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

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by Philip W. Blood


  86. Noakes & Pridham, II, 553–65.

  87. BA R19/414, letter Himmler to Bormann, Betr. Berufschule January 17, 1939.

  88. Creveld, Supplying War, 142–7.

  89. NCA, document PS-2322, Hitler’s speech to the Reichstag, September 1, 1939.

  90. Noakes, IV, 137–8.

  91. Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 63–4.

  92. NARA, RG242, BDC A3345-OS-5045, Vortrag über Die Deutsche Ordnungspolizei, Generalmajor der Polizei Querner, BdO Hamburg, September 2, 1940 (referred to as the Querner report).

  93. NARA, RG242, BDC, A3345-B-171, Karl Lautenschläger, Handbuch für den Hilfs-Polizeibeamten (Berlin, 1939). Interestingly, Krichbaum adapted the same source to itemize the duties of the GFP in Russia and France, mentioned in NARA, RG338, FMS, C-029, The German Secret Field Police, Oberst Wilhelm Krichbaum, May 18, 1947.

  94. NCA, document 647-PS, Führer directive, August 17, 1938.

  95. Ruth Bettina Birn, Die Höheren SS-und Polizeiführer: Himmlers Vertreter im Reich und in den besetzten Gebieten (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1986).

  96. NARA T1270/23/0519, interrogation of Adolf von Bomhard, June 27, 1945.

  97. Noakes & Pridham, III, 928.

  98. Alexander B. Rossino, “Destructive Impulses: German Soldiers and the Conquest of Poland,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 2 (Winter 1997), 351–65. See also Alexander B. Rossino, Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology and Atrocity (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2003).

  99. NARA, RG242, T580, numerous incidents of banditry in the Polish forests in 1940, handled by the Gendarmerie.

  100. TVDB, 132–3; Wolfgang Jacobmeyer, Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen 1939–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1975); and Jan Tomasz Gross, Polish Society under German Occupation: The Generalgouvernment 1939–1944 (New Haven, Conn.: Princeton University Press, 1979), 162.

  101. Leonie Wheeler, “The SS and the Administration of Nazi Occupied Eastern Europe, 1939–1945,” (Phil. diss., University of Oxford, 1981), 63–76.

  102. Czeskaw Madajczyk, Die Okkupationspolitik Nazideutschlands in Polen 19391945, (Stottgary: Akademie, 1987).

  103. Noakes & Pridham, III, 924.

  104. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 18, October 3, 1940.

  105. Mark C. Yerger, Allgemeine-SS: The Commands, Units and Leaders of the General SS (Winnepeg, Canada: J. J. Fedorowicz, 1997), 37.

  106. NARA, RG242, A3343-SS0-023, Bach-Zelewski, letter April 26, 1939.

  107. Friedman, Bach-Zelewski, 8.

  108. Wanda Machlejd (ed.), War Crimes in Poland: Erich von dem Bach (Warsaw: Zachodnia Agencja Prasowa, 1961), 27–31. Wanda was seventeen when she served in the resistance during the Warsaw uprising (refer to chapter 8) and, after her capture, managed to survive Belsen concentration camp. She was released in 1945.

  109. NARA, RG242, A3343-SS0-023, Bach-Zelewski, letter to Himmler, December 4, 1940.

  110. Ibid, Bach-Zelewski. Himmler replied wishing him success, December 23, 1940.

  111. BA R19/414, Daluege to Adolf von Bomhard, Betr. Kolonialpolizeigesetz, July 3, 1940.

  112. The Querner Report; NCA, document 2168-PS; and Ernst Bayer, Die SA (Berlin: Luennhaupt, 1938). See also John R. Angolia and David Littlejohn, NSKK and NSFK: Uniforms, Organisation and History (San Jose, Calif.: Bender, 1994).

  113. BA R19/15, Adolf von Bomhard, July 2, 1940. Betr. Meister (SB) und Wachtmeister (SB) der Schutzpolizei des Reiches, der Gendarmerie und der Schutzpolizei der Gemeinden, die sich fuer den Kolonialdienst gemeldet haben.

  114. BA R19/15, Daluege, RFSS O.Kdo PII (2e) 1 Nr. 1/40, Betr. Kolonialpolizei, October 31, 1940.

  115. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 23, November 17, 1940.

  116. PRO, HW16, GPD104-105-106-107, December 3, 1940.

  117. NCA document D-665; also in Martin Broszat and Hemut Krausnick, Anatomy of the SS State (London: Collins, 1968), 264–5.

