SS und Polizei: Myths and Lies of Hitler's SS and Police

by J. Lee Ready

  Despite the fact that the dirt roads of Galicia [western Ukrainia] turned into mud at the first sprinkle of rain, this was still a war of movement and many Soviet units were bypassed. One such party ambushed the SS Wiking’s divisional headquarters, but they were driven off by clerks, orderlies and cooks.

  The generals of the German Army were still loath to accept the Waffen SS as equals, and in fact it was 1 July before they allowed the SS LAH Motorized Division to join the pursuit. Obersturmbannfuehrer Wilhelm Keilhaus, operations chief of the division, was relieved to be able to give the order to advance. His soldiers, such as Scharfuehrer Michael Wittman now commanding a StuG, had actually fretted they would miss the campaign. The LAH soldiers were hardened Nazis, but they were not the type that had bullied their way to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Indeed most of the division’s soldiers had been but ten years old when Hitler came to power! They were Nazis because their schoolteachers and youth leaders were Nazis, and their priests and pastors had told them it was all right to be a Nazi. In fact many were not on speaking terms with their parents owing to political differences. So they now drove helter skelter across Galicia hoping to catch up with Army Group South before Stalin surrendered.

  General von Mackensen and his III Panzer Corps had advanced so quickly that he had outrun the rest of the Germans. SS LAH’s first mission was to reunite von Mackensen with the rest of the army. During this drive the SS men encountered the bodies of several of von Mackensen’s rear-echelon soldiers who had obviously been captured by by-passed Soviets, tortured and then executed. If these young SS soldiers did not know already, they certainly knew now that this would be a new kind of war with no rules. Needless to say in anger many an SS man shot Red Army stragglers when they tried to give up.

  As soldiers the members of the Waffen SS did not rationalize too much about the need for this war. Soldiers usually let their political leaders do that. However, the clergy was behind this struggle against Communist atheism, and that influenced many. The priests and pastors back home and those serving in the German Army as chaplains had remained rather mute during the conflict against France and Greece, but they were quite vocal now, urging that the Germans were fighting for God against atheists. The Nazi politicians claimed that Stalin would have eventually attacked Germany [which was probably true] and this also influenced many a soldier. The British and Soviets claimed that the Germans were after world domination, and perhaps some really idealistic teenagers did want to take over the world, but most Germans saw nothing in Russia worth taking.

  By 7 July the SS LAH reached Mirupol, having fought off several attempts by by-passed Soviet units that were trying to break out and escape. Some of these break out attempts were by armor. In one incident Wittman’s StuG was attacked by eight enemy tanks. Wittman could have outrun them, as a StuG was not built for anti-tank warfare, but instead he destroyed six of them. The two others retreated. Naturally Wittman was decorated for this fight. On 8 July Kurt Meyer’s reconnaissance unit of the SS LAH crossed the Teterev River, and next day the SS LAH captured Shepkova.

  In late July the SS Wiking’s SS Westland Regiment was temporarily attached to the SS LAH and together they attacked Novo Archangelsk and thus put the cork in the bottle known as the Uman Pocket southwest of Kiev. In other words their attack cut off the escape route for the Soviet South West Front. For the next few days the SS men shot down waves of Soviets trying to break out. Then suddenly the Soviet commanders in the pocket surrendered their 100,000 troops.

  __________

  The Germans had already planned to bypass small Soviet units of a few hundred men each, which would at most become a nuisance to German rear-echelon forces, and they knew that local Communists might rally a few die-hards to snipe at supply columns, hence the assignment of a police regiment to each army group, but there is no doubt that the German generals were not prepared for the massive guerilla campaign which opened against them, a campaign created not just by small parties of stragglers and local Communists, but by teams of Communist agents who parachuted behind German lines to organize these trapped troops and guerillas. Stalin gave the NKVD and Communist Party the responsibility for controlling these guerillas [called partisans], while the Soviet Army tried to control by-passed units by radio. Additionally, many independent partisan bands appeared owing allegiance to no one. Thus began the conflict known as the Partisan War.

