54.StA München, Bestand Staatsanwaltschaften München, Nr. 34835, vol. 1, p. 8: Verdict of the Bratislava People’s Court, 22 June 1948, p. 4.
55.FES, Viktor Lutze Papers, Political Diary of Viktor Lutze, p. 159.
56.The soldier and former SA man Kurt Pfau provided a telling example in his war diaries. On 1 September, the first day of the war, Pfau approvingly noted that his unit had burned alleged Polish snipers alive in the first village they had reached on their advance. See Udo Rosowski (ed.), Glückauf zum Untergang: Die Kriegstagebücher des Feldwebels Kurt Pfau 1939–1945 (Brüggen: Literates, 2012), pp. 19–20. For general information on German warfare in Poland, see Jochen Böhler, Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg: Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939 (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2006); Michael Alberti, ‘“Niederträchtige Perfidie, gemeine, unermessliche Gier und kalte, berechnende Grausamkeit . . .”: Die “Endlösung der Judenfrage” im Reichsgau Wartheland’, in Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk and Jochen Böhler (eds), Der Judenmord in den eingegliederten polnischen Gebieten 1939–1945 (Osnabrück: Fibre, 2010), pp. 117–42, here pp. 118–20. On the economic exploitation of the Poles, see Lehnstaedt, ‘Das Generalgouvernement als Mobilisierungsreserve’.
57.FES, Viktor Lutze Papers, Political Diary of Viktor Lutze, pp. 160–1.
58.Few scholars have written on this particular SA unit. The most detailed account is from Erich Jainek, Standarte Feldherrnhalle: Bewährung an den Brennpunkten des Zweiten Weltkriegs (Rosenheim: Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1997). Jainek was a former member of the Standarte and as such provides first-hand information. His book suffers from an overtly apologetic tendency but is useful for determining the course of the Feldherrnhalle’s combat operations and gaining insight into the worldview of its members. For basic information on its organization and deployment, see BArch Berlin, NS 23/518: ‘Übersichtsblatt über die Entwicklung der Standarte Feldherrnhalle’ (classified), 1943; Georg Tessin, Verbände und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Zweiten Weltkrieg 1939–1945, vol. 8: Die Landstreitkräfte 201–280 (Osnabrück: Biblio, 1979), pp. 302–6; Rudolf Absolon, Die Wehrmacht im Dritten Reich, vol. 5: 1. September 1939 bis 18. Dezember 1941 (Boppard am Rhein: Boldt, 1988), pp. 27–8.
59.Rudolf Absolon, Die Wehrmacht im Dritten Reich, vol. 4: 5. Februar bis 31. August (Boppard am Rhein: Boldt, 1979), p. 40.
60.BArch Berlin, NS 23/518: Recruitment guidelines for the SA-Wachstandarte, 20 April 1936.
61.Absolon, Die Wehrmacht, vol. 4, pp. 41–2; Deutsche Dienststelle, Berlin (WASt), Personal-Kartei M-1334/024 (Herbert M.). According to Jainek, there existed between seven and twelve ‘Feldherrnhalle’ branches between 1936 and 1945; see his Soldaten der Standarte Feldherrnhalle, p. 32.
62.Oberste SA-Führung (ed.), Das Jahr der SA, p. 53.
63.Against the backdrop of this involvement, Göring’s merits as leader of the SA in 1923 did not matter much.
64.Absolon, Die Wehrmacht, vol. 4, p. 42.
65.Karl-Heinz Golla, The German Fallschirmtruppe 1936–1941: Its Genesis and Employment in the First Campaigns of the Wehrmacht (Solihull: Helion, 2012), pp. 39–40, 42.
66.FES, Viktor Lutze Papers, Political Diary of Viktor Lutze, p. 122.
