Hitler's Bandit Hunters (12 page)

Since 1935, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy had worked to find common ground in forging a power block at the heart of Europe. Epp’s Nazi biographer contextualized this relationship by suggesting an international Fascist debate over colonies was opened on October 1, 1935, the day when Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia). Mussolini announced that the invasion was revenge for Italy’s defeat at Adowa (1896) and the first steps in becoming a world power. Typical of the sentiments at the time, Mussolini declared a “modern” Roman Empire. From the ensuing international crisis, Epp tried to raise his political influence to the world stage.
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In 1936, Italian–German military assistance for Franco tipped the balance in the Spanish Civil War and led to wider cooperation between the two powers. By the end of 1936, Italy and Germany were signatories to the Anti-Comintern Pact and had firmly established the “Pact of Steel,” the Axis.
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Cooperation between the Axis powers went beyond the political-strategic level. German police officers were encouraged to take secondment in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) through the Italian colonial administration. There they gained experience in broad range of colonial security.
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Jakob Sporrenberg, a senior SD officer, later confessed under interrogation that the two police forces shared intelligence.
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In 1942, U.S. Army intelligence circles observed that Daluege had been actively infiltrating the Italian police with German personnel for years.
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In May 1937, Düsseldorf hosted one of the largest colonial rallies in what proved to be a significant event. The rally was timed to coincide with
Whit-weekend (
Pfingsten
), an important holiday in the Rhineland calendar, ensuring maximum attendance with the minimum impact on industrial output.
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It was a critical time for Hitler; aligning domestic, foreign, and military policy toward warlike goals had caused grumbling. The Rhineland, Germany’s military industrial complex, was the largest support base for Epp and the colonial question. In 1919, Epp had contributed in “saving” the Ruhr from Bolshevik revolution, and certain industrialists’ and workers’ associations welcomed him. The industrialists of the Rhineland were fully committed to returning the colonies as exclusive markets for their goods. The RKB membership therefore increased dramatically among industrialists.
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There was also growing uncertainty over the direction of Hitler’s economic policy and in particular the Four Year Plan.
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Epp began the speeches by congratulating the support for the RKB through the Düsseldorf branch of the part, calling it the “pacemaker of the colonial idea” and the “patent maker of the colonial schools.” He then led his audience through the familiar narratives of a Volk ohne Raum. Most important, Epp soothed concerns over the Four Year Plan by indicating that it was a temporary scheme and that, in the long term, the colonies would return. He announced that the conference demonstrated that “people and leader” were firmly committed to their return. While Epp’s words calmed his audience, Hitler’s absence was thunderous.
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A few days after the rally, Major der Schutzpolizei Kummetz presented Daluege with a report.
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The report detailed the proportions of membership to the RKB within the police precincts of the Rhineland. The figures showed that in Düsseldorf of 1,136 police, 90 percent were members of the RKB; in Duisburg, 59 percent of 670 police; in Essen, 73 percent of 1,091; in Wuppertal, 98 percent of 1,079; and in Oberhausen, 100 percent of 572 police.
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The Düsseldorf chief of police had explained to Kummetz the growing interest in colonial political training. The promotion of the RKB, within the police and state bureaucracy, had raised calls for expert seminars and lectures. Kummetz confirmed that there had been total adherence with the order by Rudolf Hess to support the colonial debate through the RKB. He noted that, although it had been held on a workers’ holiday, ten thousand people had attended the rally.
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Thus, when Epp gave his final speech of 1937 at the Sportspalast in Berlin, the impression given was of a regime endorsing traditional colonialism. Indeed, prior to the rally, Hitler had written to Epp calling for continuing pressure over the return of the colonies to be sustained into the new year.
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If it was a smoke screen for foreign policy initiatives, its deception worked. Epp interpreted the request as the signal for a new impetus behind his colonial policy. Externally, Epp had attracted attention for the cause, and in Britain, there was growing support for a return of the colonies.

