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

by Philip W. Blood

  113. PRO WO208–3624, PWIS(H)/KP/113, PWIS Interrogations, Kempton Park, July 1944. Report written on July 3, and signed Captain T.X.H. Pantcheff.

  114. PRO WO 208-3648, PWIS(H)/LDC/327, PWIS Interrogations, London District Cage, September 1944. Report written on September 9, and signed by Captain H.K. Kettler.

  115. PRO WO 208-3648, PWIS(H)/LF/334, PWIS Interrogations, Lingfield Park, July 1944. Report written on July 21, and signed by Major MacCloud.

  116. PRO WO 208-3649, PWIS(H)/LDC/406, PWIS Interrogations, London District Cage, October 1944. Report written on October 11, and signed by Captain H.K. Kettler.

  117. PRO WO 208-3649, PWIS(H)/LDC/439, PWIS Interrogations, London District Cage, October 1944.

  118. PRO WO 208-3657, PWIS(H)/LDC/741, PWIS Interrogations, London District Cage, June 14, 1945.

  119. JNSV, DDR, case no. 1009.

  120. Foot, Resistance, 208–9. Reitlinger, The SS, 377–80; and Karel Krátký and Antonin nejdárek, “The Slovak Rising,” Purnell’s History of the Second World War 7, 1968, 2157–66.

  121. Reitlinger, The SS, 377–8.

  122. Krátký et al., “The Slovak Rising,” 2157–67.

  123. Walter Laqueur, Guerrilla: A Historical and Critical Study (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977), 220–221.

  124. IWM, USMT-11, Berger’s testimony, 6094.

  125. Maclean, The Cruel Hunters, 199.

  126. IWM, USMT, case 11, Berger’s testimony, 6095–9. He went to some pains to deny that the operations included anti-Jewish operations: “There were no anti-Jewish operations—not at the time and Himmler’s declaration that it was a Jewish rising is not true.” German Wochenshau newsreels from the period went to great efforts to depict captured Slovakian Jewish partisans with Bolshevik intentions.

  127. PRO, WO204–10184, Slovakia, letter from Henry Stimson, March 6, 1945.

  128. NARA, RG242, OKH records, T77, roll 556. Vortragsnotiz. Abrücken jüdischen-kommunistischer Bandengruppen von Galizien nach Ungarn, March 16, 1944.

  129. Birn, Die Höheren SS-und Polizeiführer, 297–304; Black, Kaltenbrunner, 150–1; Yerger, Allgemeine-SS, 48; Reitlinger, The SS, 350–51. Reitlinger incorrectly attributed Winkelmann as Daluege’s replacement in 1942; Winkelmann represented Daluege at conferences when the bouts of sickness forced his absence.

  130. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 66, June 30, 1945.

  131. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 60, September 7, 1944.

  132. NARA, RG238, T1270/1. The relationship between these two men became hostile once they were in America in captivity after the war. Skorzeny remained one of Bach-Zelewski’s loyal subordinates; in the last days of the war, they fought together in Schwedt on the Oder.

  133. Otto Skorzeny, trans. David Johnson, My Commando Operations (Atgeln, Pa.: Schiffer Press, 1995), also Perry Pierik, Hungary 1944–1945: The Forgotten Tragedy, (Nieuwegein: Aspekt, 1996).

  134. In preparation for the Ardennes offensive, Hitler requested that Skorzeny conduct covert operations behind the American lines in U.S. Army uniform. Another circumvention of the laws of war that suited Hitler.

  135. BZ-USMT, April 14, 1947; and TVDB, 116.

  136. “Details of The Testimony of Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski,” Nizkor Project Website, http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf.

  137. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 61, November 5, 1944.

  138. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP63, February 13, 1945.

  139. Felix Steiner, Der Freiwillige: der Waffen-SS Idee und Opfergang (Rosenheim: Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1958). Overall, a tedious tome by a former senior SS officer.

  140. Ibid, 339–58. Steiner along with his former comrades depicts a heroic retreat into eventul captivity. The evidence is savory, as German forces fled in a rout to escape from capture, particularly by Tito’s partisans or the Red Army, firing wildly on civilians and randomly destroying amenities, not so much to implement “scorched earth” as to cause misery.

  141. NARA, RG319, IRR, Gottlob Berger, appendix I-A, SS-Hauptämter. There are grounds to suggest Kaltenbrunner had become responsible for all policing.

