Hitler's Bandit Hunters (15 page)

During “Barbarossa,” Bach-Zelewski behaved like the champion of all the Nazi rhetoric and dogma that punctuated the SS cult. He was a driven man motivated to exterminate Jews and Communists in the name of Lebensraum.

Jeckeln and Prützmann were able to construct significant SS empires in their respective zones, but Bach-Zelewski’s command was ruptured by the intensity of fighting on the central front. To comprehend the extent of Bach-Zelewski’s performance in “Barbarossa” involves recognizing that he was not only an SS officer under orders but also someone desperate to restore his family honor after Zelewski’s African debacle. The significant period of Bach-Zelewski’s criminal actions was between July and October 1941. In that time, he traveled extensively, and his diary’s itinerary matches the progress of mass slaughter. In July, he was in Bialystok, Warsaw, Grodno, and the Pripyat marshes, each scenes of terrible slaughter.
¹⁶¹
In August, his travels included Baranovichi, Minsk, Breslau, Turov, Starye Dorogi, Pinsk, Biaełowie
a, Mogilev, and Starobin, an area of fifteen hundred thousand miles and all significant scenes of mass killing. In September, he traveled another thousand miles but, in October, confined himself to Vitebsk and Mogilev. His first communiqués on arrival at killing sites incorporated population demographics. “Baranowicze: roughly thirty-five thousand people; of these roughly seventeen thousand Jews, nine thousand Russians and nine thousand Poles.”
¹⁶²
In one signal, he placed a claim on his killing score: “Thus the figure in my area now exceeds the thirty thousand mark.” British intelligence judged,

The tone of this message suggests that the word has gone out that a definite decrease in the total population of Russia would be welcome in high quarters and that the leaders of the three sectors stand somewhat in competition with each other as to their “scores.”
¹⁶³

If a competition existed between the HSSPFs, then Bach-Zelewski was determined to win. On August 18, he requested the use of the mobile gassing units.
¹⁶⁴
That same month, he met with Daluege to discuss further actions. On September 1, together they observed the killing of nine hundred Jews from Minsk.

On July 20, Himmler issued a bizarre set of orders. He ordered the SS-Cavalry Brigade to drive Jews into the Pripyat marshes and swampland to drown.
¹⁶⁵
This derivation of Trotha’s plan of mass extermination replaced the desert with the watery wastes and included the ultimate madness of calling on Zelewski’s nephew to atone for the past debacle with a successful killing spree. Bach-Zelewski’s diary only recorded that he led the 1st and 2nd SS-Cavalry Regiments into combing through (
Durchkämmung
) the Pripyat marshes.
¹⁶⁶
However, a captured report from 2nd SS-Cavalry Regiment stated, “We drove women and children into the marshes, but this did not yield the desired result, as the marshes were not deep enough to drown them. In most places the water was not more than three feet deep.”
¹⁶⁷
On August 1, the 2nd SS-Cavalry Regiment received a message from Himmler instructing them to
reinstate the practice of shooting Jewish women.
¹⁶⁸
We can only speculate what inspired Himmler and Bach-Zelewski to contemplate such a plan. In October, he entered Mogilev to kill another 2,208 Jews.

In September 1941, Schenckendorff approved a list of medals for SS and police troops under his command. Since the opening of the campaign, Bach-Zelewski had been forming a clique (
Klüngel
) of men who would remain close to him throughout the war. Included on the list were Pail, Lombard, Montua, Fegelein, Diekmann, Magill, and Charpentier (the son of a former regimental commander).
¹⁶⁹
In October, Bach-Zelewski’s health began to deteriorate, and this was directly attributable to the lack of fresh water. It was probably during the swamp operations that he contracted his intestinal problems. The British noticed that his pleas for fresh water became desperate. “Demand for space on the plane is very heavy, and even so high an official [as Bach-Zelewski] is unable to get bottles of his favorite vintage sent to him by this means.”
¹⁷⁰
To compensate for his failing health, he turned to addictive drugs to reduce his sensitivity to pain and need for fresh water.

