Hitler's Brandenburgers

by Lawrence Paterson

  Rudloff had moved his men south to a forward staging post near the Rhineland village of Winterscheid in preparation for his southernmost penetration of the border. The ease with which they passed over the guarded border and began their advance on St Vith exceeded his expectations. With civilian outer garments, his men moved unobserved and made the 6km trek to St Vith in good time. The main target was the town’s railway station, though Unteroffizier Ille led a small detachment to take and hold the 285m-long ‘Freiherr-von-Korff’ Viaduct at the entrance to the village of Born. They encountered fierce resistance from a Belgian motorcycle detachment and suffered several dead and wounded during the protracted fight, after which Belgian engineers successfully demolished the viaduct, a second viaduct at Hermanmont also being blown up at the other end of that section of railway.

  In St Vith itself the Germans’ arrival clashed unfortunately with that of an elite unit of Belgian mountain troops boarding a troop train destined for the west. The attackers opened fire and the panicked driver got underway prematurely, passing over a railway bridge that was already in Brandenburger hands and taking heavy small-arms fire. The sound of the fighting urged Belgian engineers to destroy a road bridge that was also on Rudloff’s objective list, but the remainder of his targets were successfully taken and held despite strong resistance from Belgian troops and Gendarmes. The success of the German assault was aided enormously by local Volksdeutsche residents also joining the battle, bolstering the relatively weak strength of the Brandenburgers until reinforcements arrived.

  To the east, near the border, the bridge over the Our River at Schönberg had been successfully taken by a small team led by Sudeten Gefreiter Peichel, allowing the tanks of the 5th Panzer Division to roll straight across towards Rudloff. The Our was also bridged at Steinebrück, taken and held by four Belgians and three Sudeten Brandenburgers and Burg-Reuland, taken by Feldwebel Heumann and a small group of men.12 The panzers rolled west, as did an armoured train of 2nd Company making for St Vith, crossing the border near the village of Lommersweiler. The train moved slowly and carried a unit of Engineers, stopping short of each unoccupied railway station en-route to allow the troops to disembark and secure any crossings or junctions. The train reached St Vith before it was halted by the demolished viaduct, the Engineers helping Rudloff’s Brandenburgers to break Belgian resistance before the spearhead troops of the 5th Panzer Division reached them around 0700hrs that morning. Of the twenty-four targets assigned to the 3rd Company, nineteen were successfully taken and Rudloff’s men received eight EK Is and eighty-four EK IIs as a result, Rudloff receiving his ‘Spang’ (clasp, i.e. bar) to his EK I earned during the previous war. By midday Rudloff’s surviving troops were transported back to Münstereifel, travelling by train a day later to the training ground at Düren where they would form the nucleus of the 3rd Battalion of Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’ z.b.V. 800.

  Collectively the efforts of the Brandenburger troops were judged as highly successful during Operation ‘Morgenrot’ and allowed the Blitzkrieg to proceed at a pace that would go on to shortly stun the Western Allies. Luxembourg fell on the first day of the invasion and within four more days the armed forces of The Netherlands – except for troops fighting in Zealand – also surrendered. By 17 May, Zealand had also fallen to German forces and eleven days later Belgium surrendered and, with German troops on the Channel coast, the Allied armies in Flanders were penned into a pocket centred between Calais and Ostend. To the south, the remaining half of the French Army lay behind the Somme River, but they could wait as elimination of the Allied pocket around Dunkirk was the Germans’ initial priority. The British launched Operation ‘Dynamo’ to evacuate the defenders of the Allied enclave while German forces halted, seemingly content to allow the Luftwaffe to mount the only opposition to the British evacuation craft. It was into this chaotic battle that a small unit of Brandenburgers returned towards the end of May.

  During the First World War the Belgian Army had held the left flank of the Allied front line at the coastal town of Nieuport during October 1914, under severe pressure from a relentless German Army.

  It was then that the Belgians, in this pitiless conflict, summoned to their aid a terrible and invincible assistant, the inundation of low-lying lands. The canals in the valley of the Yser spilled their water into the fields. The water rose and streamed along the German trenches; while on the left bank, where the level of the soil was higher, the Belgians heroically defended their positions.

