Chapter Four
Russians in the special SS team "Dirlewanger"
Another SS formation where Russian (and with them Belarusian and Ukrainian) collaborators served was a special unit of the SS Troops of Oskar Dirlewanger. We must immediately make a reservation that we decided to place the story about this formation in the section relating to the SS troops, since the orders carried out by Dirlewanger’s men did not always have a punitive meaning, but were also associated with combat missions, which later became their main activity . In addition, at the end of the war, Dirlewanger's unit became a full-fledged grenadier division of the SS Troops (36. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS).
At the same time, in order not to seem biased, we note that the personnel of this unit took part in the extermination of the civilian population and the burning of populated areas and earned the worst reputation. This was not least due to the fact that many servicemen from this unit, created on the basis of the 5th regiment of the SS “Totenkopf” units in Oranienburg (Sachsenhausen concentration camp), had a criminal background (some had served sentences for poaching), and the officers the composition was recruited from those whom the court of honor for various offenses and disciplinary offenses had prohibited from wearing insignia until the end of their service.
Dirlewanger himself (born in 1895), who had a very turbulent past behind him, matched his subordinates. Veteran of the First World War (reserve lieutenant), commandant of an armored train of the volunteer corps from Württemberg, doctor economic sciences, but with all this, he is an anti-Semite, noted for sexual relations with underage girls (on September 22, 1934, he was expelled from the ranks of the Nazi Party's Storm Troops and served a two-year sentence in prison). If it were not for the intercession of his fellow soldier Gottlob Berger, who occupied high post head of the SS Main Directorate, then Dirlewanger most likely would have ended his life in a concentration camp.
However, the criminal with a doctorate was lucky, and, having “atonement” to the nation by participating in the Spanish Civil War (from September 1936 to the summer of 1939, Dirlewanger fought as part of the Condor Legion), he was rehabilitated to a certain extent, until he again ended up in "history". Already being the commander of a special SS team, which arrived on September 1, 1940 under the command of the SS Fuhrer and the police of the Lublin district - SS Brigadefuhrer Odilo Globocnik, Dirlewanger, based on the facts, was accused of corruption, extortion of money and sexual relations with a 17-year-old Jewish girl. The SS court in Krakow began to conduct an inquiry against him, but thanks to Berger, who intervened in the process, the case ended up being considered at the SS Headquarters, where, by order of Himmler, it was postponed until better times. Dirlewanger himself, who had been sitting in the rear, was decided to be sent out of harm’s way to the Eastern Front, and on January 22, 1942, he, having received an order, left with his team for the occupied territory of Belarus.
Dirlewanger's unit (then still a special SS command - SS-Sonderkommando "Dirlewanger") arrived in Mogilev in early February 1942. The question immediately arose of who the unit would directly report to. They intended to close Dirlewanger's team to the command headquarters of the Reichsfuhrer-SS (Kommandostab Reichsfuhrer-SS), which controlled three brigades of SS troops (two motorized and one cavalry). But after a meeting with Himmler (February 27, 1942), Berger ensured that Dirlewanger’s people submitted primarily to the highest Fuhrer of the SS and police of Central Russia, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski.
The unit began carrying out activities to combat partisans in March 1942. It is difficult to say for sure when volunteer assistants appeared on the team. Dirlewanger's team, which spent the entire spring in combat operations and suffered certain losses, needed replenishment. This was partly discussed in the April report of Security Police Colonel von Braunschweig addressed to the Reichsfuehrer SS. Von Braunschweig was very pleased with how the “poachers” acted, and asked the SS high command to increase the team’s personnel to 250 people. Nevertheless, in Berlin they were in no hurry to draw conclusions, but continued to look closely at how Dirlewanger was fighting in Belarus.
Having made sure that the special unit was effectively fighting the partisans, Himmler personally signed an order to send “suitable” prisoners from concentration camps to the ranks of “poachers.” However, their arrival was delayed, because they had to undergo special training, and there was no time, since the Soviet partisan movement was gaining strength. Then Dirlewanger, having agreed with the leadership of the SS and the police of the general district "Belarus", decided to replenish the team with foreign volunteers. On May 28, 1942, an order was issued to transfer personnel from one battalion of auxiliary police - 49 privates and 11 non-commissioned officers - to his disposal. According to the documents, these people were identified as Ukrainians, but it is known that many Russians served in the auxiliary police units and units intended to perform security and anti-partisan functions.
According to some researchers, the “baptism of fire” of the collaborators (their names have been preserved: I.E. Tupiga, Mironenko, V.R. Zaivy, A.E. Radkovsky, L.A. Sakhno, Yalynsky) occurred on June 16, 1942, when The village of Borki was burned to the ground, where, as Dirlewanger stated in his report, the bandits who carried out terrorist attacks took refuge near the Mogilev-Bobruisk highway. Then Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian helpers participated in the destruction of the villages of Kobylyanka, Khonovo, Nemki and 16 other settlements.
By the fall of 1942, Dirlewanger's unit had grown to a battalion, although formally it remained a special SS command. The team included:
German company (150 people);
German motorcycle platoon (40 people);
3 Russian companies (450 people; in one of the companies, mostly Ukrainians served, and they were commanded by Ivan Melnichenko; another company, where Russians and Belarusians served, was commanded by Volksdeutsche August Bartschke);
Artillery battery (40 people: half Germans, half Russians).
Age German soldiers reached 40 years, Russians - up to 25.
It must be added that already in the second half of 1942, the Dirlewanger Sonderkommando was a special part of the SS of a mixed German-Russian composition, which was well known in Berlin. Moreover, as the documents allow us to judge, Russian volunteers were largely on an equal footing with German criminals. Dirlewanger did not make exceptions for anyone, as the commander quite rightly believed that it was precisely this order in the team that he had established that would make the personnel more monolithic, and his charges would act more coherently during combat operations.
In mid-autumn 1942, the battalion was involved in anti-partisan operations. By order of the Reichsführer-SS Command Headquarters, the unit was temporarily transferred to the subordination of the 1st Motorized SS Brigade (1. SS-Infanterie-Brigade), with which it participated in Operation Karlsbad, which took place from October 10 to 23 in Kruglyanskoe , Tolochinsky, Orsha and Shklovsky districts of the Mogilev region. The team operated jointly with the 14th SS Police Regiment, the 255th Latvian Security Battalion, the 638th French Infantry Regiment, the special command of the Higher SS Führer and the police von dem Bach.
The purpose of the operation was to defeat the people's avengers (8th, 24th, 28th, 30th separate detachments) under the command of S.G. Zhunina (8th Kruglyanskaya brigade) and the Chekist partisan unit (1st, 5th, 10th and 20th separate detachments). During the operation, the partisans suffered significant losses. Participants in those events after the war recalled that the units of the Chekist brigade “suffered serious losses. Commanders I.N. were killed. Suvorov and B.N. Kolyushnikov, Commissar of the 20th Detachment N.I. Massyurov, D.I. Siyanie, secretary of the party organization of the detachment L.F. Nosovich, A.D. Voronkov... This noticeably affected the mood of the partisans..." The picture was further darkened by the fact that the SS men "burned the villages of Berezka, Goenka, Zaozerye, Kleva... Soon the partisans learned another sad news - the detachment commander A.S. was killed. Denisov, who with a group of partisans found himself outside the blockade. His group stopped in the Ratsev forest, not far from the village of Orekhovka. The punishers picked up her trail and surrounded the dugout at night. A fight broke out. The partisans died, including the commander...
