Hitler's Bandit Hunters (79 page)

7
. Norbert Frei,
Adenauer’s Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2002).

8
. Helge Grabitz, “Problems of Nazi Trials in the Federal Republic of Germany,”
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
3 (1988), 209–22.

9
. “Geisel und Partisanentötungen im zweiten Weltkrieg: Hinweise zur rechtlichen Beurteilung” (Ludwigsburg: Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen, Februar 1968), hereafter referred to as ZStL Legal Report 1968.

10
. NARA, RG242, FMS, B-252, “The XIV SS Corps: November–December 1944,” December 7, 1946, Lieutenant General von dem Bach-Zelewski.

11
. Bender and Taylor,
Uniforms, Organization, and History of the Waffen-SS
, vol. 2, 27–49.

12
. NARA, RG242, A3343-SS0-023, Bach-Zelewski report, February 9, 1945. Himmler ensured that a copy of the report was attached to Bach-Zelewski’s personnel file.

13
. TVDB, 96.

14
. TVDB, 97.

15
. TVDB, 99.

16
. Warlimont,
Inside Hitler’s Headquarters
, 292.

17
. TVDB, 30.

18
. TVDB, 63.

19
. Reitlinger,
The SS
, 398.

20
. Trevor-Roper,
Hitler’s War Directives
, 300-1; and Rudolf Absolon,
Die Wehrmacht im Dritten Reich
, 403.

21
. NARA, RG238, T1019-4 Record of the United States War Crimes Trials Interrogations 1946–1949. Evidence Division of the Office, Chief Counsel for War Crimes (OCCWC) Headed up by Walter H. Rapp, Chief Prosecutor was Telford Taylor. HQ Third United States Army Intelligence Center, office of the assistant chief of Staff, G-2, APO 403, Preliminary report, August 22, 1945, referred to as IMT-BZ, August 22, 1945.

22
. Taylor,
The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials
(London: Bloomsbury, 1993), 259.

23
. Ibid.

24
. PRO, HW16/6, parts one and two, circulated to Telford Taylor.

25
. BZ-IMT, January 20, 1946.

26
. BZ-IMT, November 27, 1945.

27
. Skorzeny,
My Commando Operations
, 443.

28
. IWM, USMT-11, 6,004.

29
. NARA, RG238, T1019, roll 4, report from Walter Rapp to Telford Taylor, October 2, 1946.

30
. D. A. L. Wade, “A Survey of the Trials of War Criminals,”
The Royal Institute of International Affairs
96 (1951), 66–70.

31
. BZ-IMT, January 17, 1946, NCA document NOKW-067.

32
. Karel Margry, “The Dostler Case,”
After the Battle
94 (1996), 1–19.

33
. E. H. Stevens,
Trial of Nikolaus von Falkenhorst: Formerly Generaloberst in the German Army
(London: William Hodge, 1949), xiv.

34
. A. P. Scotland,
The London Cage
(London: Evans Brothers, 1957), 165–166 and 170–71.

35
. Taylor,
The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials
, 253–5.

36
. Of all the allied powers, only the French war crimes investigators attempted to place the Bandenbekämpfung directive on trial through the ill-fated Oradour-sur-Glane proceedings.

37
. BZ-IMT, October 25, 1945.

38
. BZ-USMT-7, 8930.

39
. USMT-8, 396.

40
. BZ-IMT, January 17, 1946.

41
. BZ-IMT, March 23, 1946.

42
. BZ-IMT, January 17, 1946.

43
. BZ-USMT, April 14, 1947.

44
. IWM, USMT-7, 8994–5.

45
. BZ-IMT, November 27, 1945.

46
. IWM, IMT, Bach-Zelewski, interrogation, no. 1975, April 14, 1947.

47
. BZ-IMT, March 23, 1946.

48
. BZ-IMT, November 27, 1945.

49
. Ibid.

50
. BZ-IMT, January 15, 1946.

51
. BZ-IMT, March 25, 1946.

52
. BZ-IMT, interrogations March 23–25, 1946.

