Hitler's Brandenburgers

by Lawrence Paterson

  Though it was strictly forbidden for foreigners to leave Kabul’s city limits, the two quietly departed the city bound for a rendezvous with the Fakir during July along with six Afghan escorts armed with rifles. Travelling on foot towards the tribal lands, they were within sight of the frontier and a manned Afghan border post on 19 July. Resting during the hours of darkness before attempting to slip through the border, a sudden flurry of gunfire took them completely by surprise, with Oberdörffer hit in the stomach and chest and Brandt badly wounded in his thigh by a rifle shot. His scalp had been severely lacerated by flying rock splinters and he was bleeding profusely. The nearby Afghan border guards immediately came to their aid, though not before they had been robbed of the money and all their possessions. Apparently abandoned and left to die by their assailants, the injured men were given a jolting truck ride towards hospital in Kabul by the border guards, though it was in vain for Oberdörffer who died along the way. A Turkish surgeon eventually removed the bullet from Brandt’s thigh and thirty-five rock fragments from his neck and head.

  Uncertainty still remains as to who killed Oberdörffer, men in the pay of the British authorities perhaps being most likely, the pair having been under surveillance since their arrival in Kabul. However, German intelligence maintained that they had been betrayed and shot by Afghans who considered the Germans to be emissaries of the previously overthrown regent King Amanullah who had been living in exile in Rome since 1929 but who had pursued economic cooperation with Nazi Germany in order to promote his return to power. Brandt, however, believed that it was in fact the Italian Consul and his wife who paid ‘bandits’ to murder the pair. For his part Quaroni, later in September 1943 after the fall of Mussolini’s government, scoffed at the very idea that the Fakir could have been influenced by German money and power, accusing Hitler’s intelligence service of ‘being extremely stupid and bungling in their methods and ready to be led up the garden path by every petty intriguer’.6 While Brandt was returned to Germany and would later be posted by the Abwehr to Albania, Oberdörffer was buried in Kabul’s international cemetery, where he continued to upset people even decades later. The very presence of his grave managed to cause a minor uproar in the Bundestag in 2010 when the left-wing politician Inge Höger discovered the resting place of a ‘fascist physician’ that was in the same graveyard that now contained German members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) killed in action in a new Afghan war. Somewhat ironically, it was also Witzel who had written the Handbook on Afghan History handed out to those same modern-day German soldiers by the Military History Research Office (MGFA, Bundeswehr).

  Ultimately, Axis propaganda and intelligence efforts in the region were ineffective and characterised by a fairly constant and almost startling inefficiency. The three main Axis powers frequently mounted divergent operations that compromised the potential efficacy of each other’s, while ‘men on the ground’ displayed great ignorance of local affairs and customs. Pietro Quaroni had been the first to prompt Bose to instigate sabotage missions and was also the first to develop solid plans for the opening of tribal insurrections against British rule in 1940, but his ideas were rejected by Berlin who did not want to diminish the ‘prestige of the whites in the Middle East or India’. Following the opening of ‘Barbarossa’ in June 1941, the Soviet Union closed its border with Afghanistan and after Iraq was occupied by British and Commonwealth troops, the country was effectively isolated from the Axis countries. Its sole trade route now lay through British India and the despatch of food and material from there subsequently softened attitudes towards Great Britain.

  North Africa

  Away from the Middle East, the commitment of German combat troops to North Africa had already begun in February 1941 when Erwin Rommel arrived with the vanguard of what would become the Afrika Korps. Major Seubert of Abwehr I requested the addition of a Brandenburg unit to enhance the intelligence capabilities of Rommel’s forces and the despatch of a specially trained and equipped formation was planned for the same year. Many men of the regiment had returned to the Reich from both Africa and the Middle East and a drive was undertaken for volunteers from the ranks, approximately sixty men being screened and accepted within weeks, predominantly from the 2nd and 3rd Companies. Twenty-five-year-old Oberleutnant Friedrich ‘Fritz’ von Koenen was placed in command. He had been born in Danzig in 1916 but his family had fled from Polish persecution and emigrated to German South-West Africa where they became major landowners. As a child, Koenen became fluent in not only German, but English, Afrikaans and native African dialects while also choosing to study Arab languages as part of his schooling.