  118. Bramstedt, Political Police, 87–90; Bracher, The German Dictatorship, 442.

  119. George H. Stein, Waffen-SS: Hitler’s Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1966).

  120. NARA, RG242, T580, roll 216, Ansprache des Oberbefehlshabers der Ordnungspolizei anläβlich der Tagung der Inspekteure der Ordnungspolizei, January 21, 1941.

  121. Mark C. Yerger, Waffen SS Commanders: The Army, Corps and Division Leaders of a Legend-Augsberger to Kreutz (Atglen, Pa.: Schiffer, 1997), 146–8.

  122. NARA RG242, T175/13/2515813-90. Eventually, there were two colonial police academies, in Berlin-Oranienburg and Vienna.

  123. NARA, RG242, T580, roll 216, Ansprache des Chefs der Ordnungspolizei anlässlich der Tagung der Inspekteure der Ordnungspolizei am January 21, 1941, 24.

  124. BA R19/36, Errichtung eines Kolonialpolizeiamtes beim Hauptamt Ordnungspolizei, 0-HB 53 Nr2/41, Chef der Ordnungspolizei, March 6, 1941. See also BA R470.

  125. Wheeler, “The SS and the Administration of Nazi Occupied Eastern Europe,” 76.

  126. The essential companion on this subject is Rolf-Dieter Müller and Gerd R. Ueberschar, Hitler’s War in the East 1941–1945: A Critical Assessment (Oxford: Berghahn, 1997); and Horst Boog et al., trans. Dean S. McMurray, Ewald Osers, and Louise Willmot, Germany and the Second World War: The Attack on the Soviet Union, vol. 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), hereafter referred to as DZWK.

  127. Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1978), 83–125; Christian Streit, “The German Army and the Policies of Genocide,” in Gerhard Hirschfeld, The Policies of Genocide: Jews and Soviet Prisoners of War in Nazi Germany (London, 1986), 1–14.

  128. The Barbarossa directives are collected in the following NCA documents: 446-PS, Directive 21, Operation Barbarossa, December 1940; 872-PS, Conference of “Fall Barbarossa” and “sonnenblume,” February 3, 1941; 874-PS, diversionary preparations with Fritz Todt, March 9, 1941; 873-PS, Conference with “Chief L” April 30, 1941; 876-PS, Deception of the enemy, May 12, 1941, and IMT C-50; and 886-PS Decree for the conduct of courts martial in the district “Barbarossa” and for special measures of the troop, May 13, 1941.

  129. Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung (ed.), Verbrechen der Wehrmacht: Dimensionen des Vernichtungskrieges 1941–1944 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2002); and Christian Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde: Die deutsche Wirtschafts-und Vernichtungspolitik in Weissrussland 1941 bis 1944 (Hamburg: Hamburg Edition HIS, 1999).

  130. Michael Reynolds, Steel Inferno: 1st SS Panzer Corps in Normandy (Staplehurst: Perseus, 1997).

  131. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 28, September 12, 1941.

  132. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 29, October 22, 1941.

  133. IWM, IMT, interrogation, Nr.2599, June 27, 1947. Bach-Zelewski alleged he was the ordnance officer of the 29th Infantry Regiment commanded by Schenckendorff after the First World War, under Wehrkreis III.

  134. NARA, FMS, B-629, “The Sphere of Duties of the Command Staff of the RFSS and the Chief of German Police and their collaboration with the OKW,” Ernst Rode (July 18, 1947).

  135. Yehoshua Büchler, “Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS: Himmler’s Personal Murder Brigades in 1941,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 1 (1986), 11–25.

  136. Unsere Ehre Heist Treue, Kriegstagebuch des Kommandostabes Reichsführer-SS Tätigkeitsberichte der 1. Und 2. SS-Inf.-Brigade, der 1. SS-Kav-Brigade und von Sonderkommando der SS (Vienna: Europa Verlag, 1965).

  137. Charles Sydnor, Soldiers of Destruction: The SS Death’s Head Division, 1933-1945 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 122.

  138. Stein, Waffen-SS: Hitler’s Elite Guard at War, 120; Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History (London: Macmillan, 2000), 613. For the police units, see Edward B. Westermann, “‘Friend and Helper’: German Uniformed Police Operations in Poland and the General Government, 1939–1941,” Journal of Military History 58 (October 1994), 643
–61; “Himmler’s Uniformed Police on the Eastern Front: The Reich’s Secret Soldiers, 1941–1942.” War in History 3 (1996), 309–29; and “‘Ordinary Men’ or ‘Ideological Soldiers’? Police Battalion 310 in Russia, 1942,” German Studies Review 21 (February 1998), 41–68.

