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

by Philip W. Blood

  There is a chilling, absolute silence among the former German armed forces regarding Vercors. Oradour has been subject to criminal investigation and scholarly debate since June 1944. Charles Sydnor elected to blame Heinz Lammerding, with his extensive experience of Bandenbekämpfung operations in Russia, and his responsibility for killing fifteen thousand Soviet partisans and more civilians.109 After the war SS apologists described their Bandenbekämpfung actions against the French resistance in the modern parlance of antiterrorism. Former SS veterans of the regiment believed they had a plausible excuse. They insisted that the regiment had been severely mauled in Russia and took its replacements from Alsace-Lorraine. These men were not volunteers but conscripts, and many deserted. The German contingent, with families in Germany, were badly shaken by the continual reports of bombing made worse by the lack of leave, heightening their general state of frustration. The large number of “bandit” incidents and the general state of resistance made their “normal” life intolerable. The brutal murder of their SS comrades was an act illegal under the laws of war. There had been “bandit” attacks in the neighboring town of Tulle. They even blamed the deaths of the women and children on the accidental discharge of explosives (“bandit” weapons) blowing up in the town and burning down the church from within (which cannot explain why they sealed the church, preventing escapes). Another story claimed that the officer responsible for Oradour had somehow atoned by risking his life for his comrades and was killed in combat in Normandy.110

  Today, evidence held by the Public Records Office in London is available for scholars to examine. From June 1944, large numbers of German prisoners of war were brought to Britain for interrogation. On July 2, 1944, twenty-two men of SS-Panzer Grenadier Regiment 4, Der Führer, were interrogated at Kempton Park Camp by Capt. “Bunny” Pantcheff of the Prisoner of War Intelligence Section (PWIS). All reputed to be Alsatians, they confirmed that when their division moved north there were serious incidents with partisans. They maintained that a village by River Garonne had been searched (a map was drawn) and the men dragged into the square. There were no interrogations of the citizens. They alleged that on June 11, the commander of the 3rd Battalion had been captured by partisans. They maintained that all houses were searched; explosives were found in one, and that house was destroyed.111 Later in August 1944, POW Jean Ertle, formerly of the 10th Company, Der Führer, stated that SS-Sturmbannführer Kämpfer had been kidnapped by Frenchmen.112 On July 7, Pantcheff had the fortune to interview four SS panzer grenadiers from the 3rd Platoon of the 3rd Company, Der Führer. They indicated that the 3rd Platoon had formed a cordon around Oradour on June 10. The 1st and 2nd platoons had shot the men with machine guns. The women and children collected in the church received machine-gun fire and grenades. The church was deliberately set on fire, “the screams of the victims [who survived the machine-gun and grenade assault] could be heard quite clearly outside the church.” During the interview, one incident was remembered in which a twelve-year-old girl jumped from a window, broke her ankle, and was shot. Pantcheff recorded, “The village doctor with his wife and three children returned later from Limoges and were shot immediately…. The village was then burned to the ground. The entire population of almost 500 was completely wiped out.” 113

  In follow-up interrogations, other men from the Der Führer regiment revealed further information about the performance of the regiment. SS-Mann Rene Banzet, captured on June 17 in Normandy, was an eighteen-year-old Alsatian who had deserted with Martin Müller; both were from the 1st Company. Banzet had witnessed men of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd companies hanging women from telegraph poles. Men were machine-gunned to death in village squares allegedly for membership in the Maquis.114 Georg Wolber, an SS-Sturmann from the 2nd Company, was interviewed in a POW hospital and admitted to overhearing gossip regarding the atrocity. He believed SS-Sturmbannführer Kämper’s staff car was “found shot up in the village.”115 On October 11, SS-Sturmann Fritz Ehlev (12th Company), a ninteen-year-old from Insterburg in East Prussia, confessed to Captain Kettler that he had heard of the Oradour massacre. He said gossip from his comrades, SS-Rottenführer Budre and SS-Sturmann Hinz, attributed the crime to the 4th Company. He also confessed to having “observed” SS-Unterscharführer Wust (12th Company), a Dresdener, raping two French girls in the village of Yuret.116 Adalbert Lutkemeier, an SS panzer grenadier from the 10th Company, related various incidents in southern France. He admitted to watching two Frenchmen being hanged by their wrists, while SS-Unterscharführer Rätsch and SS-Rottenführer Wolters (1st Company) beat them with sticks to exact information.117 Finally, in June 1945, SS-Oberscharführer Karl Lenz (3rd Company) stated under interrogation that the headquarters platoon of the 1st Battalion was in the village. This unit was composed of thirty-five SS troopers but was strengthened with men from other companies. He believed that the 1st Company was not implicated but that the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th companies had cordoned off the village. The 2nd Platoon of the 3rd Company was “located at the time on high ground and was able to see what was going on in the village, i.e. women being locked up in the Church, the burning of the Church etc.” Lenz mentioned SS-Sturmbannführer Dickmann (commanding officer of the 1st Battalion) but judged SS-Hauptsturmführer Kahn (Dickmann’s second in command and officer commanding the 3rd Company) as “the leader implicated in the atrocity.”118 In an East Berlin courtroom in 1982, former SS officer Heinz Barth was found guilty of leading a detachment of troops from the Der Führer during the Oradour atrocity as well as of participating in the five killing actions in Czechoslovakia following Heydrich’s assassination. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, to find that his first muster formation was Reserve Police Battalion Kolin.119

