Zenner’s report almost certainly embarrassed Jeckeln and Bach-Zelewski, not in content but in the manner of its release to Himmler, their superior officer, constituting a break in protocol.48 Nevertheless, Himmler decided to test Zenner’s proposals in both Russia and in the HSSPF Alpenland covering Carinthia (Oberkrain) and Styria (Untersteiermark). This region had suffered from continuing partisan problems since mid-1941. The British had first intercepted signals in August 1941, confirming serious fighting in the area of Veldes (Slovenia). The German Police Battalion 181 had come under serious attack.49 The district army commander, General Bader, had countered Tito’s partisans with six divisions and very nearly caught them in encirclement. This was the first of several near misses when the Germans nearly destroyed Tito.50 Himmler’s order, on June 25, 1942, called for the application of Bandenbekämpfung. The HSSPF Alpenland, SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Polizei Erwin Rösener, was a well-known workaholic but had not recorded any particular expertise in combating partisans. Daluege received instructions from Himmler to provide Rösener with the assistance and support sufficient to cover operations for four weeks. The central command of the Waffen-SS (SS-Führungshauptamt) supplied heavy weapons, in particular rifle grenades, mortars, flamethrowers, and mountain field guns. Daluege also assigned several gendarmerie detachments. The Security Police and SD were ordered to deploy a reinforced Einsatzgruppen to cleanse the area. Local army reserve units were requested to assist in the operations but not at the expense of their training schedule. Significantly, Himmler ordered all German men in the region between seventeen and fifty-five to take up arms.51
Beside the order, Himmler issued specific guidelines for operations against “partisans” and other “bandits.” They stipulated that the security police should conduct a reconnaissance of the region and make an intelligence assessment to locate the bands’ leaders. He ordered the task force to encircle, blockade, and clear the area in coordination with the Landesschützen, reserve police troops and army reserve. The security police were to assault the heart of the “bandits” and decapitate their leaders. The escaping “bandits,” dissipated and splintered in combat, were to be killed in flight and the escapees to be pursued, hunted down, and executed. The decision to impose punishment (Strafaktion) against villages guilty of supporting the “bandits” was passed on to the field commanders. Their job was to segregate the “bandit”-supporting villagers from the rest of the population or community. All men of guilty families and their immediate family circle (Sippe) were brought under an automatic death penalty. All the women were sent to concentration camps and their children were deported to Austria for racial examination and adoption. The SS confiscated households as property of the state. The purpose of the operation, according to Himmler, was to liberate the friendly from the unfriendly. For this action, he ordered the troops to conduct themselves appropriately in great expectation for their success even in the difficult mountainous region.52
Between June 13 and July 9, Bach-Zelewski was heavily committed in joint SS and Wehrmacht security operations. On June 17, he met Oskar Dirlewanger and the commanders of the Police Battalions 51 and 122. He awarded Iron Crosses to Oberst Worms and Oberst Schimana on June 25. He wrote in his diary of his suspicion of the reliability of the Russian auxiliary police of the Ordnungsdienst (OD). Three days later, the partisans shot a member of a collaborator family during a wave of incidents in the Mogilev area. During an operation on July 5, the OD was excluded and the SS surprised fifty-four partisans and shot them. This confirmed Bach-Zelewski’s opinion of the unreliability of the OD.53 On July 9, Himmler held a senior command conference. Those attending included Daluege, Bomhard, three eastern HSSPFs (Krüger from Poland, Bach-Zelewski, and Prützmann), and two SSPF officers, Zenner and Odilo Globocnik from Lublin. Heinrich Müller (chief of the Gestapo), Bruno Streckenbach (RSHA), and Dr. Erhard Schöngarth (BdS Kraków), the former SD-Einsatzgruppen field commander, represented the SD and Gestapo.54 From the SS field branches came Kurt Knoblauch, the chief of staff of the KSRFSS; SS-Brigadeführer Willi Bittrich, the newly promoted commander of the SS-Cavalry Division; and police generals Herbert Becker (BdO General Government) and Georg Jedicke (BdO Ostland), one of Daluege’s senior officers. Hannes