Hitler's Brandenburgers

by Lawrence Paterson

  While the Legionärbataillon ‘Alexander’ remained in action on the Eastern Front, 1st Battalion/3rd Regiment, was in Derevna until spring 1944 after which, on 30 May, it entrained for transfer south to Italy. The 3rd Battalion was likewise ordered to Italy after having been in action attached to the Panzergrenadier Division ‘Feldherrenhalle’ at Haradnaja. The remaining battalion of the 3rd Regiment – Hauptmann Bansen’s 2nd Battalion – had already been sent to France and was subsequently the first to transfer to Italy during October 1943, but not before bringing destruction to some small villages near the Franco-Spanish border.

  France, 1943

  Following the landing of Allied troops in North Africa in Operation ‘Torch’, Hitler ordered a previously prepared occupation of Vichy France (‘Case Anton’) put into effect. Between 8 and 12 November, Germans moved into Corsica and all of southern France apart from a narrow demilitarised zone bordering Switzerland and a small area of the south-east that was seized by Italian troops. The Vichy military was disbanded and though French officials still retained some semblance of power over metropolitan France, it was now without any pretence of autonomy and closely monitored by German officials.

  During spring 1943, Hauptmann Hans-Gerhard Bansen and his 2nd Battalion/3rd Regiment was transferred to Aquitaine in southern France. There, the 5th and 6th Companies were established in the region of Navarrenz, while the 7th and 8th were quartered around Mauléon-Licharre. With the 8th Company composed of ex-Soviet troops, their unsuitability to the new environment was obvious and the decision soon made to enlist French volunteers instead. In Paris, a recruitment centre was established in the Grand Hotel on rue Scribe facing the Opera House that would funnel men to the south-west.

  Early recruiting was difficult; the first six volunteers having already resigned by June 1943 shortly after enlisting. However, German persistence triumphed and numbers gradually increased to a steady stream of volunteers, recruits beginning to trickle in to the Brandenburg Regiment’s headquarters. They were a mixture of fresh idealists who perhaps had graduated through the ranks of the various anti-communist youth groups, men wishing to avoid the forced labour of the Service du travail obligatoire (STO – forced recruitment and deportation of French workers to Germany), veterans of the Légion des volontaires français contre le bolchevisme (LVF) who had fought on the Eastern Front and been repatriated through injury, and former Vichy Milice members looking to join the Wehrmacht. Before long the Brandenburgers began operations along the French border with Spain, their primary targets communist and Gaullist resistance groups as well as associated escape networks for Allied personnel on the run in occupied France.

  The first recorded raid mounted by the 8th Company took place near Barcu, led by Oberfähnrich Hans Schwinn with almost the entire French strength at that point in time of around thirty men, and resulted in one young French civilian being shot for ‘assisting the enemy’. Schwinn, an instructor with the Brandenburg Regiment, appears to have had an authority that was belied by his rank. In post-war OSS documentation provided by the interrogation of Ludwig Nebel, one of Otto Skorzeny’s principal agents in France who was later captured by the Allies and betrayed his former colleagues to avoid the firing squad and was later used as a double-agent codenamed ‘Ostrich’.

  Ostrich and [Obersturmführer Charles] Hagedorn had a conversation in October 1944 with Oberst Berle, Chief of Staff of the 85th Army Corps at Belfort, who told them that he was working with some groups of the Brandenburg Division. A few days later Ostrich met the officers in charge of these groups: they were Hauptmann Träger, Leutnant Striefler and Oberfähnrich Schwinn. Although he is only an Oberfähnrich, Schwinn was certainly head of the group. Description: Height about 1m 74; average build but very athletic; dark brown wavy hair; wore glasses. He has a Swiss mother and was a student in Switzerland and he has a Swiss dialect. He speaks excellent French, knows France and understands the French people. He was active in the south of France in the area of Marseilles and Nice, using P.P.F. men in German uniform. He is critical of the SD and is alleged to have sent a report to Himmler on its work in France. Ostrich says that Schwinn is the only really intelligent Brandenburg man he has met and believes that he will be used again in espionage or sabotage in France.18

  The 8th Company relocated to Eaux-Bonnes in the Pyrenees where further training included use of captured British weapons as well as infantry or engineer instruction by experienced Brandenburg personnel. Punitive missions against suspected resistance or evasion locations were mounted, aided by intelligence gathered by French Brandenburgers in the cafes and bistros of the region.

