by J. Lee Ready
On the morning of the 20th, the fourth day of battle, elements of the SS Hohenstaufen attacked at Wolfheze and Oosterbeek with tanks, StuGs and panzergrenadiers. Some Germans were armed with flame throwers. They overran a complete British company and forced four British battalions to fall back to the main drop zone.
This day Bittrich agreed that the sole British battalion at the bridge could have a truce to evacuate its wounded. For two hours SS men who had been trying to kill these Brits now carried British wounded to safety. In some cases German SS medics ran into burning buildings to rescue British soldiers and Dutch civilians.
Late in the day British and American artillery laid down a smoke screen across the Waal two miles west of the Nijmegen bridge. Hoping the smoke would conceal them, US troops began paddling across in twenty-six canvas boats. The few SS and others at this part of the riverbank opened fire with everything they had into the smoke: tanks, StuGs, artillery, mortars, machine guns and rifles. British and American artillery now switched to high explosive shells and began to shell the Germans. The combination of the heavy Allied artillery barrage and the courage of these Yank paratroopers overcame the German river defenses, and within an hour the Americans had not only crossed the river, but had run eastwards to attack the north end of the bridge. Over 200 SS troops were caught in the middle of the bridge and they fought to the death. Few surrendered.
Bittrich was informed. He knew that British tanks would now charge across the bridge and would reach Arnhem within hours.
Yet incredibly by the early hours of the following morning, the 21st, the fifth day of battle, there was still no sign of British tanks at Arnhem, and thus the Germans were able to wipe out the last British defenders at the Arnhem bridge. This was good news for Bittrich. He had good news from the SS Frundsberg too - the British tanks had not even crossed the Nijmegen bridge yet!
Therefore, Bittrich decided to overrun the main British drop zone west of Oosterbeek. If he could do this, and then send his forces southwards towards Nijmegen, he might be able to stop the British armor. Model was in full agreement and to streamline communications Model placed von Tettau under Bittrich’s orders.
Bittrich’s attack on the drop zone west of Oosterbeek began about 0800 hours, and he launched it with German sailors, Luftwaffe ground crew, army soldiers of various rear-echelon units, members of the SS Hohenstaufen and SS Frundsberg, SS trainees, Dutch SS and the Dutch Landstorm. All day they battled against British and Polish airborne troops. Bittrich reinforced his assault with Tiger tanks and two battalions of pioneers, some of the latter equipped with flamethrowers. Everywhere the Germans gained ground, but they could not occupy a stretch of terrain between the drop zone and the Lech River to the south.
Meanwhile Bittrich ordered a counterattack on the north end of the Nijmegen bridge, which the British tanks had still not crossed. This attack was repelled by US paratroopers. The Americans were livid that the British tanks refused to advance, yet the British commanders correctly surmised they could not advance without their infantry support, but as everyone relied on just one single two-lane road that stretched southwards for forty miles and was under German fire for its entire length, it took an entire day for the British infantry riding in trucks to catch up. No one in authority seems to have considered asking the American paratroopers to ride on the tanks as temporary help.
However, a new problem arose for the Germans. Polish paratroopers had dropped south of the Lech opposite the British drop zone. Now Bittrich had to find extra troops to surround them.
In the midst of all this Bittrich was visited by the British chief medical officer and a Dutch doctor, requesting a truce so that all British wounded could be evacuated from the battlefield to local hospitals. Bittrich could not afford the time, for the British tanks at Nijmegen might advance at any moment, yet he courteously complied with the request. During this temporary lull German SS soldiers stood up and chatted with the British ‘Tommies’ like rival soccer players at half-time. Unfortunately one British prisoner was murdered. The British blamed the SS, but the killer was in fact a drunken German war correspondent.
By the 22nd, the sixth day of battle, the truce was over and Bittrich had learned that the Poles on the south bank of the Lech had begun to cross the river in small boats in order to reinforce the British. He ordered his men to put an end to this at once, and he ordered his artillery to shell suspected crossing places.
Indeed the Polish Brigade had been reinforcing the British. Moreover, this day the British tanks finally crossed the Nijmegen bridge, accompanied by the British 43rd Infantry Division, and together they quickly pushed northwards and made contact with the Polish Brigade. Thus the British 1st Airborne Division was now all but rescued.
