Gradually, the militarization of Bandenbekämpfung branched off into the dimension of political-security. The Etappen was expected to improve rear-area functions, but in doing so, it became an occupation administration, a security establishment, and a network for colonization. In 1872, the first colonies administered by the Etappen were Alsace and Lorraine. Germany’s brief but violent soirée with colonialism saw the adaptation of Bandenbekämpfung to colonial warfare through the Etappen. Germany used colonial conflict as a dress rehearsal for European war. In the process, Bandenbekämpfung became an extension of offensive operations as Germany perfected its security warfare concept. This kind of warfare percolated colonial policing, military tactics, and economic warfare. By 1912, security measures had internalized the practice of enslavement and extermination of occupied populations. During World War I, Bandenbekämpfung was further adapted to compensate for the various security demands of different theaters of war. By 1918, Bandenbekämpfung entered the German military lexicon alongside “small war” (kleine Krieg), “partisan warfare” (Partisanenkrieg), “irregular warfare” (Freischärlerkampf), and “people’s war” (Volkskrieg). This transformation of Bandenbekämpfung can be traced by comparing the 1908 and the 1929 editions of Brockhaus.14 Thus, by 1930, Bandenbekämpfung was already a powerful political weapon.
The struggle between Bandenbekämpfung and Partisanenbekämpfung began long before the Nazis. Before the 1880s, a long-cherished doctine of the professional soldier was the practice of Napoleonic-style small war. This was fundamentally Partisanenbekämpfung and gradually lost ground in the concentrated drive to build a machinelike conscript army led by an autonomous elitist officer corps. By 1900, the Imperial German Army had one measure that was the catchall for all circumstances, known as the Cannae principle. The Germans took Hannibal’s victory over the Roman army as the blueprint for their strategic, operational, and tactical war making. The colonial wars from 1900 to 1912 saw the demise of kleine Krieg in favor of the universal practice of Cannae for all operations. In German military terminology, therefore, the last vestiges of Partisanenbekämpfung were subsumed into security warfare before the Battle of the Waterberg (1904). All subsequent military security operations were waged as a desperate struggle against banditry. In 1919, the German army waged unrestricted Bandenbekämpfung in German streets against German communists, thereby removing any pretense at combating criminal banditry.
In a world that placed great store on the classification of opponents, Bandenbekämpfung had significant ideological clout. In 1941, the German army adopted Partisanenbekämpfung to regulate the cold-blooded killing of guerrillas, Red Army commissars, Jews, and stragglers. The army treated Soviet prisoners of war in the same manner as Herero tribesmen had thirty-six years before. Terror as a deterrent failed, and in Hitler’s mind, Partisanenbekämpfung fudged the issue; Hitler demanded the treatment of the Soviet Union as a “Jewish-Bolshevik bandit state” and a doctrine to see it through. He passed the job to Himmler. Once in command, Himmler immediately adopted Bandenbekämpfung. In his crusade against Bolshevism, he encouraged the scourge of banditry to biblical proportions and treated captives and innocents alike in ways more in keeping with the Romans. Under Himmler’s leadership, Bandenbekämpfung reengineered security warfare to enhance the SS leadership in its attempts to install Lebensraum. Typically, political justification for this policy was attributed to the racial and political banditry of Hitler’s opponents. Hitler declared all Soviet and Yugoslavian partisans “Jewish-Bolshevik bandits.” Not content with denigrating the East, he labeled all Anglo-American Special Forces gangsters and denigrated Winston Churchill as the gangster-godfather of liberal democracy. Criminalizing all resistors placed captives outside the minimal protection of the existing laws of war. The disposition of German retribution catapulted the world into an abyss of horror and despair that has never really gone away. By 1944, Bandenbekämpfung doctrine was not only applied on all fronts but also represented a Nazi response to the laws and customs of war.
Conventions and Structure
Please note that there is a bibliographical review at the end of this book that refers to some of the literature on this topic. In case readers have read or intend to read my PhD thesis, it is necessary to offer some explanation regarding its differences with this book.15 The overall Luftwaffe content is reduced and the security battalion case study removed in preparation for another book. The large content on the German army has been greatly reduced. The chapter and content associated with Kurt Daluege, the chief of the German uniformed police, was removed and published as a chapter of a book on European policing.16 Replacing this content is a greater focus on Himmler and his lieutenants, in particular Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski. The chapters on Poland and Western Europe are post-doctoral extensions of the original research. The aim here has been to create an in-depth study of Bandenbekämpfung from its origins to its domination by the SS.
