Hitler's Bandit Hunters (45 page)

The timely death of Schenckendorff on July 6, during the investigation of the falsification allegations, was a perhaps too fortuitous coincidence.
¹⁰¹
Field Marshal von Kluge wrote to Schenckendorff’s wife for the first time in years with condolences for his former comrade. The heart of the case was between Korsemann, Gottberg, and the position of HSSPF Russia-Centre. Were the real culprits Gottberg in league with Dirlewanger to prevent the
timely release of reports? From the perspective of the Nazi’s total war effort, this incident caused the highest loss, decapitating the German security command in the east for the entire war. From the standpoint of professionalism, we discover that the etiquette of careerism, based on the principles of social Darwinism, was not confined to the SS organization. All the ranting and reengineering brought superficial success but failed to unhinge the Allies’ grand strategy or to hamper the long-term direction of the war. In many ways, rationalization, professionalization, and standardization were highly successful at perpetuating Hitler’s war. Internally, the Nazis were unable to overcome their character traits or behavioral patterns. Personal greed and self-gratification were the reaction to calls for total war and collective effort received a short-sighted response. Nazism was undone by its social Darwinist motivations. In 1943, Hitler’s empire was like a giant sand-castle facing the incoming tides. As the tides breached the walls, the Nazis worked like ants to rebuild their barriers. In this process, sand suffers from liquefaction and eventually becomes useless. The real breaches in the Nazi edifice dissolved from within. Thus, as the regime grandstanded total war, a new round of polycratic competition and opportunism opened between the hangers on.

The only person to succeed from the affair was Gottberg. He was awarded the German Cross in Gold, a highly cherished medal that was regarded as political recognition for services to the state. The award of the German Cross in Gold for Gottberg (July 1943–August 25, 1943) led to a service epistle by Bach-Zelewski: “von Gottberg with the SS-Polizeiverbände, army and Luftwaffe has carried out effective operations against the bandits. The show piece was the Grand Operation ‘Cottbus’
[Grossunternehmen Cottbus]
where in critical days it was his leadership that saw it through.” Thus:

NÜRNBERG: November 19–25, 1942, between Glebokie and Vilno; 1st SS-Infantry Brigade, 14th SS-Police Regiment, 2 Schutzmann-schaft-Battalions, and local gendarmes.

HAMBURG: December 10–12, 1942, in forests north of Slonim; 2nd SS-Police Regiment, 1st Battalion 23rd SS-Police Regiment, and 1st Battalion 24th Regiment, 3 Schuma Battalions; 3,186 combined enemy dead; 3 tanks, 7 artillery pieces, 5 sub-machine guns, 12 light machine-guns, and 367 rifles captured; 19 bandit camps destroyed.

ALTONA: December 22–23, 1942, south of Slonim; 1,059 enemy dead.

FRANZ: January 5–14, 1943, east of Osipovichi; 1,349 enemy dead; 280 rifles, 3 cannons, and large amounts of ammo captured; 9 camps destroyed

ERNTEFEST: January 18 to February 5, 1943, military road MinskSlutsk;
3,721 enemy dead; 433 rifles, 2 artillery pieces, mortars, and 28 machine guns captured.

HORNUNG: February 8–26, 1943, Pripet marshes south of Slutsk; 2 SS-Police Regiments, 2 SS-Police Battalions, and 5 Schuma; 9,662 enemy dead.
¹⁰²

The last entry of Gottberg’s accreditation list was Operation “Cottbus.” Bach-Zelewski listed that it took place from April 28 to June 21, 1943, to the north of Borissow. He called it the largest operation in HSSPF Russia-Centre involving 16,662 men from the Wehrmacht and police. The enemy suffered 6,042 killed in action, 3,709 “bandit suspects” executed, and 599 prisoners. The Germans suffered 127 dead (3 officers) and 535 wounded (10 officers). The captured booty included 29 pieces of artillery, 18 mortars, 61 machine guns, 16 antitank guns, 45 submachine guns, but, most revealing of all, only 905 rifles.

Wither Bandenbekämpfung? In July 1944, Victor Klemperer observed, “We had now not three, but five fronts: Russia, France, Italy, also the home front of the bombing attacks and the bandit-front.”
¹
Chapter 4
explains how Nazi national security was reengineered by the SS, through institutional machinations and political opportunism, to turn Bandenbekämpfung into an operational concept. The subsequent chapters explain how Bandenbekämpfung developed in an effort to eradicate the Soviet partisan. Outside of the war against the Soviet partisan, there was a more complex situation than even Klemperer could encapsulate. Hitler’s strategy did indeed incorporate five central fronts, among them Bandenbekämpfung, but each engendered a different set of priorities and agendas. In terms of operational security policy, the last years of the war saw Bandenbekämpfung adapted as a catchall solution for a range of issues, not all related. The exponents of Bandenbekämpfung struggled to maintain consistency against differing territorial conditions and the interests of rival agencies. Their greatest problem was uncertainty caused by Hitler’s continual reinterpretation of how victory might be achieved. This uncertainty swept through Nazi organizations. Military setbacks inflicted by the Red Army, the bombing of German cities, and the allied invasions in the west were answered by faith in static fortifications and concrete obstacles, the ongoing extermination of the Jews, and the determined pacification and eradication of resistance. Hitler’s war was turning in on itself.

