Hitler's Bandit Hunters (48 page)

Supporting the Stossgruppe was the 7th Special Flying Group, which conducted a variety of sorties throughout January and February. The flying group commander, Oberstleutnant Heinzius, was based in Lublin and reported daily to Himmler. A continuous period of mild weather enabled the Germans to exploit aerial reconnaissance without Red Air Force intervention. There were transport and glider-towing missions bringing in supplies and reinforcements. The ground fighting allowed the airmen to pinpoint enemy movements during bombing missions. Air attacks were directed at breaking up the bands, destroying their camps, or interdicting their supply routes. A message from January 16 referred to “special-operation Bach” (
Sonderunternehmen Bach
), which included at least six squadrons. In February, Bach-Zelewski’s diary referred to the opening of an extended period of air force operations. On February 7, signals emanating from a squadron of Stukas were deciphered by the British.
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Five days later, signals confirmed an attack squadron of Stuka airplanes had joined these air operations.
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By March 11, Bach-Zelewski’s defensive battle was over; his efforts proved reasonably skillful, employing bluff, diversions, and counterstrokes.
Gustav Lombard passed Bach-Zelewski’s Kovel defense report to Fegelein, Hitler’s representative. The report fulfilled the Führer’s order to stop the Soviet advance and defend Kovel. Bach-Zelewski attributed his success to the assault-gun (
Sturmgeschütz
) detachment, which he used to bluff the Red Army. Captured Soviet POWs divulged that they had estimated the number of German tanks at two hundred. Bach-Zelewski also praised the 662nd Pioneer Battalion, 17th SS-Cavalry Regiment, and the artillery. Lombard added to the report. He recalled a counter-attack by the German army’s XIII Corps in an attempt to close the gap between Prützmann and Bach-Zelewski. It was stalled because of a Soviet offensive that began at the same time. The Russians threw back the weak German forces but were in turn assaulted by the full weight of an attack led personally by Bach-Zelewski. The Red Army swarmed against the Stossgruppe.
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After Bach-Zelewski departed from Kovel, the Soviet operations intensified. Eventually, the Red Army passed north and south, reinforcing the encirclement by March 17. SS-Obergruppenführer Gille was ordered to defend the city, and the encirclement was broken by the 5th SS-Panzer Division Wiking.

During the Kovel operations the Polish resistance movement conducted incursions in the area that attracted SS-Police reactions.
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Two SS troopers confessed to shooting civilians in Kolki and in another village near Kovel:

Our squadron took part in the shootings of civilians in the small town of Kolki. I personally participated in shooting three civilians. Then we burnt down part of the town. During the retreat, after crossing the River Styr, we burnt down the first village beyond the river. In that village our second platoon under Untersturmführer Korn shot 25 persons. I myself shot two persons. Women were among those shot. Of the men of our platoon, those particularly active in the shootings were Rottenführer Waneck, Unterscharführer Polin, Unterscharführer Steikdel, troopers Schirmann and Faut. The shootings were done on the orders of Regimental commander Standartenführer Zehender.
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Andrew Borowiec has suggested there was communication between an SS general and the Polish resistance in March 1944. This area came under the Polish 27th Resistance Division, highly regarded for its fighting ability. The division suffered grievous losses at the hands of the Wiking. Later, en route to the Warsaw uprising, it was surrounded by Soviet troops and disarmed.
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Although it is difficult to identify real or lasting friendships within the SS, it does appear that Himmler and Bach-Zelewski shared a common bond. Another bout of Bach-Zelewski’s health problems provides evidence of some bonding. Prior to his Kovel assignment, a medical examination in December passed Bach-Zelewski as fit. The doctor even commented that his energy
made it difficult to prevent him from being at the front.
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On March 12, Himmler wrote to Bach-Zelewski,

I can only acknowledge that in spite of this heavy health handicap you stood so outstandingly with your Kampfgruppe. Lombard will give you the plan in detail. In general it might be said that SS-[Obergruppenführer] Gille will command the re-building of the SS-Division
Wiking
and he will in the next few days takeover your Kampfgruppe. Lombard will stay on for “special tasks.”
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Bach-Zelewski was examined again on March 22, and the diagnosis indicated a return of his bowel problems although his hemorrhoids operation remained a success.
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Hitler almost certainly held Bach-Zelewski in disdain for leaving Kovel on the spurious grounds of his ill health. The change of command in Kovel caused problems between the remaining Bandenkampfverbände team and the incubant Waffen-SS staff. On April 15, Reimpel wrote to Bach-Zelewski,