  139. NCA, document L-221, Martin Bormann memorandum, July 16, 1941; and Peter Longerich, The Unwritten Order: Hitler’s Role in the Final Solution (Stroud: Tempus Publishing, 2001), 69–74.

  140. NARA, RG242, T175/3/2503430/639, Orpo HQ, subject: Richtlinien für Partisanenbekämpfung, orders signed by Winkelmann, Daluege’s chief of staff, November 17, 1941. Although BA R19/305 Schnellbrief, Winkelmann, Betr. Richtlinien für Partisanenbekämpfung, October 17, 1941.

  141. NCA, IMT, L-221, op cit.

  142. BA MA, RH13/ v. 37, Berlin April 1938 (Wehrmachtsakademie Nr. 871/38 g.k).

  143. BA-MA, RW41/4, Abschrift, RFSS, July 25, 1941: “schutzformationen” in den neubesetzten Ostgebieten, July 31, 1941.

  144. BA R19/281, CdO, Betr. Schutzmannschaften in des Ostgebietes, November 6, 1941. Under the police code the Schuma were formed thus: Schutzmannschaft (Einzeldienst) dem Städten (known as the Stadtschutzmannschaft); the Schutzmannschaft (Einzeldienst) auf dem Lande (known as the Landesschutzmannschaft); Schutzmannschaft in geschlossenen Einheiten; the Feuerschutzmannschaft; and the Hilfsschutzmannschaft. The Schuma were granted three number categories 1 to 50 for those raised in HSSPF Russia-North; 51 to 100 for battalions raised in HSSPF Russia-Centre; and 101 to 200 for those created in HSSPF Russia-South. They were also granted the capability of raising specialist and technical branches using the appropriate technical term.

  145. Martin Dean, Collaboration in the Holocaust: Crimes of the Local Police in Byelorussia and Ukraine, 1941–1944 (New York: St. Martin’s, 2000), 27.

  146. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 28, September 12, 1941.

  147. BA R19/281, BdO Ostland - HA-Orpo, Betr. Gliederung der Schutzmannschafts-Btl. December 4, 1941.

  148. PRO, HW16/45, GPD492, December 9, 1941.

  149. Klemperer, LTI [Lingua, Tertii, Imperii]: Notizbuch eines Philologen, 254

  150. PRO, HW16/45, GPD 292, July 18, 1941.

  151. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 29, September 13, 1941.

  152. Ibid.

  153. NCA, document 3257-PS, report to Chief of the Industrial Armament Department from the Armament Inspector Ukraine, December 2, 1941.

  154. Nicholas Terry, “Conflicting Signals: British Intelligence on the ‘Final Solution’ Through Radio Intercepts and Other Sources, 1941–1942,” Yad Vashem Studies (2004).

  155. PRO, HW16, MSGP 27, August 21, 1941.

  156. PRO, HW16, MSGP 29, October 22, 1941.

  157. PRO, HW16, MSGP 30, November 14, 1941.

  158. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 27, August 21, 1941. A light-hearted moment in the British decipher, “Fashion note. 56th Police Battalion, fitting its men out, sends for 396 steel helmets, 376 pairs of hand-cuffs, and 415 bathing-drawers.”

  159. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 27 August 21, 1941.

  160. Ibid.

  161. TVDB, 4–6.

  162. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 29, October 1941.

  163. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 27, August 22, 1941.

  164. PRO HW 16/32, August 18, 1941, GPD 326 No.2 Traffic, to HSSPF Posen. SS-Hauptsturmführer Herbert Lange was been in charge of the euthanasia gas vans. Refer to Noakes & Pridham, III, 1138–9; and Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany 1933–45 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 102.

  165. Staatsanwaltschaft des Landgericht Braunschweig, “Schwurgerichtsanklage gegen Angehörige des SS-Kav. Regt. 2 (Erschiessung von Juden im Gebiet der Pinsker-Sümpfe August 1941” (Braunschweig, 1963). The case has also been referred to in Ruth Bettina Birn, “Two Kinds of Reality,” in Bernd Wegner (ed.), From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia and the World, 1939–1941 (London: Berghahn Books, 1997), 277–92. See also Karla Müller-Tupath, Reichsführers gehorsamster Becher: Eine deutsche Karriere (Berlin: Aufbau, 1999), 27–56. The swamp was not deep enough to cause drowning so the SS troopers returned to shootings.