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  In August 1944, an uprising broke out in Slovakia. This uprising, one of the least known events of the war, has been overshadowed by the Warsaw uprising in the historiography. It lasted between two and four months, although scholars remain undecided over its precise duration.120 “On 23 August,” Reitlinger wrote, “a black day that saw the loss of Paris and the surrender of Rumania, rebellion broke out in the small republic of Slovakia. This was a still more dangerous situation than that of Warsaw, because the rebellion cut off the retreat of the routed German 8th Army in Galicia.”121 The Slovakian version of the uprising identifies three phases: initial uprising, guerrilla warfare, and the final phase when the Red Army entered Slovakia.122 Walter Laqueur, however, argues that the uprising was bungled and badly timed.123 Hitler placed SS-Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger in command to suppress the revolt. In similar circumstances to Bach-Zelewski’s notification of command over Warsaw, Berger testified in 1947 that he received word of his new command by telephone from Fegelein.124 The situation was unclear to the Germans, concerned for the wider impact on military and economic matters in the region. Berger set off for Vienna, arriving the evening of September 1, and was immediately advised of the considerable forces under his command, according to French MacLean.125 Berger recalled that his orders were “the immediate disarmament of the Slovak Army … the setting up of labor battalions; the arrest of General Caclo; the safeguarding of President Tiso.”126 The uprising dragged on into 1945. The Germans sent in the Dirlewanger formation, under the command of Walter Schimana. During the fighting, an allied military mission was captured. According to the German press, the men received a court-martial, were found guilty, and were executed. The reverberations reached London and Washington, D.C. Henry Stimson, U.S. secretary of war, in correspondence with the secretary of state, explained the meaning of Hitler’s Commando Order and its implications and expressed outrage that their men were in uniform but treated as spies.127

  Since December 1943, the situation in Hungary had concerned Hitler. The Red Army had revealed just how sensitive the Germans were about the area with the efforts to block Kovpak. The Red Army’s autumn 1943 onslaught had brought them to within striking distance of the region. This caused Hitler another dilemma; not only was Hungary part of the Axis
, the oil fields of Rumania represented his last strategic oil reserve. Gehlen had been gathering information about the movement of partisans from Russia toward Hungary, and in March 1944, he advised Hitler that a band of six thousand Jews was threatening the oil fields.128 It is hard to know if this triggered the last extensive atrocity of the Jews, but its proximity to events seems more than coincidental. In March, Hitler ordered Operation “Margarethe,” four German army corps, to Hungary. Himmler sent Winkelmann to become HSSPF Hungary.129 In April, Himmler reproached Winkelmann, saying, “He is not to ask continually for orders but to act. His activity is too little in evidence; he is to show ruthless energy in this grave hour by grasping and organising affairs; he must be guided by sound sense and honour.”130 Again this corresponds with Himmler’s interference elsewhere.

