Hitler's Bandit Hunters (56 page)

In July 1944, in Vercors, a mountainous plateau region near the Italian and Swiss borders, an allied military mission and French resistance gathered together, secure in the belief that their position precluded them from suffering a sudden and direct attack. General Wiese, commander of 19th Army, who was responsible for operations in the area of southern France, thought otherwise. The Germans decided to encircle the resistence by combining an air-landing segment of parachutists and glider troops with ground forces.
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Wiese handed over tactical command to Gen. Karl Pflaum, the commander of the 157th Reserve Division, which was reinforced by the 9th Panzer Regiment and miscellaneous units, including mountain troops. The 157th had been in France since the Italian collapse. Pflaum passed the planning of the operation to Colonel Schwehr, the mountain infantry regiment commander, to lead Bandenbekämpfung operations against the Vercors mountain plateau. His orders were to “find the gangs of terrorists and exterminate them completely.”
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The Germans deployed between five thousand and fifteen thousand soldiers as well as a contingent of four hundred troops from General Student’s parachute corps. The Luftwaffe supplied various combat and reconnaissance aircraft. The SS brought “Mongol” troops from Vlasov’s army and French collaborators to conduct security.
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On July 14, German gliders landed among the allied encampments while mountain and panzer troops encircled the mountain base.
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The predictable
softening-up began with strike missions of single-engine fighter-bombers (witnesses thought Focke-Wulf 190) and reconnaissance overflights. Roads were blockaded, tunnels were blown, and bridges demolished to seal up the plateau’s occupants. The air landing took the resistance by surprise, partly because it was expecting an allied supply drop. The results were predictable. Panic led to chaos, and the resistance was unable to form an effective counterattack. The Allies could not provide air support as in the Balkans, nor could they disrupt the Luftwaffe’s air umbrella. Sporadic fighting broke out, but the Germans overwhelmed the resistance and beat captives to death on the spot. The after-operation punishment included locking up surviving resistance captives in burning buildings; a fourteeen-year-old girl was raped eleven times; a young girl was disembowelled and her intestines wrapped around her throat; and one woman was raped by seventeen soldiers while a German doctor ensured she remained conscious. A church was used as a collection center for captives and labor. One observation of the roundup of livestock was likened to a Texan cattle drive: three thousand cattle, three hundred pigs, and three hundred horses, as well as hay, apples, and wheat. The Germans continued patrols to round up escapees, hunting them down with dogs.
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On July 15, Eisenhower questioned the Germans as to the combat status of the resistance. Field Marshal Rundstedt responded on July 24, denying the resistance combatant status on the grounds of the Franco–German armistice conditions of 1940. He maintained the official line that the resistance was made up of francs-tireurs and should be treated brutally. On August 15, 1944, the American forces conducted Operation “Dragoon” and were able to bring direct support to the resistance.

There is a chilling, absolute silence among the former German armed forces regarding Vercors. Oradour has been subject to criminal investigation and scholarly debate since June 1944. Charles Sydnor elected to blame Heinz Lammerding, with his extensive experience of Bandenbekämpfung operations in Russia, and his responsibility for killing fifteen thousand Soviet partisans and more civilians.
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After the war SS apologists described their Bandenbekämpfung actions against the French resistance in the modern parlance of antiterrorism. Former SS veterans of the regiment believed they had a plausible excuse. They insisted that the regiment had been severely mauled in Russia and took its replacements from Alsace-Lorraine. These men were not volunteers but conscripts, and many deserted. The German contingent, with families in Germany, were badly shaken by the continual reports of bombing made worse by the lack of leave, heightening their general state of frustration. The large number of “bandit” incidents and the general state of resistance made their “normal” life intolerable. The brutal murder of their SS comrades was an act illegal under the laws of war. There had been “bandit” attacks in the neighboring town of Tulle. They even blamed the deaths of the women and children on the accidental discharge of explosives (“bandit” weapons)
blowing up in the town and burning down the church from within (which cannot explain why they sealed the church, preventing escapes). Another story claimed that the officer responsible for Oradour had somehow atoned by risking his life for his comrades and was killed in combat in Normandy.