  __________

  In addition to his SS Totenkopf Motorized Division and his SS Nord Battlegroup, Eicke sent other units of his SS Totenkopfverbaende into the Soviet Union. Initially they were given sentry duty, but they were soon involved in the anti-partisan struggle, which also meant eliminating any male Jewish adults they found, based upon the assumption that Jewish men of military age would fight them if given a chance. Two of these formations were horse cavalry regiments, which were soon unified into the SS Totenkopf Cavalry Brigade under Obersturmbannfuehrer Hermann Fegelein. He was an ex-cop and internationally renowned equestrian. One of his battalion commanders was another well known equestrian, Hauptsturmfuehrer Gustav Lombard. Lombard had several American connections, including the fact that his niece the actress Carole Lombard had married the American actor Clark Gable. Another of his officers was his brother Waldemar Fegelein. Another was Obersturmbannfuehrer Heino Hierthes.

  By this date German horse cavalry rarely charged the enemy. The horses were strictly transportation, and the troops dismounted in the proximity of the enemy and fought as infantry.

  To fight the partisans the Germans began to rely on their hiwis as guides and interpreters, and it was soon realized that the hiwis needed to be armed for self-protection. Furthermore, the Germans began to use Soviet citizens to man anti-partisan infantry formations. These combat troops would be known as ‘osttruppen’ [eastern troops] to differentiate them from the rear-echelon ‘hiwis’. Yet, some hiwis became combat troops. The rule of thumb was that hiwis were members of German units, whereas osttruppen were members of their own units. At this stage the hiwis were still wearing civilian clothing or Soviet uniforms with an armband to identify them. Osttruppen were issued German uniforms, but without the armed forces eagle that German Army troops wore on their chest.

  At Olevskie Army Group South formed a Ukrainian combat unit of osttruppen with the ambitious title of Ukrainian Nationalist Revolutionary Army.

  __________

  The German Army generals of Army Group North were disgusted by the thought that they had to treat Eicke’s SS Totenkopf Motorized Division as a bona fide unit of soldiers, because they believed the propaganda that these men were all ex-concentration camp guards. Therefore, the generals had so far only assigned the SS Totenkopf to minor duties. On one occasion, though, these SS men were counterattacked by a major by-passed Soviet unit armed with tanks and artillery, and the SS had won. But then in the rear at Dagda in Latvia some SS Totenkopf troops crept into a marshy forest and were ambushed. Suffering high losses, they pulled out. Only Stuka dive-bombers saved them. Neither this failure nor the previous success did anything to alter the opinion of the army generals.

  However, on 6 July the SS Totenkopf burst through a Soviet defense line and crossed the Velikaya River south of Lake Peipus. Eicke hoped this deed might gain some recognition from the generals, but before he could personally seek it, his vehicle hit a mine and he was wounded. Brigadefuehrer Georg Keppler, the police officer that had joined the SS only after months of deliberation, was brought over to take command of the division. The army generals were still not impressed and they placed the SS Totenkopf into reserve.

  However, on 17 July the generals did give the SS Totenkopf a combat mission – to keep Soviet forces away from the flank of the army’s LVI Panzer Corps.

  __________

  Over a period of three weeks Army Group South, which only possessed 600 tanks, had knocked out or captured 3,000 tanks of the Soviet South West Front. Its two Waffen SS divisions, the SS LAH and the SS Wiking, had helped to trap the Uman Pocket and had then helped to shove
the Soviet Fifth Army into the Pripet Marshes. As per instructions, when these SS motorized troops identified pockets of Red Army die-hards they usually drove around them, leaving the German Army’s walking infantry to round them up. General Ewald von Kleist, commanding the 1st Panzer Group, finally admitted that the SS Wiking was as good as his army units: rare praise indeed from an army general.

  __________

  Behind the invading armies came the German civilian administration. Hitler planned to rule the conquered territory through an Ostministerium [Ministry for the East] headed by Alfred Rosenberg, a Volksdeutsch who had grown up in the Russian Empire - the prodigal son returned. This ministry was divided into three regions: north, central and south (the latter also known as Ukraine). Each region was ruled by a Reichskommissar, who had at his right hand an HSSPF, who in turn commanded a BdO [Befehlshaber des Orpo running the ordinary police] and a BdS [Befehlshaber des Sipo running the Gestapo, SD and Kripo]. In turn each HSSPF’s region was broken down into districts commanded by SSPF, each of whom had a KdO [Kommandeur des Orpo running the ordinary police] and a KdS [Kommandeur des Sipo running the Gestapo, SD and Kripo].

