Hitler's Bandit Hunters: The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe

by Philip W. Blood

  Himmler set SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, HSSPF in the General Government, against Frank. Krüger was a tough veteran of the First World War and the Freikorps but a trusted lieutenant. He was wholeheartedly committed to implementing Lebensraum. The SS-Police under Krüger, assisted by his neighboring HSSPFs, planned an extensive settlement program. One neighboring colleague was Bach-Zelewski, HSSPF Southeast (Breslau). The defeat of Poland involved the annexation of Polish territory, and so his command territory extended into southwest Poland.103 Krüger and Bach-Zelewski were part of a team of seven SS officers who planned the transfer of Jews into ghettos, the permanent removal of “antisocials,” and the preparation of evacuated areas for an influx of ethnic Germans from Russia in an operation called the Saybuscher Aktion. The British intercepted a message on September 25, 1940, reporting one of these transports: The Migration Centre in Litzmannstadt reports to Berlin that a transport train (called “Cholm Action Train”) had departed for Lublin with 512 Poles and twenty-six children under the age of two.104 This program contributed to the training of SS-Police personnel in large-scale population transfers.

  For a short period from October 1939, Bach-Zelewski was the deputy commissioner for the strengthening of Germandom (Reichskommissar für die Festigung des Deutschen Volkstums, RKFDV).105 In April 1939, he undertook a university lectureship (Lehrauftrag) in religious science for the department of theology under Professor Wendel, a specialist of the Old Testament.106 Since 1934, Bach-Zelewski had made numerous complaints to Himmler about the Jews of Poland. He described Danzig as “full of Jews” (verjudet) in 1935 and complained to Wolff in 1940 about Frank’s intervention over preventing the imprisonment of the Jews of Silesia. Bach-Zelewski believed they should have been in concentration camps, wearing armbands with the Star of David and breaking stone in the quarries.107 In December 1939, Adolf Eichmann informed him that cooperation between his office and the RSHA was virtually perfect. In January 1940, Bach-Zelewski sent his representatives to a conference with Heydrich on the evacuation process. Promoting himself while treating human beings like cattle became his trademark. From mid-1940, he was busily engaged in forcibly deporting Poles from Zywiec in Poland while personally welcoming eighteen trainloads (17,500) of ethnic Germans from the Posen resettlement center.108 He visited Auschwitz with Rudolf Höss in 1940 and instructed the appropriate rules for shooting prisoners in reprisal for escapes. The rapid defeat of France and Germany’s domination of continental Europe led Bach-Zelewski to make another change of name. In November 1940, the Breslau Justice Ministry department confirmed the official removal of the “Zelewski” part of his name.109 For the rest of the war, he lived as Erich von dem Bach. This did not prevent him from passing evidence to Himmler over his ancestral connection to Johannes von dem Bach-Zelewski, the last knight commander of the Teutonic Order of Knights in Marienburg.110

  The experience gained in Poland by the SS forced another confrontation between Epp and Himmler. It was triggered by Heydrich, who extracted from Epp the plan for the administration of the colonial office. This proposed five departments, one dedicated to policing. Epp expected each colony to be self-sufficient in the administration of law and order; with a colonial commissioner, aided by an SS representative. Acting on this information, Himmler concluded it was another plot, like Frank’s, to challenge his authority in control of the police. He tackled the question of colonial police guidelines through Daluege. In July 1940, Daluege sent instructions to Bomhard indicating that the differences between Epp and the SS had widened. Daluege explained that Himmler was prepared to acknowledge Epp’s seniority for the colonies but not for colonial policing. He insisted that policing for the colonial office must conform to that for the General Government, with an HSSPF under his direct control. Defeating Epp in SS plans was one thing, explaining them to him was obviously a daunting prospect. Timidity in the face of the party godfather led Himmler to order Karl Wolff, Epp’s former political adjutant, to explain to Epp policing for colonial office, while Daluege, equally timid, delegated Bomhard to explain the Order Police role in the scheme.111 Thus, the final triumph of Lebensraum in police policy matters became complicated again following the German victory in the west.

  Querner referred to operations but chose to ignore the less savory aspects of SS behavior. The SS-Police performance in the western campaign ranged between capability and atrocity. The performance of the newly raised Waffen-SS Polizei-Division, under SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Polizei Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, embellished his reputation as the “top-soldier” of the Order Police. Other Waffen-SS formations played a minor part in the campaign, and two committed separate acts of slaughter against British prisoners of war (Le Paradis and Wormhoudt). The Order Police played a significant part in organizing the traffic system behind the armored thrusts of the army. Their mission involved locating favorable routes to maintain a steady flow of supplies and reinforcements; the NSKK assisted in handling the motor transportation pools. The police raised a rapid reaction force with a fire-defense-police (Feuerschutzpolizei) regiment, six traffic platoons, two traffic sections, and five radio detection detachments for technical emergencies such as city fires and for maintaining public utilities during the occupation. The radio detection teams worked to intercept propaganda and allied signals traffic.112 However, most significant after the campaign, Germany found itself in control of French, Dutch, and Belgium colonies.

