Hitler's Bandit Hunters (38 page)

The Pannier report also recorded the activities of the SS-Jagdkommando deployed from the Waldlager. They were operating 30 miles east of Bobruisk near the town of Rogachev. An incident, caused by four “bandits” who tripped an alarm at a static security position in the village of Peseva, had flared on August 9, 1943. The “bandits” tried to flee, but one was shot and the Germans captured one of their horses. On the evening August 17–18, the Jagdkommando ambushed what they described as a “bandit” sabotage team leading a Panje wagon. From the ensuing melee, three “bandits” were killed and their equipment was secured, but no explosives were found. Some time later, SS troopers dug out explosives from around the railway line near Kiselevichi. A couple of days later, an SS patrolman (
Aussenstreife
) was shot and killed in Bobruisk.
¹⁰⁶
A hunt by the 6th Company of the SS-Jäger Battalion, in the area of Viachovo-Sees located a “bandit” camp. The local collaboration police (Ordnungsdienst Teluscha) had tipped them off. The “bandits” retreated under the pressure of SS firepower, which Pannier attributed to their application of advanced training in combat firing.
¹⁰⁷
On August 18, Jagdkommando Wald was assigned to a harvest security action (Erntesicherungsaktion) in the area of Glusha. Their presence was enough to ward off the bands and collection led to the transportation of twenty-five tons of plundered foodstuffs.

To deny the Germans the harvest, the “bandits” had attacked the roads to the collection centers and the men handling the collection. The Soviets had increasingly employed parachutists; they were explosives experts intent on blowing up the railways around the whole area of Bobruisk.
¹⁰⁸
The securing of the harvest had taken place inside the band-infected area and thus large quantities of foodstuffs had been denied them. Pannier believed this would force the bands to rely on air supply from Moscow, which could be intercepted. His combating-bands section of the report opened with a summary of the attacks by “bandits” on supply and transportation. They were recorded as using large amounts of explosives to blow up the railway; then they attacked key strongpoints with machine-gun fire and grenades. This slowed down traffic significantly for several days.

Pannier’s August report also mentioned Bandenbekämpfung in yet another area, north of Osipovichi, which also concerned the harvest-security action. On August 7, the chief of the Ordnungsdienst in Lapichi requested assistance, and a section from 4th Company, SS-Jäger Battalion, under the command of SS-Hauptsturmführer Reigl, formed up to counter-attack. The detachment chased a band to Pogoreloe, capturing a “bandit” bakery and then proceeded to cleanse the village. The villagers said the “bandits,” including the leader, a man called Vorobev, were suffering. Seven days later, on August 14, a scout troop (
Spähtrupp
) advanced toward Greblia, whereupon the “bandits” fled in a northeasterly direction, the Germans following them. Suddenly the band counter-attacked with more than two hundred “bandits,” which forced the SS-Jäger Battalion to move back into Greblia, allegedly to
cleanse the village. During the firing of the village, explosions were recorded as supposed bandit weapon stores blew up. Twenty bandits were counted dead, but it was known at the time that their losses were greater. The SS suffered one missing, a trooper set upon by eight bandits and presumed dead, and four wounded. On August 31, the Ernteeinsatzkommando of the 4th Company of the SS-Jäger Battalion moved on to the neighboring village of Gomanovka, where they came up against strong “bandit” action. Their own losses included four dead and ten wounded; the losses of the “bandits” were unknown.

According to Pannier’s report, operations around Brosha began on August 19–20, 1943, when the strongpoint Bobruisk initiated an action for the rounding up of cattle and agricultural products. This led to a series of firefights near Chikili, which had become the center of band activity, although the “bandits” suffered six wounded. Between August 23 and August 27, the
Ernteerfassungsaktion
continued in the area of Nazdane. This move had allegedly taken the “bandits” by surprise because there had been no interference in the collection process.
¹⁰⁹
The gangs attempted to blow up the rails preventing the foodstuff from being transported out, but that failed. They then tried to machine-gun down telephone masts on August 30, hoping to cut German communications. Following an air reconnaissance of the area, the SS instigated a series of bombing decapitation flights. Bandenbekämpfung operations in Brosha caused one band forty dead and wounded, while the SS suffered three slightly injured owing to a mine being removed from a roadblock. On August 24, six airplanes carrying 3,000 kilograms of incendiary bombs and 6,000 kilograms of explosives in an attempt to destroy the headquarters of the brigades bombed the villages of Podgusty-Selenkovichi and Subarevichi. Four days later, Podgusty was attacked with twelve bombs, a combined weight of 1,400 kilograms. On August 31, the village of Berkov was attacked as a probable brigade headquarters with 500 kilograms of explosive bombs.
¹¹⁰