  Each KdO commanded the local indigenous police [Ordnungsdienst] that was allowed to remain once it had been weeded of Communists, Jews and other undesirables. Normally the Ordnungsdienst handled conventional policing such as robbery investigations and traffic control – after all they knew the neighborhood and spoke the language. They had German police advisers. If needed each Kdo could be reinforced by a battalion or two of actual German policemen [usually from the Police Reserve], who were constantly moving from one district to another where they were most needed. They were often accompanied by battalions of schumas [non-German members of the German Police].

  However, the German Army insisted that they should control the land within thirty miles of the front line, wherever that happened to be on a given day. This was agreed.

  Himmler appointed his confidant Gruppenfuehrer von dem Bach Zelewski to HSSPF for the Central Region [Western Russia and Byelorussia]. Zelewski soon began styling himself Generalleutnant der Polizei and was now and then seen in police green. Zelewski knew that the 322nd Police Battalion had already been executing partisans and some male Jewish community leaders, but he now ordered that female Jewish officials should also be shot. Later still he urged the killing of any Jew.

  Himmler appointed Obergruppenfuehrer Friedrich Jeckeln to HSSPF for the South [Ukraine]. Jeckeln was an ex-cop who had fought with the Totenkopf Division in France. Himmler chose Gruppenfuehrer Hans Pruetzman to be HSSPF for the North [Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Northwest Russia].

  This was all well and good, but other SS departments sent units into these areas too without even a courtesy visit to the nearest SSPF, let alone to ask for his permission. The SS RuSHA, now commanded by the Austrian Oberfuehrer Otto Hofman, came to make more racial studies. The RuSHA was even more amateurish by now. It admitted Oberfuehrer Hermann Haertel to a senior position as he was a Freikorps veteran and had once worked in a Swiss clock factory. The SS VOMI commanded by Standartenfuehrer Hans Ehlich came to help repatriate those Volksdeutsch that had been driven out by Stalin. Many went back to their old homes, but others were ‘upgraded’. The SS HuB arrived to manage SS construction projects. The SS KZL and SS Wv drove in to set up labor camps. These various SS branches went about their business with the arrogance that came from possessing a personal order from Reichsfuehrer Himmler himself. These SS departments were supposed to report to the SSPF. They often did not.

  German police battalions arriving in a district were supposed to place themselves at the disposal of the local KdO, but some did not. Even the schuma battalions behaved independently on occasion. The German police was now eagerly recruiting Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Byelorussians and Ukrainians into the schumas.

  Furthermore, a myriad of non-SS organizations arrived, all of them armed for self-protection, and each coming to rule its particular patch of the roost.

  There was the green-uniformed Feuerpolizei that protected firemen and investigated arson, a common enough occurrence as thousands of Communist saboteurs and partisans were now behind German lines.

  The OT-Organisation Todt came to perform military construction. Their personnel were either Germans or foreign volunteers, but they also had slave workers. To guard their slaves they had created the olive gray uniformed OT Schutzkommando - OT Guard Command. As more and more slaves were assigned to the OT, the OT Schutzkommando had to expand, so they accepted local volunteers. It was not uncommon to see a Russian guard of the OT Schutzkommando guarding German slaves!

  The light gray uniformed RAD-Reichsarbeitsdienst [Reich Labor Service] also showed up, bringing seventeen year-old German male conscripts to perform government labor, such as road mending. They carried rifles for self-protection.

  The NSKK [National Socialist Transportation Corps] also arrived to provide vehicles, drivers and mechanics to whoever needed them. They were always in demand, because the various German government agencies and military units never had enough vehicles of their own, and few of the ordinary soldiers knew how to drive. The NSKK took in local volunteers as hiwis. The NSKK wore their own olive gray uniforms, unless permanently assigned to an armed forces branch in which case they wore the uniform of that branch, e.g. dark blue Kriegsmarine, medium blue Luftwaffe, gray green army or gray Waffen SS. But they wore their own NSKK insignia.

