by J. Lee Ready
SS propaganda still claimed that all SS were volunteers, despite the fact that these 15,000 men of the Polizei Division had been forcibly conscripted from the police. More proof of SS lies. The army generals were exasperated with the new unit, because it was manned by SS and police who either had not been called up for military service or had been released from military service, because Himmler had insisted they were indispensable to the police force or were medically unfit, but these were obviously lies, for Himmler himself was now calling them up into his ‘military’ service. To placate both Hausser and the army generals Himmler did not formally assign the SS Polizei Division to the Waffen SS, and it maintained its sham status as a police unit.
In fact the personnel of the division themselves seem to have been confused by this reassignment and many continued to use police rank insignia on their SS uniforms for some time, and they certainly addressed each other by police ranks. Yet, as they were members of an SS division they were now SS rather than policemen, but then again as every SS man was legally a member of the auxiliary police, they were then policemen after all, were they not? Indeed they possessed dual status and some of them wore police insignia and SS insignia at the same time! To add to the confusion this division, like all SS and army divisions, had its own military police unit to direct traffic, secure sensitive areas, search for stragglers and deserters, guard valuable equipment and premises and look after POWs. No wonder its members were confused.
When Himmler ordered these policemen to ‘volunteer’ for the division, he did not check them for racial or physical defects, proving once again that the SS standards were a lie. In fact some were 1st and 2nd degree Mischlings!
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The race situation was confusing to say the least, so to try to make racial sense of everything the SS RuSHA bureaucrats divided the Germans up into citizenship classes. A Reichsdeutsch Class I citizen was a born and bred German [i.e. born within the January 1, 1938 borders of Germany] whose native language was German, Frisian or Wend! A Reichsdeutsch Class II citizen was someone who was born and bred in Austria [i.e. the Austria of January 1, 1938], even though he/she might be a Slovene-speaker. Further down the ladder were Volksdeutsch Class III citizens, who were born in Germany [the Germany of January 1, 1938] and were Danish- or Lithuanian- or Polish-speakers. This class also included the Sudetens and Memellanders. Lowest on the list were the Volksdeutsch Class IV, which included all who were racially acceptable and who came from territories outside the January 1, 1938 borders of Germany, Austria, Memelland and Sudetenland. This included those ‘Margarine Germans’ who said they were ‘German’, even if they had to say it in Czech or Polish, and it included millions born in the Wartheland prior to 1919 even if they refused to claim German citizenship. Jews and other racially unacceptable people [e.g. Negroes, Asians] were not allowed any German citizenship. However, Mischlings were acceptable.
Thus Himmler was a Reichsdeutsch Class I citizen, but Adolf Hitler was a Reichsdeutsch Class II citizen, while the civilian businessman Oskar Schindler, who went to the General Government late in 1939 to make money, was legally speaking a Volksdeutsch Class III citizen because he was a Sudeten. At his age he should have been in the military, but he illegally bought a deferment. Theodore Eicke born in Lorraine was thus a Volksdeutsch Class IV citizen.
Himmler really began to make a mockery of the SS racial regulations now by recruiting ‘Margarine Germans’, who knew nothing of the Munich Putsch, the Nuremberg Laws, the concentration camps or Reichskristallnacht. All they saw was a victorious force in handsome uniforms. Some could barely speak but a few words of German.
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Himmler also broke his own character restrictions, showing that this part of the SS legend was also a lie. In 1940 he inducted Oskar Dirlewanger into the SS simply because he was a friend of Gottlob Berger. Dirlewanger, a skinny cadaverous looking fellow, had seen action in World War One, but thereafter had been convicted of various crimes including those of a sexual nature and had served time in prison. Berger managed to get him an assignment with the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War. Now Berger was interceding on his behalf again. He convinced Himmler that a battalion of poachers would be a good idea. Himmler knew much about agriculture, but nothing about hunting. In fact he abhorred the idea of killing defenseless creatures!!!! So in his imagination poachers were some sort of German frontiersmen, crack shots and experts in self-sufficiency. And Berger convinced him that Dirlewanger was the man to organize the unit. So Himmler authorized Dirlewanger to tour the prisons to recruit poachers. He did just that and took in other criminals too and even recruited habitual criminals that were currently incarcerated in concentration camps. So much for the myth that all SS candidates had to have clean records and respectable references. More lies.