  Himmler was forced to recognize the need for a colonial police department, not just for German and captured colonies, but within the breadth of SS-Police functions. Daluege initiated the regulation for a colonial service in June 1940. Bomhard drafted the regulations and, in July, issued the first instructions for police serving in the colonial department.113 On October 31, Daluege released further instructions for all senior SS-Police officers announcing the opening of a colonial police department.114 These instructions covered the basic details of service, including assignment periods, regulations, and codes of practice.115 In December, announcements were made for courses for district inspectors (Revierbezirksoffiziere) with the upper age limit of forty-eight. The Rhineland police presidents of Düsseldorf and Bochum were the first to send lists of potential candidates to Krakow, a collection center for the colonial service. The British assessed the required medical fitness for service in the tropics as measured by productive potential.116

  Hitler initiated the second phase in the development of the SS as a national security corporation and confirming their responsibility for Lebensraum policing. In August 1940, he assigned them the role of “state protection corps” (Staatsschutzkorps). The “Statement on the Future Armed State Police” was intended to clarify the status of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS. The statement formed the ideological direction for the Staatsschutzkorps. Hitler began by soothing the army: “Never again must the German Wehrmacht, now based on universal military service, be required to use its weapons against its own fellow-countrymen in times of internal crisis…. In future the Wehrmacht is solely and only to be used against the Reich’s external enemies.” The power of the Waffen-SS, he added, would not grow beyond 5 to 10 percent of the Wehrmacht. Hitler explained its mission in the context of Lebensraum. “In its final form the Greater German Reich will include within its frontiers peoples who will not necessarily in all cases be well disposed towards the Reich.” Beyond the “borders of the old Reich,” he concluded, “it will be necessary to create a state protection corps capable, whatever the situation, of representing and enforcing the authority of the Reich in the interior of the country concerned.” This Staatsschutzkorps was expected to carry out its duties with “men of the best German blood,” able to “resist subversive influences in times of crisis,” and with the “authority to carry out their duties as state police.”117 Scholars have argued without definite conclusion the impact of the Staatsschutzkorps announcement. They have generally focused on what this decision led to, emphasizing either the politicalracial solution to commit exterminatio
n, or the formation of a radical political soldiery operating beyond the boundaries of traditional military and police forces.118 Hitler’s Staatsschutzkorps decision was in fact the conclusion of the long struggle between the supporters of colonialism and his followers of Lebensraum. The status of the SS-Police within Nazi ambitions was finalized.

  In the accelerating momentum of preparations for the invasion of Russia, the SS-Police expanded its corporate size and functions. The Waffen-SS increased the size of its militarized formations.119 The Order Police took the significant step of raising a colonial police department. In January 1941, Daluege presented his annual senior commander’s report to his IdOs.120 He announced the promotion of Pfeffer-Wildenbruch as inspector of the colonial police. Pfeffer-Wildenbruch’s tasks included the improvement of infantry training within the colonial police service and the extension of the foreign languages program.121 Daluege visited the Berlin Colonial School and was pleasantly surprised to find six hundred colonial officers and fifteen hundred officials (Polizeibeamten) undergoing training.122 He maintained that this training was turning them into the best-qualified troops so they would not be an embarrassment as compared to troops from other colonial powers.123 On March 6, the colonial police department joined the central office of the Order Police (Kolonialpolizeiamt im Hauptamt Ordnungspolizei), regulated through the Ministry of the Interior. Ministerial staffs conducted the department’s public administration while senior police staff administered its operations.124 These developments progressed in line with Ludendorff’s maxims of preparing for total war, they complemented Hitler’s Lebensraum ambitions, and Himmler began to administer the Staatsschutzkorps within the national security ethos. As Leonie Wheeler correctly concluded, the SS and Police had become more “sophisticated than that of its prewar counterpart.”125

  Himmler’s Praetorian

  Operation “Babarossa,” the codename for the attack on Soviet Russia on June 22, 1941, was the catalyst for all subsequent SS-Police operations during the war. The campaign for Lebensraum was two-sided: the racial-ideological war against Jewish-Bolshevism hand in hand with the military conquest of Soviet Russian territory.126 To fully participate in the invasion, the SS introduced command components that became its standard operating procedure: policymaking and implementation; centralized command, communication, and control; and micromanagement of limited human resources. Hitler’s instructions for the attack on Russia were handed to Generalmajor Walter Warlimont of the Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW) for drafting them as military regulation, later known as the “Barbarossa directives.” The SS-Police and Wehrmacht singled out Jews, Soviet officials, and Red Army political commissars for execution under the auspices of the “Commissar Order” and other directives.127 These “criminal orders” were a license to kill, although not the great departure from German military traditions often professed by veterans and scholars.128 The directives, including the often-quoted Heydrich–Wagner settlement, included an agreement between Warlimont and Himmler made in March 1941. This agreement confirmed the frontiers of field security for both the army and SS. Behind the front lines, in the rear areas, senior SS officers and army intelligence officers were expected to share intelligence and orders for the roundup and killing of political opponents. This was a preemptive security strike intended to eradicate all racial and ideological resistance before political opponents could rally a counter-reaction. In theory, based on experience in Poland, this would bring about unhindered Lebensraum.129