  166. TVDB, 4; and Unsere Ehre Heist Treue, 30–2.

  167. Soviet Embassy (London), Soviet Government Statements on Nazi Atrocities, (London: Hutchinson, 1946), 46. The account also mentioned the 6,504 persons shot by the brigade under the regimental order of July 27, 1941. A further order 37 by Himmler demanded daily reports of the numbers shot. Copies of the reports discovered in the Toropets area, in January 1942, left behind by the SS Cavalry Brigade when it fled from the Soviet advance.

  168. Ibid.

  169. NARA, T501, roll 1, Der Befehlshaber des rückw. Heeres-Gebietes Mitte, Korpstagesbefehl Nr. 28, September 16, 1941.

  170. PRO, HW16, MSGP 29, October 22, 1941.

  171. BA-MA, RW41 and NARA, RG242, roll T501, Korpesbefehl Nr. 53, Erfahrungsaustausch (Kampf gegen Partisanen), September 16, 1941.

  172. TVDB, 4–6.

  173. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 27, August 21, 1941.

  174. Ibid.

  175. TVDB, 6.

  176. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 28, September 12, 1941.

  177. NARA, RG242, A3343-SS0-023, Bach-Zelewski, letter from commander 252nd Infantry Division, August 19, 1941.

  178. TVDB, 24.

  179. TVDB, 30 and PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 32, February 14, 1942.

  180. TVDB, 31 and PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 32, February 14, 1942. The virtual replication of Bach-Zelewski’s diary with the British cipher confirms the strength of evidence.

  181. Ibid, 26.

  182. Ibid, 27, commenting, “He [Hitler] spent his New Year’s Eve in his winter garden until 4 a.m.

  183. Ibid, 28.

  184. Ibid, 30.

  185. Hermann Geyer, Ostfeldzug. XI Armeekorps (Neckargemünd: Kurt Vowinckel, 1967).

  Chapter 3: Hitler’s Bandenbekämpfung Directive

  1. NCA, document C-148, Communist Insurrection in occupied territories, September 16, 1941. NARA, T1270, GB War office negatives, “Hitler’s Speeches,” MI14/52, Kommunistische Aufstandsbewegung in den besetzten Gebieten.

  2. PRO, SOE: Operations in Eastern Europe, Guide Booklet (n.d.).

  3. M. Conway, “The Rexist movement in Belgium 1940–1944,” (Phil. Diss, University of Oxford, 1989).

  4. Derek Wood and Derek Dempster, The Narrow Margin: The Battle of Britain and the Rise of Air Power, 1930–1940 (London: Hutchinson, 1961), 226–315.

  5. Hugh R. Trevor-Roper, Hitler’s War Directives 1939–1945 (New York: Doubleday, 1966), 101–4.

  6. Ibid, 122–5; and Rudolf Absolon, Die Wehrmacht im Dritten Reich, Band V (Boppard am Rhein: Harald Boldt, 1969–95), 410.

  7. Williamson Murray, “The Collapse of Empire: British Strategy, 1919–1945,” in Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox, and Alvin Bernstein, The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States and War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 399–425.

  8. Patrick Howarth, Intelligence Chief Extraordinary: The Life of the Ninth Duke of Portland (London: Bodley Head, 1986), 108–10. The intelligence reports were sent to Lieutenant Colonel Holland of the guerrilla warfare section in the War Office. Eventually the British conducted covert operations, smuggling arms and finance into Abyssinia.

  9. F. H. Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, vol. I (London: Europa, 1980).

  10. M. R. D. Foot, Resistance: European Resistance to Nazism, 1940–45 (London: Methuen, 1976); John Shy and Thomas W. Collier, “Revolutionary War,” in Paret (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy, 832. Shy and Collier referred to the presence of George C. Lloyd (British colonial secretary) and J. C. F. Holland at the founding of the SOE. They were friends of T. E. Lawrence. Holland served with Lawrence in Arabia and took part in covert operations during the Abyssinia crisis. Also refer to W. E. D. Allen, Guerrilla War in Abyssinia (Harmondsworth Middlesex: Penguin, 1943).

  11. Stephen Badsey, “Commandos,” in Richard Holmes (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Military History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 200
1), 213–4.

  12. PRO, HS 4/36, Reports on the internal situation and Nazi atrocities, 1939–43.

  13. PRO, FO371/30897, Conditions in Germany 1942, case 70, Dr. Benes and the collapse of the German army in December 1941.

  14. David Mountfield, The Partisans (London: Hamlyn, 1979), 29.

 

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