...The blockade of the Ratsev and then Krup forests had a serious impact on the combat effectiveness of the brigade ["Chekist". - Note auto]. Her losses were significant."
From 4 to 10 November 1942, the Dirlewanger battalion took part in Operation Frida. Civilians were again destroyed, and in addition, the SS killed over 130 “people's avengers.” On November 11, the unit was removed from the subordination of the 1st SS Motorized Brigade, after which it returned to Mogilev, simultaneously clearing several villages in the Cherven region from “bandits.”
At the end of December, Dirlewanger, according to some historians, received leave for his successes in the fight against “bandits” (from December 28, 1942 to February 20, 1943). The duties of the battalion commander began to be performed by SS Sturmbannführer Franz Maggil, an employee from the command headquarters of the Reichsführer SS. Maggil was an experienced officer, capable of performing tasks of a very different nature, both combat and punitive. Before he was seconded to the Reichsführer-SS Command Headquarters, he commanded the 2nd Cavalry Regiment of the 1st SS Cavalry Brigade. His regiment “became famous” for mercilessly killing civilians (mostly Jews) during a punitive operation in the Pripyat swamps (late July - early September 1941). According to the most underestimated data, Maggil's regiment executed 6,526 Jews. And now he had one of the most brutal units of the SS under his command.
What Maggil's attitude towards the collaborators was is unknown, but it is clear that he made no distinction between foreign assistants and German personnel. The entire unit was involved in a series of special operations - “Franz”, “Harvest Festival” (“Erntefest”), “February”, (“Hornung”) - at the beginning of 1943. Maggil assigned each unit a specific task, which was to turn its combat area into a no-man's land: "All local residents are shot without exception." During the three operations, 18,975 civilians were killed, including 3,300 Jews. About 2,400 people were evacuated from the combat zone and sent to forced labor.
The actions of the special SS team caused a mixed reaction among the top SS Fuhrer and the police von dem Bach. The Reichsführer-SS Commissioner for Combating Banditry expressed the opinion that the liquidation of partisans is not at all a reason to kill civilians. It was time, von dem Bach said, to “get down to business” - collecting agricultural products, recruiting teams of local residents to be sent to work in Germany. Dirlewanger, who returned to his unit at the end of February 1943, did not react to these words. He still believed that the fight against partisans not only involves the neutralization of the civilian population, but is also its basis, since the partisans receive help from the villages. Later, in July 1943, Dirlewanger had a conflict with SS Gruppenführer and Police Lieutenant General Gerret Korzemann (von dem Bach's deputy; from April 24 to July 5, 1943, he served as the highest SS and police chief of Central Russia), who prohibited the destruction of civilians residents
Although Dirlewanger did not change his principles, his people had to deal economic issues. As researcher A. Bochkarev notes, the SS team not only collected agricultural products, but also controlled how the peasants restored Agriculture. It even got to the point that the team’s personnel distributed agricultural equipment between villages and gave out seeds for sowing campaigns.
On March 22, 1943, Dirlewanger's soldiers took part in the burning of Khatyn, and at first they did not play a leading role in this action. Events developed like this.
Early in the morning, the 118th police battalion received a message that telephone communications had been damaged in the area between Pleshchenitsy and Logoisk. A construction unit from Pleshchenitsy, as well as two platoons of the 1st company of the 118th battalion, led by security police captain Wellke, were sent to restore communications. At that moment when we walked restoration work, unexpectedly, from a distance of 30 meters, fire was opened on the police. Captain Wellke and three Ukrainian policemen were immediately killed, and two Schutzmanns were injured. Platoon commander Vasily Meleshko took control of the battle. As a result of the firefight, the partisans began to retreat to east direction to Khatyn. The police tried to pursue them, but there was no strength to eliminate the “bandits.” Meleshko, who was slightly wounded, immediately sent an alarm message asking for help. While the police were waiting for support, they managed to detain a work team (about 40–50 people) from the village of Kozyri. The team cut down forest and cleared roadsides near the Pleshchenitsy - Logoisk road. Suspecting the workers of having connections with the partisans, the police arrested the entire team, and 15 law enforcement officers took them to Pleshchenitsy. On the way to Pleshchenitsy, an incident occurred: the workers, thinking that they were being taken to be shot, panicked and started running - this happened on the edge of the forest, behind the village of Guba. The police opened fire, 20 to 25 people were killed, the rest of the fugitives were captured by the field gendarmerie from Pleschenitsy and interrogated.
Meanwhile, the alarm signal reached the location of the Dirlewanger battalion. Motorized SS companies were sent to help the police. Having arrived at the scene, the SS men, together with law enforcement officers, launched an offensive against the partisans who had taken up defense in Khatyn itself and on its outskirts. Having blocked the village, the punitive forces began to “clean up”, bringing up heavy mortars and anti-tank guns for this purpose. The partisans put up fierce resistance, firing for an hour from village houses turned into firing points. The SS men had no choice but to suppress the enemy with mortar and anti-tank fire. By 16.30, when the partisan resistance was broken and the punitive forces entered the village, Khatyn had already been turned into ruins, and therefore there was practically nothing to burn there. During the battle, 34 “bandits” were killed, including one Jewish woman. Since the villagers sheltered the partisans and allowed them to turn their houses into firing points, it was decided to burn the entire population.
The initiators of the burning were Ukrainian policemen from the 118th battalion, who believed that the local residents were fanatical supporters of the Soviet regime and despised the Christian faith (one of the policemen, driving people into the barn, said: “You trampled on the icons and will burn, now we will burn you”) and help the partisans in every possible way. As a result, in a barn 6 by 12 meters, the punitive forces burned about 152 people, among whom were children, women and old people; only four managed to survive.
In April 1943, on the eve of the visit to Minsk of the General Commissioner for the Use of work force Friedrich Sauckel, the head of the SS and police of Belarus, Kurt von Gottberg, ordered a total check in the city, clearing it of partisans, underground fighters and other “gangster elements.” For this purpose, from April 17 to April 22, an operation was carried out in Minsk under code name“The Magic Flute” (“Zauberflote”). To carry it out, police and SS units were brought into the city, including Dirlewanger’s unit. The team's task was to guard the Minsk ghetto. However, according to some reports, units of the battalion participated in raids, searches and mass arrests of the urban population, in which they were actively assisted by Lithuanian police from the 12th “noise” battalion. During the operation, 76,000 people were checked (130,000 lived in Minsk at that time). Dozens of people were hanged for “illegal” actions and connections with “bandits” (this was primarily done by the Lithuanian police under the command of Antanas Impulevičius). On April 23, after the end of the operation, a parade of its participants took place in Minsk (at 11 o’clock), which was hosted by the highest Fuhrer of the SS and police of Central Russia, Bach-Zelewski.
At the beginning of May, the SS battalion was engaged in clearing the Manila and Rudnensky forests of partisans, then - from May 20 to June 21, 1943 - a unit was involved in the large-scale action "Kottbus". The police and SS authorities of the General Commissariat “Belarus” had been preparing this operation for a long time. It was preceded by intelligence gathering. According to SD and Gestapo data, in the Khrost-Pleshchenitsy-Dokshitsy-Lepel area, the presence of large “gangs” with well-equipped fortifications was noted. In addition, SS intelligence established that the area was heavily mined. the main objective The operation was to restore control over the Minsk-Vitebsk road and clear the territory in the Pleshchenitsy-Dokshitsy-Lepel triangle from partisans.
