Hitler's Bandit Hunters (40 page)

The police experienced the strains of quelling crowd violence during Hitler’s rise to power. They also had a reputation for using weapons to impose law and order. In 1906, riots in Hamburg awakened fears of looming revolution, and the police used arms to restore law and order.
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The Freikorps became deft at conducting full-scale street battles with heavy weapons. In 1927, the police had treated the question of street and house-to-house fighting (
Strassen- und Häuserkampf
) in its official journals. Richard Bessel suggested that the police rehearsed and practiced closing streets and neighborhoods to prevent demonstrations by proletarian agitators and Communist sympathizers. In 1929, the Berlin police revealed their capability in city action against Communist activists who had occupied a housing district. The action led to the death of thirty-three agitators and 198 agitators were injured, but there were no police casualties.
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Police close-order tactics involved tight cordons of troops and were manpower-intensive exercises. Operation “Zauberflöte” was the most comprehensive plan for a city action.

The organization of forces for “Zauberflöte” was as usual detailed. The planned operational period was five days and depended on the highest level of cooperation between the Wehrmacht and SS-Police. A series of complex maneuvers led the troops along parallel actions with the commander conducting them toward the complete choking off of all escape routes. The plan required the army to form an outer cordon with troops from the 141st Reserve Division and units of the Minsk garrison commander (Ortskommandantur).
The SS-Police, working the inner cordons, committed elements from two regiments, and the SS-Sonderkommando Dirlewanger was placed on a system of strict rotation. Five hundred and sixty men from the 2nd SS-Police Regiment took up the first watch on April 17. The 13th SS-Police Regiment followed on April 18 with 470 men. The subsequent watches saw fluctuations in manpower commitment: the 2nd with 640 men on April 19, the 13th with 540 men on April 20, the 2nd with 470 men on April 21, and finally, the 13th with 490 men on April 22. Precise instructions were handed to the SS-Sonderkommando Dirlewanger. They were to encircle the Jewish ghetto and provide guards detachments for their columns of laborers leaving and returning to the ghetto. Korsemann chose to openly admonish Dirlewanger by adding to the preparatory orders the warning that any plundering by his men would be punishable through the severest means.
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Operation “Zauberflöte” was timed to start at 4:00 a.m. on April 17, with the army exploiting the cover of darkness and maximizing surprise to blockade the first district. The men of the 2nd SS-Police Regiment took up their positions. The cordon of two men at 50 meters required a total of 268 men. During the initial maneuver the cordons required each man to cover an area either side 50 meters from the next man. Fifty meters appears a fair-sized gap until it is realized that this was the guaranteed kill zone for troops shouldering the standard German army rifle. On main roads, this number was increased to two men per 50 meters. On April 18, the army received the order to relieve the police by 7:00 p.m. By the evening of April 18, the central part of the city was encircled by the army, and on April 21, this allowed the police to conduct the final searches. Meanwhile, the search and hunting teams roamed the district. Six hundred men, from the 2nd, 13th, and 1st battalions of the SS-Police Regiment, were assigned to search floors and cellars to find weapons and Soviet propaganda. The teams assigned to searching no-man’s-land (
Sperrgebiet
) numbered 120 men. In one sense, they were like beaters in a hunt driving victims toward the walking killing zone.

The second part of the operation involved registration. The police set up regular checkpoints (
Durchgangsstellen
) and assigned twenty men each. Their job was to conduct the first screening. Persons found in possession of official SS or SSPF documents were allowed to continue their lives uninterrupted. Others without such documentation on them were taken to collection points for registration and possible deportation. Korsemann’s plan also integrated what became the central checkpoints, each handled by one SD officer, a police official, a translator from the Security Police, and ten ordinary police officers from the Order Police. The job of registration for deportation was handed to a hundred-man detail at the collection points (
Sammelplätze
), with another fifty men policing the transports. For the climax of the operation, Korsemann had anticipated the encirclement being completed by April 22. He also projected that day as the moment when the fugitives in desperation
would make their strongest attempt to break out. As a precaution, therefore, he increased the number of guards by two men every 50 meters strengthening the city cordon. The attempted breakout actually came at night on April 19–20, but it was crushed. Resistance, when offered, caused houses to be burnt down, booty destroyed, and underground presses collected.

