Hitler's Bandit Hunters (54 page)

In September 1944, Rösener was diagnosed as suffering from paratyphus and forced to take an extended leave of absence. The doctor thought the
illness was psychosomatic. There was considerable evidence for him to make this judgment. From an earlier medical examination, in May 1944, it was noted that Rösener’s parents came from Westphalian peasant stock and were not regarded as fit and healthy by SS standards. His father died from the lingering effects of gas poisoning suffered during the Great War, and his mother, a diabetic, died at the age of sixty-one. His present health problems were blamed on “Bandenkampf causing great nervous and psychological stress.” The physician remarked, “He has heartbeats without realizing he has a heart.” His symptoms included acute nervous stress and serious palpitations, which caused lethargy, coughing bouts in the morning, periods of moodiness, and, low work achievement despite working throughout the night. Today, we might call his condition “burnout” (
Ermüdungserscheinungen).
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He was forced to take a period of extended leave. However, the proposed candidate substitute for Rösener, SS-Obergruppenführer Wappenhans, had been placed in SS reserve following the end of his duty in HSSPF Russia-South. Wappenhans received a routine SS medical at Dachau, was diagnosed as being in a severe state of nervous collapse, and was declared unfit to replace Rösener.

The techniques and tactics employed by the Germans against the resistance in the western theater demonstrated tactical ingenuity but regularly resorted to traditional measures. The usual pattern of SS command preceded operations. The SS had installed an extensive police communications network. The British observed, “It was not until the middle of September 1942 that the Police W/T [wireless transmission] network was extended to Yugoslavia.”
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In January 1943, there were three regional police stations in southern Europe: the Laibach headquarters of BdO Alpenland, the Belgrade headquarters of BdO Serbia, and the central police signals station in Graz. The British reported that “on 17 September 1943 the German Police were first noted in Northern Italy. Control was located at Verona which became the headquarters of HstSSPF-Italy.” On October 8, 1943, HSSPF Alpenland was connected to Wolff’s HstSSPF network.
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By November 1943, the SS network in the southern theater was complete. This communications net allowed the SS-Police to prosecute rapid deployment of units and coordinate complex missions in the latter-day form of realtime. On the strength of this system the SS-Police were able to adopt surprisingly ingenious measures to defeat the resistance.

In 1943, Bandenbekämpfung operations conducted in the southern theater followed all the usual patterns. Winston Churchill and the British War Cabinet received reports on the conditions in southern Europe. One report gave an impression of the scale of the atrocities that blighted the region. It recorded that by May, eight thousand civilians (including women and
children) had been executed; others were forced to pay ransoms or were taken to concentration camps. There was widespread plundering and exploitation; people were forced to flee or were exposed to the mountainous wastes. The form of the atrocities makes a revolting comparison with the enormity of the killings in the east. Men were locked into burning churches; a captured Croatian carried a sack full of human eyes; children were dashed to death against walls; bodies were mutilated; pregnant women had their fetuses ripped out; children were tied to burning haystacks; women were made to dig graves, raped, and then killed; villages were burned down; crops were wasted; and clergy were executed. Himmler’s visit to Zagreb coincided with sporadic acts of violence. Serbian civilians suspected of acts of sabotage were rounded up. Two train-loads were deported to a concentration camp. The Gestapo chief of Kraljevo executed 140 women and children, and other executions took place in Kozevi and Belgrade. In the district of Jablanica, fourteen villages were destroyed, and two thousand captives were deported to Germany. The British reports noticed that the Axis press continued to report these incidents as reprisals. In June, the partisans killed eight German police officers and wounded seven others, and this initiated a reprisal that included 575 people. The reports were equally scathing of the Germans, Italians, Croats, and Hungarians, accusing them all of involvement in the atrocities.
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The SS fighting formations in Yugoslavia suffered from leadership difficulties. Artur Phleps had become commander of the V SS-Mountain Corps. His corps included the 7th SS-Mountain Division Prinz Eugen and the Bosnian-Moslem 13th SS-Mountain Division Handschar. Phleps had built a shameless reputation for groveling correspondence with Himmler. A situation report for May 7, 1944, was typical of his leadership character. He began with a business-like approach, opening with a list of problems that required addressing, including leadership, manpower, and performance within the corps. The shortage of manpower affected both divisions. This problem worsened because the SS planned to raise an Albanian division of volunteers, drawing officers and NCO cadres from both divisions. Phleps was irate at the general quality of the recruits in training because they were unable to speak German and were unschooled. The second part of the report referred to Phleps’s relationship with his chief of staff, Dr. Gustav Krukenberg. This quickly turned into a personal rant. Krukenberg was a Himmler favorite and direct appointee; Phleps could not have him removed easily. Phleps declared Krukenberg a bureaucrat, a depressive and untrustworthy, a jurist, a “nose in everyone’s business” pedant who lacked warmth and issued embarrassing orders. He blamed Krukenberg’s elderliness, his commercial business-mindedness, and his inability to recognize personal failings. Phleps indicated that SS-Sturmbannführer Eberhardt, the operations officer of the Prinz Eugen Division, had formed a clique with Sauberzweig, commander of the 13th SS-Division, against Krukenberg. Phleps, however, was careful to praise SS-Oberführer Otto Kumm,
the newly promoted (February 1944) commander of the Prinz Eugen, who had brought a lust for battle and “a new happy spirit.”
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Phleps’s record appeared effective but closer scrutiny indicates otherwise.