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Today, evidence held by the Public Records Office in London is available for scholars to examine. From June 1944, large numbers of German prisoners of war were brought to Britain for interrogation. On July 2, 1944, twenty-two men of SS-Panzer Grenadier Regiment 4, Der Führer, were interrogated at Kempton Park Camp by Capt. “Bunny” Pantcheff of the Prisoner of War Intelligence Section (PWIS). All reputed to be Alsatians, they confirmed that when their division moved north there were serious incidents with partisans. They maintained that a village by River Garonne had been searched (a map was drawn) and the men dragged into the square. There were no interrogations of the citizens. They alleged that on June 11, the commander of the 3rd Battalion had been captured by partisans. They maintained that all houses were searched; explosives were found in one, and that house was destroyed.
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Later in August 1944, POW Jean Ertle, formerly of the 10th Company, Der Führer, stated that SS-Sturmbannführer Kämpfer had been kidnapped by Frenchmen.
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On July 7, Pantcheff had the fortune to interview four SS panzer grenadiers from the 3rd Platoon of the 3rd Company, Der Führer. They indicated that the 3rd Platoon had formed a cordon around Oradour on June 10. The 1st and 2nd platoons had shot the men with machine guns. The women and children collected in the church received machine-gun fire and grenades. The church was deliberately set on fire, “the screams of the victims [who survived the machine-gun and grenade assault] could be heard quite clearly outside the church.” During the interview, one incident was remembered in which a twelve-year-old girl jumped from a window, broke her ankle, and was shot. Pantcheff recorded, “The village doctor with his wife and three children returned later from Limoges and were shot immediately…. The village was then burned to the ground. The entire population of almost 500 was completely wiped out.”
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In follow-up interrogations, other men from the Der Führer regiment revealed further information about the performance of the regiment. SS-Mann Rene Banzet, captured on June 17 in Normandy, was an eighteen-year-old Alsatian who had deserted with Martin Müller; both were from the 1st Company. Banzet had witnessed men of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd companies hanging women from telegraph poles. Men were machine-gunned to death in village squares allegedly for membership in the Maquis.
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Georg Wolber, an SS-Sturmann from the 2nd Company, was interviewed in a POW hospital and admitted to overhearing gossip regarding the atrocity. He believed SS-Sturmbannführer Kämper’s staff car was “found shot up in the village.”
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On October 11, SS-Sturmann Fritz Ehlev (12th Company), a ninteen-year-old from Insterburg in East Prussia, confessed to Captain Kettler that he had heard of the Oradour massacre. He said gossip from his comrades, SS-Rottenführer
Budre and SS-Sturmann Hinz, attributed the crime to the 4th Company. He also confessed to having “observed” SS-Unterscharführer Wust (12th Company), a Dresdener, raping two French girls in the village of Yuret.
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Adalbert Lutkemeier, an SS panzer grenadier from the 10th Company, related various incidents in southern France. He admitted to watching two Frenchmen being hanged by their wrists, while SS-Unterscharführer Rätsch and SS-Rottenführer Wolters (1st Company) beat them with sticks to exact information.
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Finally, in June 1945, SS-Oberscharführer Karl Lenz (3rd Company) stated under interrogation that the headquarters platoon of the 1st Battalion was in the village. This unit was composed of thirty-five SS troopers but was strengthened with men from other companies. He believed that the 1st Company was not implicated but that the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th companies had cordoned off the village. The 2nd Platoon of the 3rd Company was “located at the time on high ground and was able to see what was going on in the village, i.e. women being locked up in the Church, the burning of the Church etc.” Lenz mentioned SS-Sturmbannführer Dickmann (commanding officer of the 1st Battalion) but judged SS-Hauptsturmführer Kahn (Dickmann’s second in command and officer commanding the 3rd Company) as “the leader implicated in the atrocity.”
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In an East Berlin courtroom in 1982, former SS officer Heinz Barth was found guilty of leading a detachment of troops from the Der Führer during the Oradour atrocity as well as of participating in the five killing actions in Czechoslovakia following Heydrich’s assassination. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, to find that his first muster formation was Reserve Police Battalion Kolin.
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In August 1944, an uprising broke out in Slovakia. This uprising, one of the least known events of the war, has been overshadowed by the Warsaw uprising in the historiography. It lasted between two and four months, although scholars remain undecided over its precise duration.
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“On 23 August,” Reitlinger wrote, “a black day that saw the loss of Paris and the surrender of Rumania, rebellion broke out in the small republic of Slovakia. This was a still more dangerous situation than that of Warsaw, because the rebellion cut off the retreat of the routed German 8th Army in Galicia.”