  The SS applied its peculiar structures of command, communication, and control methods to the invasion. Leadership was highly visible in SS-Police culture. Predictably, Himmler draped himself in the mantle of strategos and carried on like a civil-military leader of antiquity. In the early part of the campaign, he visited armies, the SS-Police, and civilian administrators and was one of the few Nazi leaders to have a grasp on the overall campaign. He formed several command facilities. The first was a motor cavalcade codenamed “Wagenkolonne-RFSS”; the other, his special train Heinrich, was equipped as a communications center and was stabled close by Hitler’s headquarters at Rastenburg. Himmler dispatched a team of liaison officers into the field, personal representatives who freely entered SS-Police field command posts to monitor, measure, and report performances.130 Daluege lifted the marshal’s baton in the vain hope of becoming Feldherr, but this ambition outweighed his physical endurance. He also raised a command convoy codenamed “Wagenkolonne Daluege” and tramped around the rear areas inspecting “his” troops and overseeing killing actions.131 The convoy was slow and costly in fuel but carried a technically advanced radio-wireless capability.132 The field command system was based on Himmler’s trusted HSSPF structure. The leading personalities and their eventual commands were SS-Obergruppenführer Hans Prützmann (HSSPF Russia-South) in Kiev, SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski (HSSPF Russia-Centre) in Minsk, and SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln as (HSSPF Russia-South) in Riga.

  Owing to prejudices dating from the First World War, Hitler forced the army to replace the Etappen concept, which introduced complex structural formulae for rear-area armies instead. There was an integration of static rear-area units alongside the mobile and semimobile formations, purposely designed to meet the expectations in Russia. The leading personality among the security formations was the commander of the Rear Area Army of Army Group Centre, General of Infantry Max von Schenckendorff. He came to dominate the initial phases of Germany’s response to the Soviet partisan movement. Bach-Zelewski’s HSSPF initially came under the command of Schenckendorff. There is evidence to suggest that Bach-Zelewski had served under Schenckendorff at the end of the First World War.133 This was not the only coincidence. The Army Group commander was Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, the former chief of staff of Wehrkreis III. Bock was responsible for crushing the Buchrucker putsch, while the 29th Infantry Regiment came under his Wehrkreis responsibility. This ménage à trois indicates deliberate selection; these forces were meant to work together in an area designated for mass extermination and exploitation.

  In preparation for the invasion, in May 1941, Himmler established the Command Staff of the Reichsführer-SS (Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS, KSRFSS).134 He realized that the scale of tasks and diversity of his troops required a central command. Diagram I (p. 307) shows a chart illustrating the different branches of this organization. Yehoshua Büchler was one of the first scholars to recognize the lynchpin role of the KSRFSS and its influence in the killing operations in 1941.135 However, the functions of the KSRFSS were more complex than simply recording killing. The KSRFSS served as the model command for the Staatsschutzkorps concept. The primary task of the KSRFSS was to facilitate and support rapid decision making. Its routines involved monitoring the progress of all SS operations. This gave the SS a distinct advantage over the army in communications where conditions in Russia forced long lead times on decision making. Its war diary records a steady routine of collected information on security operations, killing actions, and the regular visits by dignitaries.136 Another of its tasks was regulation through preventing the dilettantes within the SS from derailing corporate progress. To this end, the senior staffs of KSRFSS were proven staff officers. The chief of staff, Kurt Knoblauch, was a deputy to Theodor Eicke, commander of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, and was noted for his obtuse behavior.137 Ernst Rode, the senior Order Police officer in the KSRFSS, served as chief of operations (designated Ia) and was experienced in coping with Daluege’s prickly character. The significance of the KSRFSS, therefore, was not conducting killing actions, but keeping the SS-Police establishment functioning, mindful of Clausewitz’s warnings of reducing friction in operations.

  The overall complement of the KSRFSS was approximately eighteen thousand troops. The principle combat formations within its remit were two SS-Infantry brigades and one SS-Cavalry brigade. It also carried support units such as the Waffen-SS geological detachment. Later in the campaign, significant numbers of foreign volunteers from
various western European countries joined these troops. The Waffen-SS component, largely reservists and only basic-trained recruits, was the backbone of the fighting formations. The three brigades were coordinated within a pooling arrangement to provide the maximum support for the three HSSPF. In effect, although under the direct control of KSRFSS, they were “loaned out” to reinforce HSSPF forces during specific actions. Each HSSPF commanded a dedicated police regiment of three battalions per regiment with mobility provided by motor vehicle sections from the NSKK. Detachments of Technische Nothilfe assigned to each regiment provided the HSSPF public works expertise. Thus, from the onset of the campaign, there was a large civilian component attached to SS-Police operations. 138