  Leutnant Neugebauer had been superseded as head of the 8th Company by Oberleutnant Träger, the former moving to specifically handle recruitment and training from a requisitioned office in the Hôtel Continental in Eaux-Bonnes.19 The 2nd Battalion was officially placed at the disposal of the Nineteenth Army on 26 August 1943, moved to Provence as OKW became increasingly concerned about the fidelity of their Italian brothers-in-arms on occupation duty in the region. Leutnant Fischer was given control of a unit of Italian-speaking Brandenburgers, disguised in Italian uniforms and taking up position near the Mont Cenis tunnel as a precautionary measure against possible Italian defection from the Axis. This tunnel beneath the European Alps – also known as the Fréjus Rail Tunnel – was nearly 14km long and carried the Turin to Modane railway line that linked Bardonecchia in Italy to Modane in France. In the event of an Italian surrender, Fischer and his men were to seize control and prevent any attempts at destruction by Italian troops. Allied forces had landed in Sicily and Wehrmacht plans had been discreetly drawn up in the event of Italian surrender, originally codenamed Operation ‘Alaric’ but later renamed ‘Achse’. On 25 July Mussolini was deposed, voted out of power by his own Grand Council of Fascism and arrested, and several German divisions were brought into Italy under the reasonable façade of preventing Allied landings on the mainland itself. Unbeknownst to the Germans – but completely predictably – the new Italian government headed by Pietro Badoglio signed an armistice on 3 September (the Armistice of Cassibile), which became public knowledge five days later after British troops had crossed the Straits of Messina and landed on Calabria. German retaliation was swift and Italy and Sardinia were occupied, as were former Italian possessions in the Balkans and southern France.

  Bansen’s entire 2nd Battalion had been stationed at Aix-en-Provence at the border of the Italian zone and as Operation ‘Achse’ was triggered they moved to Toulon and began disarming Italian troops. A fully motorised unit of Italianspeaking Brandenburgers in Italian uniforms and vehicles, commanded by Leutnant Rahn, secured the road to Nice and the Mont Cenis pass for German mobile units (Operation ‘Kopenhagen’). However, Fischer’s disguised platoon from the 7th (Heavy) Company that attempted to seize the Mont Cenis tunnel failed. The northern exit was blown up by Italian troops and Fischer’s men were caught inside the tunnel alongside a trapped locomotive. High levels of carbon monoxide poisoned the Brandenburgers, four of them fatally, while the remainder were captured and interned by the Italians. Elsewhere, the occupation of Italian-held French territory was generally more successful; Italian forces were disarmed and in one instance, the Blackshirt III ‘M’ Assault Battalion ‘9 September (Pontida)’ commanded by Major Carlo Zanotti placed itself under German command. They were initially attached to Bansen’s regiment before being later reallocated to an Italian fascist division.

  Träger’s Frenchmen were soon split into four separate sections and spread across southern France: company headquarters were in Marseilles on the Boulevard de la Roseraie; one section in Saint-Estèphe in the Dordogne (Leutnant Demetrio); another near Lyon (Leutnant Striefler); a third at Toulon and later transferring to Bandol (Oberfähnrich Schwinn); while the last, composed primarily of Spanish volunteers, was based in the lower Pyrenees under the command of Feldwebel Baudach, where they operated alongside German police units.

  From October onwards, Träger’s men remained th
e sole Brandenburg presence in France. Bansen had received orders to take the remainder of his battalion to Abruzzo in central Italy where they were subordinated to Oberbefehlshaber Südwest, actively combatting newly established Italian guerrilla bands on the Adriatic coast. While the remainder of the battalion prepared to move on 2 October, Träger’s French company was detached and placed under the tactical control of Nineteenth Army, logistically subordinated to the signals battalion Nachrichten Abteilung 445.

  In Saint-Estèphe, Leutnant Helmut Demetrio’s section comprised two German NCOs, a German medical NCO and around twenty Frenchmen, housed alongside a GFP unit in l’Hôtel des Voyageurs. Demetrio had been born in Zeitz, Saxony, a professor of languages before the war who could speak Spanish and French fluently. He had spent five years teaching in Chile and time in Madrid, joining the Nazi Party in 1933. His grasp of languages drew him to the Sonderverbänd ‘Brandenburg’ which he joined in March 1943, assigned as Bansen’s adjutant before assuming command of 1st Platoon while also acting as company adjutant.

