Hitler's Bandit Hunters (18 page)

Irrespective of the direction of the report, the body of analysis contained implications that Himmler embraced. Zenner was confident that his position enabled him to interpret the partisan mission. They had three identifiable tasks. The first was to disrupt railway traffic with mines or by removing track and set roadblocks along the three categories of German military highways (
Rollbahn
). The second involved ambushes, using machine pistols and machine guns, against single vehicles or unprotected truck convoys. The third exploited the psychological impact of their presence within communities and the specter of Stalin’s wrath and retribution. This deepened the sense of isolation and stirred an atmosphere of insecurity among the collaboration police, Schuma guard posts, and depots. There were cases of partisans shooting members of the Schuma or killing their families. Stalin had sanctioned the assassination of mayors and inhabitants who collaborated. Zenner put forward the prospect of wholesale disruption within the German civilian administrations (Rayon).

The foremost territorial problem facing the SS, according to the Zenner report, was contending with the inhospitable Russian forests. He suggested clearing trees and brush up to three hundred meters on either side of roads and railways to neutralize the potential for ambush. The political challenge of
the partisans could be found in the casualties they had caused: May 1942— four gendarmes and twenty-three Schutzmänner killed in action, nine Schuma cold-bloodedly executed, twenty wounded and two were still missing.
⁴⁶
The casualties in June indicated a trend. An ambush by partisans armed with machine guns and mortars attacked the police station in Naliboki, a town west of Minsk. The Schuma trapped inside the building suffered fourteen killed, eight missing, and only three escaped. The next day, a police officer with a senior NCO and a driver were killed in an ambush on the military highway. These incidents proved to Zenner that a determined challenge to German authority was being orchestrated. He assumed that the partisans were operating in small groups and as part of several larger bands. They were mobile, were familiar with the terrain, and had secured bases deep within the forests. The partisans practiced a “quiet” routine when German troops were in close proximity to the encampments. Zenner suggested that the most successful bands included professional soldiers carrying out military objectives. Not surprisingly, Zenner blamed Jewish partisans for plundering but judged all the partisans without exception to be well-armed.

The report’s proposals for combating (Bekämpfung) the bands were delivered in section six. Zenner recommended the further extension of the network of trusties (
Vetrauensmänner
). This was apparently difficult because the indigenous populations of his multi-ethnic region were reluctant to collaborate. His security department had addressed this problem through a smaller network of collaborators. He also proposed raising the alertness and response level of the police. To counter the initiative of surprise held by the partisans, Zenner thought increased preparedness and heightened mobility was the answer. He recommended, given the scale and the distances involved, strengthening the motorized contingents in the police with armored scout cars and armored personnel carriers. The pursuit troops also required ample supplies to hunt down the partisans until they killed the last one. He proposed the formation of combat groups (
Kampfgruppen
), stationed within cities and well prepared with contingency plans for pacification actions. To support these forces, he argued that it was essential to use airplanes in a close liaison role.

Zenner’s report had varying degrees of reasoned solutions, especially in the proposals to improve the troops and resources available. The reason for this was the German reliance on collaborators. Zenner’s forces numbered a handful of Latvian and Lithuanian Schuma battalions and four platoons of motorized gendarmerie. He expected several more Lithuanian Schuma battalions, a signals intelligence detachment, and another motorized gendarmerie platoon to arrive soon. He projected as an immediate solution that fifteen battalions might restore order, with each battalion assigned to patrol an area of approximately seven thousand square meters. This was only achievable if the army also shared the security burden and protected the supply routes. His radical proposal recommended bringing forward troops still in training, police
reservists, depots, and units under construction into the security zone. He explained that deploying these troops in Byelorussia would increase the overall presence of German authority. This offered the added bonus of improving the quality of training and increased the pool of available units for counter-operations.
⁴⁷
Zenner went on to describe the poor condition of the Schuma and their equipment. Few possessed boots, there was no leather for repairs to those with boots, and there were no bootmakers. The Schutzmänner on guard posts (Einzeldienst) duties worked barefoot. Zenner blamed the clothing and equipment problems on management without specific explanation. There were too few weapons in comparison with the partisan’s supplies. The signals functions were inadequate. He requested portable wireless radios and a signals support vehicle for each battalion. This communications issue had become critical since the partisans had cut the telephone cables. At that time, the Germans found it virtually impossible to pass on orders. His final comment was bleak, that even with nearly eighty Schuma battalions, this was but “a drop on a hot stone” (
ein Tropfen auf dem heissem Stein
).