67.Letter from Erich Reimann to Viktor Lutze, 5 May 1940, in BArch Berlin, SA 400003178 (Reimann, Erich). Erich Reimann was the Feldherrnhalle regimental commander from 20 June 1938 onward. He was born on 17 June 1903 in Berlin and served in the Hamburg police between 1925 and 1930 and again from 1935 to 1936. From 1926 to 1930 he was a member of the Stahlhelm. In 1929 he faced disciplinary proceedings because of the suspicion that he had been involved in politically motivated bombings in Schleswig-Holstein. Reimann was expelled from the police and joined the SA in Altona on 1 May 1930, at a time when his economic situation had deteriorated to such an extent that he accepted work as a travelling salesman. In July 1934, Lutze appointed him his adjutant general. See Reimann’s SA files in BArch Berlin, SA 4000003178 (Reimann, Erich); Absolon, Die Wehrmacht, vol. 4, pp. 42–3.
68.Golla, The German Fallschirmtruppe 1936–1941, p. 45; Wilhelm Rehm, ‘Zwei Jahre Kriegsbewährung der SA’, SA in Feldgrau: Feldpostbriefe der SA-Gruppe Südmark, no. 16/17 (September/October 1941).
69.BArch Berlin, NS 23/166: ‘Der Einsatz der SA im Kriege’.
70.See, for example, ibid.; ‘Männer der Standarte “Feldherrnhalle” über Kreta’, in Die SA 2:30 (1941) (25 July), p. 4. On the battle of Crete, see Golla, The german Fallschirmtruppe 1936–1941, pp. 403–536; Anthony Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (London: Penguin, 1991).
71.In this respect it is noteworthy that the Luftwaffe in June 1943 began preparing for the formation of a ‘Fallschirmjäger-regiment Feldherrnhalle (Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 2)’, to be recruited from SA volunteers. See BArch Berlin, NS 23/518: Oberkommando der Wehrmacht on Division Feldherrnhalle, 21 June 1943.
72.Werner Präg and Wolfgang Jacobmeyer (eds), Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen, 1939–1945 (Stuttgart: DVA, 1975), p. 292 (entry from 18 October 1940).
73.‘Aus Dienst und Leben der SA’, Die SA 1:40 (1940), p. 14. In Cracow the Feldherrnhalle guarded the Wawel, which during the time of German occupation served as the headquarters of General Governor Frank. See BArch Berlin, NS 23/501, pp. 173–5, here p. 173: ‘Die Aufstellung der SA-Einheit General-Gouvernement’; Präg and Jacobmeyer (eds), Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs, p. 386 (entry from 17 July 1941).
74.Stephan Lehnstaedt, Okkupation im Osten: Besatzeralltag in Warschau und Minsk (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2010), p. 251.
75.I am grateful to Stephan Lehnstaedt for kindly providing me with his excerpts of this verdict.
76.Friedrich Fromm’s Chief of Staff in his Diensttagebüchern gives a figure of 700 men for the Feldherrnhalle’s membership (entry from 2 September 1939). From 1939 onward, Fromm served as the Chief of Army Armour and as commander of the Replacement Army in the Wehrmacht. The diaries of his Chief of Staff are scheduled for publication in 2016–17 by a group of military historians under the leadership of Bernhard Kroener at the University of Potsdam (in the following cited as ‘Fromm’s Diensttagebücher’). I thank Alexander Kranz for providing me with extracts of the unpublished manuscript and for further advice.
77.August Raben was born on 2 December 1892 in Tarming-Gaard. A fighter pilot in the First World War (leader of the ‘Raben squadron’), he later worked for the Afrikanische Frucht Compagnie and spent some time in Cameroon. He died as battalion commander with the rank of major on 15 June 1940 in Barst-Marienthal, in one of the regiment’s most costly battles, and was buried in the German Soldiers’ Graveyard in Niederbronn-les-Bains. See Thorsten Pietsch, Frontflieger: Die Soldaten der Deutschen Fliegertruppe 1914–1918, http://www.frontflieger.de/3-r-f.html.
78.SA Chief of Staff Lutze repeatedly met with members of the Feldherrnhalle, behind the front lines as well as in the Reich. See Lutze’s report, ‘Besichtigungsfahrt an der Westfront’, Die SA 1:9 (1940) (29 March); ‘Mit dem Stabschef an der Westfront’, in Die SA 1:10 (1940) (5 April).