  Koenen’s new unit was designated the 13th ‘Tropical’ Company, which continued to expand during 1941. On 28 October, the first half of the Tropical Company departed Brandenburg an der Havel, transported initially by train for Lucrino Bagnoli near Naples. From there, Koenen, eleven NCOs and approximately seventy men were carried by aircraft to Tripoli disguised as a Wehrmacht supply and procurement unit (Versorgungs und Beschaffungseinheit deklariert) while the administrative ‘second half’ of the company remained in Germany under the command of the company adjutant, Rittmeister Conrad von Leipzig, sifting new recruits and continuing training for African operations.

  During the period in which the Tropical Company was created, there appears to have been an Abwehr presence already gathering recruits from those Germans still present in the Italian colonies, particularly those of Palestinian origin. Codenamed Operation ‘Kleeblatt’ (‘Clover Leaf ’), there are only sparse references in available post-war records to both it and the related Kommando Bisping, the latter a component of the Tropical Company after Koenen’s arrival. Oberleutnant Ferdinand Bisping had been born in South-West Africa in 1917 where his father had owned a large cattle farm. During 1936 he had travelled to Germany and became an officer in the Wehrmacht before volunteering for the Baulehr-Bataillon z.b.V. 800 in 1940. Placed in command of a motorcycle unit, he had transferred to North Africa to collect recruits for the Brandenburgers, accumulating an estimated sixty men. Bisping was placed in command of Operation ‘Kleeblatt’ in May 1942, the gathered men renamed ‘Kommando Bisping’, though known amongst its members with wry humour as the ‘BBC’ (‘Bisping Bicycle Company’) presumably due to a continued motorcycle component. According to later Allied interrogation reports of Feldwebel Hans-Jürgen Kirchner, it was Bisping’s first assignment for the Abwehr as the ‘authorities, who did not think much of him, wanted to get rid of him’. He remained in charge of his Kommando until the end of the war in Africa.7 Whether directly subordinate to the Brandenburg Regiment or operating semi-autonomously, the large number of Brandenburgers known to have been part of Kommando Bisping during its existence attest to the connection. For example, Sudeten-German Oberleutnant Franz Krautzberger had enlisted in the Brandenburgers in 1940 and was posted to North Africa as part of Kommando Bisping in May 1942. Wounded in a ‘private shooting match’, he was sent to Germany to recover before returning to North Africa to take charge of a separate Kommando in Tunis. Wounded once more while leading a raid, he was posted to Salonika, Greek-based Abwehr commanders being ‘very annoyed at him for leading such dangerous expeditions on his own initiative, thereby unnecessarily endangering the lives of valuable Abwehr members’.8

  The administrative trail of Operation ‘Kleeblatt’, as a separate entity, is difficult to trace. It appears to have been an Abwehr initiative to recruit Arab volunteers directly into Abwehr – and perhaps Brandenburger – units. Headed by a civilian, Dr Scheuermann (designated Sonderführer for the task), it seems to have existed in North Africa from autumn 1941 until its personnel became Bisping’s motorcycle unit. Scheuermann returned to Germany in 1943 to apply for military officer training.9

  In the meantime, once Koenen’s men were in Libya they began intensive training and were placed under Rommel’s direct command. As early as March 1941 OKH had passed on to Rommel a proposal by Rittmeister Friedrich von Homeyer for the formatio
n of a fast-moving, dual-purpose raiding/reconnaissance troop of a dozen men using six Kübelwagen. Homeyer advocated missions deep into the desert via Kufra and Auwenat and into the Nile Valley at Dereut. Although he was granted permission to form a larger unit – Aufklärungs Abteilung 580 (mot) of the 90th Light Division – in August 1941, his force only reached North Africa during 1942, Homeyer subsequently being killed by British artillery fire on 3 July at El Alamein and his unit was later upgraded to an armoured reconnaissance battalion and attached to 21st Panzer Division.

  Rommel harboured some mistrust towards the newly arrived Brandenburgers, professing an aversion to ‘war in the shadows’ and strictly forbidding the use of disguise in enemy uniform, which he believed a direct contravention of the rules of war. Nonetheless, the forward elements of the 13th Company were swiftly despatched to the front line after their arrival and soon began operating as forward reconnaissance troops for the German forces. It appears that ‘Abteilung von Koenen’ was initially divided into two components, half in and around Benghazi by the end of November while the remainder stayed in Agedabia under the command of Feldwebel Doehring.