Dirlewanger’s Battalion was recruited under the guise of the SS Totenkopfverbaende outer perimeter guards, i.e. in theory they were indispensable members of the SS KZL, so they could not be conscripted into the military. They were soon sent to Poland to help keep the peace and guard slave labor. The battalion quickly gained a reputation for insane brutality.
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In February 1940 the Gestapo began rounding up selected Jews in Germany and forcibly transporting them to the ghettoes of the General Government. Thus for the first time within the borders of pre-war Germany Jews born in Germany were officially arrested simply because they were Jews. As seen above this actually first began unofficially in East Prussia, which was a part of pre-war Germany.
In March 1940 the German armed forces decided that all Volksdeutsch Class IV men in the Wartheland were eligible for conscription. Those aged 18 were sent to the RAD to perform six months of government manual labor, and all men aged 19 to 45 were called up into the armed forces. This included those men who had signed up as Volksdeutsch merely to get food and those whose wives had done it for them to get them out of a prisoner of war camp, and it even included Poles who had been born in the region prior to 1919 and their children. Many had fought in the Polish Army against the Germans just months earlier. Now they put on German uniform. Those who refused were arrested and sent to a concentration camp.
This decision by the army angered Himmler, for he had hoped to recruit many of these Volksdeutsch into the SS. A few of these conscripts asked for duty in the Waffen SS, but the other three branches decided the Waffen SS was full up, so almost no one got his wish.
Meanwhile within the Wartheland the Selbstschutz had become overbearing, arrogant and murderously cruel. Even the Gestapo and SD complained of their violence! As a result Himmler ordered the dissolution of this 12,000 man militia. Temporarily this put Oberfuehrer Josef Stroop out of a job.
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On April 9, 1940 the German armed forces launched two major onslaughts, one into Denmark and the other into Norway. The Danes were conquered before breakfast and an arrangement was made by which the Danish government accepted the Germans as ‘guests’. The Norwegians fought back, however. The Waffen SS did not take part in these attacks, but Heydrich sent Standartenfuehrer Franz Stahlecker to Norway with members of the SD, Gestapo and Kripo armed with the usual lists of names and occupations. Stahlecker as BdS would report to Gruppenfuehrer Wilhelm Rediess the new HSSPF for Norway. Actually Rediess was Himmler’s second choice. Obergruppenfuehrer Fritz Weitzel was his first, but within days of his appointment Weitzel was killed in a British air raid while on home leave in Germany: the highest ranking SS member to die in the war to date.
Himmler and Eicke wanted Rediess to have some ‘teeth’ in Norway, so they sent him some of the Totenkopfverbaende - the 5th [part], 6th, 7th and 9th SS Totenkopf Standarten. The 6th and 7th had many Sudetens and Czech Volksdeutsch and the 9th was raised in Danzig. These troops had barely finished training and had spent almost no time as outer perimeter camp guards. In fact the commander of the 6th, Oberfuehrer Bernhard Voss, was a professional policeman and not one of Eicke’s ‘boys‘.
In addition six police bat
talions were sent: the 254th, 255th and 256th for the north of the country; and the 44th, 319th and 321st for the south.
Britain sent troops to Norway to battle the Germans, and it soon looked like the Germans would have a long fight here. Nonetheless Himmler was so sure of victory that he ordered Berger to set up recruitment offices in Denmark and Norway to recruit locals for the Waffen SS. He was desperate for manpower and he wanted to be one jump ahead of the German Army in case they started conscripting Norwegians and Danes. The German Army was still not allowing all of their soldiers who requested a transfer to the Waffen SS to do so, despite earlier assurances.
Indeed Berger was already secretly sending recruiters throughout Europe to recruit young idealistic Volksdeutsch and others of suitable ethnicity who were looking for adventure. Several Swedes and Swiss and a handful of Lichtensteiners entered the SS ranks in this manner.