In addition to the Dirlewanger battalion, the 2nd SS police regiment, the 15th, 102nd, 118th and 237th auxiliary police battalions, the 600th Cossack battalion, the 633rd “Eastern” battalion, 1st and 12th police tank companies, one battalion of the 331st Grenadier Regiment, four companies of the 392nd Main Military Commandant's Office with a battery, anti-tank platoon and heavy mortar platoon, reinforced company of the 286th Security Division, 2nd Division 213 1st artillery regiment, three motorized platoons of the field gendarmerie, special SD teams, aircraft of the 4th group of the bomber squadron and the 7th squadron special purpose. The operation was led by a headquarters headed by SS Gruppenführer and Police Lieutenant General von Gottberg.
Domestic and Western historians have different opinions about how Operation Cottbus was conducted and how it ended. It is believed that the partisans inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, did not allow themselves to be destroyed and, thus, thwarted the plans of the Germans. Thus, the “people's avengers” allegedly managed to defeat the 600th Cossack battalion, as well as almost completely destroy about two battalions of the 2nd SS police regiment. At the same time, given the numerical superiority of the enemy, the partisans had to leave their bases, break out of encirclement and escape pursuit. This is how the picture looks in partisan documents, which, among other things, contain underestimated data on losses (no more than 500 fighters).
In German documents, on the contrary, everything looks different. The report (dated July 28, 1943) on the results of Operation Cottbus, compiled by Gottberg, states the following:
“Enemy losses: 6087 people killed in battle, 3709 shot, 599 captured. Captured labor force - 4997 people, women - 1056. Own losses: Germans - 5 officers killed, including a battalion commander, 83 non-commissioned officers and privates. 11 officers were wounded, including two regiment commanders, 374 non-commissioned officers and privates, three were missing. Trophies: 20 7.62 caliber guns, 9 anti-tank guns, 1 anti-aircraft gun, 18 mortars, 30 heavy machine guns, 31 light machine guns. One aircraft (destroyed), 50 gliders (destroyed), 16 anti-tank rifles, 903 rifles..."
A number of scholars dispute these figures, arguing that the Germans could not have killed so many partisans. Basically, according to these historians, we are talking about civilians who were brutally killed and tortured by punitive forces, in particular Dirlewanger’s people. However, despite the facts of brutal massacres that took place during Operation Cottbus, in general there is no reason to doubt von Gottberg’s report. Moreover, the civilian casualties of this operation are listed in a separate column. Considering the German pedantry in drawing up documents of this kind, it is unlikely that von Gottberg wanted to deliberately mislead the senior SS leadership.
Following Operation Cottbus, part of Dirlewanger (which by that time had already officially become known as the special SS battalion - SS-Sonderbataillon "Dirlewanger") participated in the action "German" - from July 3 to August 30, 1943. The operation was carried out against partisans operating in the Baranovichi district, in the area of Nalibokskaya Pushcha, along the Volozhin - Stolbtsy line. The forces of the 1st SS Motorized Brigade, 2nd SS Police Regiment, 30th Police Battalion, three separate SS battalions (Kerner Group), 15th, 115th, 57th and 118th were involved in the operation. auxiliary police battalions, the gendarmerie group of Kraykombom consisting of three teams. The total number of punitive units - according to partisan estimates - reached 52 thousand people.
From the first days of the operation, the special SS battalion was bogged down in battles with partisans, but several of its units were engaged in the destruction of the civilian population. Having suffered minor losses, the unit withdrew from the fighting and was sent for reorganization. The fact is that by the end of the summer of 1943, Dirlewanger had over a thousand soldiers and officers subordinate to him, so in September 1943 the battalion was deployed into the regiment - SS-Regiment “Dirlewanger”.
It should be emphasized that, having withstood the attacks of the Germans during Operation Hermann, the leadership of the partisan brigades sent a message to the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement (TSSHPD) about the struggle of the partisans against the punitive expedition. Secretary of the Baranovichi Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks Chernyshev, who took upon himself the coordination of the actions of the “people's avengers,” noted in a message that “in the first days of the fighting... the partisans killed the executioner known to the population of Belarus from the beginning of the war, SS Lieutenant Colonel Dirlewanger, and captured the entire operation plan ". Chernyshev also stated that the partisans killed and wounded over 3 thousand Germans, destroyed a lot of enemy equipment and captured a lot of trophies. However, German documents, more reliable in this case, refute Chernyshev’s victorious reports. Firstly, the total losses of the Germans and their allies were 205 killed, wounded and missing, and secondly, Dirlewanger, unfortunately, was not killed by the partisans, since he became commander of an SS regiment in September.
According to documents, from March 1942 to August 1943, Dirlewanger’s soldiers eliminated 15,000 “bandits” (civilians and partisans), the unit’s own losses were 92 killed, 218 wounded and 8 missing. Soviet researchers claimed that during the two years of their activity, the SS men under the command of Dirlewanger destroyed more than 100 settlements in the Minsk, Mogilev, and Vitebsk regions, and also shot and burned about 20 thousand people alive.
Subsequently, the Dirlewanger regiment was also involved in punitive operations, the most recent of which was the “Spring Festival” (“Fruhlingsfest”) action. The regiment was then withdrawn to the General Government, where in August 1944 a unit was engaged in suppressing the uprising in Warsaw, for which Dirlewanger was awarded the Knight's Cross.
As a result of the disbandment of the 29th SS Grenadier Division (No. 1st Russian), in October 1944, Dirlewanger was given the 72nd and 73rd SS Grenadier Regiments, where mainly Russian and Belarusian volunteers served. On December 19, 1944, the Dirlewanger regiment was deployed to the SS assault brigade (personnel were recruited from Reich concentration camps, for example from Buchenwald), and in February 1945 - to the division, which received number 36 in the register of the SS Main Directorate (36. Waffen-Grenadier- Division der SS).
According to one version, in April 1945, the unit fought on the Soviet-German front as part of the 4th Tank Army, in the Lausitz area. The division fought defensive battles on the Oder and was surrounded southeast of Berlin. On April 29, 1945, soldiers and officers of the formation laid down their arms in front of the Soviet troops. According to a number of researchers, 4 thousand military personnel of the division who were captured by the Red Army were immediately shot.
According to another version, in the spring of 1945, the 36th SS Division fought on the western front, in the Althausen-Württemberg region, where it surrendered to the French. The personnel of the unit were distributed among prisoner of war camps. Oskar Dirlewanger, who was captured along with his men, was also in the camp. On July 8, 1945, he died under very dark circumstances. Some historians believe that he died as a result of mistreatment by French guards.
After the war, former collaborators who served with Dirlewanger became the target of a hunt by the USSR state security agencies. Most of them were eventually identified, tried and sentenced to death. The severe punishment for many was imposed on the basis of the facts of the participation of Russian collaborators in numerous cartel operations and “cleansing operations”, and not in the hostilities in which they also showed themselves.
Officially, the penal unit did not exist in the SS structures. But all the SS men knew that the member of the “Black Order” who had committed a fine would atone for his guilt on Eastern Front in the Sonderkommando, commanded by Oskar Paul Dirlewanger.