  By September 1944, with two uprisings on either side of Hungary, Hitler was again concerned about potential defection. The British noted,

  Jews are still rounded up and deported to Poland. BdS Hungary informs RSHA Berlin that a special train is leaving Sarvar on 4 August for Auschwitz with 1,296 Jews, no doubt for the concentration camp there. Of their treatment nothing is said in these sources, but it may be noted that a message about chemicals for use in malarial districts and therefore to destroy mosquitoes is addressed to Auschwitz for the attention of Himmler’s special commissioner for the combating of animal pests.131

  To secure Hungarian loyalty, Hitler dispatched his notorious double-act of Bach-Zelewski and Skorzeny.132 The consequences have become legend. The story told by Skorzeny was that Bach-Zelewski intended to destroy Budapest with the siege artillery used in the destruction of Warsaw. According to Skorzeny, Bach-Zelewski wanted to exact revenge on the Hungarians for their official complaint to Hitler over his use of Ukrainians in Warsaw. Skorzeny conducted a daring raid, kidnapping Horthy’s son and blackmailing the father into remaining loyal. Bach-Zelewski, made redundant by Skorzeny’s actions, was sent packing to Germany to prepare for command in the Ardennes offensive. 133 It was in Skorzeny’s interest to accuse Bach-Zelewski, but his bravura performance came at a time when he himself was facing criminal charges.134 It is more likely that Skorzeny planned the subterfuge while Bach-Zelewski threatened city-wide destruction and that both were enough for Horthy to remain loyal. Bach-Zelewski was reticent about the subject and mentioned in passing that Hitler had given him the assignment personally; his diary indicates only his arrival and departure from Budapest.135 Later, in evidence in the Eichmann trial (1961), he confessed that Hitler ordered him to Budapest to form a military government. He alleged that it was through his urging that Horthy capitulated at 6:00 a.m. on October 16, 1944.136

  Just as the accordion-like German occupation system extended with victory, so too it contracted with collapse. The British began to scent a general collapse as early as November 1944 when they noted that German refugees were, in fact, ethnic Germans trying to escape partisan vengeance.137 In Hungary the situation around Budapest deteriorated rapidly. The Waffen-SS took command of the city under Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, commander of IX SS Corps, no longer responsible for SS-Police colonial affairs. The IX SS Corps included the 8th SS-Cavalry Division Florian Geyer, the last incarnation of the SS-Cavalry Brigade. On December 21, two hundred German parachutists landed in the Hunyadi district, behind Russian lines, in an attempt to conduct sabotage and political warfare and stall the advance of the Red Army. Winkelmann requested Jüttner to hand their control over to the RSHA and to form an SS-Jagdverband.138 The city was surrounded by the Red Army and a state of siege announced by the Schutzpolizei on December 27. The SS garrison surrendered on February 11, 1945. Felix Steiner, a former senior Waffen-SS officer, praised Pfeffer-Wildenbruch’s performance for his tenacious “6th Army-like,” Stalingrad-style defense of the city.139

  Collapse left a surfeit of redundant headquarters units. From August 1944 onward, all across Europe, staff formations mass migrated to the safety of the Reich.140 The final weeks saw Himmler’s police command system fracture into a north-south divide with Wünnenberg in overall command in Berlin.141 They became the Chef der Ordnungspolizei Nord (Flensburg) and the Chef der Ordnungspolizei Süd (Tyrol) and continued to operate for weeks after the war.142 As late as February 1945, Carinthia was declared a Bandenkampfgebiet. Along with other band-infested areas of the region, the SS began to wage Bandenbekämpfung inside Austrian borders.143 In March, Gehlen issued his last official “bandit situation reports.” This covered the period November 1944 to February 1945; it presented a broad picture of partisan incursions joining the advancing allied armies. Gehlen identified Polish, Czech, Croat, Slovak, and Russian “bandits” flocking to the fronts. He continued to categorize nationalist and Communist bands and made the usual derogatory remarks about Jewish bands and their tendency for intensified criminality.144 The British monitored 10th SS-Police Regiment, SS-Police Regiment Bozen, an Italian volunteer police battalion, and 12th SS-Police Regiment, all in action against Italian partisans. Rösener and Globocnik had formed a Bandenstab, in Prevalko, to stabilize operations in Istria. Rösener received a message from the 4th Section Signals Interception Detachment, warning that Tito had declared a general mobilization of the Save district.145 On April 6, Rösener reported that German armed forces were mutinying and requested assistance in preventing arms from reaching the partisans. Later, Rösener reported that he had introduced the training of five Wehrwolf detachments.146