By 1938, Epp’s standing had reached its peak. The SS putsch against the SA in 1934 was followed by Göring’s intrigues against Schacht. Hitler introduced the Nuremberg race laws and conscription in 1935 and embarked on the remilitarization of the Rhineland (1936). In 1937, he set down his
guidelines for war recorded in the Hossbach memo. Finally, the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis removed the armed forces as a potential political threat to Hitler and shook the foundations of Epp’s spiritual pillar, the army. In March 1938, he accepted an invitation from Air Marshal Balbo of the Italian Air Force and the governor general of Libya to attend a gathering at the Fascist Institute of Italian-Africa (
Istituto Fascista dell’ Africa Italiana
). In attendance were senior delegates from Mussolini’s regime, including members of the Ministry of Italian Africa and the Italian armed forces. The Anschluss with Austria took the world’s attention away from the meeting. Then, twenty years after his victory in Munich, Epp was a bystander as Germany and Italy cajoled the Entente Cordiale into relinquishing control of Czechoslovakia without a fight. Britain and France offered Hitler a return of the colonies—the alternative to his ambitions for Czechoslovakia—but he declined.
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Meanwhile, Nazi economic measures ruptured Epp’s influence on the economy and big business. In November 1938, after the “Night of Broken Glass” (
Reichskristallnacht),
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industry received a major investment boost. Aside from the violent attacks on Jewish property, the chambers of commerce initiated the “Aryanization” of business. German business received an artificial “investment” boost of cash and balance sheet assets. This bought off the last commercial opposition to Hitler.
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Elsewhere, the culmination of these events signaled to Winston Churchill that a regime change in Germany was the only answer to Hitler.

Epp’s political standing declined from 1939. In January, Himmler wrote to Martin Bormann on the political value of colonial schooling and training. He wished to halt general training for the leadership corps, accepting in principle that it was necessary for Germany to gain raw materials but claiming this could continue for Nazi officials, administrators, and soldiers. However, he believed it was no longer appropriate for the police to attend general colonial training schemes. He confirmed that “real experience” in colonial policing was being gained elsewhere. He had decided to stop colonial schooling for the SS, Hitler Youth, and the SA.
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By design, Himmler had outmaneuvered Epp and snubbed Hess. The relations between Mussolini and Hitler had brought about Austria and Czechoslovakia, which were mainstream Lebensraum projects. The Rome–Berlin Axis divided Europe, in Fascist terms, on a north-south latitude, erecting a central power block, granting Hitler the opportunity to pursue Lebensraum goals without fear of the southern flank. The path seemed set for Lebensraum building through war, but then the impact of revenge came to play its part.

In September 1939, Hitler unleashed Germany’s mechanized armies in a surprise attack on Poland (Operation “Tannenberg”), announcing that it was the supreme act of revenge for Versailles. The military operations in Poland concluded with total victory through the skilled coordination of armored and
air warfare. A second act of revenge, against France, orchestrated rapid victory through surprise and large-scale encirclement. These successes of mechanized Cannae, since known as
Blitzkrieg
, reconfirmed the army’s faith in Schlieffen’s operational legacy. Rapid success, however, concealed the glaring absence of coherent security warfare preparations. In 1914, the Etappen quickly expanded from its peacetime cadre into operational status. German reservists and civilian specialists began operating a fully functional rear-area system almost in step with the attacks at the front. The offensive failed, but the Etappen continued to operate, in some respects with over-efficiency. This situation was reversed in 1939–40. The dual impact of Versailles, which removed the reserves, compounded with Hitler’s rapid rearmament and mobilization program, had not provided the army with a viable alternative to the Etappen. The Nazi focus on the motorization of the armed forces had failed to complement similar attention to the railways and left the quartermaster functions unevenly dispersed among the operational and rear-area troops. The offensives in 1939–40 granted the armed forces the advantage of exploiting internal lines, surprise, and airpower.
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Rapid victory had also denied the countries attacked sufficient time to coordinate a national uprising, and so resistance was sporadic and localized. Thus, by the standards of past security warfare, German military power in 1939–40 was like that of 1870–71, fielding a dynamic offensive army but lacking both a contingency plan for security and a dedicated force of occupation troops.