This Sonderkommando (special unit) arose in 1940. Poland, defeated a year earlier, could not be called conquered. There were underground groups in the cities, and partisans in the forests. It was then that Gottlob Berger, one of Himmler’s deputies, proposed creating a special unit designed exclusively to fight partisans. He also proposed a candidate for the unit being created - his old friend Oscar Paul Dirlewanger.
Oscar Paul Dirlewanger with the rank of SS Oberführer, 1944
A little biography
Oscar was born in 1895 in Swabia. Called up in 1913 for a year's military service, he returned home in 1918 with the rank of lieutenant, with three wounds, two Iron Crosses, the experience of commanding a battalion and the firm belief that his calling was military service, and even more precisely - war.
Dirlewanger joined the Freikorps, participated in the suppression of leftist protests (he was wounded again), joined the NSDAP and the SA, and actively participated in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. Possessing an aggressive and unbalanced character, he was repeatedly detained by the police for participating in street riots.
It was at this time that he met and became close to Berger, who later became his patron.
In 1934, Dirlewanger received 2 years in prison for molesting a minor, and was expelled from the party and the SA. After leaving prison, he (on the advice of his friend Bergman) applies to the Condor Legion and leaves for Spain to fight on the side of Franco.
In 1939, Dirlewanger returned to Germany with three new awards. Through the efforts of Bergman, he was rehabilitated, reinstated in the party and SA, and accepted into the SS with the rank of Hauptsturmführer.
That's who the deputy is. Himmler offered the vacant position of commander of the special unit being created, which later began to bear the name of its commander.
Poaching Team
Dirlewanger accepted Bergman's offer without a moment's hesitation. He's back in the army! And he immediately asked for permission to staff his unit with persons convicted of poaching. He justified his proposal with the following considerations: these people are good shooters, excellent trackers, and know how to navigate in the forest. Poachers are more suitable than anyone else to fight “forest bandits.”
The proposal fell on prepared ground. Just recently, Hitler received a letter from the wife of a Parteigenosse convicted of poaching. The functionary's wife asked to give her husband the opportunity to rehabilitate himself. During one of his meetings with Himmler in the spring of 1940, Hitler expressed his opinion that loyal party members had nothing to do behind the barbed wire of a concentration camp, and if they wanted to atone for their guilt by serving the Reich, they should be given such an opportunity.
In the summer of 1940, the first batch of 84 people arrived in Oranienburg from Sachsenhausen. Based on the place where it was recruited, the Zoderkommando received the name “Poacher Team Oranienburg”. Thus, a division arose within the structure of the SS, formed from convicted members of the SS and the NSDAP. In the future, the recruitment of recruits for the unit in prisons and concentration camps will become the main principle of recruiting the Dirlewanger team.
Emblem of the 36th SS Grenadier Division "Dirlewanger"
First use
In the fall of 1940, the Sonderkommando arrived in Poland. In the General Government, the unit was used to blockade Jewish settlements and ghettos in Dzikow, Lublin and Krakow. At the same time, the Sonderkommando took part in anti-partisan operations, showing its high efficiency. The team attracted the attention of the head of the SS and police of the Lublin district, Globocnik. He increasingly began to use “poachers” to fight the partisans, sending the most flattering reviews of the Sonderkommando to Berlin.
Service check
At the same time, letters were pouring in to Berger and Himmler about the unspeakable atrocities of the unit. SS Untersturmführer Konrad Morgen arrived in Lublin to check the signals received, and during the check he revealed numerous cases of beatings, extortion, robberies, rapes, and murders committed by members of the unit. In his final report, Morgen considered it necessary to arrest Dirlewanger himself and return the members of his team back to the camp. Even from the point of view of an SS lawyer, the unit was not so much a military unit as a bandit formation.
And what do you think the SS leadership made? Oskar Dirlewanger was awarded the rank of Sturmbannführer, his team was reassigned directly to the headquarters of the Reichsführer SS and in January 1942 was sent to Belarus.
Achtung! Partisan!
By 1942, the partisan movement in Belarus was already creating a serious threat to the Wehrmacht's logistics system. The number of individual detachments reached hundreds and even thousands of people. The partisans were armed with not only small arms, but also machine guns, field guns, anti-tank artillery, anti-aircraft guns, mortars, howitzers, and there were even tanks! The detachments were commanded by professional military men who had undergone special training in the NKVD structures. The activities of the detachments were coordinated by the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement, located in Moscow.
To eliminate the partisans, the Nazis carried out large-scale military operations involving Wehrmacht units, reinforced with artillery, armored vehicles, aviation and tanks. These operations were absolute hell for the German soldiers. Anti-partisan actions were fundamentally different from the fighting on the Eastern Front. The front line as such did not exist. Forested areas made the use of aviation pointless. Military intelligence was powerless. The lack of roads and swampy terrain prevented the widespread use of military equipment. The fighting was fierce, with neither side taking prisoners.
Executioner of Belarus
The Sonderkommando "Dirlewanger" took part in most of the large-scale operations carried out, always receiving the highest marks from the leaders of the operation. Dirlewanger himself more than once went on the attack in the first chain of attackers and personally shot even those who hesitated.
The unit not only participated in military operations, but also performed tasks unique to it. Dirlewanger's huntsmen tracked down the partisans, determined their locations and bases (this is where poaching experience came in handy!), attacked marching partisan columns and carried out “specific” tasks - punitive operations.
"Specific tasks"
Here are just some dry lines from the reports on the results of the battalion’s actions: “2 partisans and 176 suspects were shot,” “1 partisan and 287 accomplices were shot.” Every village suspected of sympathizing with the partisans was destroyed along with its inhabitants. Dirlewanger constantly petitioned for additional flamethrowers for his unit.
In total, Dirlewanger's team burned more than 180 villages along with their residents. Even if the village was not destroyed, livestock was confiscated, outbuildings and fodder, healthy population stolen for forced labor. Behind the Sonderkommando there remained a dead desert in the fullest sense.
Foreign volunteers
While achieving good results, the team (since November 1942 - Sonderbattalion) suffered high losses. To replenish the unit, in addition to poachers, they began to send those convicted of smuggling, illegal possession of weapons, and even just criminal rabble. But even this goodness was not enough, and in the spring of 1942, Dirlewanger obtained permission to form two companies within the battalion, staffed by foreign volunteers. As part of the so-called The “Russian companies” were Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and representatives of other peoples of the USSR.
Reference: on April 30, 1943, there were 569 people in the Sonderbattalion, of which 367 were not Germans; in May the battalion’s strength was increased to 612 people, and in June 1943 there were already 760 people in the battalion.
On May 2, 1943, Dirlewanger was awarded the title of SS Obersturmbannführer for his successes in the fight against partisans.
Eastern front
In November 1943, the Red Army broke through the front and began to advance on Vitebsk. The Germans plugged the hole with whatever was at hand. So the unit (now a regiment) ended up on the Eastern Front. The “poachers” found themselves in an unusual environment. The experience they acquired during the anti-partisan struggle in front-line conditions turned out to be absolutely useless. Some suffer losses.
By January 1944, the regiment had been reduced by almost half. Not only criminals, but also “asocial elements”, in particular those convicted of homosexuality and even political prisoners, are arriving as replenishment. In May, the unit has an amazing “hodgepodge”: Latvians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians, Spaniards, Muslims and Caucasians. But the Germans still remain the backbone of the battalion.