The Swiss government was not averse to seeing some of its young men join the SS. After all the nation’s bankers were already supporting the Nazis. The Swedish government had allowed its young men to fight as members of Finland’s army against the Soviets from December 1939 to March 1940, and Sweden’s iron ore mines were supplying Hitler with the raw material for his war machine. The Swedes also allowed Hitler the use of their soil to traverse troops. Therefore, the enlistment of Swedes into the SS certainly did not bother the Swedish government.
Himmler also made a deal with the OT - Organisation Todt, which was a German governmental paramilitary construction organization. Namely he would provide them with slave workers in exchange for munitions and weapons. He had a plentiful supply of slaves, and could always get more by simply telling the Gestapo to lift innocent Poles off the streets.
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Hitler was so confident of victory that he ordered the dismissal of all 1st degree Mischlings from his armed forces, an order that he assumed would be implemented immediately, but in truth it was applied in a most haphazard manner. Bribery and outright lies saved many a soldier from dismissal. Moreover the rule did not apply to policemen. The Kriegsmarine admirals just flat-footed refused to enforce the rule. It was in fact illegal under Kriegsmarine regulations to actively engage in party politics including the Nazi party, and though there were Nazi sailors, this branch of the service was the least Nazi.
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On 30 April 1940 the SSPF for the Lodz region of the General Government ordered the local Polish police to surround the Lodz Ghetto with a wall leaving only a few checkpoints for access, thereby sealing off 230,000 Jews from the outside world. From now on any Jews that worked outside the ghetto would be escorted to and from their workplace by Werkschutz [armed factory guards in black or gray uniforms]. Most had been recruited from Poles, Ukrainians and Volksdeutsch. The German 101st Police Battalion of the Police Reserve [recruited in Hamburg] arrived to help guard the ghetto walls. The Lodz model worked well, so within a few months Himmler ordered all the ghettoes to be sealed in like manner. From now on a Jew could be shot for just peeking over the wall, let alone trying to escape.
On 1 May 1940 Himmler chose Sturmbannfuehrer Rudolf Hoess to be kommandant of the new complex of camps near Auschwitz in the Wartheland. Hoess had spent the last six years on the inner perimeter staff of Dachau and Sachsenhausen, and he had come up with some workable ideas. However, once ensconced in his little empire at Auschwitz he found that it was an administrative nightmare, for soon this complex would include over fifty camps - POW, labor and concentration. Regarding POWs he had to deal with the army, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine who provided the guards. Regarding slave labor he had to negotiate with the executives of I. G. Farben, Siemens, Krupp and other private companies that employed the slaves, and with the SS KZL and Werkschutz who guarded them, and with the SS Wv who paid for it all. Regarding construction of these camps he had to deal with the SS HuB, and at times with the OT and RAD. Only in the actual concentration camps did he have some measure of independent control.
As if this was not confusing enough Himmler now permitted the establishment of a new labor camp system to be organized by Albrecht Schmelt as SS Organisation Schmelt. This character was a Nazi party official and the BdO of Silesia, and an SS reservist.
At the same time as Himmler was increasing the number of slaves, he was also increasing the number of fatalities among innocent people. Specifically, the T-4 program was extended to the General Government and the Wartheland. Following a meeting between Gruppenfuehrer Wilhelm Rediess HSSPF for East Prussia, Gruppenfuehrer Wilhelm Koppe HSSPF for Wartheland and Hauptsturmfuehrer Rudolf Lange of the Gestapo, the latter returned to his office at Soldau and had his mechanics modify a large van, so that its exhaust could be piped into the back at the flick of a switch. A Sonderkommando [temporary special command] made up of SS personnel on loan from the SD, Gestapo and Kripo then brought mentally challenged and physically handicapped ‘patients’ to Soldau, where Lange’s men kindly helped them into the back of the van, explaining they were in for a short ride. The ride was short indeed. Once moving the driver flicked the switch and the passengers choked to death. Despite complaints by the drivers that the passengers in their death throes shook the van dangerously and screamed madly, more than 1,500 persons were executed in this one van in just three weeks.