Zenner’s report almost certainly embarrassed Jeckeln and Bach-Zelewski, not in content but in the manner of its release to Himmler, their superior officer, constituting a break in protocol.
⁴⁸
Nevertheless, Himmler decided to test Zenner’s proposals in both Russia and in the HSSPF Alpenland covering Carinthia (Oberkrain) and Styria (Untersteiermark). This region had suffered from continuing partisan problems since mid-1941. The British had first intercepted signals in August 1941, confirming serious fighting in the area of Veldes (Slovenia). The German Police Battalion 181 had come under serious attack.
⁴⁹
The district army commander, General Bader, had countered Tito’s partisans with six divisions and very nearly caught them in encirclement. This was the first of several near misses when the Germans nearly destroyed Tito.
⁵⁰
Himmler’s order, on June 25, 1942, called for the application of Bandenbekämpfung. The HSSPF Alpenland, SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Polizei Erwin Rösener, was a well-known workaholic but had not recorded any particular expertise in combating partisans. Daluege received instructions from Himmler to provide Rösener with the assistance and support sufficient to cover operations for four weeks. The central command of the Waffen-SS (
SS-Führungshauptamt
) supplied heavy weapons, in particular rifle grenades, mortars, flamethrowers, and mountain field guns. Daluege also assigned several gendarmerie detachments. The Security Police and SD were ordered to deploy a reinforced Einsatzgruppen to cleanse the area. Local army reserve units were requested to assist in the operations but not at the expense of their training schedule. Significantly, Himmler ordered all German men in the region between seventeen and fifty-five to take up arms.
⁵¹

Beside the order, Himmler issued specific guidelines for operations against “partisans” and other “bandits.” They stipulated that the security police should conduct a reconnaissance of the region and make an intelligence
assessment to locate the bands’ leaders. He ordered the task force to encircle, blockade, and clear the area in coordination with the
Landesschützen
, reserve police troops and army reserve. The security police were to assault the heart of the “bandits” and decapitate their leaders. The escaping “bandits,” dissipated and splintered in combat, were to be killed in flight and the escapees to be pursued, hunted down, and executed. The decision to impose punishment (
Strafaktion
) against villages guilty of supporting the “bandits” was passed on to the field commanders. Their job was to segregate the “bandit”-supporting villagers from the rest of the population or community. All men of guilty families and their immediate family circle (
Sippe
) were brought under an automatic death penalty. All the women were sent to concentration camps and their children were deported to Austria for racial examination and adoption. The SS confiscated households as property of the state. The purpose of the operation, according to Himmler, was to liberate the friendly from the unfriendly. For this action, he ordered the troops to conduct themselves appropriately in great expectation for their success even in the difficult mountainous region.
⁵²