My position has seen a change because of the arrival of the
SS-Wiking
, no longer the deputy, and have to be loud to be heard. The Gruppenführer [Gille] is a man to look up to but he is not quite what it takes. The influence of the young-blood staff officers is a problem. My tasks are finished and I wish to leave as fast as possible. As long as my men are bleeding here, this is my place. The co-operation of the staff in the first days was great. The Führer has interfered and sacrificed that capability.
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On April 24, Himmler wrote to Bach-Zelewski, “The general without luck does not hold true for you; that Kovel could be held was partly down to Gille and partly down to you.”
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Former Waffen-SS veterans liked to extract their battle of Kovel, from Bach-Zelewski’s battle. The working notes of the operations officer from the office of the Chef der Bandenkampfverbände, for March 20, 1944, prove that Kampfgruppe Gille received drawing materials to produce its Bandenbekämpfung maps for Himmler’s collection in keeping with other Bandenkampfverbände.
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In April 1944, Gille was awarded the Knight’s Cross from Hitler, the highest military award Germany could bestow. Bach-Zelewski received the Bandenkampfabzeichen in Bronze, for twenty-eight days in combat, from Himmler on July 3, 1944. It was scant consolation.
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By January 1944, the Germans were reporting many cases of Polish “bandits” in the Danzig-West-Prussian forests.
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The assassination of SS-Brigadeführer Franz Kutschera on February 1, 1944, by a twenty-year-old
resistance fighter was a shock for Himmler and Bach-Zelewski.
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On July 19, 1944, an SS liaison officer informed the German Foreign Office that the HSSPF East had issued an order enforcing the collective responsibility of family members of assassins and saboteurs.
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The deteriorating situation forced the SS to act. The execution of all male relatives of assassins and saboteurs was ordered, and females were sent to concentration camps. This situation rapidly escalated as the Polish will to resist increased and Nazi officials became assassination targets. According to Richard Lukas, these attacks reached more than six hundred assassinations per year by 1944.
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Military intelligence monitored the resistance and their links with Polish governments in exile. Gehlen maintained a detailed and meticulous analysis with comprehensive organization charts of the resistance and their controlling authorities. His assessment of the Polish resistance movement in February 1944 identified categories of political allegiance. Gehlen’s analysis of the communist resistance focused on the Polish Workers Party, which he estimated had seventy-five hundred volunteers. They were organized through a rigid hierarchical structure and controlled from Moscow. The central cadre was in Warsaw with eleven cells, and there were a further seven cells within its city districts. However, Gehlen’s information concerning the Polish People’s Army (
Armja Ludowa
) with its regional offices across Poland was sparse. He located their headquarters in Biala Podlaska and guessed that their combat units were each formed into five cells organized into companies 120 fighters strong, but that was all.
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The German intelligence services also monitored the possibility for a Polish revolt. A few weeks before the Warsaw uprising, Gehlen warned of an impending revolt. On July 1, 1944, he identified the Polish resistance movement as encouraging the population to employ all means hostile to the Germans. His report stated that the forests were swarming with splinter groups in hiding. As was his habit, Gehlen concentrated on the political motivations within the resistance movement. He advised of tensions between the Polish government-in-exile (in London) and the Soviet-sponsored Lublin government that splintered the rank-and-file membership into factions. The peasantry was judged to have sided with the English-backed anti-Communist movement. The Germans confirmed the growing enmity between Polish and Ukrainian populations within Galicia and their political diversities. Gehlen summarized the situation: “In our judgement the plans for revolt, given the Polish character, inclines toward a strong but not over-estimated possibility, given the general political and military situation.”
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Lower in the intelligence hierarchy, resistance monitoring became the responsibility of German army district commanders. Major General Haseloff, chief of staff of the General Government’s military district, regularly circulated security reports that itemized incursions, summarized casualties, listed wireless interceptions, identified propaganda issues, and recorded security
operations. Haseloff’s reports from December 1943 to July 1944 began as monthly releases but increased to weekly with the upsurge of “banditry.”
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In December, there were 6,392 incidents conducted by 6,050 resistance units organized into groups of 100 insurgents. The balance of casualties was 39 Germans killed against 1,016 Poles killed. At least thirteen main railway lines were attacked, especially from Warsaw to Minsk, Radom, and Demblin.
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By April 1944, insurgents had attacked thirty-four main railway routes. There had been 6,322 reported attacks, carried out by 5,897 operatives. Haseloff’s report confirmed 4,961 “bandits” captured and 1,000 shot, while the Germans suffered 267 killed and more than 560 wounded.
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The resistance groups, it was confirmed, were standing and fighting.

