Hitler's Bandit Hunters (22 page)

On September 3, 1947, a two-page document titled “Bandit Fight and the Security Situation” (
Bandenkampf- und Sicherheitslage
) was retrieved by U.S. war crimes investigators from among the captured collection of Himmler’s personal papers. A retrieval page, taking the document’s place, recorded “Bandenbekämpfung N331.” The two pages were returned on November 13, 1947, the marker remained in place, and there were no further proceedings.
¹
The document was a two-page office memorandum drafted and filed by Himmler at the KSRFSS on June 28, 1943.
²
It recorded the outcome of a meeting held on June 19, 1943, between Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler. The venue was Hitler’s idyllic retreat of the Obersalzberg, deep in the Bavarian mountains. The document was cited by Professors Kershaw and Fleming, although they overlooked the wider implications of the memo and as a consequence it has retained its secrets for more than sixty years.
³
This document represented the formulation of a Nazi security policy, prosecuted through the Bandenbekämpfung operational concept, which integrated exterminating Jews with eradicating insurgency.

The memo was broken into two sections. In the first, Himmler set the scene confirming he had presented Hitler with a batch of radio signals received from General Governor Hans Frank (General Government of Poland) on June 18, Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart (Holland) on June 18, and Dr. Friedrich Rainer, Gauleiter Carinthia (
Kärnten
), on June 17. All referred to the “bandit situation” (
Bandenverhältnisse
) in Poland, Russia, and an area covering Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, and Yugoslavia (known as the
Oberkrain
). Himmler also showed Hitler a copy of his June 11 order that was issued for liquidating Jewish ghettos in the east. Finally, he handed Hitler a “bandit map” (
Bandenkarte
) illustrating the “bandit” situation in the General
Government as of May 31, 1943. Himmler offered Hitler full and personal responsibility for failing to eradicate the “bandits” over the previous winter, adding that it was a difficult situation worsened by the withdrawal of his forces to plug the gaps at the front. He made a promise to Hitler: if he was allowed to keep the forces presently under his command (including the SS-Cavalry Division, the 1st SS Infantry Brigade, and numerous police formations), as well as return police formations serving in the army’s security divisions, he would resolve the “bandit” situation within the year and completely pacify the areas presently experiencing “banditry.”

The second section of the memorandum listed seven decisions made by Hitler that Himmler recorded as personal commands:

1. The bandit-fight
[Bandenkämpf]
remained the business of the Reichsführer-SS, the SS and police.

2. He [Hitler] clearly confirmed that no reproach is held against the SS and police because of the growing bandit danger after the transfer of forces to the front.

3. He [Hitler] promised to check if the two police regiments,
Griese
[based in Marseilles] and
Franz
[based in Finland], could be returned to us.

4. My order of June 11, 1943, was completely correct and gave the order to inform the General-Governor it will remain in force.

5. The Führer declared, after my report, that the evacuation of the Jews, despite the unrest that would thereby still arise in the next 3 to 4 months, was to be radically carried out and had to be seen through.

6. The Führer stated clearly that Bandenbekämpfung and questions of security were solely the matter and authority of the Reichsführer-SS, even in the General-Government.

7. The Führer declined all suggestions to raise Polish formations, following the Katyn propaganda, as some on the German side have suggested. The formation of Galician units from the area of Galician White Ruthenia is acceptable as this had been part of Austria over the last 150 years.
⁴

There were many interests at play in this memorandum, while its style reflected the path taken by the Nazi regime since January 1943. The individual points isolate how important Bandenbekämpfung had become to Himmler. They connect Bandenbekämpfung with the Holocaust. These simple notes also show how a vague agreement could be binding and exploited by one clique of Hitler’s lieutenants against another. However, of particular interest is the background information. This provides further clues of how Bandenbekämpfung policy was formulated, connecting the “bandit situation” in the east to the rest of Europe. Whether the dates of the radio signals were deliberately timed to arrive with Himmler, they reveal how he exploited their contents
with Hitler. They also indicate the initial moves in a power play as opportunities were presented. Hans Frank (although ensconced in the General Government—an area subject to intense Nazi administration) was locked in a losing battle with Himmler. Analysis of Bandenbekämpfung conducted in Poland is examined in
chapter 8
. Regarding Dr. Rainer, who was already in place in southern Europe, and Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who probably wished to return to the region, the situation was less clear. That region was in a state of flux made more uncertain following the collapse of Axis forces in North Africa. The impact of Bandenbekämpfung on western and southern Europe is the subject of
chapter 9
. Himmler’s scene setting also alluded to a “bandit map,” which was a lot more important than might appear and is a central theme of
chapter 5
. That leaves the question of responsibility and development of Bandenbekämpfung as an operational concept, which is examined in this chapter.