  The dark blue uniformed Waterways Police patrolled the rivers. The light blue uniformed Bahnschutzpolizei arrived to guard train stations and check every passengers’ identity card.

  The gray uniformed Zugpolizei rode trains as security guards.

  Blue gray uniformed Luftschutzpolizei [Air Raid Wardens] patrolled the cities at night.

  TeNo workers in white overalls provided technical teams to repair battle damage and air raid destruction.

  Despite most SA members having been called up for military service, this body still possessed enough Brownshirts over age 45 and those discharged from the military for a physical disability, to be able to send thousands to ‘Russia’ to guard administrative buildings and generally make a nuisance of themselves.

  The Soviet people in the German occupied territories were bewildered by the various uniforms. The invasion was, if anything, colorful. As each of these formations arrived in a town they began to recruit hiwis. As time went on all hiwis were armed for self-protection.

  As if this was not enough, German civilians arrived, encouraged by Hitler to colonize. Even Dutch civilians arrived to take advantage of the situation. The SS VOMI did its best to accommodate them. These hardy pioneers included business entrepreneurs, artisans and farmers.

  However, this massive Nazi presence did not overwhelm the Communist partisans. On the contrary, it simply provided the guerillas with a plethora of targets. As a result the local Nazi party bosses began complaining of the lack of protection and when no one seemed to care they created their own anti-partisan units recruited from local anti-Communists: in Lithuania they created a militia, the Siauliai; in Latvia they established a similar force, the Aiszargi; and in Estonia they put together a like unit, the Eesti Kaitseliit. Each of these militias had reservists, part-timers and a few full-time members.

  The three German army groups found that the solitary police regiment assigned to each was woefully insufficient, so each group set aside three security divisions of German soldiers aged 36-45 to control the partisan menace within thirty miles of the front line, but even these were quickly viewed to be too few, and as early as July 1941 the 8th Panzer Division had to be pulled out of the front line to hunt partisans.

  __________

  Normally in an invasion there are three ‘deadly space areas’ i.e. a geographic location where killing takes place: the first is obvious, the front line, and the second and third are those parts of the two rear areas of both sides that are vulnerable to air attack. Sometimes there is a fourth area, i.e. that part of the rear plagued by partisans, a
s the Germans found out to their dismay in July 1941. But, in this invasion there were a fifth, sixth and seventh deadly spaces.

  The fifth was the Soviet rear, where the butchery of the NKVD knew no bounds, as they mercilessly hounded anyone in the Soviet rear suspected of being anti-Communist. No one was safe, not even generals. If a deserter from the Red Army could not be caught, then the NKVD went to his hometown and arrested his spouse, children, parents and siblings and incarcerated them in concentration camps until he turned himself in.

  The sixth deadly space was in the German rear, where there were deaths owing to the nature of the German occupation and the slave system, but their number paled into insignificance compared with that caused by the NKVD. Ordinary Ukrainians and Byelorussians quickly learned that life under the Nazis was difficult, but having lived under Communism they still felt themselves to be now ‘liberated’.

  However, the seventh deadly space was bloody indeed, namely the paths covered by the four new SS einsatzgruppe. These fellows ignored all other units and all commanders regardless of rank, whether SS or police or army or Nazi party. They had a special purpose and would not let anything stand in the way of their mission, as they possessed direct orders from Himmler himself.

  The personnel of SS Einsatzgruppe A commanded by Brigadefuehrer Franz Stahlecker were quite pleased when they entered Lithuania, because they found that some locals had already begun their mission for them: namely the elimination of Communists and Jews. First of all using his special powers Stahlecker bullied the local German Army commander into releasing all those Lithuanians that had been arrested for killing Jews, and then he offered these thugs employment as hiwis. They would be paid with money and jewelry stolen from the Jews, thus keeping their employment ‘off the books’. To these Lithuanian insanely anti-Semitic murderers, the thought of actually being paid to kill Jews was a dream come true. At Kovno Standartenfuehrer Karl Jaeger’s SS Einsatzkommando [part of Stahlecker’s SS Einsatzgruppe A] and his new Lithuanian hiwis arrested 416 Jewish men, marched them out of town to a spot in the woods, ordered them to dig their own graves and then shot them. The SS einsatzkommando called this an ‘aktion’.