During the operation, on April 19, Bach-Zelewski met Fritz Sauckel in Minsk to hold discussions on foreign labor, as mentioned in
chapter 4
.
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The overall result was 76,000 persons processed, 52,000 persons taken to collection points for further processing, and another 22,400 rail travelers inspected for traveling without a ticket as “black travelers” (
Schwarzfahrer
). Five hundred and fifty people were sent to Germany as laborers, 712 regarded as unsuitable to be sent to Germany were sent as laborers to Minsk, 39 were arrested, and 2 suffered “special treatment” (
Sonderbehandlung
). The police confiscated materials identified as saboteur materials, including acid, batteries, copper and fuse wire, rifles, gas masks, cameras, and medical kits, as well as a miscellaneous selection of clothing. To mark the completion of the operation and acknowledge their resounding success, a closing ceremony was arranged for 11:00 a.m. on April 23, 1943. Bach-Zelewski declared “Zauberflöte” a bandit operation (Bandenunternehmungen), remained in Minsk to preside over a march-past of 136 officers and 3,705 non-commissioned officers, and men of the “SS- und Polizeiverbänden,” and then gave a speech.
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An almost perfect example of Cannae occurred in an operation named “Nasses Dreieck” (“wet triangle”), which took place by the River Desna and close to Kiev. Himmler had ordered Prützmann to take charge of cleaning the area of a significant bandit incursion.
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A band led by a Russian farmer named Naumenko was reputed to be eight hundred to one thousand strong. At first, the members of the band had been drawn from local villages and were volunteers. Post-operation interrogations discovered that “Band Naumenko” had in fact three hundred men armed with rifles, six machine guns, fifteen light machine guns, four mortars, and thirty automatic weapons. The Germans learned that Naumenko had forced locals into a second detachment of about 250 and were led by his brother or sister, though neither was certain. A Captain Spenatzky, a Red Army officer, organized another detachment of about 250 with heavy and light machine guns, automatic rifles, and Russian rifles. The regional bandit commissar was said to be Lieutenant Kim, a thirty-five-year-old specialist sent by Moscow and openly declared the overlord of the rayon (district). This band was known but its strength was not recorded. An element of confusion was added to the assessment of the “bandit” forces by the disappearance of the collaboration Cossack Battalion 121, which was believed to have joined the bands.
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The field commander assigned to eradicate the bandits was Oberst Römer,
the local Luftwaffe garrison commander. The terrain bisected the River Desna, included forested swampland, and came under the command of the regional authorities of the Wehrmacht and SS-Police. The intelligence on the bands, prior to Operation “Nasses Dreieck,” indicated to the Germans that they required larger forces. Römer planned a coup de main with a three-sided encirclement using the river as a barrier to “bandit” mobility. He also incorporated deception into the plan to conceal his shortfall of troops and heavy weapons. The bluff appeared to work. “Our strength was overestimated,” Römer boasted later. “The bandits believed that we had 2,000 Cossacks and several regiments.” The troops available allowed the formation of the ad hoc Kampfgruppe Römer. On May 6, Römer organized the Kampfgruppe into five attack detachments (
Stosstrupps
), three deploying antitank and anti-aircraft weapons. Constrained by manpower, he elected to eschew clearing the forest and avoided the swamp to maintain his operational mobility. During the preparation phase, Römer received reports that the “bandits” had occupied four villages, Darniza, Wysschaja Dubetschnja, and Lebedov Chutor and were in control of crossing points over the river. He decided that they would become his first and priority objectives. Römer called on Wasserschutzpolizei Kiev to form a riverine force of three motor patrol boats and retake control of the river crossings.
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Römer chose the classical Cannae tactic, incorporating the river to anchor the progress of his mobile units, making them perform a closing door maneuver. The operation began on May 9, 1943, with the units moving into their designated positions. One group occupied positions to the north near to the occupied villages, while a detachment of Cossacks rode hard to close the southern flank. A third detachment formed up a screen at the front of the forest to prevent any of the “bandits” from escaping. The last maneuver involved the Wasserschutzpolizei patrol boats moving into position to close off the river crossing points. This confirmed a loose encirclement. For security purposes Römer designated one detachment to secure the march, by protecting the supply routes and guarding signals land lines. The 120th Luftwaffe Signals Regiment set up the operational communications network and began monitoring bandit communications. The encirclement was then strengthened on May 10, when the Germans brought up heavier weapons to reinforce the northern detachment positioned near the villages. A heavy mortar detachment took up positions on the far side of the river. Realizing their predicament, the bandits tried to force an escape by attacking the bridge, but they were repulsed. This caused damage to the bridge, and operations waited for five hours, while German army engineers carried out repairs.