On the night of the 24th, the eighth day of battle, British artillery firing from south of the river set afire several buildings on the north bank, but this worked in the German’s favor, for the fires lit up the river, giving German machine gunners an excellent view of the crossing places. This night not only Poles were trying to cross, but an entire battalion of the British 43rd Infantry Division attempted it as well. The German fire was very heavy and only about half of the Poles and Brits made it across, and those that did were too few to press on to the British drop zone. The SS easily rounded up these ‘stranded whales’.
Another crossing took place on the night of the 25th, and the Germans met it robustly. Yet the Germans soon detected a difference: the small boats were full of men going south, but empty going north. It was obvious that the British and Poles had changed their minds about beefing up the drop zone and were in fact now trying to evacuate the drop zone. Naturally the Germans fired everything they could onto the boats and assembly points, but they were hindered by a heavy rain that reduced visibility. Of course the German riverbank positions were under constant Allied artillery fire.
At dawn on the 26th, the tenth day of battle, the Germans advanced into the drop zone and found a mere handful of British and Polish wounded peacefully waiting for them. The Polish Brigade and British 1st Airborne Division had successfully escaped to the south bank.
The Allies were still under fire on the south bank from west, north and east, but Bittrich was not strong enough on the south bank to assault them. Indeed over the next few days the Germans south of the river backed away out of range.
During the period 17-26 September the Germans and their Dutch partners killed or captured about 8,000 Britons and Poles in the Arnhem-Oosterbeek-River Lech area. And many of those Britons and Poles that had escaped were wounded. At Nijmegen Harmel’s SS Frundsberg battlegroup and other ad hoc forces had inflicted about 1,400 casualties on the US 82nd Airborne Division, and further south at Eindhoven other Germans had hurt the US 101st Airborne Division to the tune of 2,118 killed, wounded and missing. Total Allied casualties in all three locations were thus about 13,000.
German and Dutch military losses were 3,300 killed, wounded and missing around Arnhem-Oosterbeek-River Lech and probably 4,000 at Nijmegen and Eindhoven for a total of about 7,500. No one will ever know the exact losses as not all unit records survived and few were kept accurately. Civilian casualties were high.
The Waffen SS had performed exceptionally well, especially as the two main formations involved, the SS Hohenstaufen and SS Frundsberg, had already been completely wiped out in France - according to Allied propaganda that is. It was unfortunate for the Allies that these two armored divisions just happened to be here - the Allied paratroopers were astonished to see them - but it was even worse luck indeed for the British and Americans that these were not just any two panzer divisions, but were SS units, because the SS excelled in such conditions as these, namely crisis management which required spontaneous creations of battleworthy formations from bits and pieces: a couple of guns from here, a tank or two from there, some rear-echelon clerks from that place, a gang of wide-eyed recruits from this location and a few dozen battle-hardened NCOs to kick them all into shape.
The Waffen SS reported to
Himmler that the Dutch SS and the Dutch Landstorm had actually done quite well under the circumstances. Himmler made a mental note of it.
Back in Oosterbeek and Arnhem the SD and Gestapo returned. They had of course fled at the first shot. Now under orders from their BdS, Brigadefuehrer Eberhard Schoengarth, they hunted for Dutch civilians who had aided the Allies. The Dutch SS deserters now returned too, and they soon began shooting civilians for ‘treason’. The Waffen SS were as disgusted as anyone by their cowardice and their brutality.
Furthermore, the Germans began a forcible evacuation of all civilians in the area. Oddly, the Dutch thought this was a punishment for having offered the Allied soldiers food and drink. In truth the Germans had been appalled by the necessity of having to fight a battle in the midst of thousands of civilians, and they now evacuated them out of harm’s way, as they were convinced the Allies would soon launch another attempt to take Arnhem.