And in the rear of the Nazis at this time, on the eve of liberation, partisans became more active. The regiment is removed from the front and returned to Belarus, because neither the Wehrmacht nor the SS had a unit equal to the “poachers” in terms of efficiency (and cruelty) in conducting anti-partisan warfare. Therefore, when an uprising broke out in Warsaw on August 1, 1944, one of the first to arrive to suppress it was a regiment under the command of SS Standartenführer Dirlewanger.
Warsaw massacre
Upon arrival in Warsaw, the regiment numbered 881 people. (During the anti-partisan operations “Spring Festival”, “Rain” and others, the regiment suffered heavy losses) In the very first days, the first batch of prisoners from the camps in Matzkau and Danzig, intended to hold convicted SS members, arrived at the regiment. In an effort to rehabilitate themselves, the recruits who arrived did not spare anyone, they fought with cruelty and mercilessness. Where the situation seemed hopeless, the Dirlewanger team appeared, whose fighters immediately launched an assault, regardless of losses. If possible, they went on the attack under the cover of a human shield of women and children. No prisoners were taken, civilians were shot - everyone, regardless of gender or age. Hospitals were burned along with non-ambulatory patients and staff.
The Sonderkommando's advance was the fastest, its actions the most successful, but accompanied by the highest losses. Despite the fact that during the suppression of the uprising, 2,500 people arrived in the regiment, by the time the rebels surrendered (October 2, 1944), 648 people remained under Dirlewanger’s command. The regiment's losses exceeded 300%. The Sonderregiment commander himself, who again personally led his men into the attack, received another (11th) wound, the Knight's Cross and the rank of SS Oberführer. Replenishing itself with prisoners from Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald and receiving the status of an SS brigade, the unit departed for Slovakia to suppress the uprising that broke out there.
Report on what was done in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944
The end of the Dirlewanger team
In February 1945, after fighting in Slovakia and Hungary, the brigade arrived near the city of Guben (Brandenburg). It was necessary to fight on German territory. By order of February 14, the 36th SS Grenadier Division was formed on the basis of the brigade, and a day later the division commander, who once again personally led the counterattack, was wounded and went to the hospital. He never returned to the division.
Fritz Schmedes, who accepted the unit after the Red Army broke through the front in Silesia on April 16, considered his main task to be to surrender the division to the Americans as soon as possible. Breaking away from the Soviet troops, he went beyond the Elbe. By that time, only scraps remained of the division. For example, the 73rd regiment consisted of 36 people. The same picture was in other divisions. However, surrender to the Americans did not become a salvation for the “poachers.” Soldiers wearing a patch on their sleeve with the image of two crossed grenades were shot by the Americans without ceremony.
The end of the chief executioner
Dirlewanger himself was detained in Altshausen by a French patrol, identified, arrested and put in a local prison. The guards in the prison were carried out by Poles. They knew who Dirlewanger was and were not going to forgive him anything: neither the executed Polish partisans, nor the dead participants in the Warsaw Uprising. Over the course of several nights, they took the prisoner out into the corridor and, as they say, “took his soul away.” On the last night, before they were to be replaced by a new guard, the Poles smashed the chief executioner's head with rifle butts. And although the act in itself is not very beautiful, who can condemn them?
UNKNOWN PAGES OF THE SS BLOODY PATH OF OSCAR DIRLEWANGER
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Belarus from the German occupiers. Unfortunately, today few people clearly understand what Soviet citizens had to endure when they were forced to exist for three years under the conditions of the Nazi “new order.” The lives of tens of thousands of civilians, including very old people, women and helpless children, were ruined during the so-called anti-guerrilla operations. It was on the territory of Belarus that punitive operations were carried out with particular, unprecedented cruelty. Of course, in order to carry out their plans to conquer “living space in the East,” the Nazis did not need ordinary executors, but ruthless killers, fanatics, or completely unprincipled individuals completely devoid of moral guidelines and conscience. Perhaps the most notorious “fame” was won by the SS penal formation under the command of Oscar Paul Dirlewanger.
From the first months of its existence, the Dirlewanger Sonderkommando specialized in fighting partisans and carrying out actions against civilians. By suppressing resistance in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, Poland and Slovakia and committing heinous crimes, Dirlewanger's subordinates earned themselves the worst reputation even among the SS troops!
The formation's permanent commander, Oskar Dirlewanger, a former Kaiser officer and criminal, instilled in his soldiers the most inhumane principles of warfare. Under his command were criminals, guilty SS men and Wehrmacht soldiers, European and Soviet traitor-collaborators, and at the end of the war - even political prisoners, including communists, social democrats and priests. The team was successively deployed into battalion, regiment, brigade and division. This unprecedented experiment can without a doubt be called a mockery of all the traditions of military service.
The idea of putting criminals under arms was born in the highest echelons of the Third Reich in early 1940. Adolf Hitler received a letter from the wife of a Nazi Party functionary who was sent to prison for illegal hunting. The wife of the arrested Nazi asked the Fuhrer to sort it out and release her husband, especially since, as the woman claimed, her husband was an excellent shot with a rifle and could be useful at the front. Hitler, being a vegetarian, had an aversion to hunting, but was intrigued by this letter. In one of the conversations with the SS leadership in Berchtesgaden, he mentioned this incident and made a proposal to use poachers in combat operations.
The SS troops took the dictator's words seriously. Moreover, with the beginning of World War II, the SS, unlike the Wehrmacht, had problems recruiting personnel. It was decided to form an experimental unit staffed by convicted poachers. On March 29, 1940, Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler sent a letter to the Reich Minister of Justice Franz Gürtner, in which, in particular, he emphasized: “The Fuhrer ordered that all poachers ... who hunted not with snares, but with guns and broke the law, be amnestied to pass during the war, service in a special SS sniper company, for the purpose of correction, and could be pardoned for good behavior».
The gathering place was determined to be the base of the 5th SS regiment “Totenkopf” - in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, near Oranienburg. In June 1940, 80 people were brought to the concentration camp. All of them have undergone careful selection and inspection. Based on the results of a medical examination, SS doctors recognized 55 people as fit. The stringent requirements that existed at first subsequently decreased, since the problem with recruitment did not disappear. The situation was corrected quickly: already in August 1940, about 90 criminals served in the penal company.
The special unit received the name of the Oranienburg poaching team. Its ranks included convicts from the southern lands of the Reich, Ostmark (Austria), the Sudetenland and East Prussia. Soon its commander, Dirlewanger, arrived at the unit.
OSCAR WAS MIND DAMAGED IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR
Oscar Paul Dirlewanger, who belonged to the Swabian people of the German nation, was born on September 26, 1895 in Würzburg, into a respectable bourgeois family of a wealthy sales agent August Dirlewanger and his wife Paulina (nee Herrlinger). In 1900, the family moved to the capital of the Kingdom of Württemberg, Stuttgart, and five years later to the capital's suburb, Esslingen. Oscar graduated from primary and high school and passed the matriculation exam. Planning to enter a higher education institution in the future, young Dirlewanger exercised his right to serve one year as a volunteer instead of two years of military service as a private. In 1913, he was enlisted in the machine gun company of the 123rd Grenadier Regiment and quite successfully joined the military team, quickly mastering the combat and tactical standards prescribed by the regulations and manuals. He met the First World War as a non-commissioned officer.