79.Herbert Böhme was born on 21 April 1898 in Rattwitz in Lower Silesia. He died on 27 December 1943 on the eastern front. See BArch Berlin, NS 23/1408, pp. 19–21, here p. 19: ‘Liste der Ritterkreuzträger, welche der SA angehören bzw. der SA angehört haben’; ‘Kurznachrichten’, in Die SA 1:25 (1940) (12 July); Jainek, Soldaten der Standarte Feldherrnhalle, p. 22.
80.Jörg Ganzenmüller, Das belagerte Leningrad 1941–1944: Die Stadt in den Strategien von Angreifern und Verteidigern (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2005); Harrison E. Salisbury, The Siege of Leningrad (London: Seckler & Warburg, 1969) – neither of which make any explicit reference to the 271st Regiment.
81.‘Des verpflichtenden Namens würdig’, in SA in Feldgrau: Feldpostbriefe der SA-Gruppe Südmark, no. 24/25 (May/June 1942); BArch Berlin, NS 23/518: ‘Das Regiment “Feldherrnhalle” hält in zähem Späh- und Stoßtruppkrieg einen Abschnitt der deutschen Hauptlinie in der Sumpfhölle am Wolchow’.
&n
bsp; 82.Tessin, Verbände und Truppen, vol. 8, p. 303.
83.BArch Berlin, VBS 264, no. 4001006602 (Sponholz, Hans): Typescript of Hitler’s order from 4 May 1943 to integrate the SA-Regiment Feldherrnhalle into the 60th Infantry Division (mot.); Jainek, Soldaten der Standarte Feldherrnhalle, pp. 25–32. Previously, losses were replaced using men from the Infantry Replacement Battalion 203, stationed in Berlin-Spandau, and, from 1942 onward, using soldiers from the Infantry Replacement Battalion 9, under the command of SA-Oberführer August Ritter von Eberlein and based in Potsdam. For details, see http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Gliederungen/InfErsBat/InfErsBatFHH-R.htm.
84.The fact that he was later awarded the Medal of Remembrance for 13 March 1938, the date of the Anschluss of Austria, suggests that he might have joined the SA just before that event.
85.For the biographical information on Karl A., see Deutsche Dienststelle, Personal-Kartei A-259/0553.
86.For the biographical information on Herbert M., see Deutsche Dienststelle, Personal-Kartei M-1334/024.
87.At about the same time, still only twenty years old, Kurt M. agreed to serve for an unlimited time in the Wehrmacht. As he was still underage, his father, an accountant (Rechnungsinspekteur), had to approve this decision.
88.For the biographical information on Kurt M., see Deutsche Dienststelle, Personal-Kartei M-1643/588.
89.The OSAF’s description of the Feldherrnhalle is instructive in this respect. On the one hand, its propagandists insisted that the Feldherrnhalle was open to all men aged eighteen or older who were of good health and of proper race (rassische Eignung) and had not been subject to prosecution (with the exception of charges for ‘politically motivated’ misdoings). On the other hand, they repeatedly emphasized that the Feldherrnhalle’s political education was deliberately simple and ‘artless’ (natürlich), as a purely academic approach would only cause confusion among the men of the Feldherrnhalle who were deemed ‘simple minded and feeling’ (einfach denkende und empfindende Menschen). Oberste SA-Führung (ed.), Das Jahr der SA, pp. 49–50.
90.Carola Tischler, ‘Von Geister- und anderen Stimmen: Der Rundfunk als Waffe im Kampf gegen “die Deutschen” im Großen Vaterländischen Krieg’, in Karl Eimermacher and Astrid Volpert (eds), Verführungen der Gewalt: Russen und Deutsche im Ersten und Zweiten Weltkrieg (Munich: Fink, 2005), pp. 467–506, here p. 467.
91.Brown, ‘SA in the Radical Imagination’, pp. 258–68. On the KPD’s infiltration tactics, see also BArch Berlin, NS 23/431: Circular from OSAF on the Communist Movement, 24 April 1933.
92.Tischler, ‘Von Geister- und anderen Stimmen’, p. 473; Fritz Erpenbeck, ‘Hier spricht der Sender der SA-Fronde . . .’, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Rundfunks: deutscher demokratischer Rundfunk 4 (1974), pp. 7–15, here pp. 8–9. On GS1, see Jerome S. Berg, On the Short Waves 1923–1945: Broadcast Listening in the Pioneer Days of Radio (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007), p. 220.