  142. PRO, HW16/98, History of the German Police W/T Network July 1945, 40. The police signals traffic only began to decline in April; the last messages were sent out on May 8.

  143. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP64, April 2, 1945.

  144. NARA, T78/562/000402-54, Übersicht über die Bandenlage in der Zeit (November 1944–February 1945), March 6, 1945.

  145. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP63, February 13, 1945.

  146. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP66, June 30, 1945. Perry Biddiscombe, Wehrwolf! The History of the National Socialist Insurgent Movement, 1944–1946 (Cardiff: University of Wales, 1998), 29.

  147. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 66, June 30, 1945.

  148. Bradley F. Smith and Elena Agarossi, Operation Sunrise: The Secret Surrender (London: Andre Deutsch, 1979), 62.

  149. David Clay Large, Where Ghosts Walked: Munich’s Road to the Third Reich (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997), 344–5.

  150. JNSV, Final Phase Crimes, cases 005,037, 073, 103 and 599.

  151. JNSV, Final Phase Crimes, case 062.

  152. Skorzeny, My Commando Operations, 429.

  153. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP 65, May 29, 1945.

  154. Hoettl, The Second Front, 317.

  155. Black, Kaltenbrunner, 242–3.

  156. NARA, RG238, T1270, roll 26, Ernst Rode interrogation report, October 22, 1945.

  157. NCA, document PS-3734, Hanna Reitsch summary of interrogation, October 8, 1945.

  158. Charles McMoran Wilson, Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival, 1940— 1965: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran (London: Constable, 1966), 250.

  159. Hugh R. Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler (London: Pan, 1973), 277–8: Trevor-Roper committed an appendix (1) of his well known book to the execution of Fegelein. He questioned whether the execution was due to Fegelein’s cowardice or “guilt by association” with the treasonous rumblings among the SS. NARA, BDC, A3343, SSO, 198, Hermann Fegelein. Fegelein’s personal failure in the last hours of the war does not quite reconcile with his “bravery” earlier in the war that led to the awards of the Knights’ Cross and close-combat assault badges.

  160. PRO, HW16/6, MSGP66, June 30, 1945.

  161. Logusz, Galicia Division, 360.

  162. Lepre, Himmler’s Bosnian Division, 302–14.

  163. Kumm, Prinz Eugen, 266.

  164. Gitta Sereny, The German Trauma: Experiences and Reflections 1938–2000 (London: Penguin, 2000), 195–215.

  Chapter 10: Deniability

  1. Claud Mullins, The Leipzig Trials (S.I, H.F. & G. Witherby, 1921).

  2. Timothy R. Vogt, Denazification in Soviet-Occupied Germany: Brandenburg 1945— 1948 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000).

  3. Constantine Fitzgibbon, Denazification (London: Norton, 1969); H.st.D. Entnazifizierung files; and RO FO record groups 935, 942, and 1013.

  4. Richard Breitman, Norman J. W. Goda, Timothy Naftali, and Robert Wolfe, U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

  5. Wolfgang Kahl, “Vom mythos der ‘Bandenbekämpfung’: polizeiverbände im zweiten weltkreig,” Die polizei. zentralorgan für das sicherheits-und ordnungswesen aus, 1998, J. 89, Nr.2, 47–56.

  6. MSO, Judgement of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial of the German Major War Ciminals Nuremberg September 30 and October 1, 1946, Miscellaneous no. 12 (1946).

  7. Norbert Frei, Adenauer’s Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002).

  8. Helge Grabitz, “Problems of Nazi Trials in the Federal Republic of Germany,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 3 (1988), 209–22.

  9. “Geisel und Partisanentötungen im zweiten Weltkrieg: Hinweise zur rechtlichen Beurteilung” (Ludwigsburg: Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen, Februar 1968), hereafter referred to as ZStL Legal Report 1968.

  10. NARA, RG242, FMS, B-252, “The XIV SS Corps: November–December 1944,” December 7,
1946, Lieutenant General von dem Bach-Zelewski.

  11. Bender and Taylor, Uniforms, Organization, and History of the Waffen-SS, vol. 2, 27–49.

  12. NARA, RG242, A3343-SS0-023, Bach-Zelewski report, February 9, 1945. Himmler ensured that a copy of the report was attached to Bach-Zelewski’s personnel file.

  13. TVDB, 96.

  14. TVDB, 97.

  15. TVDB, 99.

  16. Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 292.