Bach-Zelewski claimed an unusual relationship with the army. He came under the command of the Rear Area Army Centre and partly under Himmler. Schenckendorff was well aware of Bach-Zelewski’s political tasks of population control and mass executions. When the security situation deteriorated, Bach-Zelewski tended to side with Schenckendorff in moving police troops forward to support the army. The peak of their cooperation culminated in an antipartisan field course (
Bekämpfung von Partisanen
) in September 1941 (further discussed in
chapter 5
).
¹⁷¹
Bach-Zelewski’s participation in the conventional warfare of the campaign alongside the army proved his ability in tactical operations. A Russian cavalry division broke into the rear area of Army Group Centre but was halted and destroyed by Bach-Zelewski.
¹⁷²
He was a practitioner of encirclement as one signal confirmed:

1st Regiment has formed a ring (“Kessel”) north and north-east of Lake Sporowskie to tackle troops reported there. Up to August 3, 1941 the SS cavalry Brigade has “liquidated 3,274 partisans and Jewish Bolsheviks.” Their own losses nil.
¹⁷³

In the process of a cleaning up exercise, another signal reported that

Police Battalion 306 shot 260 guerrilla fighters. Russian cavalry north of the railway is ringed in and faces destruction; south of the railway they appear to have crossed the [River] Petsch after continual sniping matches with the army and SS.
¹⁷⁴

On August 3, 1941, Bock passed on his personal congratulations for the defeat of the breakthrough. Bach-Zelewski immediately wired Himmler and
Daluege boasting of this recognition of his military prowess.
¹⁷⁵
On August 8, Bach-Zelewski made his way to Borisov with the SS-Cavalry Brigade and joined the army’s 162nd Infantry Division to combat further Red Army intrusions. The 252nd Infantry Division and Police Regiment Centre combined their efforts to destroy a breakthrough of the 12th Russian Infantry Division.
¹⁷⁶
Two weeks later, Bach-Zelewski received a letter of thanks from the commander of the 252nd Infantry Division, praising the cooperation between the “SS-Polizeiverbände” and the army.
¹⁷⁷

In mid-November 1941, at the height of the Germany’s las-gasp drive on Moscow, the Russians began desperate counter-attacks and incursions. This was the clinching moment of the first year. Hitler ordered more encirclements of the Red Army, but the German armored thrusts gradually wore down, hindered by poor weather, lack of reserves, and the deteriorating maintenance system. On December 3, the British intercepted the first message saying that the lead formations were considering forming a defensive line. The British intercepted another signal on December 7, confirming that the police had advised retreat. The many different parts of the German armed forces on the central front seemed incapable of making joined up decisions. The SS-Police continued to conduct antipartisan operations, while their battalions gradually plugged the front lines. By mid-December 1941, ad hoc units littered the Russian landscape like little islands, forming the German front lines.

Red Army counter-attacks continued through December; one had the objective of encircling the German armored forces around Smolensk. The chaos on December 27 was such that Bach-Zelewski thought it had parallels to the failure of the Ludendorff offensives in 1918.
¹⁷⁸
Bock, in his last days as army group commander, requested police battalions to plug gaps in the line. Police Battalion 307, under the temporary command of Hauptmann Binz, and Police Battalion 131, under Major Orth, deployed to contrasting fortunes. The Soviets landed six thousand paratroops and air-landing forces on the airfield southeast of Viazma. Police Battalion 307 assisted in fending off this attack and made a significant contribution in saving the situation. Bach-Zelewski recommended that the commander receive the Knight’s Cross (
Ritterkreuz
) and added to the report that Binz had ridden on a tank shouting, “Look here you swine, you can’t shoot German police.”
¹⁷⁹
The contrast with Police Battalion 131 was dramatic. The British decoded a signal stating that the battalion had collapsed in the face of strong Red Army offensives during the battle of Kaluga. A situation report to Himmler stated, “The battalion failed completely, officers and men alike; would not attack and gradually crumbled to pieces.” A subsequent report that the battalion had failed explained that the commander (Major Orth) and the battalion doctor (Dr. Rotlauf) had suffered “heart failure” (
Herzkollaps
) and fled in the medical vehicle homeward. They had taken all the battalion’s medical supplies with them.
¹⁸⁰