The research for this book was concerned with upholding the accepted conventions of terms and phraseology. This was not straightforward. If this had been a study of social banditry, there would be little problem in using the word “bandit.” However, this book falls within the parameters of research into the Third Reich and Nazi genocide. The Nazis ensured that “bandit” was at the receiving end of virulent politicization. Since the war, scholars have generally adopted the stance that all “bandits” were partisans, primarily because they fought to resist and destroy Nazism. To delve into the conundrum of whether all “bandits” were partisans or all partisans bandits somewhat panders to Nazi rhetoric. To answer the question what is or was a partisan further complicates matters. The literal definition of the partisan is a soldier fighting on the flank or adjunct of the main army, dressed in uniform, serving under a military code, and operating under superior orders. Not all partisans could meet this definition, while many bandits were the personification of military bearing. What then of the terrorist, brigand, guerrilla, resistor, social bandit, Freikorps, freedom fighter, spy, or scout, who do not necessarily fit into this discussion?, it might be asked. Argument inevitably turns on the eye of the beholder: one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. The problem here is that the Nazis also randomly categorized innocent civilians as bandits or Jews, usually to kill them. There has to be some latitude, albeit cautious, in the use of words without breaching political etiquette. The solution adopted here places a word with Nazi connotations within quotes or leaves it in the German original, for example “bandit” or Banden. Henceforth, through these forms readers are alerted to the contextual usage of words.
Another sensitive issue among scholars concerns the use of SS ranks and titles. Readers might be surprised to find that German titles, especially those of the SS, are kept in their original form, whereas the German armed forces are cited in their English equivalent. There is a practical reason for this. From the standpoint of order, with so many different rank titles across a plethora of organizations, it seemed important to distinguish the SS. The SS organization was judged criminal in 1946, but since then, scholars have tended to refer to them as “SS-Generals,” “SS-Colonels,” or “SS-Majors.” This has aided the social rehabilitation of former SS men; for example, the gravestones of former senior SS officers have “General a.d.” (general officer in retirement) engraved beneath their name. This suggests they had been a general officer in life. Yet the SS ranks were purely political and symbolic of the faith the Nazis had in the “leadership principle” (Führerprinzip). The translation into “group-leader” or “storm-leader,” so brazenly political (rank equivalencies are in tabulated form in appendix 2), has no military comparison with a general or a major.
During the war, the SS adopted the term Waffen-SS, denoting armed-SS, and by 1944, most SS personnel came under this branch of the service. The SS hierarchy hoped that by adopting the Waffen-SS ranks they could circumvent the onset of allied war crimes. Some authors have unwisely assumed that this differentiated the SS between soldiers with a purely mil
itary role and the political soldiers. In the same remit, across all the years of research, no examples were found of SS officers refusing to participate in crimes. Likewise, no evidence was found of a refusal to carry out criminal orders, or for that matter expressing the wish to care for the helpless. The SS officers discussed here did not decline medals or baubles for mass slaughter. In fact they embellished their performance in security reports for material rewards. When the war was over and members of the SS faced judgment, this odious group of men proved both dishonest and cowardly in the denial of their deeds. This book, therefore, does not rehabilitate criminals and sets out to place the SS ranks and recipients within their criminal structures.
This book is divided into three parts. Part 1 traces the origins and development of Bandenbekämpfung in terms of security warfare. The purpose behind this first section is to explain how a minor function turned into a dominating policy. Part 2 examines Nazi Bandenbekämpfung in detail, principally from the viewpoint of the Soviet Union, focusing on organization, doctrine, terrain control, and operations. Examining Bandenbekämpfung by its salient points exposes the flaws in its doctrinal formulation while explaining its apparent high performance. Part 3 examines its climactic decline. The application of Bandenbekämpfung in Poland, Yugoslavia, Italy, and France highlights how far the practice became the universal doctrine of German occupation. The contrast between the demands of the conventional military equation of troops, terrain, and tactics set against the flexibility and simplicity of Bandenbekämpfung made its application universal. In the final chapter, attention turns to the war crimes process, explaining the problem of eradicating such an insidious concept as Bandenbekämpfung and the origins of denial common to revisionist circles.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book was completed in several phases and across many years. The only constant has been the generosity of people. Professor Richard Holmes, PhD supervisor, mentor, and friend, shaped the first phase of the project. His team—Professor Chris Bellamy, Peter Caddick-Adams, Steph Muir, and his wife, Lizzie Holmes—have encouraged and supported me through the research, the examination, and beyond. This phase concluded with the viva conducted by Keith Simpson, member of Parliament and erstwhile scholar of German counterinsurgency methods. The germ of the idea for this book came from discussions with members of the Polish Liberation Institute in London. Dr. Jürgen Zimmerer introduced me to the fundamentals of German colonial history and its influence in shaping security thinking. In 1998, I was fortunate to discuss the question of training with the late Professor Wilhem Deist; he advised scrutinizing the training methods of the SS and Wehrmacht. During the brief existence of the Anglo-German study group, in London 1997–98, I struck up what has proved to be a long-lasting friendship with Dr. Bernd Lemke, a military historian at the MGFA. Immeasurable help and advice has come from Professor Stig Förster, Dr. Jan-Bart Gewalt, Professor Brian Bond, and Professor M. R. D. Foot, Dr. Gerhard Wiechmann, and Emeritus Professor Martin Edmonds.