This rising level of resistance was recorded elsewhere in a miscellaneous collection of reports that covered various levels of army command. A report on behalf of the OKW Operations Staff assessed the overall situation from the perspective of the central sector.
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On July 10, 1944, considerable numbers of attacks occurred along the railway lines between Kraków and Warsaw. Further deterioration in the General Government was indicated by sporadic shootings against German vehicles in the area of Lublin on July 17, 1944. Around Sparozew, the Germans identified an eight-hundred-man “bandit” group but could do little about them. Northeast of Lublin, a band of more than one thousand operated with impunity, as did the “bandit” group “Stalin,” three hundred strong, operating around Bilgoraj. Reports from “trusties” flooded in from the Lemberg area. One reported the presence of a “bandit” group of Polish Jews, two thousand strong and reputedly air-landed into the area. Another group, eight hundred strong, was operating in the south, while the police were combating yet another group of four hundred “bandits,” the so-called Tschepigia-Bande.
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The evidence of the scale of the Polish threat also emerged from a report by the rear-area commander of Army Group Centre that stated,

Since the opening of Operation “Frühlingsfest” from the Naliboki forest along the route Minsk–Baranovichi, and also the Slutsk district was an area dominated by concentrations of bands. Unlike the Soviet bands, the entire Polish strength has tripled in a few weeks to about 4,500 men. The procurement of arms for the greater Polish bandit movement is their major problem. Further growth in the Polish resistance movement can be depended upon.
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On July 31, 1944, Gen.Tadeusz “Bor” Komorowski, commander of the Polish Home Army (
Armja Krajowa
), known as the AK, agreed to start the uprising to liberate Poland. On August 1, 1944, at 5:00 p.m. fighting broke out in the streets of Warsaw. The uprising was set just as the Soviet offensive ran out
of steam. The German “victory” over Warsaw has become another lost battle having virtually disappeared from the annals of German military history.
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After the war, the prolific writings of German generals collectively disowned or at least marginalized the battle. A collective malady of amnesia afflicted former SS and Wehrmacht veterans of the battle. Yet the suppression (
Niederkämpfung
) of the uprising by Bach-Zelewski, and his lieutenants was the zenith of Bandenbekämpfung. The German order of battle through the disposition of units to destroy the uprising indicated a more complex theater-wide operational plan. It came at a time of intensive German intelligence warnings. Strategically, the Germans were not surprised. Rather, Germans were prepared and wanted to exploit the uprising. It remains unclear whether Hitler or his generals manipulated German forces for a drive against the Soviets, but the possibility changes the given interpretation of events surrounding the uprising.

The crushing Soviet offensive, Operation “Bagration,” opened on June 22, 1944, and caused wholesale collapse of Army Group Centre followed by pursuit of its remnants through Poland. Losses included twenty-eight divisions, three hundred fifty thousand men, and mortal wounding of the Wehrmacht in the east. German centers during the occupation of Soviet Russia such as Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, Bobruysk, and Minsk were overwhelmed and liberated. Hitler’s faith in static fortifications proved illusionary as the “Panther line” crumbled. After strenuous efforts, Field Marshal Model wrestled to stabilize the Central Front before Warsaw.
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He ordered the 3rd SS-Panzer Division Totenkopf to hold a line 50 miles east of Warsaw. This division held long enough to allow the 2nd Army to escape Soviet encirclement. On July 28, the division gradually withdrew while conducting a series of punishing counterattacks. On August 11, the division crossed the River Vistula northeast of Warsaw and took up positions on the western bank. During the next seven days, the Totenkopf along with the Wiking held off repeated Soviet assaults,
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actions that paralleled the Waffen-SS-inspired victory at Kharkov in April 1943 because of the number of panzer divisions. On June 22, 1944, there were few armored reserves available to Army Group Centre to counter “Bagration.” However, by August 1, eight panzer divisions had gathered around Warsaw.
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