  The Germans, threatened with death by drowning, rushed forward in a terrible offensive, seeking to break our lines, to conquer the dry land. In this unprecedented attempt, they succeeded, on the 30th of October, in capturing one of our points of support, the village of Ramscappelle; but this essential position was immediately recaptured by two Belgian divisions and a few French battalions. This was the coup de grace.

  On the 31st, decimated, dejected, defeated, the Germans abandoned their project of crossing the Yser; they retreated, abandoning guns and mortars engulfed in mire, enormous quantities of weapons, thousands of corpses and many wounded.13

  With the opening and closing of the sluice gates at the mouth of the Yser River at Nieuport over the course of three consecutive nights, the canals quickly overflowed, though the Yser River itself never actually burst its banks. Nonetheless, the Wehrmacht feared a repeat attempt by the Allies which would limit their ability to cross the Belgian polderland and ultimately provide extra protection for the Dunkirk pocket. With the Brandenburger men having returned to Germany during the reorganisation and expansion of the unit, Siegfried Grabert was recalled from leave to Brandenburg an der Havel around 24 May and ordered to gather a small unit for immediate transfer to Ghent. Grabert, his adjutant Leutnant Johannes and eleven other men arrived in the Belgian city and were accommodated in a hotel where they met with members of the ‘Hercules Group’, Belgian collaborators who were in the pay of the Abwehr. Grabert was briefed at the hotel by Oberleutnant Wilhelm Hollmann, who not only commanded the ‘Hercules Group’ through the liaison man Sonderführer Johannes Carl, but also had formed his own small formation named Sonderstab Hollmann. The slightly stooped, middle-aged Hollmann had been the pre-war owner of a porcelain factory in eastern Germany. He had previously also served in the military; an old ‘Baltenkampfer’, he had won the Baltic Cross, awarded to men of the Landeswehr and various Freikorps who had fought against Bolsheviks in the Baltic states for at least three months during the years 1918 and 1919. Hollmann had been on the staff of the Jahnke bureau until its dissolution in April 1940 whereupon he enlisted in the Abwehr and began to establish his own ‘Sonderstab Hollmann’, collecting men who were predominantly ex-colleagues of the Jahnke bureau. Hollmann was brought into the Brandenburgers and had taken part in the operations in Luxembourg before transferring to Belgium and taking control of local Abwehr combat missions. Part of his remit was to coordinate the Belgian ‘Hercules Group’ which had been formed by right-wing militants to provide actual sabotage as well as information and guidance for German forces. American intelligence later described Hollmann as ‘45 years old, but looks at least 50’ with a gold right incisor tooth and ‘very little hair; what hair he has is clear blond’. Though he walked with rounded shoulders, he had ‘long arms, very thin legs and blue eyes’.

  Grabert was tasked by Hollmann with taking and holding the Nieuport Ganzepoot, a lock and sluice complex that linked six waterways via the Ijzermonding with the North Sea. The Nieuport road bridge (Langebrug) marked the centre of the complex, and controls for the six adjacent canal sluice gates were situated in a building on the southern canal bank alongside fuses for all prepared demolitions. The mission was codenamed Operation ‘Martin’ and Grabert’s men would wear Belgian Army uniforms over their own, using a commandeered local hotel bus to transport them through enemy lines and towards Nieuport. It is believed that at least six of the ‘Hercules’ men accompanied them, including Antoon Schalkans and Edmond de Batist, the latter born in Antwerp in 1914 and grad
uating through the Flanders militia to the Verdinaso, a fascistic Belgian/Dutch political movement of the 1930s in which Batiste was known as ‘The Eagle’. Batist and five of the ‘Hercules Group’ would later formally enlist in the Brandenburgers in June 1940.

  Grabert’s assault group successfully mingled with streams of retreating Belgian troops during their advance to Nieuport on 27 May, travelling via Ostend, the front line being extremely porous, having collapsed in many places as the country teetered on the verge of surrender. Once within the outskirts of Nieuport itself, they encountered an eerie silence that had descended over the battlefield. This marked the eastern edge of the Dunkirk perimeter as Operation ‘Dynamo’ had finally got underway and the British Expeditionary Force began to be evacuated to escape destruction. Pockets of troops from a melange of formations controlled the town of Nieuport and its environs: cavalry of the French 2nd Light Mechanised Division, British troops of the 12th Lancers, 53rd Medium, 2nd Medium and 1st Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiments of the Royal Artillery and 7th Field Company, Royal Engineers, all fighting as infantry. Meanwhile engineers of the 101st Army Field Company, Royal Engineers, worked frantically to destroy all bridges between Dixmude and Nieuport.