53
. Tomasz Wisniewski,
Jewish Bialystok and Surroundings in Eastern Poland
(Ipswich, Mass.: Ipswich Press, 1998), 37–8.

54
. TVDB, 3.

55
. TVDB, 4. Konrad Kwiet, “From the Diary of a Killing Unit,” in John Milful (ed.),
Why Germany? National Socialist Anti-Semitism and the European Context
(Oxford: Berg, 1993), 75–91.

56
. Wisniewski,
Jewish Bialystok
, 48.

57
. BZ-IMT, March 24, 1946.

58
. BZ-IMT, March 23, 1946.

59
. Heinz Guderian,
Panzer Leader
(London: De Capo, 1952), 355–6. Guderian wrote that on July 20, 1944, he flew to Lötzen, which of course was code for visiting Himmler prior to a meeting with Hitler.

60
. NARA, RG319, IRR, Heinz Guderian.

61
. NARA, RG242, T1270, Nuremberg testimonies, Guderian interrogations.

62
. Ibid.

63
. Ibid.

64
. Guderian,
Panzer Leader
, 355–6.

65
. NARA RG238, M1019/58/7847-68, Rode interrogation no. 19.

66
. NARA RG238, M1019/58/7847-68, Rode, August 9, 1946.

67
. BZ-IMT, October 5, 1946.

68
. BZ-IMT, September 21, 1946.

69
. BZ-IMT, January 29, 1946.

70
. IWM, USMT-7, 8977.

71
. BZ-USMT, January 29, 1946.

72
. Refer to
chapter 8
for the losses Bach-Zelewski inflicted on Warsaw.

73
. NARA, RG238, M1019, roll 37, Ernst Korn testimony, August 1, 1947.

74
. IWM, USMT-7, 9349.

75
. BZ-IMT-7, 8917.

76
. IWM, IMT-7, 8922–23.

77
. NARA, FMS, C-032, “The War behind the front: guerrilla warfare,” Albert Kesselring, July 28, 1947.

78
. Kesselring, 1947, 7.

79
. Schwarznecker report.

80
. NARA, FMS, C-037, “Haunted Forests: enemy partisans behind the front,” Gustav Höehne, 17–19.

81
. NARA, FMS, A-946, Activities of the 157th Reserve Division (1946); and FMS, B-237, Southern France (1946).

82
. NARA, FMS, B-331, 157th Reserve Division: September 1944 (1951).

83
. NARA, RG338, FMS P-055c, Lessons Learned From the Partisan War in Russia, Alexander Ratcliffe 1952.

84
. CMH Pub 104–18,
German Anti-guerrilla Operations in the Balkans (1941–1944
) (Washington, D.C., Center for Military History, 1954).

85
. CMH Pub 104-19,
The Soviet Partisan Movement 1941–1944
(Washington, D.C.: Center for Military History, 1956); and CMH Pub 20-240,
Rear Area Security in Russia: The Soviet Second Front behind the German Lines
(Washington, D.C.: Center for Military History, 1951).

86
. James H. Critchfield,
Partners at the Creation: The Men behind Postwar Germany’s Defense and Intelligence Establishments
(Annapolis: Naval Institute, 2003).

87
. ZStL Legal Report 1968.

88
. Large,
Where Ghosts Walked
, 255.

89
. Ulrich Herbert,
Best, Biographische Studien über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vernunft 1903–1989
(Bonn: Dietz, 1996); and Friedrich Wilhelm,
Die Polizei im NS-Staat
(Paderborn: F. Schoeningh, 1997).

90
. Florian Dierl, “Adolf von Bomhard—’Generalstabschef der Ordnungspolizei,’ in Klaus-Michael Mallman and Gerhard Paul (eds.),
Karrieren der Gewalt: National-sozialistische Täterbiographien
(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004), 62–3.

91
. Neufeld et al.,
Zur Geschichte der Ordnungspolizei
, 115; and Yerger,
Allgemeine-SS
, 58.