  17. TVDB, 30.

  18. TVDB, 63.

  19. Reitlinger, The SS, 398.

  20. Trevor-Roper, Hitler’s War Directives, 300-1; and Rudolf Absolon, Die Wehrmacht im Dritten Reich, 403.

  21. NARA, RG238, T1019-4 Record of the United States War Crimes Trials Interrogations 1946–1949. Evidence Division of the Office, Chief Counsel for War Crimes (OCCWC) Headed up by Walter H. Rapp, Chief Prosecutor was Telford Taylor. HQ Third United States Army Intelligence Center, office of the assistant chief of Staff, G-2, APO 403, Preliminary report, August 22, 1945, referred to as IMT-BZ, August 22, 1945.

  22. Taylor, The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials (London: Bloomsbury, 1993), 259.

  23. Ibid.

  24. PRO, HW16/6, parts one and two, circulated to Telford Taylor.

  25. BZ-IMT, January 20, 1946.

  26. BZ-IMT, November 27, 1945.

  27. Skorzeny, My Commando Operations, 443.

  28. IWM, USMT-11, 6,004.

  29. NARA, RG238, T1019, roll 4, report from Walter Rapp to Telford Taylor, October 2, 1946.

  30. D. A. L. Wade, “A Survey of the Trials of War Criminals,” The Royal Institute of International Affairs 96 (1951), 66–70.

  31. BZ-IMT, January 17, 1946, NCA document NOKW-067.

  32. Karel Margry, “The Dostler Case,” After the Battle 94 (1996), 1–19.

  33. E. H. Stevens, Trial of Nikolaus von Falkenhorst: Formerly Generaloberst in the German Army (London: William Hodge, 1949), xiv.

  34. A. P. Scotland, The London Cage (London: Evans Brothers, 1957), 165–166 and 170–71.

  35. Taylor, The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials, 253–5.

  36. Of all the allied powers, only the French war crimes investigators attempted to place the Bandenbekämpfung directive on trial through the ill-fated Oradour-sur-Glane proceedings.

  37. BZ-IMT, October 25, 1945.

  38. BZ-USMT-7, 8930.

  39. USMT-8, 396.

  40. BZ-IMT, January 17, 1946.

  41. BZ-IMT, March 23, 1946.

  42. BZ-IMT, January 17, 1946.

  43. BZ-USMT, April 14, 1947.

  44. IWM, USMT-7, 8994–5.

  45. BZ-IMT, November 27, 1945.

  46. IWM, IMT, Bach-Zelewski, interrogation, no. 1975, April 14, 1947.

  47. BZ-IMT, March 23, 1946.

  48. BZ-IMT, November 27, 1945.

  49. Ibid.

  50. BZ-IMT, January 15, 1946.

  51. BZ-IMT, March 25, 1946.

  52. BZ-IMT, interrogations March 23–25, 1946.

  53. Tomasz Wisniewski, Jewish Bialystok and Surroundings in Eastern Poland (Ipswich, Mass.: Ipswich Press, 1998), 37–8.

  54. TVDB, 3.

  55. TVDB, 4. Konrad Kwiet, “From the Diary of a Killing Unit,” in John Milful (ed.), Why Germany? National Socialist Anti-Semitism and the European Context (Oxford: Berg, 1993), 75–91.

  56. Wisniewski, Jewish Bialystok, 48.

  57. BZ-IMT, March 24, 1946.

  58. BZ-IMT, March 23, 1946.

  59. Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (London: De Capo, 1952), 355–6. Guderian wrote that on July 20, 1944, he flew to Lötzen, which of course was code for visiting Himmler prior to a meeting with Hitler.