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The Slovakian version of the uprising identifies three phases: initial uprising, guerrilla warfare, and the final phase when the Red Army entered Slovakia.
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Walter Laqueur, however, argues that the uprising was bungled and badly timed.
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Hitler placed SS-Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger in command to suppress the revolt. In similar circumstances to Bach-Zelewski’s notification of command over Warsaw, Berger testified in 1947 that he received word of his new command by telephone from Fegelein.
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The situation was unclear to the Germans, concerned for the wider impact on military and economic matters in the region. Berger set off for Vienna, arriving the evening of September 1, and was immediately advised of the considerable forces under his command,
according to French MacLean.
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Berger recalled that his orders were “the immediate disarmament of the Slovak Army … the setting up of labor battalions; the arrest of General Caclo; the safeguarding of President Tiso.”
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The uprising dragged on into 1945. The Germans sent in the Dirlewanger formation, under the command of Walter Schimana. During the fighting, an allied military mission was captured. According to the German press, the men received a court-martial, were found guilty, and were executed. The reverberations reached London and Washington, D.C. Henry Stimson, U.S. secretary of war, in correspondence with the secretary of state, explained the meaning of Hitler’s Commando Order and its implications and expressed outrage that their men were in uniform but treated as spies.
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Since December 1943, the situation in Hungary had concerned Hitler. The Red Army had revealed just how sensitive the Germans were about the area with the efforts to block Kovpak. The Red Army’s autumn 1943 onslaught had brought them to within striking distance of the region. This caused Hitler another dilemma; not only was Hungary part of the Axis, the oil fields of Rumania represented his last strategic oil reserve. Gehlen had been gathering information about the movement of partisans from Russia toward Hungary, and in March 1944, he advised Hitler that a band of six thousand Jews was threatening the oil fields.
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It is hard to know if this triggered the last extensive atrocity of the Jews, but its proximity to events seems more than coincidental. In March, Hitler ordered Operation “Margarethe,” four German army corps, to Hungary. Himmler sent Winkelmann to become HSSPF Hungary.
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In April, Himmler reproached Winkelmann, saying, “He is not to ask continually for orders but to act. His activity is too little in evidence; he is to show ruthless energy in this grave hour by grasping and organising affairs; he must be guided by sound sense and honour.”
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Again this corresponds with Himmler’s interference elsewhere.

By September 1944, with two uprisings on either side of Hungary, Hitler was again concerned about potential defection. The British noted,

Jews are still rounded up and deported to Poland. BdS Hungary informs RSHA Berlin that a special train is leaving Sarvar on 4 August for Auschwitz with 1,296 Jews, no doubt for the concentration camp there. Of their treatment nothing is said in these sources, but it may be noted that a message about chemicals for use in malarial districts and therefore to destroy mosquitoes is addressed to Auschwitz for the attention of Himmler’s special commissioner for the combating of animal pests.
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To secure Hungarian loyalty, Hitler dispatched his notorious double-act of Bach-Zelewski and Skorzeny.
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The consequences have become legend. The story told by Skorzeny was that Bach-Zelewski intended to destroy Budapest
with the siege artillery used in the destruction of Warsaw. According to Skorzeny, Bach-Zelewski wanted to exact revenge on the Hungarians for their official complaint to Hitler over his use of Ukrainians in Warsaw. Skorzeny conducted a daring raid, kidnapping Horthy’s son and blackmailing the father into remaining loyal. Bach-Zelewski, made redundant by Skorzeny’s actions, was sent packing to Germany to prepare for command in the Ardennes offensive.
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It was in Skorzeny’s interest to accuse Bach-Zelewski, but his bravura performance came at a time when he himself was facing criminal charges.
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It is more likely that Skorzeny planned the subterfuge while Bach-Zelewski threatened city-wide destruction and that both were enough for Horthy to remain loyal. Bach-Zelewski was reticent about the subject and mentioned in passing that Hitler had given him the assignment personally; his diary indicates only his arrival and departure from Budapest.
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Later, in evidence in the Eichmann trial (1961), he confessed that Hitler ordered him to Budapest to form a military government. He alleged that it was through his urging that Horthy capitulated at 6:00 a.m. on October 16, 1944.
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