  In the last days of the Nazi regime, there were outbreaks of open opposition to Hitler stirred by the absence of armed authority.147 In March 1945, Ritter von Epp attempted to make contact with OSS agents offering to negotiate with the German army in the south to end all fighting.148 In April, the Bavarian liberation movement (Freiheitsaktion Bayern) surfaced. The rebels declared a “pheasant hunt” (Fasanenjagd) of Nazi officials.149 They approached Epp to endorse their uprising; he equivocated. German security forces swiftly crushed the insurrection. Through denunciation, arrest, and the threat of execution, they defeated the rebels. A drumhead court-martial, convened by the commandant of Munich, imposed death sentences against Count Rittberg, a staff officer from Army Group South, and Major Caracciola, the Wehrmacht liaison officer assigned to Epp, who coincidently was the rebel leader. In the end, Epp proved his true character by surrendering quietly to the Americans. The SS continued to execute civilians, including a vicar and a teacher, for hoisting the blue and white flag of Bavaria above the church tower of Götting.150 They imposed their authority over Münstertal (Baden), on April 15–20, when the SS-Jagdverbände-Süd executed two deserters and a priest for making insulting and inflammatory remarks about the deteriorating military situation.151 On April 10, Skorzeny took himself off to Vienna, to rescue his family. His memoirs referred to crossing the Floridsdorf Bridge in Vienna and forcing a sergeant in the army to surrender a truck full of furniture to nobly carry German wounded.152 British intercepts indicate that he sent a signal ordering the execution of three officers he personally judged traitors. The men were hanged from the same Floridsdorf Bridge, but this episode was not mentioned in his memoirs, nor was the fact that the bridge served to affect his escape.153

  Skorzeny also failed to comment that he remained with Kaltenbrunner to the end. He planned, if Hoettl is to be believed, to become the general of Nazi resistance; Kaltenbrunner called him “the partisan Napoleon.”154 On April 22, Ernst Rode was requested to attend a meeting with Kaltenbrunner in Aigen, near Salzburg. During the meeting, it came to light that Karl Wolff was about to surrender in Italy. Peter Black noted that Kaltenbrunner had stumbled over Wolff’s secret because he himself had tried to make contact with the OSS.155 The discussion, however, turned on Austria. Berger, in communication to the meeting from Munich, claimed parallel authority with Kaltenbrunner and control of southern Germany. Rode reputedly told both Berger and Kaltenbrunner that their authorities were worthless and sent a message of that effect to Himmler. He then took it on himself to deliver Himmler’s train to the OKW south for use as a mobile
headquarters.156 With the SS operational headquarters safely ensconced in Augsburg, the SS-Police commands divided, and all out of reach of the Red Army, the SS began their final acts of betrayal and self-protection. In Berlin, Fegelein absented himself from Hitler’s bunker on April 27, 1945. He was found in civilian clothing; Hitler ordered his execution for cowardice.157 Two days later, the BBC announced that Himmler had attempted to negotiate a separate peace.158 Himmler later excused his betrayal on the grounds that “Hitler was insane. It should have been stopped long ago.”159

  To many across Europe, the war ended on May 8; this was not the case in southern Europe. Wolff surrendered the SS-Police forces to the Allies on May 2, 1945. Ordered not to pass weapons to Italian partisans by Field Marshal Alexander, he proved the exception.160 Delaying actions offered precious hours for German soldiers, civilians, and collaborators to escape partisan gun law. The SS-Division Galician marched into British captivity on May 10, 1945, in Austria.161 The Bosnian Handschar Division disintegrated; some went home, others stayed with their German officers and tried to effect capture by the Anglo-Americans. Some were set upon by Austrian freedom fighters or Tito’s partisans. The rump surrendered to the British on May 15.162 The Prinz Eugen Division, fighting the partisans on May 6, desperately tried to escape toward Austria. Caught up among the masses of frightened refugees and fleeing remnants of German forces, it continued rearguard actions until May 15. In a surreal world of chaos and collapse, collective memories of this time include final farewell parades by unit commanders and vicious firefights with partisans. The remnants eventually surrendered along with one hundred fifty thousand German troops taken into captivity by Tito’s partisans.163 On May 12, Kaltenbrunner was located in hiding and arrested by the U.S. Army. Fear had kept the fighting in effect until May 15, 1945, when Rösener and the Bandenstab Laibach finally surrendered. For all of Rösener’s failings, his forces were the last of the Bandenkampfverbände to lay down their arms. On May 18, Skorzeny surrendered to the U.S. Army in Styria. On May 23, Himmler committed suicide in Schleswig-Holstein; Prützmann had a few days earlier; both did so while in British captivity. Globocnik fled to Carinthia and, on May 31, was cornered by British troops; he also chose suicide.164 To the great relief of the rest of the world, it was over.