The “bandit” action triggered a German attack, and the Germans soon captured several villages. Slowly they began crushing the bandits like an anaconda slowly constricts its prey. The lack of air support forced the Germans to press the “bandits” in a direction that brought them within range of
the mortars. This singularly successful tactic caused serious losses for the “bandits” and drove them deep into the swamp.
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After this climactic fighting, the Germans proceeded with a slow and deliberate cleanup action. On May 11, a detachment proceeded in a north-northwesterly direction systematically clearing bandits from houses and cellars of villages. That evening Römer recorded that a flight of Stuka dive-bombers joined in an attack on one of the villages, to “cleanse it of enemies and return to its legal standing.”
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The cleanup of the area continued the next day, with the Technische Nothilfe locating and marking minefields. The encircling troops were briefly stalled in the swamp by resistance and another minefield near the villages of Nowosselki-Oschitki. Elsewhere, the Wasserschutzpolizei cleared the river islands and executed fourteen captured bandits without trial. Reports to Römer indicated that the main body of the band had fled deep into the woods and swamps. Over the next two days, supporting Hungarian troops captured high ground. This gave Römer time to prepare his forces for the final
Schwerpunkt
. On May 15–16, the “bandits” were officially recorded as destroyed:

With short pauses, the bandits up to their necks in water in the swamp were unmercifully attacked by mortars, heavy artillery and heavy machine-guns. The result was that many bandits tried to escape but were destroyed in the process. A large number were found dead caused by iron and swamp water.
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Römer wrote in his operational report that “in the period the May 9–16, approximately twelve hundred bandits and bandit-helpers were shot, more than 50 percent during the attempt to break out of the swamp.” He added, “one must add to this the large number shot during the fighting in the swamp morass of at least 800 to 1,000.” He noted that 843 “bandits” were killed in the fighting and two hundred apparently unaccounted for in the swamp. Römer surmised that “all the armed bandits had fled into the swamp, the prisoners had confirmed this. There are still individual bandits attempting to evade capture seeking protection as refugees.” He ordered the woods combed for escapees and any found were punished.
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The question of “bandit” weaponry came into the report: “According to the calculation, there was only a small amount of captured weapons, only 10 guns and other equipment. This is explained because the bandits were in the swamps and they either lost their weapons or buried them.”
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Also in passing Römer acknowledged the presence of the GFP and the execution by shooting of 205 Bandenverdächtigte.

Römer reserved his highest praise for the Cossacks in both their reconnaissance and combat roles. They were “the perfect troops for pacification,” in his opinion, because “they ride fast and fight hard.” He commended the excellent relationship with community leaders and a local schoolmaster. They assisted in the efficient deportation of civilians and two thousand cows.
Römer finally judged the shortfall of German propaganda to be at fault. “The reason for the rise in banditry,” he said, “was the failure of our own propaganda that the civilians were to be slaughtered or sent to Germany, which was worse than Siberia,” Römer judged. “Our propaganda failed. In Wypolsowo, the propaganda detachment played music and distributed leaflets of pictures of the Führer. The inhabitants said if our propaganda had worked, then Naumenko would never have been able to develop.”
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Römer’s observations partly explain the nature of the relationship between political killing and military capability within a Bandenbekämpfung operation. However, they do not explain Bach-Zelewski’s apparent rant against the operation. In his diary, after the completion of the operation, he complained that Prützmann was not militarily trained. He ranted that it was alright for the Reichsführer to pass on orders to others while passing the responsibility for the nation on to him but that sometimes leaders had to rise above their careers and do the right thing. He argued that under this dictatorship, the nation accepted authority from above, but had no real idea of the uninterrupted fight for power that was taking place below. He was in a powerful position but struggled to maintain his influence.
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Bach-Zelewski should not have been so paranoid: a month later, he was promoted to Ch.BKV.