Heer suggests that during this meeting Himmler announced his intention of taking control of all Nazi field security.55 On July 27, Himmler’s appointments diary referred to Bandenbekämpfung for the first time, although it was not yet official policy, indicating that the planning phase had ended.56 In correspondence with Himmler, Daluege asked who was going to be responsible for this new policy and received the curt reply “me personally” (ich persönlich). Himmler explained that, in practice, the HSSPF would take charge locally and field commanders were responsible for combat. Given that, Daluege was asking these questions, having attended the meeting of July 9, suggests that the conference was predominately ideological in content and not about implementation.57
In the period prior to the introduction of Bandenbekämpfung, Himmler concentrated on outlawing partisans as “bandits.” He took on the demeanor of the high priest of Bandenbekämpfung. Himmler challenged the use of such “heroic” terms as partisan, guerrilla, and freedom fighter as inappropriate descriptions of the Jewish-Bolshevik “evil” of terrorists, “bandits,” and outlaws. He understood that it was necessary to prevent the emergence of a heroic “bandit” figure. In a file memo titled, “Thoughts on the Word ‘Partisan,’” Himmler complained about the deliberate corruption of the word “partisan” by the Soviets. “In the concept of the partisan, Bolshevism tries to promote banditry to a national status,” he explained apropos this new mission of selective attrition. “We have challenged this newly coined status by the Jewish-Bolshevik sub-humans [Untermensch], and have fought to remove the ‘bandits’ from within the population.”58 From July 31, he waged a vigorous paper war over correct terminology; the word “partisan” was no longer acceptable; it was superseded by “bandit,” franc-tireur, or outlaw.59 This was justified because the Soviets had adopted the term “partisan” to disguise their criminal activities in a “Bolshevik plot conceived by a Jewish propaganda swindle.” Himmler added, “bandits who fire their underhand shots, and commit their acts of sabotage as snipers, franc-tireurs and highway-robbers [Strassenräuber] then flee, hoping to very often encumber the innocent inhabitants of the country, will be held responsible for their deeds.”60
On August 12, Himmler issued an SS order that explained on “psychological grounds” why the word “partisan” was no longer acceptable. He reiterated the opinion that Bolshevism had corrupted the original term and that in future correspondence only “Banditen” or “Frank-Tireur” was acceptable. Himmler stressed the importance of differentiating between the “quiet people” and the snipers (Heckenschützen) and of deterring the “quiet people” from siding with the “bandits.”61 The description of “bandits” in field reports, however, remained inconsistent. To counter Soviet propaganda and partisan incursions, and endorse the righteousness of his strategy, Himmler ordered a propaganda campaign to begin leafleting the inhabitants of Russian villages. The leaflets warned the largely peasant populations that Moscow’s use of the term “partisan” was neither heroic nor patriotic. The message warned that German soldiers would shoot anyone who supported the “bandits” or allowed them into their homes. In a letter to the SS-propaganda unit, Himmler expected reports of actions to reflect accurately the facts through official terminology (i.e., Banden, Banditen-Bekämpfung, or Franktireur-Bekämpfung).62 From then on, the SS internal publicity unit, the SS-Standarte “Kurt Eggers,” standardized this terminology in all its newsprint and publications.63 William Combs, however, found that the coverage of Bandenbekämpfung in the SS corporate self-promotional publication, Das Schwarze Korps, was sporadic and limited to fewer than a dozen examples of “bandit” hunts.64
Directive 46
Until August 1942, issuing regulations for the combating of partisans was largely a hit-and-miss affair between OK