In the summer of 1944, Poland once again attracted the attention of the world. Poland’s geo-political position made it the key buffer against Soviet invasion and incursion. Since 1939, Poland had been exposed to a combination of occupation, genocide, and corruption. From April 1943 to January
1945, Poland was on the receiving end of intensified Bandenbekämpfung, including blocking or preventing Soviet thrusts into Poland to destroy strategic junctions, securing and participating in the continued extermination of Jewry, and destroying Polish nationalism by eradicating the resistance movement. The underlying operational factor in these tasks was the SS reliance, even piggybacking, on the traditional Wehrmacht occupation structure, which enabled extensive administration of genocide, enslavement, and exploitation. Bandenbekämpfung tasks were completed despite obstacles. There were hurdles from leadership quarrels regarding the regime’s policy toward Poland, but the Bandenkampfverbände developed a dynamic capability for multitasked command, coordinating and completing ideological, political, and security tasks within their operations. The SS ingeniously organized operations by interweaving them with older security methods. In addition, the SS internalized “Hitler’s will” as the logic of command. The abundance of the “Führer’s will,” in real terms translated as faith and fanaticism, substituted for the lack of replacement armies and equipment shortages and was supposed to bolster the troop’s sagging morale. The presence of this faith and fanaticism coincided with a growing expectancy for high-end results from operations. The demands by Hitler, the SS, the Nazi Party, and German institutions lost all semblance of reality except the administration of destruction and revenge. Germany, so it seemed, was fighting a different kind of war from the other belligerents.

Revenge was a common Nazi slogan. The Nazis reaped “revenge” against Poland for the Versailles Treaty, the war-guilt clause, and the creation of the “new” Poland. After dismantling Poland, the Nazis used the rump, the General Government, as their base to prosecute their ongoing race war against the Jewish people and the eradication of Polish national identity. Himmler held Poles in utter contempt and was only concerned for Poland’s fate insofar as it undermined internal security in the wake of Germany’s waning fortunes. Himmler’s idea of security regarding Poland rarely wavered from widespread killing. In 1940, in a speech to Hitler’s Waffen-SS bodyguard, he explained how killing actions were fraught with hardship. In freezing weather, he recalled, “we had to haul away thousands, tens thousands, hundred thousands … to shoot thousands of leading Poles, where we had to have the toughness, otherwise it would have taken revenge on us later.” Additionally, he did not differentiate between SS-Police security actions and military operations:

[I]t is much easier to go into combat with a company than to suppress an obstructive population of low cultural level in some area with a company or to carry out executions, or to haul away people, to evict crying and hysterical women, or to return our
German racial brethren across the border from Russia and to take care of them.
²

By the end of 1943, Himmler’s opinion had remained fundamentally unchanged, while his suspicion over Polish intentions was reinforced when he recalled the border battles of 1919:

The fight for Germandom stretched across the Warthegau, Oberschlesien, West Prussia, and small areas of the borders. This was a fight against the bandit and our soldiers and the defense was successful. But where had the Polish expertise come from…. The Polish nation used good organization. Their troops were excellent fighters, the men’s careers included award of the Iron Cross first class, some were old Prussian senior sergeants, there were veteran sergeants, many had been taught in German schools…. They had been willing to learn peoples war [Volkskrieg], they were prepared to give up blood and they knew how to use German order and precision against us. This game plan must never be allowed to be repeated.
³

He told his audience, “Every little fire will immediately be stamped out and quenched and extinguished otherwise—as in the case of a real fire—a political and psychological surface-fire may spring up among the people.”
⁴
His words proved prophetic.

Himmler had good reason to be concerned. Captured Polish partisans and slave laborers from the east escaped and formed bands. Himmler went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that escapees were apprehended.
⁵
Internal security was undermined from the combined effects of the transfer of home police troops and the rise of “foreigner bands” inside German cities.
⁶
In 1942, the Stuttgart police were alerted to the activities of a Polish resistance faction working within Germany. The Germans infiltrated “trusties” among slave laborers and were able to identify and arrest the leader Leonhard Kendzierski (along with his brother and a courier) in Cologne. Under interrogation, Kendzierski confessed that the resistance movement was rooted in the foreign labor force in Germany. He, his brother, and the courier also gave away their comrades’ identities, and this led to further arrests. In August 1943, criminal commissar Kurt Bethke was transferred to Cologne to contain this problem. Bethke believed the strategic position of Cologne, the major crossing point over the Rhine, as well as the bombing, influx of slave laborers, and reduction of police resources had all undermined the city’s social cohesion.
⁷
In April 1944, a Polish resistance courier arrived in Cologne with orders that all members of the resistance were to join with approaching allied armies from the west. In the event of an uprising within Germany, they were expected to stand
aside and let matters take their course. In the event of a general collapse, they were to disperse into groups of one hundred to two hundred and make their way back to Poland. By August 1944, the situation in Cologne had deteriorated into open acts of violence such as killing police officers, party members, and German army soldiers. In response, the security police planned a Bandenbekämpfung-style operation, which led to sporadic street fighting and raging gun battles across districts of the city.
⁸

The Nazi reorganization of Poland was reflected by the HSSPF command system. “Northeast,” covered the extended state of eastern Prussia, HSSPF “Weichsel” (Vistula) administered the Reichsgau of Danzig-West Prussia, and HSSPF Warthe covered the Warthegau with all states incorporated into the Reich. The General Government was administered separately by the HSSPF East, under SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger and was divided into five SSPFs—Kraków, Lublin, Radom, Warsaw, and Lemberg. The scale of policing assigned to this territory is listed in
Table 8.1
and highlights how many large formations were deployed to this command. In addition, there were at least seventeen Order Police battalions, including an artillery battalion, as well as gendarmerie and technical specialists. The SS-Police signals stations network, as elsewhere, connected Warsaw, Radom, Kielce, Tschenstochau, Lublin, Biala-Podlask, Zamocs, Rzeszow, and Danzig.
⁹

Table 8.1: Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger’s Formations*