In the past, the German response was to strengthen internal security and depend on the army. A similar pattern emerged on September 1, when Hitler announced to the Reichstag that “a November 1918 shall never occur again in German history.”
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It was an indication of new moves in security. On September 3, he granted Himmler authority over law and order and the right to employ “all means” as required.
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That same day, Heydrich issued a policy document titled “Basic Principles for Maintaining Internal Security during the War.” An addendum of September 20 brought Germany under martial law, targeting saboteurs, suspicious persons, communists, and defeatists, all to “be eliminated through ruthless action.” Seven days later, the Reich Main Security Office (
Reichssicherheitshauptamt
, RSHA) was formed; this constituted the first phase in turning the SS into Germany’s national security corporation.
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In September 1940, Rudolf Querner, the chief of Order Police in Hamburg, hosted an official visit from leading Spanish police officials. In his presentation, Querner highlighted the contribution of the police to the German war effort. He began by describing how the Order Police was organized and militarized under the guiding leadership of Daluege. Its tasks included the confiscation of civilian arms, oil field protection, population registration, and protection of the German administration in occupied countries.
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In fact, SS-Police tasks included duties common to both the German homeland and the occupation zones. They included countering espionage,
sabotage, and corruption; the investigation of violations of orders, acts against state property, and carelessness or even treason; and the hunting down of deserters and escaped prisoners of war; as well as the escort of dignitaries, or advising industrial concerns on policing. The criminal police duties included the investigation of incidents of violence; prevention of black markets, illegal trading by soldiers; investigation of military suicides, fire arms misuse, and detection of illegal radios and transmitters. Specific security routines included guarding installations, securing local population registers, investigations of the population, supervising deportation and plunder transports, checking hotels, and validating identification papers. The police also took control of photography shops, registered carrier pigeon owners, supervised brothels and soldiers’ bars, safeguarded telecommunication cables, secured quarters for staff, managed traffic control, and maintained military order.
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Querner mentioned certain organizational developments introduced before the war. In August 1938, Hitler fused the functions of the SS and police.
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The year before, Himmler established the regional field command of the Higher SS and Police Leader (
Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer
, HSSPF). Its important functions were to centralize control and to extend SS central leadership expertise in the field. The HSSPF led coordinated and controlled SS-Police units. As Ruth Bettina Birn has noted, through the HSSPF, Himmler was able to maintain a tight grip on the implementation of policy.
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Another key development, mentioned Querner, was the impact of Daluege’s leadership. Daluege was driven toward militarizing the Order Police. He had also handed Bomhard, his chief of staff, the job of organizing the main office (
Hauptamt Ordnungspolizei
) as a headquarters. Bomhard had the expertise to carry out this task and ensure that the police continued to function as a state bureaucracy. Bomhard, a police-soldier, like many of the senior officers of the Order Police, retained his relationship with Epp. In 1919, Bomhard joined the Bavarian Landespolizei, and in 1934, he joined Daluege’s staff in Berlin. From 1936, Bomhard became the quintessential legislative bureaucrat the Order Police depended on to ensure the Ministry of Interior endorsed regulations.
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Querner referred to Poland but avoided any references to Lebensraum or Germanizationization. Upon the cessation of hostilities, Hitler passed control of the occupation to Nazi civil authorities. “The armed forces should welcome the opportunity of avoiding having to deal with administrative questions in Poland,” he explained to Keitel. “On principle there cannot be two administrations.”
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The Nazis immediately began a process of Germanization. To eliminate Polish nationality and culture, the SS began carrying out killing actions and introduced resettlement programs. The situation worsened through random acts of violence, carried out by soldiers and SS troops alike, excused by the authorities on the grounds of revenge.
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The rapid military defeat of Poland had not crushed the will to resist, which proliferated contempt for the Poles in all German circles. The SS received a request from state
foresters (
Reichsforstamt
) to assist in the combating of “bandits” in the Polish forests.
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The “bandits” included German army deserters, escaped Polish POWs, and genuine outlaws who had troubled the Polish police long before the war.
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The forests proved to be a hurdle for the SS-Police as serious attacks increased. Himmler attempted to flush out the “bandits” by sending teams of gendarmerie, and Wheeler believed they proved highly capable in their work.
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From his regular visits to Krüger, Daluege recognized the gendarme’s free-ranging capability proved far superior to his Schutzpolizei battalions, cocooned in barracks and dependent on trucks for mobility. The gendarmerie, trained to function individually or in small groups, was able to counter the “bandits.” Although Daluege recognized the usefulness of the gendarmerie, he elected not to increase their numbers. For Himmler, Daluege, and Heydrich, Poland was an opportunity to experiment with occupation security in a hostile and volatile environment. The volatility came from within the Nazi administration; Hans Frank and Himmler were at loggerheads over raising self-defense militia. Himmler took this as a direct challenge to his authority.
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