  Demetrio’s men relocated several times as they hunted for resistance members, their raids on farms frequent and brutal, more often than not resulting in suspects being taken away for interrogation. The bitterness between Frenchmen on either side of the ideological divide sometimes rivalled that seen in Russia. Roger Verdier, a wealthy 38-year-old man of definite social ambitions, apparently assisted the Brandenburgers in their quest for guerrillas in order to ingratiate himself with the occupying power. An ex-member of the Parti Populaire Français (PPF – French fascist party) and staunch Vichyite, Verdier was responsible for several denunciations that had led to arrests, interrogation and imprisonment. He had already been the subject of at least two FFI assassination attempts, the latest at the beginning of December when nineteen bullets hit his car, though he received only a minor wound in the arm. Nonetheless he was hospitalised in Sainte-Foy and it was here on the night of 3 December 1943 that a small group of resistance fighters disguised as Gendarmes broke into his room through an unguarded garden door and killed Verdier, as well as his wife and sister-in-law as they slept in the hospital room.

  Reprisals were swift as four of Demetrio’s men drove to the Sainte-Foy-la-Grande Gendarmerie during the early hours of 7 December. At approximately 0245hrs they hammered on the door, ordering it opened in the name of the Wehrmacht. Constable Maurice Métais, one of the five Gendarmes present, unbolted the door whereupon all five were herded into the small office to face aggressive questioning by at least three Brandenburgers regarding the murders. Apparently dissatisfied with their answers, the attackers opened fire without warning, killing Métais and Constable René Barraud, wounding Adjutant Pradier and Gendarme Peleuse and leaving only MDL Chief Castets unharmed. In their haste to get away, they mistakenly believed all their victims dead and the four assailants drove off.

  This was the first time that members of the French police force had come under attack by representatives of the Wehrmacht and marked a serious transgression by the Brandenburgers. By first light that morning Wehrmacht Feldgendarmerie had arrived at the scene accompanied by German civil police officers. Demetrio was not present at the time, on temporary leave in Germany while his section was handled by Feldwebel Barke, but he soon received instructions to report immediately to the headquarters of Generaloberst Johannes Blaskowitz’s First Army that was responsible for the French Atlantic coast. Local SD officers demanded that the perpetrators be severely punished, not only for abusing the power attendant with their uniform but also for encouraging the anticipated FFI response and endangering an already fragile security situation in the occupied territory. The four were soon identified: Jacques Ronzier-Joly, Fernand Cogrel, Yves Bossy and Jean Mouton, all recruited in Paris.

  The Wehrmacht authorities, including company commander Träger, demanded harsh punishment after their cases had been heard in rapidly arranged courts martial and the four found guilty. Ronzier-Joly, a former French sailor and veteran of the LVF, and Cogrel were shot at the beginning of 1944 after imprisonment in Pont-Saint-Espirit citadel. The two were executed by the 8th Company’s armourer, Feldwebel Hollmann, the circumstances of their death officially listed as shot while ‘attempting to escape’. Mouton was sentenced to imprisonment but after the liberation of France was retried by a Paris court and also faced a firing squad. Only Yves Bossy survived; he was sentenced to an indefinite term of hard labour after convincing the court that he had not actually taken part in the shooting but had remained outside as the driver of the car.

  During the night of 4 December, Träger’s company carried out an anti-Maquis sweep near Banon in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region, capturing a dozen resistance members and torching several farms during the operation. Over subsequent weeks, Träger frequently relocated elements of his company on the basis of effective intelligence information received from informers, the GFP and SD. To enhance perception of the lawless nature of such fighting, the Wehrmacht strictly forbade use of the word ‘partisan’ by its troops. All such resistance fighters were to be known as ‘bandits’, the Wehrmacht being engaged in Bandenbekämpfung (the fight against bandits). Suspects taken prisoner were generally handed over to the GFP or SD for subsequent interrogation, trial and punishment. The Brandenburgers too suffered losses: one man killed and two wounded, including Träger, when their column of seven trucks was ambushed on 27 February 1944 by Maquisards of the ‘Bir Hakeim’ group, known as ‘Biraquins’. Despite French claims to have killed ‘a commander and three officers’, Träger was the only officer injured in the attack before the guerrillas retreated. However, their timing was not fortuitous. The day following Träger’s wounding, a strong detachment of the 9th SS Panzer Division ‘Hohenstaufen’ arrived in Pont-Saint-Espirit, technically for recuperation after heavy fighting on the Eastern Front, but in reality to assist attempts to crush local resistance once and for all. The 20th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment, reinforced with reconnaissance vehicles and attached Feldgendarmerie, had been subordinated to the Ninteenth Army for operations against the ‘Biraquins’.