The operational record of the Prinz Eugen Division from Operation “Weiss” (January 1943) through to Operation “Waldrausch” (January 1944) identified the continued confidence in encirclement as the sole means to destroy the partisans. In April 1944, the spring campaign opened with Operation “Maibaum” to eradicate partisans in Bosnia. The Bosnian SS-Division Handschar, under the V SS-Mountain Corps, conducted a blocking operation to prevent a large partisan force from crossing the River Drina and joining forces with Tito in Serbia. The Prinz Eugen Division and Croatian forces worked with the Handschar Division. In typical fashion, the Germans deployed in river valleys and on roads trying to press the partisans against the blockade and force them into encirclement. Many partisans escaped across the mountains, and the division sent out Jagdkommandos to hunt them down. The Bosnians remained in position, holding the blockade and ensuring there was no encroachment by the partisans.
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Since arriving in northeastern Bosnia in February 1944, the division had been carrying out “cleansing” actions and turning the area into a secured zone. The division’s commander had organized the area into an SS-sponsored client Muslim state. Operation “Maibaum” opened in April to clear the area of all partisans but ran into Operation “Maiglöckchen” in May, where the division supported by Éetnik collaborators, encircled partisans, although they escaped.
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In May 1944, the Germans located Tito in Drvar. The German commanding general for the Balkans, Field Marshal von Weichs, agreed to initiate “Rösselsprung” (“Knight’s Move”) on May 6. In previous operations during 1943, the Germans had attempted to exterminate the partisans en masse. Operation “Schwarz” (May–June 1943) involved massive Axis forces in a large-scale encirclement of the partisans, but Tito and the bulk of the partisans escaped. However, their escape was possible only because they left behind their wounded to be butchered by the Germans.
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In 1944, during the wave of intense security activity, the Germans planned a hammer-and-anvil operation against Tito. “Rösselsprung” involved an airborne covert action coordinated with a conventional encirclement by ground forces. The Germans also committed their dwindling combat aircraft to support the forces on the ground with bombing and close liaison sorties. The scale of air cover provided by the Luftwaffe involved more than four hundred combat missions. The airborne hammer—decapitating Tito, his command staff, and the allied military missions—was expected to be delivered by the SS in one fell swoop. The operational commander was General von Leyser of XV Mountain Corps, who was responsible for the coordination of the SS, the army, the Luftwaffe, and the collaborator troops.
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The timing of the operation was set for May 25, 1944, Tito’s birthday.