The 123rd Regiment took part in the Ardennes Operation, which was triumphant for the Germans, fought in Lorraine, then in Luxembourg, and took part in the fighting on the Meuse. As follows from Dirlewanger's characterization, he fought desperately and was always at the forefront. It is not surprising that on April 14, 1915 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. Of course, Dirlewanger was not spared from numerous wounds and concussions. In the battle of Longwy on August 22, 1914, he was wounded twice, receiving a bullet in the leg and a saber blow to the head. The next day he was shell-shocked by shrapnel in one of the oncoming battles. During defensive battles in Champagne on September 7, 1915, Dirlewanger was wounded in the arm and bayoneted in the right thigh. Finally, on April 30, 1918, he was wounded in the left shoulder during the battle for the village of Pokrovskoye near Taganrog.
As a result of all these injuries, Dirlewanger actually became disabled and, most likely, was somewhat damaged in his mind. He was one of the very few WWI soldiers to survive such wounds.
Returning to Esslingen, Dirlewanger saw a completely different Germany for which he shed his blood. The monarchy has fallen. The country was gripped by revolutionary unrest, initiated by leftist circles oriented toward a “world revolution.” Dirlewanger had no sympathy for the left. He joined the counter-revolutionary movement and fought as part of the volunteer corps of Epp, Haas, Sprosser and Holtz, which took part in the suppression of communist uprisings in Backnang, Kornwestheim, Esslingen, Untertürkheim, Ahlen, Schorndorf and Heidenheim. After the formation of the Reichswehr, he was entrusted with command of an armored train.
Dirlewanger's true "finest hour" was the participation of his armored train in the spring of 1921 in the liberation of the Saxon city of Sangerhausen from a gang of anarcho-communist adventurer Max Göltz, who intended to rob and burn the village. The city was cleared of radical elements. As a sign of gratitude, in 1934 the future war criminal was awarded the title of honorary citizen of Sangerhausen.
Dirlewanger tried to combine the fight against the Reds with obtaining a higher education. Back in 1919, he entered the Higher Technical School in Mannheim, from where he was expelled for anti-Semitic agitation. I had to transfer to another educational institution - to the University of Frankfurt am Main, where the Swabian, capable of science, studied economics and law for six semesters. In 1922, he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic: “Toward a critique of the idea of planned economic management.” That same year he joined the Nazi Party. Dirlewanger's party career can hardly be called successful. In addition, she was interrupted several times. Nevertheless, the crippled veteran acquired connections in the party that later helped him out of hopeless situations more than once. In Stuttgart, where Dirlewanger moved after receiving his doctorate, he became friends with a man who played a key role in his life.
This man was Gottlob Christian Berger, who later became Obergruppenführer and head of the SS Main Directorate. He was not just a fellow countryman and the same age as Dirlewanger. Both of them volunteered for the war, both fought in the Württemberg units of the German army, both were awarded for military distinction. Like Dirlewanger, Berger took part in battles against the communists. After joining the NSDAP, Berger made a dizzying career.
PEDOPHILE DOCTOR AND HIS TEAM
Having higher education, Dirlewanger easily found a job at the Stuttgart company Treuhand, and then became executive director of the Korniker company in Erfurt. He was in charge of the financial affairs of this company. An interesting circumstance is that the owners of Korniker were Jews. Apparently, this freed Dirlewanger’s hands: without a twinge of conscience, he pulled off a series of frauds that allowed him to steal several thousand marks. He used part of these funds to support the Erfurt assault troops.
After the Nazis came to power (January 30, 1933), Dirlewanger, as an “old fighter,” received a highly paid position at the labor exchange in Heilbronn. It would seem that life had turned its face towards him. However, soon accusations began to pour in against him from the assault troops and the local party leadership. The newly-minted bureaucrat was accused of a complete lack of discipline, called “a troublemaker and a talker,” “the evil spirit of Heilbronn.” Probably one of the reasons for all his misadventures was alcoholism.
On the occasion of Dirlewanger being awarded the title of honorary citizen of Sangerhausen, he organized a buffet for his employees, after which he began driving around Heilbronn in a company car while drunk. After causing two accidents, he tried to escape. Even more serious questions were raised by the fact that he had sexual relations with a thirteen-year-old girl who was a member of the Union of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel, BDM). His ill-wishers from the local assault troops even began to claim that he regularly subjected girls from this organization to sexual violence.
As a result, Dirlewanger lost his job, was expelled from the party, stripped of his honorary citizen title and doctorate, and received a two-year prison sentence. He admitted to his crime, but categorically denied that he was a serial maniac: he allegedly believed that the girl had reached the age of sixteen. In the Ludwigsburg prison where he served his time, his fellow inmates gave him the nickname BDM Stallion.
Upon his release in 1937, Dirlewanger tried to initiate a review of the case. But local party leaders sent him to the Welzheim concentration camp, from where Berger rescued him. An old friend managed to convince Himmler of the possibility of “correcting” Dirlewanger. And yesterday’s “prisoner,” in order to atone for his sins, went to serve in the ground units of the Condor Legion, which took part in civil war in Spain on the side of General Franco's troops.
Returning to his homeland in 1939, Dirlewanger achieved the resumption of the trial in his old case. This time luck smiled on him. On April 30, 1940, charges of corruption of minors were dropped against him, and the sentence was overturned with the wording: “for lack of corpus delicti.” After this, he received his degree back, resumed his membership in the Nazi Party, joined the SS and was appointed commander of a poaching team.
For his subordinates, Dirlewanger was a “demigod.” As one former employee noted punitive battalion, he was “the lord of life and death, he treated us as he wanted. He could pronounce a death sentence and carry it out immediately. He didn’t have to have a trial.”
Dirlewanger was a champion of iron discipline and absolute obedience to his will. He treated with dignity only those convicts who unquestioningly followed his orders. The fate of those who did not want to obey was sad. Dirlewanger developed his own "disciplinary charter". The punishments were the same as in the concentration camps. For an ordinary offense, a soldier received 25 blows with a stick, for a similar violation - 50. For a gross offense, 75 blows were due, and if it was repeated again - 100. After the fiftieth blow, the offender, as a rule, was taken to a military hospital. Protesting was considered a gross offense. Open disobedience was punishable by death on the spot. In addition, the unit commander came up with a special punishment. It was called the “Dirlewanger box” or “Dirlewanger coffin”. Its essence was that the violator of discipline was forced to stand at attention in a narrow box for two weeks! The box was checked on the third or fourth day. When it was unlocked, the penalty box was always unconscious.
The unit was also dominated by fist law. They beat me most severely for cowardice. Convicts who saved in battle or were seen doing something similar were immediately sentenced to death. In a word, brute physical force as an educational tool was constantly used in the Sonderkommando.
At the same time, the cane discipline introduced in the formation often did not prevent the penalty box from committing robberies and murders. Dirlewanger was not constancy. One day he could turn a blind eye to robberies, and on another he could disable the extortionists known to him and shoot them with his own hands. Knowing perfectly well the psychology of his subordinates, he knew how to lead them and, depending on the situation, could condone their committing crimes, even provoke them to do so, and then “tighten the screws” again, turning the bubbling criminal swamp into a military collective capable of carrying out combat missions . He regulated the life of the unit according to his own understanding and his own standards, finding a place for everything - both for drill and for sharing alcoholic drinks with the soldiers. But the main thing was only one principle - blind obedience to the will of the commander. Dirlewanger was once a criminal, but he was also once an officer. These two aspects of his personality turned out to be in inextricable unity and led to the fact that a criminal and a serviceman coexisted in him.