The pressure caused by the collapse placed strains on the relationship
between Bach-Zelewski and Daluege. On December 16, Bach-Zelewski sent a message to Daluege to the effect that he had lost all available battalions to Bock and urgently requested the availability of Police Battalion
Minsk
to continue operations in the army rear areas. On January 6, 1942, Bach-Zelewski sent a message to Himmler announcing, “My power for taking decisive action nullified,” and charged Daluege with failing to appreciate the conditions at the front. He accused Daluege of allowing Police Regiment Centre to be sent to the front and complained that his “judgement about weapons, equipment, winter-clothing is inaccurate, since that of the Army is much worse. We are called into action in gaps where there simply is no army.” Bach-Zelewski began to heap scorn on Daluege: “He sends a long and ridiculous message…. The fundamental and spontaneous use of the police battalions is only possible under the listed agreements, or you consciously lose the best military and personnel characteristics of the police like combating partisans’ expertise.”
¹⁸¹
He ranted on: “So the front can collapse, the ‘Hunnish Horde’ can flood the homeland so long as the police are kept safe for Germany’s sake.” In Bach-Zelewski’s opinion, such “nonsense” was worthless after experiencing the chaos of the frontline situation.
¹⁸²
Conversely, Daluege’s fears contained an ounce of logic; he was well aware of the police troops’ limitations in training and wished to preserve them for the longer war. Daluege realized that if the army could not cope with the situation, then it was beyond the police to improve Germany’s fortunes.

The failure of the German army at the gates of Moscow shattered Nazi hopes of quick Lebensraum. Bach-Zelewski’s diary confirmed that his grasp of impending disaster came from a situation meeting with the new commander-in-chief of Army Group Centre, Field Marshal von Kluge. The field marshal confessed that the army was close to total collapse, generals and colonels had fled or taken leave, and junior staff officers took command of shattered divisions.
¹⁸³
The front barely held, but the attrition on German forces caused a permanent loss of the best troops. The calamity continued unabated. On January 10, 1942, Bach-Zelewski received confirmation from Himmler that he was responsible for plugging the gaps and saving the situation, and five days later, he faced the burden of evacuating two hundred wounded police troopers and soldiers. The army group failed to respond to his pleas for help, so he adapted Himmler’s Junkers Ju52 airplane to ferry the men to an emergency field hospital in Minsk.
¹⁸⁴

The final tally of losses in senior German personnel was high. Bock stepped down on grounds of ill health. In 1924, Maj. Hermann Geyer had questioned the relevance of Cannae dogma for the future German army. In January 1942, he was an unemployed general, his campaign report accusing Cannae of failing the army. His words were lost on an army desperately trying to hold together the Eastern Front.
¹⁸⁵
Among Bach-Zelewski’s clique, there also were casualties. The commander of SS-Infantry Brigade, SS-Brigadeführer
Hermann, was killed in action during heavy fighting in Orel area in December. Oberst Montua, the commander of Police Regiment Centre, was ordered to Germany to become an SS officer and instructor. Even his fighting favorite, Binz, was wounded in combat. After rescuing the troops from capture or death, Bach-Zelewski was relieved and ordered to attend the SS hospital in Berlin. His campaign was temporarily over, but Emil von Zelewski’s nephew had restored the family honor and carved a reputation for dogged determination in combat. His leadership in killing operations and administering population control elevated him as Himmler’s praetorian. In January 1942, a confirmed drug addict, he faced a difficult future. In terms of security policy, Hitler was mired in ambiguity. In July 1941, Stalin’s declaration of a partisan uprising offered an excuse for mass extermination. This had increased the level of killing but had not pacified Russia. The longer the Soviet Union resisted the Germans, the greater the delay in imposing Lebensraum. In addition to the problems of overefficiency and effectiveness of the economy, calls for rationalization and radical organization echoed through the regime. In terms of Lebensraum, Hitler had reached a crossroads. He could no longer tolerate the existence of Jews, even in ghettos, and abhorred the presumed heroism of the Soviet partisan. In 1942, German security policy was redrafted to meet his ambitions.