The events leading to Himmler’s memorandum began in January 1943 at a time when the malaise of defeat descended over Germany as pressure mounted from all fronts. Stalingrad caught everyone’s attention, and the atmosphere elicited confusion and petulance from Nazi leaders. Hermann Göring’s panegyric for the enfeebled soldiers of the shattered 6th Army was the army’s “last rites,” given during its final death throes. Defeat at Stalingrad coincided with the tenth anniversary of the Nazis’ coming to power. Hitler took the opportunity to make a proclamation that reinforced his mission for Germany. He reminded the public of what victory would bring. He reassured the people that their eternal struggle, at least since 1933, had been to build a strong nation, which Germany was. Hitler reiterated that the Jews, the supreme enemy of the state, had been the reason for Germany’s downfall in 1918. He comforted the rest of the German people with a promise that this war “would see the final end of Jewry … no longer would nations be infected by its curse.” Hitler dismissed his earlier military victories as insignificant in this struggle against Bolshevism. The war against Russia had been Germany’s, he confessed, but circumstances had transformed it into a European struggle against Bolshevism. Germany, he declared, was the bulwark against the Mongol horde and all that stood between European culture and barbarism. Victory, he explained, would not hail the victor, but the victorious survivors would dictate the future.
⁵
Hitler’s grand scheme for Lebensraum, as envisaged in
Mein Kampf
, was derailed by Stalingrad, and many scholars have argued Hitler’s Weltanschauung from this point turned self-destructive.

The opportunity for turning existing gains into a reduced Lebensraum and making occupied Europe slave for the German war effort remained a viable option. At the beginning of 1943, the German position in Russia was still strong even after two seasons of strategic setbacks. Throughout 1942, cliques within the regime attempted to implement various interpretations of Lebensraum;
but they all proved unworkable while the Soviet Union survived. In May 1942, Himmler received the final draft of
Generalplan Ost
from Professor Konrad Meyer, the blueprint for SS colonization of the east.
⁶
Elsewhere, by the end of the year, there were grumblings within the regime of failures. In October, Otto Bräutigam of the Ostministerium wrote damning reports on the shortfalls of eastern policy. He argued that a struggle against Bolshevism or even a campaign against the moribund Russian Empire might have succeeded, but a struggle for Lebensraum had not fooled the Russian people. He condemned German policies for forcing “both Bolshevists and Russian nationals into a common front against us.” Bräutigam pointed out that the war had not brought about a collapse of the Red Army, while the armed forces were not large enough to police the occupation. This had matured into a dire situation, he explained, because the economy of the occupied territories was integral to the success of the war effort.
⁷
Yet in October, Hitler admitted that if the war were only about colonies he would end it immediately, an indication perhaps of his waning confidence.
⁸
In December 1942, Bräutigam’s Nazi boss, Alfred Rosenberg, hosted a conference for the Wehrmacht, including Schenckendorff, and members of the Ostministerium, to discuss serious issues of the German occupation of Russia. The army blamed the roundup of Russians for labor as encouraging the will to resist. There was growing conviction from some quarters that only Russians (anti-Bolsheviks) could defeat the Russians (Bolsheviks).
⁹
Schenckendorff hoped to manipulate the conference proceedings to restore his standing in the realm of security. It was flawed judgment to assume that Rosenberg, already declining in the regime’s hierarchy of favoritism, could persuade Hitler to change his policy. The ploy failed spectacularly and Hitler admonished them both.
¹⁰