92
. DDR (ed.),
Braunbuch: Kriegs-und Naziverbrecher in der Bundesrepublik
(Berlin: Staatsverlag Der Deutschen Deomokratischen Republik, 1965), 91–104.

93
. Leonard Mahlein,
Waffen-SS in der Bundesrepublik: Eine Dokumentation Der VVN-Bund Der Antifaschisten
(Frankfurt am Main: Roderberg, 1978).

94
. Paul Hausser,
Waffen-SS im Einsatz
(Oldendorf: Pless, 1953).

95
. DDR,
SS im Einsatz: Eine Dokumentation Über Die Verbrechen Der SS
(Berlin: Staatsverlag Der Deutschen Deomokratischen Republik, 1957), 591.

96
. Friedman,
Bach-Zelewski: Dokumentensammlung
, 12.

97
. ZDF, 2003, Television series, “Die SS-Eine Warnung der Geschichte,” programme 6: Mythos Odessa, produced by Guido Knopp.

98
. Staatsanwaltschaft an dem Landgericht Braunschweig, Schwurgerichtsanklage gegen Angehörige des SS-Kav. Regt.2 (Erschiessung von Juden im Gebiet der Pinsker-Sümpfe August 1941), June 15, 1963. 58–64.

99
. Cüppers, “Lombard,” 151–2.

100
. NARA, RG319, file marked “Extradition of Former German Officers to Poland.”

101
. NARA, RG319, Extradition of former German officers to Poland. Unfortunately the Americans had refused to extradite Reinefarth (along with Guderian, Rode, and Vormann) to Poland in 1947 and 1948.

102
. NARA, RG242, BDC, A3345-OSS-154, Dr. Oskar Dirlewanger.

103
. Maclean,
The Cruel Hunters
, 188.

104
. NARA, RG242, BDC, A3345-OSS-154, Dr. Oskar Dirlewanger, Vorschlag für die Verleihung des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes, Kampfgruppe Reinefarth, September 10, 1944.

105
. Rudolf Ilgen,
Mein Zusammenstoss mit SS-Oberführer von dem Bach-Zelewski als Richter im Fruhjar 1933 in der Neumarkt
(Koblenz: Wolfgang Lomüller, 1980). Formal testimony set down in Koblenz in August 1974.

106
. William Shakespeare,
The Collected Works
(London: Cook & Wedderburn, 1982), 765.

1. Russell Weigley,
The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), 176.

2. Interview, April 17, 1979.

Tim Mason once wrote that “All good written history begins at the end” (
Social Policy in the Third Reich
). So finally, we come to a review of the sources. There is not a single collection of all Bandenbekämpfung documents and records. Many records were deliberately destroyed at the war’s end or deliberately misfiled long after the war; one might wonder which was worse. There is no way of “guesstimating” what the contents of these records were, however suspicious one has become of the ways of the Bandenkampfverbände. This, however, is the smallest problem for anyone studying this subject. The remaining evidence is finely distributed in the United States, Russia, Germany, and Britain, and to a lesser extent in France, Belgium, Holland, Poland, and Hungary. The vast majority of the evidence came from documentary sources. The documents are not weighted equally. Signals or deciphered messages do not surpass a complete policy document. However, a series of interrogations can reveal a lot more about how things were done than a bland policy statement. Synthesizing them, as in the section on the Bandenstab Rösener in
chapter 9
, brings great rewards. There is also the problem of accuracy and deceit: Bach-Zelewski’s diary, for example, inaccurately describes his war crimes, as we might expect. Fortunately, his intercepted messages reveal his actual killing “scores.” Yet, Bach-Zelewski’s diary also provided evidence that more than padded the gaps in areas not directly associated with war crimes and that assists in explaining certain behavior patterns. “Lumping” together evidence on key issues extended the number of perspectives and minimized our reliance on “flaky” single documents. What do not fit in the blow-by-blow account are the visits to memorial sites and meetings with perpetrators or victims. The sheer size of the Auschwitz complex or the acreage of Oradour-sur-Glane gives an impression of the Nazi ambition. Unfortunately, this picture cannot be added to the list of footnotes.