  It appears that Rommel’s harsh opinion of German special forces may have softened somewhat after British commandos attempted to kill or capture him on 17 November 1941 – the same night that a small unit of Brandenburgers launched a disastrous mission near El Dabaa after being put ashore from a U-boat. The British were determined to eliminate Rommel, his legend amongst friend and foe already burgeoning as he swiftly and dynamically reversed Axis fortunes in the Western Desert. On the night of 17 November, a small commando force, led by 24-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Keyes, was landed from the Royal Navy submarines HMS Torbay and Talisman and attempted to penetrate what they presumed was Rommel’s headquarters at Beda Littoria and either take him prisoner or assassinate him. However, Operation ‘Flipper’ was a complete disaster, two men being killed (including Keyes whose body was found a mile away after attempting to crawl away, one foot shot off and the other injured), twenty-eight captured and only three escaping back to Allied lines. Three Germans were killed. To compound the Allied tragedy, Rommel was not even in North Africa at the time, still on his way from a planned visit to Rome. Even if he had been, his headquarters was not at Beda Littoria as he had moved to a location near Tobruk to be closer to the fighting. Keyes was buried by the Germans with full military honours, Rommel sending his personal chaplain to conduct the service.10

  Nearly 700km to the east, seven Brandenburger men were landed that same night by Kapitänleutnant Hans-Dietrich von Tiesenhausen’s U-331 between Cape Ras Gibeisa and Cape Ras el Schaqiq. U-331 had sailed with the extra men aboard from Salamis, Greece, at 1900hrs on 12 November, the Brandenburgers tasked with Operation ‘Hai’ that was intended to cut the coastal supply railway that had been constructed by the 16th and 17th New Zealand Railway Operating Companies. The New Zealanders had originally been earmarked for service in France before the country’s fall and were subsequently diverted to the Western Desert where their expertise was required. Their task was to help run and extend more than 400 miles of railway lines, easing the logistical burden of moving quantities of men and supplies from Egypt into Libya.

  The sabotage troops were landed as planned by rubber dinghy, a single U-boat crewman helping row them ashore and guarding the dinghy as they raced inland. The U-boat then stood off to sea before a scheduled return the following night inshore to pick up the raiding party. A pair of patrolling British sentries discovered the tracks of the main raiding party but were killed by the U-boat crewman and a single Brandenburger who had remained with the dinghy. The charges were laid and, with dawn breaking by the time they reached the coast once more, all eight men hid in a cave to await darkness and the planned rendezvous with U-331 on 18 November. However, the two sentries were clearly overdue and a heavily armed search party ran headlong into the Germans that evening after an abortive attempt to row from the beach to the rendezvous point had resulted in their dinghy capsizing in the heavy surf. Struggling back ashore through the breaking waves, the Brandenburgers were captured without a fight and subsequent interrogation revealed the pressure-fused charges they had planted which were soon disarmed. It was an inauspicious start for German commando operations in North Africa.11

  The first official deployment of Koenen’s Brandenburgers by Panzerarmee Afrika was made on 22 January 1942, when they were tasked with a combined reconnaissance and commando mission ahead of the German advance. Rommel’s rapid movement east had allowed little time for the Abwehr to establish useful intelligence networks beyond those already operated by the ‘Wido’ station. In its stead, Koenen’s men fulfilled this role, ranging ahead of the German lines in a combination of Axis and captured British vehicles and gathering valuable information.

  In February 1942, the second half of the 13th Company arrived in Libya with Rittmeister von Leipzig. The 22-year-old had been severely wounded in action with his cavalry unit during the first day of the invasion of the Soviet Union, resulting in his right leg being amputated. Though a much-admired and respected commander who always shared his men’s trials and privations at the front, his wound had never healed properly and caused him extreme discomfort for the remainder of his life, requiring constant painkilling injections. Following his wounding, rather than leave the Wehrmacht he had volunteered for reconnaissance duties and enlisted in the Brandenburg Regiment where his drive and determination more than compensated for his physical disability. Leipzig had been born in German South-West Africa, the son of an ex-Imperial Navy officer who had served in the area during the First World War. After 1918, his father had married and established a successful sheep farm in Africa – Farm Blaukohl – Conrad the first of three brothers born to the couple in the German colony. Coincidentally, his youngest brother, Hellmut von Leipzig, was also in North Africa, having been assigned as Rommel’s driver after volunteering for the Afrika Korps. Later, following the demise of the German forces in North Africa, Hellmut would also transfer to the Brandenburgers as an officer candidate, his officer training arranged by a grateful Erwin Rommel before the two men parted company.