The period from the surrender of Stalingrad (February 1943) to the defeat of Kursk (July 1943) was the watershed of Hitler’s war. In the wake of Stalingrad, eyewitnesses described the moment when time stood still, as the shock and calamity of defeat was recognized by everyone. Among Germans, there was a growing realization of the hypocrisy and absurdity of the war, but also a petulant self-denial of the destruction done in their name. The regime required someone to quickly paper over the cracks, pull back the nation from the trance-like spell cast by Stalingrad and move on with the war. Josef Goebbels stepped forward with his “total war” speech in February 1943.
¹¹
Ulrich Herbert called this the “Goebbels initiative,” one of many polycratic initiatives from within the regime.
¹²
The Propaganda Ministry, using advanced techniques to enhance and spotlight subliminal messages, manipulated the presentation. Goebbels called on the German people to rise up and release their storm of victory, while the banners draped around his podium, intended to catch the eye of cinema audiences, declared “total war–rapid war” (
Totaler Krieg–Kürzerer Krieg
). A short total war was an appealing prospect for the German public. However, without a strategic commitment to sustain it,
Goebbels’s initiative soon withered, as his diary testified, but his intervention had broken the pallor of defeat.

Hitler, the Wehrmacht, and the SS could stimulate strategic initiatives, but their attention lay elsewhere. The shock of the Red Army’s double envelopment at Stalingrad sobered the army to the realities of the war. Superior strategy and tactics on the part of the Soviets had defeated the German army; stealing their precious Cannae, through the exploitation of huge manpower reserves. The German generals wanted to reposition strategy by rebuilding reserves and vigorously defending their existing gains. Hitler proposed the “Fortress Europe” (
Festung Europa
) plan, an economic-warfare driven derivation of Frederick the Great’s grand strategy. The Prussian king had effectively held together his military gains through a system of fortresses. Hitler thought solid lines of in-depth fortifications interconnected with fortified cities could blunt Red Army envelopments and offset the Soviet advantage in manpower. Labor and raw materials became the real currency of Fortress Europe as building projects surpassed Roman construction schemes.
¹³
Defensive walls, such as the “Atlantic Wall” or the “Panther Line” became the construction centerpieces of this strategy. Elsewhere, Albert Speer artificially stimulated the economic life cycle of Germany’s war economy through slavery and autarky. The emphasis on cheap mass production released intense competition between agencies and industries for a constant flow of slave labor and exploited materials. The deportation of labor under the Speer-Sauckel directive of March 1942 was intensified in the “Sauckel drive” of 1943. German soldiers and civilians became scavengers scouring Europe for equipment. Economic agencies and industrialists ignored the strategic realities and drove hard to meet performance targets through plunder and labor. By January 1943, Sauckel could publicly boast that 710,000 Ukrainians labored for the German war effort.
¹⁴

One of Hitler’s paradigms for victory over the Soviet Union came from Professor Michael Prawdin’s study of Genghis Khan, which Hitler recommended to all the members of his inner circle to read.
¹⁵
Expediency led Wehrmacht propaganda to make a call to arms for a united (occupied) Europe in the struggle against “Jewish Bolshevism.” The German army declared the reintegration of eastern and western European people. Military dogma flooded Russian communities with messages that the defeat of Bolshevism was in everyone’s interest and the means to preserving Russian culture. The army attempted to project Stalin—along with Bolshevism—as the common enemy of both Russians and Germans. In an act of “good faith,” the Germans stopped all new settlements in Russia. The real purpose behind these messages was to improve Russian willingness to work and to raise volunteers for the armed forces. The question of labor also became a problem for the army, which was forced to be self-sufficient, exploiting local resources. The army ordered insults toward “easterners” stopped and instead praised them for their
contribution to the German war effort. References to colonial exploitation or slanderous remarks about Russians as Europe’s “Negro” or as “beasts” and “barbarians” were directed to stop. The troops received orders warning them against harsh or unnecessarily violent treatment of Russian civilians.
¹⁶
Any positive effect this policy had was undermined by the Wehrmacht’s own counter-policy of conscripting labor to maintain its survival in the field.
¹⁷