On August 26, the bands attacked again, this time the Germans held them with well-placed fires. Three days later, elements of the 2nd and 3rd companies, under SS-Untersturmführers Rothmayer and Hassenkamp, approached the village of Zamostosche, which was heavily defended by “bandits.” After an hour-long firefight, the village was “captured” at the cost of two dead and three wounded. One of the wounded was Rothmeyer, who subsequently died of his injuries. The “bandits” suffered eleven dead, several weapons and documentation. While this was happening, a brief firefight developed between a scout unit and “bandits” near the hamlet of Podelje. There were no known losses on either side. The papers collected by the SS indicated that the “bandits” were under orders to prevent the Germans from collecting the harvest (
Erfassungsaktion
) at all costs. They were fully aware of the planned SS operation for delivering the harvest (
Ernteeinbringungsaktion
).
Two “bandit brigades” composed of Polish-Russian border volunteers were joined by the 225th Brigade. This brigade included under its command the “Bogdanovitsce” detachment noted for causing extensive railway damage in the northern area. The bandits had relayed the order to conduct operations against the harvest and carry out large-scale mine-laying activity. They caused the death of SS-Sturmbannführer Beilhack, the SS commander of the Ernteeinbringungsaktion. The brigade had suffered reverses through the deaths of several of its veteran explosives experts. The SS result for the period August 18–31, 1943, was the transportation of a hundred tons of grain and cereals.
¹¹¹

Pannier filed his report on September 6, 1943. In all reports, there were evaluations of the German performance. Attached to Pannier’s report and his SS personnel file is a letter referring to the death of Rothmeyer. Inaccuracies in reporting were known to happen; whether they were deliberate or not depended on the circumstances. In Pannier’s SS personnel file there was a letter dated July 4, 1944, from SS-Untersturmführer Helmich. The letter referred to the Bandenbekämpfung operations the previous year that were covered in page three of the Pannier report. Helmich’s letter suggested that the report, which included the death of Rothmeyer, was incorrect. Almost a year later, he felt compelled to draw attention to the inaccuracy of the report. The letter stated that he had been assigned as adjutant to the action on August 26 when Rothmeyer had been killed. With suitable warnings from an Oberleutnant Brockmann about these kinds of actions, they were under the reconnaissance ordered by Pannier. While it attempted to move around the village of Polianki and avoid resistance, a scout troop was surprised and forced to retreat. It was during this clash that Rothmeyer, the troop leader, died of his wounds. With both the officers down, an NCO (SS-Rottenführer) led the scout troop back. In the subsequent report, Pannier suggested that the officers of the 2nd and 3rd companies of the SS-Jäger Battalion had shown cowardice in front of the enemy and during the Erfassung of the village of Kasarichi. Helmich suggested this was not so, that in fact the officers accused fell back under “bandit” pressure. Helmich accused Pannier of using the term pinch (
kneifen
) to imply they had been caught in a pincer movement and run away. The word was erased. Helmich suggested he could still see the imprint of the word on the original report. Helmich posed the question, if both officers were so poor, why were they granted the honor of leading the finest scout troops? To this day, his question remains unanswered.
¹¹²