W and the Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, OKH), with the occasional interference from Hitler in July and September 1941. Since the introduction of the “Barbarossa” directives, the armed forces had fumbled with security regulations. This reflected the difficulty of gauging the scale of the resistance that Stalin had initiated in July 1941 and its growing sophistication. In response to the intensified partisan activity, OKH distributed Field Marshal Brauchitsch’s guidelines of October 25. They codified existing German practices and began a process of building a common doctrine for all forces committed to security. These guidelines were oriented toward prescribing operations by scale and planning and by encouraging initiative and aggression. Brauchitsch’s initiative was proactive and biased toward the German tradition of responding aggressively toward incursions.65 When Schenckendorff tried to raise awareness of the security problem, he was attempting to contain it within this existing doctrine. Himmler’s Bandenbekämpfung took a fundamentally different direction in the first instance by accepting that Lebensraum had happened. The criminalization of the partisan was the first step in interpreting the laws of conquest rather than war. When OKW issued Führer Directive No. 46, “Instructions for Intensified Action against Banditry in the East” (Richtlinien für die verstärkte Bekämpfung des Bandenunwesens im Osten), in August 1942, it confirmed that Germany would treat the conquered lands as Germanized.66
To the untutored, the plethora of Führer orders (Führerbefehl) and Führer directives (Führerweisungen) can befuddle the mind. Wrapped together in the concept of the Führer principle (Führerprinzip), they formed a peculiar triangulated equation of decision making. The Führer, or leader principle, was in theory a strict centralizing and hierarchical methodology but in practice the excuse that allowed those approved worthy to manipulate Nazi and military power. What Kershaw described as “working towards the Führer” involved a complex cycle of encouraging initiative and constructing regulatory devices to promote a climate for further motivating initiative.67 Hugh Trevor-Roper and Walter Hubatsch agreed that the “order” and the “directive” were both binding but that in the directive, the manner of execution was left to the initiative of the responsible subordinate. Thus, a Führer order in this context was inflexible, whereas the Führer directive was flexible in its application. The directives usually followed a pattern not unlike a prescription, first explaining the condition, then offering remedial instructions, and finally providing some form of answer. Directive No. 46 followed the prescriptive formula and was broad enough to allow dynamic initiative. This was not what made it exceptional.
The thrust of the directive was official confirmation that Nazi Germany outlawed the Soviet partisans as political “bandits.” This equated combating partisans with combating gangsters or gangsterism. The rules of engagement covered six points of general principles in forming countermeasures to the “bandit.” The first reinforced the strategic status of Bandenbekämpfung. All existing operational headquarters staffs, irrespective of organization or arm, were required to deploy resources to conduct Bandenbekämpfung. The second point ordered the troops to take the initiative against banditry and its supporters, sanctioning all extreme measures. The remaining instructions were concerned with the handling of civilians. The third point recommended that those conducting security operations should regain the confidence of civilians through just treatment. To undermine local support for the “bandits,” the fourth point of the directive stipulated that the local populace should receive the minimum level of sustenance. In the fifth point, the troops received a warning to gain the cooperation of the populace. This reflected the stick-and-carrot intent of the directive—rewards for cooperation and collaboration and severe punitive measures for aiding the “bandits.” This placed the civilian in an arbitrarily decided position of innocence or labeled him as a “bandit-suspect” (Bandenverdächtige). A final contradictory point warned against misplaced confidence in relying on indigenous population, especially among those employed by the Germans.68
The strategic orientation of the directive was extermination and mobilization, with an operational emphasis on cooperation between the SS and Wehrmacht. The division of labor was simplified: the army was to clear “bandits” and mobilize civilians in the front area (Operationsgebiet), while the SS-Police administered racial cleansing and securing Lebensraum. The directive integrated Zenner’s proposal for the transfer of reserves and rear-area depots, thereby turning annexed territory into German lands. A time frame was included in the directive to bring about a repositioning of military assets into the security zone. Four key decisions were placed on the army. The first turned the General Government of Poland into a “Home Forces” area with two reserve army divisions. Second, scheduled for completion by October 15, 1942, Hitler ordered the transfer of five reserve army divisions into the Baltic area and