REPORT ON COMBAT ACTIONS IN KHATYN
LUBLIN ORGIES
In the Dirlewanger formation human life didn't cost anything. It was not considered shameful for the unit commander to beat the women brought to him for sexual orgies, or to sell them for a few bottles of moonshine. A particularly significant case occurred in occupied Poland, called the “General Government” by the Nazis, where an SS penal battalion was transferred in 1940. While fighting the Polish rebels, the criminals were simultaneously engaged in robberies and murders of the Jewish population of Lublin. They robbed the local ghetto, they arrested Jews, accusing them of ritual murders, blackmailed and extorted large sums of money from them, threatening them with execution.
All these outrages led to the fact that an SS investigator, Untersturmführer Konrad Morgen, was sent to Lublin, who managed to collect a lot of incriminating materials on Dirlewanger. 10 criminal cases were opened against Dirlewanger. On top of that, the penal commander once again confirmed his title of “master of sexually pathological sophistication.” According to witness testimony and reports from the Lublin criminal police, Dirlewanger, without authority, somehow arrested a dozen Jewish girls between the ages of 13 and 18 who were working in one of the Wehrmacht supply units. He invited Jewish women to his apartment, forced them to strip naked, played music on the radio and ordered them to dance. During the dances, he, together with several officers of his unit and in the presence of SD representatives invited to the party, beat the girls with leather whips.
Towards the end of the orgy, Dirlewanger staged the so-called “ scientific experiments" He injected each girl with strychnine, and then, standing in a circle of drinking buddies and smoking a cigarette, watched the death throes of the poisoned victims.
Morgen also established that Dirlewanger had a Jewish translator, Sarah Bergmann, and the doctor liked to relax alone with her. Of course, during the investigation, the criminal commander completely denied intimate relationships with representatives of the “lower race,” but to one degree or another admitted (of course, not before the SS judicial authorities) connections with Jews in general. In a letter to his friend, SS Headquarters employee Dr. Friedrich, Dirlewanger wrote: “This whole Lublin story is simply comical; According to one version, I had a relationship with a Jewish woman, I drank schnapps with the Jews, and after that I became heartless again and poisoned these people. In one case I am accused of treating them wrongly and of betraying my ideological beliefs because of a Jew, and when this turns out to be untrue, I am accused of the exact opposite - of poisoning the Jews.”
They wanted to put Dirlewanger behind bars. But here, as usual, Berger came to his aid. Only his petition saved the mad doctor from inevitable punishment.
After the noisy scandal in Lublin, which reached the Reichsführer SS himself, there could be no question of the special SS command continuing to remain in the Polish General Government. There was a war going on. The German armed forces faced a serious enemy in the east. In the rear German army it was also restless. The danger of the partisan threat grew day by day, causing the Wehrmacht, its rear services and communications a lot of trouble. Therefore, Berger sent the Dirlewanger battalion to the occupied territory of the Soviet Union.
REPORT ON BURNED BELARUSIAN VILLAGES
MAN HUNTERS
In January 1942, criminals appeared in occupied Belarus and immediately began to commit heinous crimes. At first, the penalty officers shot Jews in the Mogilev ghetto, then they were switched to fighting the partisans. Within a few months, the poachers earned the respect of the higher SS command, and Dirlewanger himself was presented with a reward.
The team constantly practiced the burning of populated areas, thus trying to reduce partisan activity. Sometimes, to decide to destroy a village, one shot fired from the forest was enough, and punitive forces arrived in the suspicious village. In the memoirs of one SS veteran who served with Dirlewanger, there is a story about how team members acted in the summer of 1942: “A cordon was set up around the village to prevent the escape of local residents, all houses and dugouts were inspected. It happened like this. We went into the house and shouted: “Come on, come on, come outside!”
After this, the house was inspected, and they were looking for anything suspicious in it - weapons, elements of a military uniform, or a piece of a leaflet... Local residents who found themselves in the houses and objected to the search - no matter with words or hand gestures - were shot on the spot. In such cases, no one was interested in their explanations. Others were usually arrested and either machine-gunned or herded into a building (often former church) and set it on fire. We threw a few hand grenades and then waited for the flames to break out inside. For us at that time, the most important thing was to secure the deep rear of the army... These were the orders we were given. Of course, this explanation can hardly serve as an excuse, but we were brought up in the Third Reich, where the slogan was often heard: “Obedience to death.”
It was according to this scheme that on June 15, 1942, the village of Borki and surrounding villages were burned. Dirlewanger's subordinates, with the support of the SD team and security police units, killed 2,027 women, old people and children here. Only 12 people escaped from the village. The same sad fate suffered many other villages - for example, Pirunovo, Vilenka, Zabudnyanskie Khutora and Nemki. In the village of Zbyshin, 1076 people were burned and shot. In November 1942, when punitive forces (as part of Operation Frida) were hunting Minsk partisans, they burned the villages of Dubovruchye and Borovino. Thus, about 300 people were tortured in Borovino. Having surrounded the village, the SS killed everyone who caught their eye. Some residents were thrown into wells and burning houses.
Of course, one of the most famous actions in which a special SS battalion took part was the destruction of the village of Khatyn on March 22, 1943. It must be said that the Sonderkommando played a rather secondary role here. The greatest atrocities were committed by the personnel of the 118th Security Police Battalion, staffed by Ukrainian collaborators. Dirlewanger's SS men arrived at the scene of the operation when the command of the Ukrainian battalion urgently asked them to do so. In a daily report dated March 23, 1943, sent to the “chief of anti-gang units”, SS General Erich von dem Bach, the events in Khatyn are presented as follows: “The 118th battalion urgently requested support near the village of Guba. A German motorized company, together with the 118th battalion, pursued the bandits who retreated to Khatyn. After a firefight, the settlement was taken and destroyed. 30 armed bandits (in full equipment, including 1 partisan) were killed. The captured property and weapons were left to the 118th battalion.”
In Khatyn, 149 people were shot and burned, including 76 infants and young children. Judging by the cruelty with which the Ukrainian police dealt with the population, we can say that they were not much inferior to the German criminals and may even have surpassed them. For the Dirlewanger battalion, this was an ordinary action, since poachers also wiped out larger villages.
For two and a half years, while Dirlewanger’s punitive forces were in occupied Belarus, they burned more than 180 settlements and killed more than 30 thousand people. The personnel of the special SS battalion took part in almost all major operations against partisans planned by the Wehrmacht security forces and the SS command. Among them - " Chafer", "The Eagle", "Carlsbad", "Franz", "Harvest Festival", "February", "The Magic Flute", "Daredevil", "Cottbus", "Herman", "Spring Festival" and "Cormorant".
Thus, during Operation Cottbus, a battalion of criminals met stubborn resistance from partisan brigades of the Borisov-Begoml zone. The people's avengers skillfully mined the approaches to their defensive positions, and the punitive forces suffered heavy losses because of this. Dirlewanger sent captured local residents ahead of the SS chains, who were literally torn to pieces. Those who were wounded and still alive were finished off with a shot to the back of the head. In a report from SS General von dem Bach on the results of Operation Cottbus on June 23, 1943, it was reported that 2-3 thousand people were captured, who “cleared the minefields and flew into the air.”
As part of Operation Hermann, all punitive “records” were broken - SS and police units destroyed more than 150 settlements in five districts of the Baranovichi region! According to the report of the Dirlewanger battalion dated August 7, 1943, in one day the SS men burned the villages of Adamki, Ugly, Serkuli, Skiporovtsy, Rudnya, Sivitsa, Dobraya Sivitsa, Dubki, Sidivici, Dainova and Pogorelka.