Between June 13 and July 9, Bach-Zelewski was heavily committed in joint SS and Wehrmacht security operations. On June 17, he met Oskar Dirlewanger and the commanders of the Police Battalions 51 and 122. He awarded Iron Crosses to Oberst Worms and Oberst Schimana on June 25. He wrote in his diary of his suspicion of the reliability of the Russian auxiliary police of the Ordnungsdienst (OD). Three days later, the partisans shot a member of a collaborator family during a wave of incidents in the Mogilev area. During an operation on July 5, the OD was excluded and the SS surprised fifty-four partisans and shot them. This confirmed Bach-Zelewski’s opinion of the unreliability of the OD.
⁵³
On July 9, Himmler held a senior command conference. Those attending included Daluege, Bomhard, three eastern HSSPFs (Krüger from Poland, Bach-Zelewski, and Prützmann), and two SSPF officers, Zenner and Odilo Globocnik from Lublin. Heinrich Müller (chief of the Gestapo), Bruno Streckenbach (RSHA), and Dr. Erhard Schöngarth (BdS Kraków), the former SD-Einsatzgruppen field commander, represented the SD and Gestapo.
⁵⁴
From the SS field branches came Kurt Knoblauch, the chief of staff of the KSRFSS; SS-Brigadeführer Willi Bittrich, the newly promoted commander of the SS-Cavalry Division; and police generals Herbert Becker (BdO General Government) and Georg Jedicke (BdO Ostland), one of Daluege’s senior officers. Hannes Heer suggests that during this meeting Himmler announced his intention of taking control of all Nazi field security.
⁵⁵
On July 27, Himmler’s appointments diary referred to Bandenbekämpfung for the first time, although it was not yet official policy, indicating that the planning phase had ended.
⁵⁶
In correspondence with Himmler, Daluege asked who was going to be responsible for this new policy and received the curt reply “me personally” (
ich persönlich
). Himmler explained that, in practice, the HSSPF would
take charge locally and field commanders were responsible for combat. Given that, Daluege was asking these questions, having attended the meeting of July 9, suggests that the conference was predominately ideological in content and not about implementation.
⁵⁷

In the period prior to the introduction of Bandenbekämpfung, Himmler concentrated on outlawing partisans as “bandits.” He took on the demeanor of the high priest of Bandenbekämpfung. Himmler challenged the use of such “heroic” terms as partisan, guerrilla, and freedom fighter as inappropriate descriptions of the Jewish-Bolshevik “evil” of terrorists, “bandits,” and outlaws. He understood that it was necessary to prevent the emergence of a heroic “bandit” figure. In a file memo titled, “Thoughts on the Word ‘Partisan,’” Himmler complained about the deliberate corruption of the word “partisan” by the Soviets. “In the concept of the partisan, Bolshevism tries to promote banditry to a national status,” he explained apropos this new mission of selective attrition. “We have challenged this newly coined status by the Jewish-Bolshevik sub-humans
[Untermensch]
, and have fought to remove the ‘bandits’ from within the population.”
⁵⁸
From July 31, he waged a vigorous paper war over correct terminology; the word “partisan” was no longer acceptable; it was superseded by “bandit,” franc-tireur, or outlaw.
⁵⁹
This was justified because the Soviets had adopted the term “partisan” to disguise their criminal activities in a “Bolshevik plot conceived by a Jewish propaganda swindle.” Himmler added, “bandits who fire their underhand shots, and commit their acts of sabotage as snipers, franc-tireurs and highway-robbers
[Strassenräuber]
then flee, hoping to very often encumber the innocent inhabitants of the country, will be held responsible for their deeds.”
⁶⁰

On August 12, Himmler issued an SS order that explained on “psychological grounds” why the word “partisan” was no longer acceptable. He reiterated the opinion that Bolshevism had corrupted the original term and that in future correspondence only “Banditen” or “Frank-Tireur” was acceptable. Himmler stressed the importance of differentiating between the “quiet people” and the snipers (
Heckenschützen
) and of deterring the “quiet people” from siding with the “bandits.”
⁶¹
The description of “bandits” in field reports, however, remained inconsistent. To counter Soviet propaganda and partisan incursions, and endorse the righteousness of his strategy, Himmler ordered a propaganda campaign to begin leafleting the inhabitants of Russian villages. The leaflets warned the largely peasant populations that Moscow’s use of the term “partisan” was neither heroic nor patriotic. The message warned that German soldiers would shoot anyone who supported the “bandits” or allowed them into their homes. In a letter to the SS-propaganda unit, Himmler expected reports of actions to reflect accurately the facts through official terminology (i.e.,
Banden, Banditen-Bekämpfung
, or
Franktireur-Bekämpfung).
⁶²
From then on, the SS internal publicity unit, the SS-Standarte “Kurt Eggers,” standardized this terminology in all its newsprint and
publications.
⁶³
William Combs, however, found that the coverage of Bandenbekämpfung in the SS corporate self-promotional publication,
Das Schwarze Korps
, was sporadic and limited to fewer than a dozen examples of “bandit” hunts.
⁶⁴