In this chapter, the spotlight comes to rest on the Bandenbekämpfung operation. The term
Bandenunternehmungen
could equally mean the “operations of the bandit” and “antibandit operations”; the context determined the interpretation. Bandenunternehmungen involves a hodgepodge of tactics and techniques from sport hunting, conventional warfare, colonial pacification, police actions, and security warfare. Once organized into standard operating procedures and shuffled into a strict code of conduct, Bandenunternehmungen followed the basic principles of warfare.
¹
Keith Simpson identified five levels of operations: the defensive measures of strongpoints for local protection (Einzeldienst); the smaller operations (
Klein-unternehmungen);
the large-scale operations (
Grossunternehmungen);
the pacification operations; and the cleansing operations (Säuberungsaktion).
²
His model conforms to the hierarchy of Bandenbekämpfung operations except in three cases. Bandenbekämpfung was fundamentally different because of the inclusion of the “Jewish action” (
Judenaktion
), the “round up of labor action” (
Erfassungsaktion
), and the “harvest-collection action” (Ernteerfassungsaktion). The emphasis of these “actions” distinguished Bandenbekämpfung from Partisanenbekämpfung.

The tactical centerpiece of the Bandenbekämpfung operation was the encirclement (
Einkreisung
or
Einkesselung
). There were other forms of offensive operation, including the flank attack (
Flankangriff
), the envelopment (
Umfassungsangriff
), the frontal attack (
Frontangriff
), the wing attack (
Flügelangriff
), and the penetration (
Einbruch
), but the pièce de résistance remained the encirclement. The encirclement was not only Schlieffen’s legacy
but also the red thread that ran through all German operational thinking. The opening section of the regulations stated, “We shall always aim for extermination by encirclement.” All set-piece security operations were organized to encircle the enemy. There were sound, obvious reasons why the tactic of encirclement suited SS-Police operations. First, encirclement accounted for all the “bandits”; few escaped and then only by chance. Second, this exercise placed the least strain on SS-Police resources, and third, it resulted in fewer German casualties. This standard operating procedure against small and large bands called for the blockading of all escape routes so that the “bandits” were “exterminated systematically.” The size of the units deployed were precise, “a thin line of skirmishers is on no account sufficient for encirclement”; hence the size of the combat commands.

The preferred form of extermination of the “bandit” was combat. This involved one of four prescribed methods. The first was “crushing the encirclement” (
Kesseltreiben
), a strangulation maneuver, in which all units converged on the heart of the band, slaughtering all and sundry. The second involved “driving the bandits against pre-prepared firing positions” (
Vorstehtreiben
). This tactic was like a “partridge drive” in which beaters scare birds toward the hunter’s gunfire. The third method was to drive an assault wedge into the “heart of the enemy” (
Vortreiben starker Stosskeile
). This wedge, formed out of a combined arms team of infantry and armor or self-propelled artillery, was held in reserve until an opportunity opened to smash into the heart of the band. The final method called for the deployment of an assault group (
Bildung einer Stossgruppe
), released once the encirclement was reinforced. The assault group relied on accurate intelligence and the correct assumption of the band’s intended breakout point. These assault groups were more like snatch squads hunting down the “bandits” as they tried to make an escape. Once committed to an operation, the troops were ordered to distract and deceive the “bandits,” causing as much confusion as possible to undermine their attempts at interpreting German intentions. The commander was expected to ignore all plausible intelligence from “bandit deserters” regarding the escape or destruction of the band. They were warned to continue the hunt regardless.
³

The tactical order adopted by all forces in security operations was the battlegroup (Kampfgruppe). The Wehrmacht had been using such formations to integrate armor and mobile infantry to raise their mobility-firepower ratio to counter Soviet breakthroughs and to undertake special operations. The Kampfgruppen were raised from within the available forces assigned to an HSSPF. In July 1945, the British signals and intelligence service wrote a final report on German police signals. The report indicated that “the main unit involved was a Kampfgruppe, a purely ad hoc unit which consisted of anything from a battalion to one or more Police Regiments.”
⁴
The Kampfgruppe performed two functions: they represented the ultimate projection of power and they symbolized the concentration of the many skills and expertise
deployed for Bandenbekämpfung. From the perspective of the Bandenkampfverbände, each Kampfgruppe was named after its commander, indicating a close resemblance to “private” armies. However, it was not just a simple case of assigning troops to operations. The HSSPF, in forming a Kampfgruppe, was mindful of retaining a balance between routines and assigning troops to operations. It was forced to decide whether to maintain a strong grip on local conditions, thus rationalizing power projection with the wider law and order requirements of colonial policing.