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The Axis forces in Europe did not just halt the Allies at Arnhem and Warsaw. In Italy too things were going according to Axis plan. There these forces, including the SS Italien Sturmbrigade, had brought the Allied ground advance to a standstill by September 1944 This caused deep depression among the Italian partisans in the northern third of Italy, who had hoped to have been liberated by now. Mussolini and Hitler took advantage of this situation to launch major anti-partisan sweeps. Through Himmler’s head of internal security in Italy, Karl Wolf, Himmler had control of several of the anti-partisan units: 16th SS Reichsfuehrer Panzergrenadier Division, SS Battalion Debica, 24th SS Karstjaeger Italien Mountain Division, SS Police Regiment Bozen, 15th SS Police Regiment, 1/20th SS Police Regiment, SS Police Regiment Alpenvorland, SS Police Regiment Defregger, the Trient Security Corps and the Trieste Civic Guard, just to mention the major ones. Himmler also had hundreds of Germans of the SD, Gestapo and Kripo in the country and they employed thousands of Italians as agents, interpreters, technicians and informers.
This partisan war had become bloody. The security forces, both German and Italian, executed and arrested thousands of civilians in reprisals. Simon’s 16th SS Reichsfuehrer was responsible for a massacre at Marzabotto.
However, in September the Italian-manned SS Battalion Debica joined the SS Italien Sturmbrigade at the front.
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Meanwhile in Slovakia the Axis continued to battle partisans using the following units: SS Einsatzgruppe H, 108th Panzer Division, Tatra Panzer Division, 20th SS Estnische Grenadier Division, Schill SS Panzer Regiment, 86th SS Regiment, SS Battlegroup Schaefer and several battalions of Slovakian troops and police. The most successful anti-partisan formation was the Schill SS Panzer Regiment, which had attacked through the Nitra valley and had taken Prievidza by 14 September. Yet the Slovakian partisans were still in good shape. Not only had they received about 18,000 volunteers from the Slovakian Army, but they had been reinforced by the Czecho-Slovakian 2nd Airborne Brigade which had parachuted in to help them. This brigade’s name was purely propaganda, and had been formed by the Soviets primarily using Ruthenians. Moreover, Czecho-Slovakian air squadrons that had been trained and equipped by the Soviets flew in to the country and began operating from partisan-controlled airfields! Again many of these personnel were Ruthenians.
Himmler soon concluded that Berger could not or would not act as a good HSSPF for Slovakia, so he replaced him with Obergruppenfuehrer Hermann Hoefle.
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On 20 September in Warsaw Rohr’s forces crushed all guerilla resistance in the Czerniakow district. By now Rohr had lost almost all his real combat units, which had been sent off to other battlefields, and he had to make do with what he could conjure up. In his next assault, scheduled for the 21st, he would attack from the north of the city with two provisional companies of mixed Gestapo, SD and Kripo, two companies of Polish policemen and four ad hoc companies that he had assembled from various rear-echelon troops and men returning from leave or hospitals wearing army, SS and police uniforms. From the west he would assault with four temporary companies made up of army soldiers, SA stormtroopers and Polish Werkschutz. From the south he would advance with two Luftwaffe security companies, the Luftwaffe 116th Construction Battalion and the army’s von Hartmann Provisional Battalion.
At the same time he would attack Fort Mokotowski with 294 German soldiers in provisional units and 163 troopers of the 580th Russian Cavalry Detachment. Simultaneously he would assault the central rail station with two temporary battalions of German soldiers. In the extreme south of the city some bypassed pockets would be taken care of by four companies of Polish and German policemen. Another pocket in the inner city was to be crushed by the 1/3rd Azerbaijani Regiment, the 2/Bergmann Azerbaijani Regiment, the 3rd Cossack Police Regiment and a German infantry battalion. Yet another pocket that had been discovered in the inner city would be tackled by Battlegroup Schmidt [which now controlled the 608th Security Regiment, 3/17th SS Police Regiment and Police Battalion Burckardt]. In reserve Rohr held the 790th and 791st Turkestani Battalions, the SS Caucasus Moslem Regiment and some Cossack companies.
Despite such an all-encompassing strategy, it took Rohr’s forces another ten days of intense ferocious combat inside demolished buildings, cellars and sewers to crush the guerillas.