  Grabert’s bus was unmolested until it approached to within 150m of the target bridge, a single dead German soldier lying on the roadway next to his motorcycle – the remains of a brief clash between a motorcycle patrol and armoured cars of the 12th Lancers. The man had attempted to get close enough to fire his pistol through an armoured car’s gun port, but had obviously failed. It was at that point that Grabert’s men finally came under fire, their disguises no longer viable in the face of British and French troops. Light machine-gun fire smashed the bus’s front window and the men rapidly disembarked into cover as the bus skidded to a halt broadside on to the bridge. It was still early evening, approximately 1900hrs and light enough to discern the enemy positions and terrain features near the bridge. A shallow dip of dead ground was visible near the bridge and Grabert’s men crawled forward to regroup in the defilade and establish a plan of attack. They had discarded their Belgian Halbtarnung and crouched awaiting nightfall as bursts of machine-gun fire whistled impotently overhead.

  Their strategy was simple. Under cover of darkness Grabert and Gefreiter Werner Alfred Janowski approached the Langebrug on their stomachs, crawling slowly forward to feel for any wires that could lead to explosive charges. Grabert took the left side of the bridge while Janowski handled the right, both keeping as flat as they could beneath periodic bursts of suppressing fire and freezing when white Very lights ignited above their heads and bathed the battlefield in their harsh magnesium glow. Each man carried wire cutters and a submachine gun, but neither could find any wires along the edge of the roadway. They were forced to crawl slightly higher along the pavement edges of the bridge itself with bullets passing only centimetres above them. Wires were eventually found and cut one-by-one, the defenders apparently unaware of their presence while the charges, which had been built into the bridge rather than simply attached, were gradually dealt with. The bridge itself was constructed with a slight hump and once past the incline that reached its apex in the centre of the span, the two men would be plainly visible to any observant gunner on the far side. However, both Germans remained apparently undiscovered as they inched forward, cutting a total of three leads each. The young officer was also convinced that there would be a second firing system and located electric wires that were attached to a nearby telegraph pole, the two men rolling down the far bank onto a towpath where they traced the electrical circuit and cut it while sheltering from view.

  Grabert and Janowski had reached the far bank, whereupon they began phase two of the plan. Using the meagre cover provided by the low bridge approach structure, they opened fire at the defending positions and threw several grenades in quick succession. Hoping to both suppress and confuse the enemy, the sudden firing was the signal for the remainder of Grabert’s men to storm across the bridge and within seconds they were across and began firing all weapons while staying as mobile as possible, confusing the enemy gunners and providing the illusion of greater numbers. The British gunners’ positions were taken one-by-one, by small teams of Brandenburgers using grenades and automatic weapons. Finally, the sluice controls were reached and the Ganzepoot secured, though both the bridge and lockkeeper’s house had taken damage.

  At 1100hrs the following morning, Wehrmacht troops reached Nieuport, taking heavy losses in combat against men of the 12th Lancers, but successfully reinforcing Grabert’s bridgehead before moving into the town itself. Though most of Nieuport remained in Allied hands, the sluices were secure and German armour able to continue its advance without the threat of inundation. Grabert and his men were relieved of their bridge and began the return to Ostend, fortunate enough to find some abandoned British transport that they commandeered for their journey.

  Wehrmacht officers feted the small group upon their return, Janowski receiving a promotion to Feldwebel and the EK I, while Grabert was promoted to Oberleutnant, though he was also admonished for his failure to remove the explosive charges rather than simply cut their fuses. Nonetheless, his success was complete. Later he would write to his brother Gerhard on 2 June: ‘I held the houses and bridge at Nieuport with my few men and am now in a magnificent castle … I was lucky to survive since I was one of the men who removed the explosive charges … now in this castle there are some mercenaries celebrating with my men. I wish you were here with me too, celebrating this victorious moment in a magnificent castle surrounded by 1,000 bottles of wine.’ He also proudly recounted a new development for the Brandenburgers now that they were a regiment: ‘Our insignia is a sword, a question mark and an Iron Cross and it will be found on every truck and car in the future.’ Somewhat curiously, the image he drew to accompany his words replaced the Eiserne Kreuz with the Hakenkreuz.