Ukraine. Third, all formations, staff, depots, and military academies stationed in the General Government of Poland redeployed east into rear areas and security zones of occupied Russia by October 1. Finally, a target was set to transfer fifty thousand soldiers from the reserve army into the forward operational areas by the end of October. The directive stipulated that the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe should also transfer combat units to areas threatened by “bandits” to reinforce the garrisons already in Russia. Completing the deployment program and making the directive a national security regulation, the “auxiliary forces,” a plethora of Nazi and state organizations, were given license to carry out Bandenbekämpfung. This included the Reich Labor Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst), railwaymen security troops (Eisenbahntruppen), state foresters (Reichsforstamt), and agricultural overseers (Landwirtschaftsführer). Hitler ruled that these organizations should be armed to defend themselves.69
Early in August 1942, Hitler revealed his impression of combating partisans. He compared it to the struggle waged in North America against “Red Indians.” This was a telling remark, possibly originating from his fascination with Karl May novels and offering an insight into his perception of Lebensraum as life on the frontier.70 The form of Directive 46 was a set of strategic instructions and rules of engagement. Hitler in this directive revealed his Catholic loathing for “banditry,” reflecting the received wisdom of the time, and he was at ease with the prospect of burning alive thousands of innocent men, women, and children to exterminate “bandits.” He wished to lodge these sentiments in the German mindset by granting the freedom to wage active or passive Bandenbekämpfung. To meet Hitler’s sentiments, Himmler had little problem choosing Bach-Zelewski to become his expert.
Following a long meeting between Bach-Zelewski and Himmler, on September 9, the reorganization process took on a new vigor. Bach-Zelewski joined a number of senior SS guests attending a typical Himmler business luncheon and, at 7:00 p.m., discovered the reason for his attendance. Himmler decided to make Bach-Zelewski inspector of Bandenbekämpfung (Inspekteur für die Bandenbekämpfung im gesamten Ostgebiet) for the complete eastern area for a trial period.71 Bach-Zelewski had still to report to both Schenckendorff and Himmler. The OKW officer responsible for monitoring the progress of Bandenbekämpfung was Maj. Gen. Walter Warlimont, deputy chief of the OKW operations department (Wehrmachtführungsstab–WFSt) responsible for planning. He was also a logical choice because, since March 1941, he had been involved in drafting the “Barbarossa” regulations, and once the campaign was under way, he had advised Hitler every two weeks on the partisan situation.72
The new Bandenbekämpfung regulations did not stop bickering between the Nazis. The SS was directly responsible for policing and guarding the territories designated as Reichskommissariate. The German civilian occupation of Soviet Russia was administered from Berlin by the Reich Ministry of the Eastern Occupied Territories (known as the Ostministerium), which in theory controlled two zones—Ostland (an area comparable with the former Ober Ost) and the Ukraine. Since these lands were to be integrated into the empire, the Reichskommissars were also Gauleiters from Germany and took up permanent residence in
their respective territories. The Reichskommissar for the Ukraine, Erich Koch, was Gauleiter of East Prussia, and he extended his power base into the Ukraine through a political land bridge through Bialystok. In other words, Koch’s territorial power bisected Bach-Zelewski’s security environment. After the Schacht incident of 1935 when Bach-Zelewski protested against Schacht’s compliments of Koch, whom he considered inferior and corrupt, relations were permanently marred between Bach-Zelewski and Koch. Since 1941, Koch had depended on two senior SS officers. His HSSPF for both East Prussia and the Ukraine was Hans-Adolf Prützmann. Koch was assigned Jakob Sporrenberg as his security police advisor in 1936. Sporrenberg had calmed the situation after Koch’s contretemps with Bach-Zelewski, and in 1941, he became Koch’s SSPF-without portfolio until March 1943. Koch had built a reputation as a repulsive and brutal character who exploited his membership of Göring’s social clique. The introduction of Bandenbekämpfung and its control by Bach-Zelewski set in train another bout of trouble between the SS and Koch.
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