The formations, an airborne assault battalion with snatch teams, had been concentrated around Agram and in Serbia since February 1944. Included among the units were elements of the Abwehr’s 1st Brandenburger Regiment, a Special Forces formation, which had conducted covert operations since 1939. The Prinz Eugen Division, according to Otto Kumm, received its orders for “Rösselsprung” on May 21. The orders stated that the operation was regarded as critical to bringing about a decision in the region. The division was to form into Kampfgruppen and attack on a broad front, forming blocking actions, capturing supply points, and preventing the partisans from escaping through the area of Banja Luka. Their principle objective was to reach the airborne assault troops, rapidly rendering them support. The ground troops were to link up, using control techniques, to bring about and finally seal the encirclement.
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The German version of what happened starts with the early hours of May 25 when a heavy air strike was delivered against Tito’s headquarters. At 7:00 a.m., the first assault wave landed, in two parts—a parachute drop of 314 troops and a glider force of 340 troops (including a detachment of Abwehr from Agram). The glider assault had two elements: the first of five platoons, riding in DFS230 gliders pulled by HS126 biplanes and the second element of three platoons also riding in DFS230 gliders but towed by Stukas. These men were organized into teams: Panther (110 men) tasked with snatching Tito; Draufgänger (70 men) tasked to capture the partisans’ signals station; and three teams, Greifer, Stürmer, and Brecher, tasked with capturing the allied military mission.
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Air support was supplied by the Croatian air force flying German airplanes, including fighter-bombers and dive-bombers. The Panther group gliders landed within their target area, but Tito and the allied missions escaped. The partisans, initially surprised, fled for cover. A lieutenant from the Abwehr captured Tito’s propaganda equipment. The second assault wave landed at noon, and the Germans took up defensive positions awaiting the arrival of the ground troops.

At 6:00 p.m., the airborne commander was wounded when the partisans began a series of vigorous escape assaults against the SS defensive positions. The attacks continued throughout the night with a concentrated attack at 3:30 a.m. on May 26. At 5:00 a.m., the Luftwaffe conducted air strikes against the partisans. About two hours later, the lead elements from the Prinz Eugen Division made contact with the airborne troops. The Prinz Eugen Division experienced mixed results in arriving at the site of Tito’s abandoned headquarters. They had managed to push the partisans back and repulsed several counter-attacks but allied air superiority had displaced Luftwaffe support. This airpower had attacked all movement on the roads and hindered all motorized forces’ mobility. Regardless of the lack of air cover and the growing intensity of the partisan attacks, the Prinz Eugen Division had little choice but to press on if the partisans were to be destroyed. The SS commander liberally
used words such as “tenacious” and “fierce” to describe the partisan’s actions while referring to the allied air cover as “lively.” Using the terrain to their advantage, the partisans set clever traps; this ensnared the Germans in delays as they grew more cautious and partisans escaped. On May 31, members of an SS regiment discovered Randolph Churchill’s rucksack among twenty dead soldiers reputed to be from the allied military mission. That evening, Phleps and his V SS-Mountain Corps headquarters held a party for SS-Obersturmbannführer Eberhardt, who had received a transfer. The next day, Phleps ordered “free hunting” for the Prinz Eugen Division following the partisan escape. The German casualties were recorded by the XV Army Corps as 213 killed, 881 wounded, and 57 missing. The body count of partisans was 1,916 killed, 161 prisoners, 35 deserters, and the usual amounts of booty.
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Operations ended on June 6 when the Prinz Eugen Division moved into reserve.

The British impression of what happened followed the German reports, although they were clearly affected by the shock of the raid. Fitzroy MacLean later claimed that he learned of the attack while in London and described the signals at the time as the kind that “took one’s breath away.” The Germans had spent three days prior to the attack conducting overflights of the partisan positions from two thousand feet up. Following on the last wave of bombers, the German airdrop followed with parachutists and gliders.
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Michael McConville, among others, mentioned that on May 23, a German aircraft made several passing runs over the headquarters taking photographs. The British mission believed a bombing raid was expected and deployed to positions in the foothills. The air raid preceded the airborne assault, which had taken the partisans by surprise. As sporadic fighting broke out, Tito made his way to a cave and many of his staff fought to join him there. A party of twenty collected around Tito and retreated through a prearranged escape route. They then broke up into smaller groups to complete their escape. Eventually, more partisans and allied mission members, one of whom had salvaged a radio, collected together. The British were contacted and diversions arranged while Tito was on the run. He was eventually spirited away to Italy (June 3) and did not return to Yugoslavia until September 21. Tito lost contact with his partisans for the duration of “Rösselsprung,” but this did not prevent them from defense or from remaining intact as a significant force.
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