Read Hitler's Bandit Hunters Online
Authors: Philip W. Blood
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Germany, #Military, #World War II
Hitler's Bandit Hunters
HITLER’S
Bandit Hunters
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An AUSA Book
Bandit Hunters
The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe
Philip W. Blood
Published in the United States by Potomac Books, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Copyright© 2006 by Potomac Books, Inc.
Blood, Philip W., 1957–
Hitler’s bandit hunters: the SS and the Nazi occupation of Europe / Philip W. Blood.—
1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-59797-021-2 (alk. paper)
1. World War, 1939–1945—Occupied territories. 2. World War, 1939–1945—
Destruction and pillage—Europe. 3. Internal security—Europe—History–20th century.
4. Waffen-SS. I. Title.
D802.A2B66 2006
940.54’1343—dc22
2005032891
ISBN-10 1-59797-021-2
ISBN-13 978-1-59797-021-1
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that meets the American
National Standards Institute Z39-48 Standard.
Potomac Books, Inc.
22841 Quicksilver Drive
Dulles, Virginia 20166
First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Geh nicht nach Norden, und hüte dich
Vor jenem König in Thule,
Hüt dich vor Gendarmen und Polizei,
Vor der ganzen historischen Schule
.
Don’t go North and beware
of the king in Thule,
Beware of gendarme and police
of the historic school
.
From the poem “Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen”
by Heinrich Heine (1844)
in
Atta Troll: Ein Sommernachtstraum,
Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen
.
PART ONE: ORIGINS AND IMPLEMENTATION
3. Hitler’s Bandenbekämpfung Directive
4. Bandenbekämpfung Operational Concept
FOREWORD
This book does not make for comfortable reading. It is a meticulous examination of
Bandenbekämpfung
, a term that has much broader and more pervasive meaning than simply “antipartisan warfare” and that characterized the German approach to security in occupied areas during the Second World War. Philip Blood demonstrates that the concept predated this conflict and actually stretched into Germany’s colonial past and its conduct in France in the Franco–Prussian War of 1870–71. Indeed, by its conception of “bandits” as microbes hostile to the very existence of the body politic, its roots go deeper, to the Thirty Years’ War or even to the Roman Empire. But on September 16, 1941, a decree under Keitel’s signature established Bandenbekämpfung as the strategic doctrine behind the Germanization of Europe. It affirmed that immediate and drastic action was imperative at the first sign of trouble, and the death penalty was to be used lavishly as a reprisal: this was how “great peoples restored order.” The implementation of this doctrine was eventually to become the responsibility of an SS officer who occasionally changed his name but is best known as Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski. He had served as an infantry officer in the First World War and by 1942 was the higher SS and police leader in the region of Russia-Centre. In August 1942, he became inspector of Bandenbekämpfung for the entire eastern area and was speedily appointed “plenipotentiary” that autumn, representing Himmler in all relevant matters and providing a key link between the SS and the Wehrmacht. But, in a way so typical of the rival fiefdoms that characterized the Nazi state, there were numerous squabbles and overlaps, and Bach-Zelewski’s appointment in mid-1943 as
Chef der Bandenbekampfverbände
, responsible, as he put it “for all partisan reports for the whole of Europe,” was intended to produce overall coherence.
Philip Blood describes
Bandenbekampfverbände
as “an exceptional form of information warfare and the driving force of an asset-stripping strategy that encompassed extermination and enslavement.” The details of the process and the troops involved, including formations that combined SS Police with Waffen-SS units, a variety of non-German units, and even the Dirlewanger brigade recruited from criminals serving prison sentences, are carefully cataloged. For instance, in 1943, Operation “Nasses Dreiek” (“Wet Triangle”) near Kiev, involved an ad hoc battle group supported by river police, a Luftwaffe signals regiment, pro-German Cossacks, and Hungarian supporting troops, with support from dive-bombers, which attacked a village “to cleanse it of enemies and return to its legal standing.” Although 843 “bandits” were killed and another 205 summarily executed, only ten rifles were recovered. The operation’s commander explained that this was because the bandits either buried their weapons or dropped them in swamps, but it is hard not to discern the wholesale brutality that characterized such operations. In another case, a Luftwaffe noncommissioned officer reported that “we had orders to kill all persons over five years of age.” In contrast, Operation “Wehrwolf,” which used Germans, Russians, Italians, Ukrainians, Poles, and Hungarians against a well-organized force under Major General Kovpak in 1943, saw substantial casualties on both sides.