Archivists I have since discovered to my cost come and go, but a precious few ensured that the research went relatively smoothly. Stephen Walton of the Imperial War Museum advised me on the German sources very early on. Herr Dilgard the former director of Bundesarchiv Zentralnachweisstelle in Aachen-Kornelimünster, his deputy Herr Meentz, and Herr Genter, responsible for handling the Wehrmacht personnel files, worked hard to ensure my visits were successful. A particular thanks should go to the unsung heroines of the military archive in Freiburg, Frau Noske and Frau Weibl. Niels Cordes, his wife, Virginia, “Sunshine,” and “Lucky” deserve a special mention for opening their home to me during a particularly difficult period of transition. During my visits to the National Archives at Columbia Park, Niels; Robin Cookson, an archivist; and Jim Kelling, responsible for the microfilm room, offered regular advice that improved my research. The librarians of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH-Aachen) deserve thanks for locating works through the German academic library service.
I would like to thank the following for allowing me to present my research: the Weiner Library for a work-in-progress paper; the interdisciplinary seminar of the RWTH-Aachen, German security methods (2000); the Institute of Historical Research (University of London), hosting the 2000 Anglo-American War and Peace conference, a paper on Bandenbekämpfung; the Florida Conference of Historians (2003); and the Open University for a paper and subsequent publication as a chapter on policing. I should like to mention my former colleagues, Professor Paul Thomes, Christoph Rass, Marc Engels, and students from the Institute of Economic and Social History at the RWTH-Aachen, who endeavored to help me settle into German society while I was completing my PhD. I have profound gratitude for Dr. Roy Douglas, Surrey University History circle, for his patience and encouragement in the early days. I would also like to mention Stefan Pehker and Toshiba International for their technical support and generosity over recent years.
The future beckons and some special people have helped bring about the completion of this book. Bettina Wunderling gave expert advice on translations, grammar, and vocabulary. Lt. Col. Roger Cirillo (retired) of the Association of the U.S. Army has become a dear friend and colleague. His confidence in this project eased the transfer from thesis to book and his sponsorship for the forthcoming Wehrmacht at War series. Rick Russell and the team at Potomac Books have enabled the smooth transfer of my thesis into book form. Special thanks are deserved for Dr. Nick Terry, a close friend and the technical adviser of both the PhD thesis and this book. His research will change our opinion of German arms. Dr. Declan O’Reilly has regularly advised and confided his thoughts on my work with his scholarly criticism.
Finally, I wish to mention my family and friends. My parents, Pamela and Peter Blood, who have always encouraged and supported me. My extended family include Manny, Maria, Ricky, and Lenny, Mike and Chris Buckley, Gary Ward and Christina, Ian and Alison, sadly now departed, Ron and Mitzi Orner, Tim and Manass Wells, and, my godchildren, Charlie, James, and Emma.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC
ABBREVIATIONS
There is a full glossary of relevant German and Bandenbekämpfung terms in appendix 1.
BA:
Bundesarchiv, Berlin (Lichterfelde).
BA-K:
Bundesarchiv (Koblenz).
BA-MA:
Bundesarchiv Militärarchiv (Freiburg).
BA-ZNS:
Bundesarchiv-Zentralnachweisstelle (Aachen).
BDC:
Berlin Document Centre, collection of pre-war crimes trial files.
BZ-IMT:
refers to NARA, RG238, T1270-1, Bach-Zelewski interrogations for the IMT.
BZ-USMT:
refers to NARA, RG238, M1019-4, Bach-Zelewski interrogations on behalf of USMT.
CMH:
Center for Military History, U.S. Army (Pennsylvania).
DDKH:
Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42, Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg (Hamburg, 1999). Heinrich Himmler’s appointments diary.
DDst:
Deutsche Dienststelle (Berlin), muster rolls for the Wehrmacht and SS.
FMS:
U.S. Army Historical Branch, Foreign Military Studies (German army).
IMT:
International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, documents and evidence, 1945–1946.
IWM:
Imperial War Museum (London).
JNSV:
Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, German Trial Judgements (1945–99), found at http://www1.jur.uva.nl
NARA:
National Archive, Washington D.C., College Park Annex.
NCA:
Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vols. 1–8, Supps. A and B. Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Government Printing Office (Washington 1946–48).
PRO:
Public Record Office, London (National Archives), series designations—HW, HS, WO and FO.
RUSI:
Royal United Services Institute (London)
.
Table Talk:
a record of Hitler’s comments published as Hugh Trevor-Roper, intro., Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944: His Private Conversations (London: Phoenix, 1953).
TVDB:
BA R20/45b war diary of SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski.
USHMM:
U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum.
USMT:
U.S. military tribunals (1946–49), cases 1–12, cited as follows:
USMT-11:
USA vs. Ernst von Weiszäcker et al., known as the Ministries case 11.
USMT-12:
USA vs. Wilhem Leeb et al., High Command case 12.
USMT-4:
USA vs Oswald Pohl (SS-WVHA), known as the Pohl case 4;
USMT-7:
USA vs. Wilhelm List et al., known as the Hostages case 7;
USMT-9:
USA vs. Otto Ohlendorf et al., known as the Einsatzgruppen case 9.
Wiener:
Wiener Library and archives (London).
PART ONE
ORIGINS AND IMPLEMENTATION
1
SECURITY WARFARE
Hitler's Bandit Hunters: The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe Page 2