  Oberleutnant Siegfried Grabert and his platoon returned to Brandenburg an der Havel where they would provide the nucleus of 8th Company of the Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’ z.b.V. 800. It was a time of great upheaval and change in the ranks of the formation that had begun as an idea by the maverick engineer officer Theodor von Hippel; the sudden twist that his subsequent career took would almost act as a symbol of an impending fundamental shift in the formation’s employment by the Wehrmacht.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Regiment Brandenburg

  ‘What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog.’

  General Dwight D. Eisenhower

  On 15 May 1940, the order Geheime Kommandosache 1450/40 had been issued to expand the battalion to a regiment, Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’ z.b.V. 800 officially coming into being on 1 June 1940. They had proved themselves in combat both in Scandinavia and the West and already the men of the original battalion had accrued one Knight’s Cross and at least 120 EK I and EK II. Brandenburger training was improving and becoming more expansive, the sabotage school at Quenzgut continuing to be utilised as well as the establishment of a Brandenburger training centre at the Regenwurmlager, a military training camp of large barracks amidst the pine forests of eastern Germany. Located near the village of Nipter south-west of Meseritz, the camp was named after the nearby creek, Regenwurm, and in later years would grow into a labyrinthine complex of tunnels and fortifications above and below ground that marked part of the so-called ‘Ostwall’.

  The first two campaigns of 1940 had been an auspicious combat debut for the Brandenburgers as a unified command and, with further operations planned in geographically diverse regions, the regiment was divided between four primary locations. In Berlin, Major Hubert Kewisch maintained the regimental headquarters at Number 5, Mathäikirch Platz, south of the Tiergarten and only a few hundred metres from the Tirpitzufer head office of the Abwehr and the Army’s Bendler Block. In Kewisch’s building he maintained his liaison staff (which included Oberleutnant Zülch from the North Platoon as his Regimental Adjutant and Ob
erleutnant Pinkert as his Chief of Staff) and a newly established signals unit. In Brandenburg an der Havel, as well as the continued use of Quenzgut for training, the Regiment’s 1st Battalion – intended for use overseas – was stationed at the Generalfeldzeugmeister Kaserne under the command of Theodor von Hippel. The 2nd Battalion, under the command of Oberleutnant Walther, was quartered in Baden Unterwaltersdorf near Vienna ready for deployment in eastern and south-eastern Europe. Hauptmann Rudloff commanded the 3rd Battalion, which was based at the Theodor-Körner-Kaserne in Aachen, later moved to Düren and prepared for operations in western, northern and southern Europe.

  The 1st Battalion had kept most of its original members intact at that time, while the others were forced to form from much smaller constituent parts. The 3rd Battalion at least received most of the men who had made up the original 3rd Company as a nucleus, while the 2nd Battalion took considerably longer to form virtually from scratch. It is, however, important to note that while the composition of the Brandenburger Regiment appeared to coalesce over a familiar skeleton of Wehrmacht organisational hierarchy, each battalion was essentially independent, which meant that those battalion commanders had the disciplinary authority of an equivalent regimental commanding officer in orthodox units.

  During mid-June 1940, an overstrength platoon of between forty to sixty men of Rudloff’s company, which included at least six ex-Belgian Army deserters, had been attached to the Wehrmacht’s Seventh Army for their planned offensive through the formidable Maginot Line. Due to the speed of the German advance, however, the various proposed assignments for this Brandenburger unit were never realised, regular line troops reaching all special objectives before the Brandenburgers were deployed. He and his men returned to Aachen following the French armistice on 18 June, though on 25 June Rudloff received an urgent phone call from Lahousen’s deputy at Abwehr II in Berlin, Major Erwin Stolze. Rudloff was to receive specific instructions from a courier, Leutnant Peter Kreuziger, during the following day for an operation codenamed ‘Wespennest I’ that entailed the destruction of the only rail link between what would become Vichy France and Switzerland. Secret documents that had been recovered from an abandoned French military train near Dijon had revealed definite plans for joint Franco-Swiss resistance to any German attack, fuelling the Wehrmacht’s ire towards their southern neighbour.