  60. NARA, RG319, IRR, Heinz Guderian.

  61. NARA, RG242, T1270, Nuremberg testimonies, Guderian interrogations.

  62. Ibid.

  63. Ibid.

  64. Guderian, Panzer Leader, 355–6.

  65. NARA RG238, M1019/58/7847-68, Rode interrogation no. 19.

  66. NARA RG238, M1019/58/7847-68, Rode, August 9, 1946.

  67. BZ-IMT, October 5, 1946.

  68. BZ-IMT, September 21, 1946.

  69. BZ-IMT, January 29, 1946.

  70. IWM, USMT-7, 8977.

  71. BZ-USMT, January 29, 1946.

  72. Refer to chapter 8 for the losses Bach-Zelewski inflicted on Warsaw.

  73. NARA, RG238, M1019, roll 37, Ernst Korn testimony, August 1, 1947.

  74. IWM, USMT-7, 9349.

  75. BZ-IMT-7, 8917.

  76. IWM, IMT-7, 8922–23.

  77. NARA, FMS, C-032, “The War behind the front: guerrilla warfare,” Albert Kesselring, July 28, 1947.

  78. Kesselring, 1947, 7.

  79. Schwarznecker report.

  80. NARA, FMS, C-037, “Haunted Forests: enemy partisans behind the front,” Gustav Höehne, 17–19.

  81. NARA, FMS, A-946, Activities of the 157th Reserve Division (1946); and FMS, B-237, Southern France (1946).

  82. NARA, FMS, B-331, 157th Reserve Division: September 1944 (1951).

  83. NARA, RG338, FMS P-055c, Lessons Learned From the Partisan War in Russia, Alexander Ratcliffe 1952.

  84. CMH Pub 104–18, German Anti-guerrilla Operations in the Balkans (1941–1944) (Washington, D.C., Center for Military History, 1954).

  85. CMH Pub 104-19, The Soviet Partisan Movement 1941–1944 (Washington, D.C.: Center for Military History, 1956); and CMH Pub 20-240, Rear Area Security in Russia: The Soviet Second Front behind the German Lines (Washington, D.C.: Center for Military History, 1951).

  86. James H. Critchfield, Partners at the Creation: The Men behind Postwar Germany’s Defense and Intelligence Establishments (Annapolis: Naval Institute, 2003).

  87. ZStL Legal Report 1968.

  88. Large, Where Ghosts Walked, 255.

  89. Ulrich Herbert, Best, Biographische Studien über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vernunft 1903–1989 (Bonn: Dietz, 1996); and Friedrich Wilhelm, Die Polizei im NS-Staat (Paderborn: F. Schoeningh, 1997).

  90. Florian Dierl, “Adolf von Bomhard—’Generalstabschef der Ordnungspolizei,’ in Klaus-Michael Mallman and Gerhard Paul (eds.), Karrieren der Gewalt: National-sozialistische Täterbiographien (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004), 62–3.

  91. Neufeld et al., Zur Geschichte der Ordnungspolizei, 115; and Yerger, Allgemeine-SS, 58.

  92. DDR (ed.), Braunbuch: Kriegs-und Naziverbrecher in der Bundesrepublik (Berlin: Staatsverlag Der Deutschen Deomokratischen Republik, 1965), 91–104.

  93. Leonard Mahlein, Waffen-SS in der Bundesrepublik: Eine Dokumentation Der VVN-Bund Der Antifaschisten (Frankfurt am Main: Roderberg, 1978).

  94. Paul Hausser, Waffen-SS im Einsatz (Oldendorf: Pless, 1953).

  95. DDR, SS im Einsatz: Eine Dokumentation Über Die Verbrechen Der SS (Berlin: Staatsverlag Der Deutschen Deomokratischen Republik, 1957), 591.

  96. Friedman, Bach-Zelewski: Dokumentensammlung, 12.

  97. ZDF, 2003, Television series, “Die SS-Eine Warnung der Geschichte,” programme 6: Mythos Odessa, produced by Guido Knopp.

  98. Staatsanwaltschaft an dem Landgericht Braunschweig, Schwurgerichtsanklage gegen Angehörige des SS-Kav. Regt.2 (Erschiessung von Juden im Gebiet der Pinsker-Sümpfe August 1941), June 15, 1963. 58–64.

  99. Cüppers, “Lombard,” 151–2.

  100. NARA, RG319, file marked “Extradition of Former German Officers to Poland.”

  101. NARA, RG319, Extradition of former German officers to Poland. Unfortunately the Americans had refused to extradite Reinefarth (along with Guderian, Rode, and Vormann) to Poland in 1947 and 1948.

  102. NARA, RG242, BDC, A3345-OSS-154, Dr. Oskar Dirlewanger.

  103. Maclean, The Cruel Hunters, 188.

  104. NARA, RG242, BDC, A3345-OSS-154, Dr. Oskar Dirlewanger, Vorschlag für die Verleihung des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes, Kampfgruppe Reinefarth, September 10, 1944.

  105. Rudolf Ilgen, Mein Zusammenstoss mit SS-Oberführer von dem Bach-Zelewski als Richter im Fruhjar 1933 in de
r Neumarkt (Koblenz: Wolfgang Lomüller, 1980). Formal testimony set down in Koblenz in August 1974.