Philip Blood uses abundant documentary and oral evidence to take us beyond the verdict of Christopher Browning’s ground-breaking
Ordinary Men
, his study of Reserve Police Battalion 101 in Poland, by examining the policy and structure that enabled ordinary men to do such extraordinarily dreadful things. Both historians observe the phenomenon, which still gives us pause for thought: men capable of carrying out deeds that might make us doubt our common humanity were themselves subject to the whole gamut of human emotions. Finally, Dr. Blood concludes by warning us that the events that he describes may not simply be confined to history, for he suggests that in the post-September 11 world “the impulses to turn to Bandenbekämpfung still resonate.”
R
ICHARD
H
OLMES
J
ANUARY
2006
This book is the offspring of doctoral and post-doctoral research started in November 1997. Following a brief survey of literature and broad discussions with Professor Richard Holmes, I decided to focus my research on the Nazi implementation of Bandenbekämpfung—“the combating of bandits”—in the period 1942–45. In keeping with most students, I raised a suitably vague and general question to get the process under way: Why did the Nazis discard the term “antipartisan warfare” (
Partisanenbekämpfung
) and adopt Bandenbekämpfung, if the words meant the same thing? The original plan called for a typical analysis of the origins, formulation, and implementation of Bandenbekämpfung. I thought this analysis might extend the existing historiography by only a small step, but all the same, it would fulfil the requirements of a doctorate. In the immortal words of Robert Burns, “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” and so they proved. Early in the research process, it was apparent that Bandenbekämpfung was a highly complex subject. It was not a simple case of antipartisan warfare dressed up in Nazified language but rather a completely different approach to the administration of security, opening up a new perspective on Nazism. Instead of pinpointing the origins of Bandenbekämpfung in the recent past, it appears that generations of German soldiers acquired their blueprints from antiquity. The formulation of Bandenbekämpfung into an operational concept was complex with several stages of development. It was no surprise, therefore, when the implementation was neither confined to a single theater of operations nor directed toward one enemy. Right up until the very end, the character and shape of Bandenbekämpfung proved very illusive, and the subject is far from being closed with this book.
Nazi Bandenbekämpfung was not Partisanenbekämpfung as it is so often assumed. After the war, it was convenient for allied war crimes prosecutors to adopt simple translations in the proceedings. The German defendants trying to avoid responsibility for war crimes preferred sweeping translations. Thus Bandenbekämpfung was officially treated as Partisanenbekämpfung. The first impression one should take from this is that words, translations, and interpretations play a significant part in history. Many German words do not translate well into English or lose their power when translated; Bandenbekämpfung is one such example. It was derived from two words:
Banden
, which means criminal bands(s) or gang(s), and
Bekämpfung
, to combat or to fight. The members of such bands or gangs are called bandits (
Banditen
) or gangsters, and collectively they conducted banditry or gangsterism. In effect the compound form of
Banden
and
Bekämpfung
meant combating banditry or gangsterism to its absolute eradication or extermination. The subtlety of this wordplay lies in its influence on the interpretation of legality and illegality in combatant classification. The tradition of the partisan, under German military law and in the general professionalization of warfare, was a legally recognized combatant function. The bandit or gangster has always been treated as an outcast and a criminal. Therefore, the implementation of Bandenbekämpfung was first concerned with the reclassification of certain enemy combatants and second, with their extermination.
Nazification was the final stage of a long process of militarization of Bandenbekämpfung. During and after the Thirty Years’ War, Bandenbekämpfung was practiced to eradicate roaming bands and organized by local communities. Prior to the Napoleonic age, Bandenbekämpfung was a purely civilian law and order issue. The first cases of the modern militarized form of Bandenbekämpfung, adopting small unit tactics to restore order, was introduced by the French gendarmerie during the occupation of the Rhineland, in the effort to combat banditry. German states adopted Bandenbekämpfung methods as a matter of course, especially in 1848 to counter revolution. During the Franco–Prussian War (1870–71), German troops resorted to Bandenbekämpfung as a means to eradicate French resistance (the
francs-tireurs
) but mostly to combat random acts of French armed civil disobedience against the occupation. During this campaign, the German army began the process of institutionalizing and internalizing a broad security apparatus. The Etappen, originally concerned with rear-area support functions in the Prussian army, was transformed after 1872. The purpose of this security establishment was to support the army at the front while securing its rear. Between 1871 and 1919, with a burgeoning security establishment, the German army collected together practices that can be loosely termed security warfare (refer to
chapter 1
). Operationally, this form of warfare embraced colonization, occupation, pacification, and intervention, of which Bandenbekämpfung was one facet.