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Chapter Eight
BLITZKRIEG PERFECTED
By May 1940 Hitler was about to launch a new military campaign, and Himmler wanted to travel to the border to see the kick-off. France had refused to make peace with Germany, and Hitler had a new plan courtesy of General von Manstein: namely for the Germans to charge through Luxemburg, Netherlands and Belgium, which as neutral nations would be taken by surprise, and then strike the French on their unguarded northern flank. Certainly every German wanted to take revenge on the French and the Belgians for their despicable greed at the end of World War One and for their invasion of Germany in 1923. And the Germans wanted to liberate their brothers in Alsace, Lorraine and the Eupen district. True, the Germans did not have any arguments with the Luxemburgers or Dutch, but they were in the way. Besides, perhaps they would come to an accommodation like the Danes had done, thought many.
Hausser was disappointed that the army would still not allow his SS Verfuegungstruppe Division to fight as a division, but instead ordered its components to be parceled out to various army commands. Each of the SS ‘standarte’ now consisted of four ‘sturmbann’, but these terms were now discarded at the insistence of the army in favor of the army terms ‘regiment’ and ‘battalion’. Again this is evidence of a lie. Obviously Himmler was not as proud of his SS as he publicly said he was. After all, the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe did not change their unit designations such as ‘flotilla’ or ‘squadron’ just to suit the army, so why should the SS?
Yet this lie about pride in the SS went even further, because Waffen SS officers when dealing in writing with army officers began to give themselves army rank titles. If an army major wrote a letter he would sign it: ‘His name, then his rank, e.g. Richard Christensen, Major’. However, if he was an SS officer of equal rank he would sign it: ‘Richard Christensen, SS Sturmbannfuehrer’. But increasingly Waffen SS officers signed their letters: ‘Richard Christensen, SS Sturmbannfuehrer und Major der Waffen SS’. Theoretically if an officer wanted to express pride in his membership of the Waffen SS to distinguish it from the other elements of the SS he should sign his letters: ‘Richard Christensen, Sturmbannfuehrer der Waffen SS’. But by using an army term for their Waffen SS rank, such as ‘major’ instead of ‘sturmbannfuehrer’ these officer were in essence diluting the SS term, as if they were almost ashamed of it.
Were these officers subconsciously longing to be accepted as equals by the army, so much so that they were willing to take army rank titles? The excuse that army soldiers did not understand SS ranks is nonsense. No naval officer writing a letter to the army would have signed his name with an army rank. Had he done so, he would have been accused of betraying the Kriegsmarine.
; Army officers insisted on verbally addressing SS officers with army titles. E.g. “Herr Hauptmann” rather than “Herr Hauptsturmfuehrer.” This was an obvious insult. After all, they would not have dreamed of addressing a navy admiral as “Herr General”. The SS officers should have stood up to them. Instead they allowed it, and many an SS officer did not object when his own SS men addressed him with an army title, such as “Herr Leutnant” rather than “Herr Obersturmfuehrer”.
This army-SS fusing had in fact already been institutionalized because in addition to SS rank insignia all SS personnel wore the equivalent army insignia! SS on the collar, army on the arm or shoulder. One can understand the wearing of one or the other, [as do US Navy officers depending on the style of uniform], but not both at the same time!
And now Hausser was insisting that Waffen SS ranks should not be tied to other branches of the SS, so that if an officer of the Allgemeine SS transferred to the Waffen SS his current rank would not be taken into consideration when giving him a new Waffen SS rank. Indeed Hausser might not even accept him as an officer!
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On the morning of 10 May 1940 Keppler’s SS Der Fuehrer Regiment in its first combat assignment drove across the Dutch border in trucks and half-tracks. At last the Waffen SS had enough vehicles. These Austrians were accompanied by the SS LAH Regiment, which now included a battery of self-propelled 75mm assault guns (abbreviated to StuG). The Dutch, who were neutral in this war so far, were caught by surprise and put up little resistance to the SS. In fact the SS LAH covered 62 miles by noon!