Following this horrific struggle at the end of September Rohr ordered all civilians out of the city and he begged the remaining guerillas to give up, believed to be a few hundred. He assured them they would be well treated. Having realized the affair was well and truly over, the guerillas agreed to surrender and on October 4 they climbed out of the rubble with their hands up, gaunt, sick, wounded, covered in dust and proud. The Axis troops were astonished to count 9,000 of them! The guerillas were themselves surprised that not only were they taken alive, but German medical teams cared for them, and many a German of the SS, army, Luftwaffe and police saluted them!
Of the 2,781 men assigned to the SS Dirlewanger Brigade during the battle for the city, only 648 were left standing, the others being dead, wounded or sick. And some had deserted. To be sure some of these dead had been killed by Axis troops when caught committing crimes. Everyone - SS, police, army, Luftwaffe - demanded that Himmler punish Dirlewanger for his atrocities. Instead Himmler gave him a medal!
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Chapter Thirty-eight
OCTOBER 1944
In the South Tyrol the local police had never been happy since the Germans had taken over this Italian province, because Himmler refused to recognize them as Ordnungspolizei, but instead referred to them as Ordnungsdienst: in other words he did not give them equal status to German police or even to foreign schumas. The fact that Himmler thought more of Poles in his Schumas than these Volksdeutsch is evidence that his belief in racial purity was a great big lie. The people of the South Tyrol had never been Germans, and they considered themselves to be Austrians, who had been occupied by the Italians from 1919 to 1943. Now they were under German occupation.
But suddenly after a year the German Police [Orpo] recognized the local cops as Ordnungspolizei. This was good news. Furthermore the police were sub-divided into SS Police Regiment Brixen and SS Police Regiment Schlanders. However, there was an unwelcome side to this ‘promotion’. While Schlanders continued their normal duties, Brixen was ordered to begin anti-partisan sweeps throughout the Italian Alps. Moreover, all of the policemen were encouraged to join the SS. The majority refused. Indeed many would not even take the oath to Hitler, which was required by their new status.
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Despite the considerable support of osttruppen and hiwis, German military might was in terrible shape by late summer 1944. Most army infantry divisions had been restructured as volksgrenadier formations, a fancy name that attempted to cover up the fact that they shrank in numbers of personnel. Moreover men who had hitherto escaped the draft owing to legitimate sickness or handicap were now conscripted. E.g. men who required a strict diet for health reasons were placed into the same companies organized by illness.
Women were now allowed to volunteer to enter factories to enable male factory workers to be drafted, and some females as young as eighteen were allowed to man flak guns. The special section of the Hitler Youth devoted to aircraft study was now ordered to send fifteen-year old boys to help man flak guns. This was Hitler’s ‘boy scout’ type movement, and does not refer to the 12th SS Hitler Jugend Panzer Division.
In August 1944 to gain recruits at a faster pace Hitler had lowered the conscription age to sixteen and for the first time military service took precedence over RAD service.
However, he went much further in October by conscripting all men aged sixteen to sixty through the Volksturm 1st Levy law. As those aged sixteen to forty-five were already serving, this law in effect brought men aged forty-six to sixty into the ranks. Only those already serving or badly crippled or holding an essential job could escape this draft.
Thus many of the full-time battalions and regiments of the Allgemeine SS practically disappeared. Only a few crippled veterans and those over age sixty remained, plus those who held a job essential to the war effort. Some of the Allgemeine SS officers used their ’pull’ to get testimonials from businesses and government agencies, which declared their presence ’essential’.
However, there really were many men absolutely essential to the war effort or to their community, such as firemen, skilled munitions workers, postmen, waterworks engineers and concentration camp guards. These essential men were placed into the Volksturm 2nd Levy, who would only be called to active duty if their own homes and factories were under enemy ground attack, and they would be ordered to serve in actual 2nd Levy units until the enemy was repelled, whereupon they would revert to their civilian jobs. But by this date some parts of Germany on the western and eastern borders were already under ground attack. In these towns such as Aachen and Metz the 2nd Levy was mobilized at once under this new law. In real terms it meant that these men were whisked away from their jobs, handed an armband and a rifle and told to ‘go get ‘em’. Their units were an odd sight as they marched [more or less] wearing civilian clothing or various uniforms such as that of postal employee, railroad worker, fireman, Allgemeine SS, TeNo and so on. They looked more like a clothing fashion parade than a column of soldiers. The local policemen were already in action.