  The fortunes of war in the desert had ebbed and flowed ever since the arrival of German forces, but by May 1942 Rommel was advancing against the Allied defensive line at Gazala and the German assault on an isolated Allied garrison at Tobruk began. An initial amphibious operation was planned that utilised Koenen’s men as part of Kampfgruppe Hecker (led by Oberst Hermann-Hans Hecker, Pionier Führer Afrika). Rommel’s orders for 26 May outlining the Axis attack on the Allied defensive Gazala Line closed with instructions that: ‘On X+1 Kampfgruppe Hecker will land at Gabr Si. Hameida to block the Via Balbia around Kilometre 136.’

  Hecker’s battlegroup included men of the 13th Brandenburger Company, 33rd and 39th Panzerjäger Battalions 778th Engineer Landing Company and Italian 3rd San Marco Marine Battalion. Their brief was to sever the Allies’ Via Balbia supply route by landing 30km east of Tobruk while Rommel’s forces attacked the Gazala Line directly. The troops were embarked on Marinefahrprähme (MFPs – landing craft) and sailed on 28 May under escort by mixed S-boats and R-boats (motor minesweepers). However, after only a few hours at sea the operation was cancelled by radio after Allied resistance proved unexpectedly fierce on the Gazala Line and all boats returned to Derna to unload. The company was subsequently used for guard duties under the command of Major.i.G. (im Generalstab, signifying an officer of the General Staff) Josef Zolling, Ic of Panzerarmee Afrika, before rejoining Kampfgruppe Hecker and moving towards Bir Hakeim where they took part in the attack on the fortress that was held by Free French troops. It was during this period that the 13th Company suffered its first losses.

  On 6 June Gefreiter Reinhold Eichhorn was killed in action in the southern foothills of the Jebel Akhdar on the old Trig al Abd camel track that led to Tobruk. Kampfgruppe Hecker fought its way along the track to maintain contact with rapidly retreating Allied troops, while also headed south-
east to join the battle for Bir Hakeim. This Allied strongpoint was on the site of a former Ottoman Empire fort that had been built around an ancient Roman well. Comprised of little more than a small elevation in the flat desert landscape, it had been impressively fortified by the French defenders, three gates allowing traffic in and out by way of marked paths through the extensive minefields that contained 130,000 anti-tank and 2,000 anti-personnel mines. Bir Hakeim anchored the inland end of the Gazala Line and was held by an original garrison of 3,703 men of Général de brigade Marie Pierre Koenig’s 1st Free French Brigade, formed largely of colonial and French Foreign Legion troops and later becoming one of the most decorated French units of the war. To their north, unbeknownst to the French, a battalion of 400 poorly armed minelayers held a position near Bir-el Harmat at the northern fringe of the French minefields, the smaller force comprised of Jewish Palestinians of Major Liebmann’s Jewish Brigade.

  While the Allies expected a frontal assault against the coastal portion of the strongly defended Gazala Line, Rommel instead chose to sweep southwards, hoping to skirt around the French position while making a feint attack along the coast road. The main Gazala Line was made up of extensive minefields and ‘boxes’ of troops that in total outnumbered Rommel’s forces and he hoped to nullify this advantage by concentrating where the line was thinnest. His initial success almost proved his downfall as German panzers swiftly moved beyond the reach of the supply columns that had difficulty finding them in the swirling maze of dust and Allied minefields. German trucks were forced to travel long distances around Bir Hakeim, limiting the Axis forces’ offensive power. Both the French and Jewish positions were directly attacked on 26 May after appeals to surrender were rejected. Expecting the outnumbered defenders of Bir Hakeim to be overrun in short order, the fierce battle instead became a protracted slugging match that dragged on for two weeks, the Luftwaffe flying 1,400 sorties against the exposed target and the equivalent of four German and Italian divisions being engaged in the assault. By 7 June Axis forces had completely encircled Bir Hakeim and the following day Rommel arrived to take personal command of operations. Kampfgruppe Hecker was folded into the 90th Light Division for the attacks that followed, Koenen’s men acting in the role of traditional infantry.