93.Patrick Merziger, ‘Humour in the Volksgemeinschaft: The Disappearance of Destructive Satire in National Socialist Germany’, in Martina Kessel and Patrick Merziger (eds), The Politics of Humour: Laughter, Inclusion, and Exclusion in the Twentieth Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), pp. 131–52.
94.Erpenbeck, ‘Hier spricht der Sender der SA-Fronde’, pp. 12–14.
95.Ibid., pp. 13–14. It is impossible to verify the truth of these accounts, but in light of what we know about the German mentality at war, they do not seem to have been totally exaggerated.
96.On this (largely unsuccessful) strategy, see the documents in Hermann Weber, Jakov Drabkin, and Bernhard H. Bayerlein (eds), Deutschland, Russland, Komintern. II: Dokumente (1918–1943): Nach der Archivrevolution: Neuerschlossene Quellen zu der Geschichte der KPD und den deutsch-russischen Beziehungen (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), pp. 989–95, 1,080–1, 1,097–1,100.
97.Annette Weinke, Die Verfolgung von NS-Tätern im geteilten Deutschland: Vergangenheitsbewältigungen 1949–1969, oder: Eine deutsch-deutsche Beziehungsgeschichte im Kalten Krieg (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2002), pp. 63–75. The generation that particularly benefited from these politics was that born in the 1920s or early 1930s. These individuals often became staunch adherents of the GDR; see Thomas Ahbe and Rainer Gries, ‘Gesellschaftsgeschichte als Generationengeschichte’, in Annegret Schüle, Thomas Ahbe, and Rainer Gries (eds), Die DDR aus generationsgeschichtlicher Perspektive: Eine Inventur (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitäts-Verlag, 2006), pp. 475–571, here pp. 502–18.
98.BArch Berlin, NS 23/510: Die Oberste SA-Führung, ‘Aufbau der SA im deutschen Gebiet des früheren polnischen Staates’, 30 October 1939. On an order from Jüttner on 10 November 1939, the SA-Gruppe Sudeten lost ‘its’ share in the operation. Instead, the SA-Gruppe Schlesien was made the only group permitted to operate in Upper Silesia.
99.BArch Berlin, NS 23/510: Der Oberste SA-Führer, ‘Betr. Gliederung der SA im deutschen Gebiet des früheren polnischen Staates’, 25 January 1940.
100.BArch Berlin, NS 23/98: Note from SA-Gruppenführer Georg Mappes, 18 November 1939.
101.Heinrich Hacker, born on 16 June 1892 in Würzburg in Franconia, had attended grammar school, served in the German army in the First World War, and studied at Würzburg University until 1922, when he was forced to abandon his studies, allegedly for financial reasons. He then worked as a salesman for pumice and leather goods. Originally a member of the Stahlhelm and then of the Frontbann, he entered the ranks of the NSDAP in 1925 but quickly left. He became a member of the party again in 1929 and was elected into the Bavarian Landtag in the same year. From 1931 onward, Hacker led the SA-Untergruppe Franken. From 1933 to 1934 he served as one of the SA’s special representatives in Bavaria. He then led the SA--Brigade 6 until 1939. For his biography, see BArch Berlin, SA 4000001265 (Hacker, Heinrich); ‘Kurznachrichten’, Die SA 1:8 (1940) (22 March).
102.Wilhelm Rehm, ‘Aufbau im deutschen Osten’, Die SA 1:2 (1940) (9 February); Baumgärtner, ‘Sturmdienst im Wartheland’, Die SA 2:28 (1941) (11 July); ‘Bassarabiendeutsche in den SA-Wehrmannschaften’, Die SA 2:20 (1941) (16 May).
103.A forthcoming study on the SA by the historian Yves Müller aspires to demonstrate more in detail that these Baltic Germans played an important role in the SA in the newly German-annexed and occupied territories.
104.Baumgärtner, ‘Sturmdienst im Wartheland’, Die SA 2:28 (1941) (11 July). The SA in Southern Styria likewise taught its men German language, history, and geography; see Franz Glatzer, ‘“Sie bauen das Morgen”, Wehrmannschaftsdienst in der Untersteiermark’, in ibid.
