear and explosives. He had played a major role in the establishment of the training centre despite ‘numerous difficulties’ put in his way by Wehrmacht administrative staff.4 Those piqued administrators subsequently spread the rumour that Maguerre had misappropriated state funds provided for establishing the school to construct his own house in the country, though this failed to impede Maguerre’s progress. ‘Technical Inspector’ Kutschke was on hand to instruct the recruits in engineering matters and the techniques employed by combat Engineers while Grabert and Kniesche would also act as military instructors.
Nearby, on Magdeburger Strasse, the barracks that had accommodated the Feldartillerie-Regiment ‘Generalfeldzeugmeister’ (1. Brandenburgisches) Nr. 3 of the Imperial German Army’s 6th Infantry Division served as the main quarters for Hippel’s Baulehr Kompanie z.b.V. 800. Brandenburg an der Havel was no stranger to the military; cavalry and infantry regiments of the same Imperial Army division had occupied barracks in the town and the Wehrmacht’s 68th Infantry Regiment (23rd Infantry Division), 59th Artillery Regiment, 22nd Flak Regiment and an engineer battalion were stationed there.5 The Generalfeld-zeugmeister Kaserne was an impressive multi-storey brick building with high-ceilinged rooms and narrow corridors which became home to Hippel’s recruits.
The small town also boasted some important military manufacturing that would ultimately attract the attention of Allied bombers in later years. During 1934 Arado Werke opened an aircraft factory that edged the shoreline of the Quenzsee to the south of the Abwehr school at the end of the freight railway spur. In 1935 Adam Opel A.G. opened a factory inland towards the town itself, producing Opel ‘Blitz’ trucks and employing 6,000 men by 1939. Further heavy industry was also established in the town, the industrial conglomerate ‘Reichswerke Hermann Göring’ creating steel and weapons manufacturing plants.
The initial troops assigned to the new barracks were from the ranks of the Abwehr and various other military units; many Volksdeutsche of the border guard units in Spiš, north-west Slovakia (Grenzwach-Regiments ‘Zips’), forty German mountain troops (Gebirgsjäger) who had formerly been part of the Czech Army and engineers from the Berlin military district, coming together to constitute the original complement of Baulehr Kompanie z.b.V. 800 under Hippel’s direct command.
Canaris also enlisted the aid of Kurt Jahnke, a highly successful saboteur and intelligence agent during the First World War. A naturalised American citizen, he had served under the command of the German Consul-General Franz Bopp at the behest of the German Admiralty from his San Francisco base, transferring to Mexico following the American declaration of war in 1917. After returning to Germany and following Hitler’s accession to power, Jahnke established the ‘Diplomatic Information Office ‘Büro I’, also known as the ‘Abteilung Von Pfeffer’ after SA Obergruppenführer Pfeffer von Salomon. Although Jahnke was in control, Pfeffer was nominally in command of what was a private intelligence agency, granted independence from OKW and reporting directly to Rudolf Hess despite partial funding by the Abwehr. However, pressure from Martin Bormann, Himmler and Heydrich encourag
ed Hitler to shut down Büro I on 26 April 1940. From the moment that Hippel had been ordered to create the Baulehr-Bataillon z.b.V. 800, Jahnke and his secretary Carl Marcus had been attached as intelligence officers (the Wehrmacht designation being ‘Ic’); Marcus enlisted into the battalion after being called up for Wehrmacht service. He trained for four weeks and was despatched on an intelligence-gathering mission into Belgium and The Netherlands, before both he and Jahnke were moved away from the battalion by Heydrich and into Amt VI of the SD upon the dissolution of Büro I. Marcus was subsequently classified as ‘unfit for military duties’ in order that he could continue his work with Jahnke, now at the behest of the SD.6
Meanwhile with the existing timetable of an attack on the West still not postponed by Hitler, an experienced combat engineer and expert in radio deception, Berliner Hauptmann Hans-Jürgen Rudloff, arrived in Hippel’s company as a platoon commander. Rudloff, an engineer by trade and veteran of the First World War as Fahnenjunker (Officer-Aspirant) in the 17th Engineer Battalion, had spent nine years in the Argentine before returning to Germany intending to enlist in the Army early in 1939. Initially rejected due to his age (39), he was finally commissioned as a Leutnant in the 3rd Engineer Battalion during July. However, he saw no service at all with the battalion as he was almost immediately transferred onwards to the Abwehr in Hamburg where his engineering expertise was solicited. His primary task was keeping records on so-called ‘cultural’ buildings in Denmark and England judged as targets of possible military importance, and Rudloff was frequently consulted for his expert opinion on the potential demolition of various foreign objectives. Following the end of the Polish campaign, Rudloff was promoted and transferred to Baulehr Kompanie z.b.V. 800.
Hitler's Brandenburgers Page 5