  The men of the 8th Company were attached to this powerful Kampfgruppe which began a series of hard-hitting thrusts into the Maquis heartland in Provence; summary executions, hostage-taking and the burning of villages becoming increasingly frequent as the Germans attempted to break the Biraquins. If able to encircle their slippery enemy, the SS men and Brandenburgers generally prevailed in combat. However, the difficult nature of this type of warfare caused increasing German frustration as the resistance fighters frequently melted away into the population, resulting in random excesses against local inhabitants. Träger’s men were involved in these punitive expeditions, which reached an unwelcome climax in the days following the Allied landings in Normandy.

  At the opening of Operation ‘Overlord’ on 6 June 1944, French resistance groups were encouraged to increase sabotage efforts in order to disrupt German reinforcement of the Normandy front. Skirmishes took place throughout occupied France and at approximately 0600hrs on 8 June, Maquis fighters entered the town of Valréas just east of the Rhone River, immediately cutting telephone and telegraph lines and barricading the road in an effort to impede German transport north. The resistance fighters occupied the Hotel de Ville, Hotel des Postes and Gendarmerie, local Gendarmes helping to deliver arms and ammunition before taking up weapons themselves after changing into civilian clothes. Firmly in position, they then awaited the Germans.

  Though the Hohenstaufen Division had left the south of France, the Maquis faced yet another powerful armoured unit. Major Heinz Unger commanded a Kampfgruppe centred on the 2nd Battalion, 10th Panzergrenadier Regiment, 9th Panzer Division, once again stationed in the south of France for rest after combat on the Eastern Front. Counted on the strength of his Kampfgruppe were thirty-two armoured cars of the division’s reconnaissance battalion, GFP officers from Montélimar accompanied by 250 Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD – Reich Labour Service) troops and about a hundred men of the Luftwaffe 200th Sicherungs
Regiment as well as Träger’s 8th Company. The Brandenburgers were already familiar with Valréas thanks to previous operations and, on 12 June, at least nine of Demetrio’s men were present as elements of Unger’s Kampfgruppe surrounded the town.

  With news of the approaching Germans, the Maquis that had confidently taken control of Valréas informed the town mayor Jules Niel that they would withdraw towards Nyons to spare the town any potential reprisals. German forces had already begun searching outlying farms and several civilians had been arrested, with some being executed. As the Maquis withdrew, a number of them were captured by the encircling German forces and brought back into Valréas for questioning as the Kampfgruppe moved in to the town, their prisoners taken to the Hôtel Thomassin in which Unger quickly established a headquarters.

  Mayor Niel immediately requested an audience with the German commander, Unger brusquely warning him that if weapons were found during the house-to-house search that had begun, then executions could likely follow while any sign of resistance would result in the town being razed to the ground. The population was ordered to assemble in the Place de la Mairie and once they had gathered an unidentified German officer harangued them, while a member of Demetrio’s squad translated his words to the frightened populace. Dejected Maquis prisoners were led into the square and made to face a wall of the ‘Maison Clarice’ opposite the Hôtel Thomassin, soon joined by twenty-six civilian hostages that had been taken during the search of outlying dwellings. With a dread sense of foreboding, Niel desperately tried to avert what he knew would follow before events overtook him.

  Though there remains, to this day, some measure of confusion over what exactly happened next and on whose orders it was done, the results are clear as shooting began. In small groups, the people lined against the wall were shot and by the day’s end fifty-three people were dead. Of those killed, twenty-six were local hostages and twenty-seven captured Maquisards. Following the cessation of the executions, the departing Germans ordered the remaining villagers to leave the bodies where they had fallen, though under cover of darkness four were found to be alive and were spirited away and subsequently recovered while a fifth died from his wounds.