105.BArch Berlin, SA 4000001265 (Hacker, Heinrich): Note of SA-Gruppenführers Lehmann, 2 September 1941. On Greiser, see in particular Catherine Epstein, Model Nazi: Arthur Greiser and the Occupation of Western Poland (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
106.BArch Berlin, SA 4000001265 (Hacker, Heinrich): Letter from Hacker to Lutze, 25 September 1941. For Hacker’s view on the SA’s mission in the east, see his essay ‘Pioniere des Ostens’, Die SA 2:25/26 (1941) (20/27 June), pp. 1–3.
107.Jill Stephenson, The Nazi Organisation of Women (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), p. 191.
108.FES, Viktor Lutze Papers, Political Diary of Viktor Lutze, p. 171. Lutze’s official speech on this occasion was broadcast live on German radio; see ‘Kurznachrichten aus Dienst und Leben der SA’, Die SA 1:5 (1940) (1 March).
109.BArch Berlin, NS 23/510: OSAF, ‘Änderung des Anschriftenverzeichnisses’, 17 May 1940. The development of the SA farther west, in Alsace and Lorraine, mirrored the build-up of the SA in the former Polish territories but was less successful. Beginning in February 1941, two SA-Brigaden (Elsaß-Nord, based in Straßburg, and Elsaß-Süd, headquartered in Colmar) were created. They belonged to the SA-Gruppe Oberrhein and initially comprised eight regular Standarten, two Reiterstandarten, and one Marinestandarte; BArch Berlin, NS 23/510: Oberste SA-Führung, Gliederung der SA im Elsaß, 19 February 1941. On 27 March 1941 one SA-Brigade based in Metz was assigned to Lorraine and became part of the SA-Gruppe K
urpfalz; BArch Berlin NS 23/510: Die Oberste SA-Führung, Neuaufstellung von SA-Einheiten in Lothringen, 27 March 1941. Finally, the formation of two SA-Standarten for Luxembourg was approved, taking effect on 1 April 1941. They became part of the SA-Gruppe Westmark, headquartered in Koblenz; BArch Berlin, NS 23/510: OSAF on ‘Neugliederung’, 25 April 1941. See also Lothar Kettenacker, Nationalsozialistische Volkstumspolitik im Elsaß (Stuttgart: DVA, 1973), pp. 207–16; Dieter Wolfanger, Die nationalsozialistische Politik in Lothringen (1940–1945), university diss., Universität des Saarlandes (Saarbrücken), 1976, pp. 84–6.
110.Zilich, ‘SA im Protektorat’, in Die SA 2:1 (1941) (3 January), p. 18.
111.Präg and Jacobmeyer (eds), Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs, p. 292 (entry from 26 October 1940).
112.BArch Berlin, NS 23/510: Letter from the leader of the Wehr- und Schützenbereitschaften in the General Government, Peltz, to OSAF, 7 November 1941.
113.Dieter Schenk, Krakauer Burg: Die Machtzentrale des Generalgouverneurs Hans Frank 1939–1945 (Berlin: Links, 2010), p. 136.
114.See Daniel Brewing, ‘“Wir müssen um uns schlagen”: Die Alltagspraxis der Partisanenbekämpfung im Generalgouvernement 1942’, in Gewalt und Alltag im besetzen Polen 1939–1945, ed. Böhler and Lehnstaedt, pp. 497–520, with further references.
115.On the rivalry between Frank and Himmler, see Schenk, Krakauer Burg, pp. 130–3.
116.In the spring of 1944, Peltz was called up to the Wehrmacht and was succeeded by SA-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Kühnemund.
117.Gerhard Eisenblätter, Grundlinien der Politik des Reichs gegenüber dem Generalgouvernement, 1939–1945, inaugural diss., Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, 1969, pp. 241–2; BArch Berlin, NS 23/98: Hans Frank, Decree on the establishment of the Wehrschützenbereitschaften, 19 December 1941.
Stormtroopers: A New History of Hitler's Brownshirts Page 68