Constantly participating in anti-partisan operations, Dirlewanger's formation suffered losses. So how to quickly prepare required amount poachers were not always possible, the commander of the penal cells was forced to include in his unit Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian traitors selected from among the captured Red Army soldiers. At one time, the battalion included several Russian units on staff, performing punitive functions.
Subsequently, when a special SS battalion was deployed into a regiment (and then into a brigade), not only collaborators served with Dirlewanger. Volunteers from Western countries, repeat criminals from concentration camps, and all sorts of antisocial elements, including... homosexuals, underwent “rehabilitation” here. And at the end of the war, political prisoners also appeared as part of the penal formation - communists, social democrats and priests!
As documents show, in November 1944 alone, 188 communist political prisoners were sent to the Dirlewanger compound. The reasons that pushed the German left to join the ranks of punitive forces could be different. Someone probably wanted to switch to Soviet side. Some, having spent 10-12 years in concentration camps, simply dreamed of leaving the barracks. For example, the communist Paul Lau, a prisoner of Sachsenhausen, wrote a letter to his sister in Hamburg, which included the following words: “You will probably be surprised to learn that I am no longer a concentration camp prisoner, but an SS private. Yes, times change, and we too must change with the times.”
For Dirlewanger there was no special significance how many people will die during the fighting. The main thing for him was to fulfill the assigned combat mission. This approach manifested itself most clearly during the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising in August - October 1944. During two months of fierce fighting, the personnel of the special SS regiment changed at least three times! This became possible due to the fact that the formation was replenished by convicted Wehrmacht and SS troops arriving from the prisons of Glatz, Torgau, Anklam and Bruchsal. In total, the punitive regiment lost, according to various estimates, from 2,500 to 2,700 military personnel.
Dirlewanger's subordinates committed terrible crimes in Warsaw that have become part of modern history. historical literature called the Volsk massacre. The bloody orgy lasted two days - from August 5 to August 7, 1944. Moving towards the city center along Volskaya Street, combat groups of SS penal prisoners killed everyone they came across. On the territory of the Ursus factory alone, between 5 and 6 thousand people were shot. Numerous murders were accompanied by wild robberies and violence against children and women. Thus, one SS Hauptsturmführer from the Dirlewanger regiment, as one SS man later recalled, combined rape with cruel perversions: he placed hand grants in the genitals of captured girls, and then blew them up. The victims' fingers were cut off if they could not remove the gold rings from them...
SS OBERFÜHRER OSCAR DIRLEWANGER. WARSAW, 1944
DEATH IN A FRENCH PRISON
For his active participation in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising, Dirlewanger was awarded the highest award of the Reich - the Knight's Cross and received the rank of general of the SS troops. At the end of the war, the 36th Waffen-Grenadier SS Division was formed from his subordinates - convicted military personnel, criminals and political prisoners. It was defeated in the Halba Pocket during the Battle of Berlin. Dirlewanger, having received another wound, was sent to the rear and never returned to the front. After the end of the war, he hid for several weeks in Upper Swabia until he was arrested by French soldiers in May 1945. The punitive commander ended his journey in the prison of the city of Altshausen. On the night of June 4–5, 1945, he was beaten to death in his cell by Polish guards, in revenge for the atrocities committed in Warsaw.
Unlike Dirlewanger, his old friend Gottlob Berger died of his own death. On April 11, 1949, Military Tribunal No. 4 in Nuremberg sentenced the former head of the SS Main Directorate to 25 years in prison. But Berger did not remain behind bars for long. His acquaintances from the Bosch company submitted documents to the High Commissioner of the US zone in Germany, John McCloy, about Berger’s humane treatment of prisoners of war, thanks to which his prison term was reduced to 10 years. And on December 15, 1951, the former SS Obergruppenführer was released for good behavior. Representatives of the Bosch company helped Berger successfully undergo the denazification process and found him a job in one of the newspapers in Stuttgart. True, Berger was soon fired from there because of his collaboration with the neo-Nazi magazine Nation Europe. For some time he lived in the small town of Böblingen, and at the end of his life he moved to his home village of Gerstetten, where he died on January 5, 1975.
In the post-war years different countries Several trials took place against SS fine-guards. Some former members of the Sonderkommando - those who did not join the formation of their own free will and, being anti-fascists, remained true to their convictions - were able to avoid any retribution for serving in the SS, and some of them even managed to occupy high positions ( for example, Alfred Neumann, who headed the Ministry of Material and Technical Supply in the GDR!). In the USSR, almost all punitive agents found during operational search activities were executed after trials or received long prison sentences.
The history of the formation of Dirlewanger, as if in a mirror, reflected the most unsightly and monstrous pictures of the Second World War and showed what deeds a group of people who are beyond the usual ideas of good and evil are capable of committing. This gathering of criminals left behind deep bloody wounds on the body of the Central and of Eastern Europe, which are still making themselves felt.
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The word “Sonderkommando” in pure translation from German means “separate unit”, “special unit” - this is already his true meaning in the context. Quite ordinary army terminology, theoretically existing in armed forces ah of all German-speaking states to this day. In principle, a harmless formulation. But when we mention this name somehow in itself, most of us first associate it with the dark events of the Second World War. In the German army of that period, a huge number of special forces or groups for various purposes existed and were formed to carry out various operations, and most of them also bore the name “Sonderkommando”, but still, the punitive detachments that acted with horrifying cruelty were most strongly recorded in history under this concept. , as a rule, behind the front line in occupied territories. The main tasks of such units were counter-guerrilla actions, suppression of the insurgency and intimidation of the local population, and implementation of the then Nazi policy of genocide.
Without a doubt, the most famous and most successful armed formation in this field was the SS Sonderkommando under the command of Oskar Dirlewanger, which over time grew from the size of an army battalion into a regiment, and then into an entire SS division, named after its permanent commander. Wherever Dirlewanger's men appeared, they left behind horror, death and rivers of shed blood, striking with their cruelty even seasoned front-line soldiers with the strongest nerves.
It was on the basis of the actions of such formations that the entire SS was recognized at the end of the war as a criminal organization, without division into ideological, punitive, police or purely military units.
Who were these people in military uniform and with weapons in their hands, whose deeds even today, more than half a century later, we still talk about with a shudder? What drove them to do what they did? Were they Nazi fanatics or, on the contrary, victims of the regime? There is information that punitive detachments were often made up of concentration camp prisoners or captured army deserters, obliged to atone for their own crimes with blood or simply forced to do so, is this true? Is it possible to evaluate the operations they carried out from a purely military operational point of view? What explained the phenomenal success of this unit in fulfilling its tasks? Can a formation such as the Sonderkommando Dirlewanger even be considered a military unit in the full sense of this definition?
It is not surprising that, unlike huge amount archival material about the actions of the most different parts Wehrmacht and SS throughout the Second World War, there are very few documents about the operations of punitive detachments, and almost nothing at all has been preserved about the special unit “Dirlewanger” - there was nothing special to be proud of for posterity, and the Nazis tried to destroy everything possible against the backdrop of the end of the regime. Nevertheless, thanks to truly German pedantry and immortal paper bureaucracy, in the depths of the military archives of the East and West, you can still find a certain amount of both directly relevant and indirect documentation, one way or another shedding light on this little-studied topic: reports on some operations , requirements for commissaries, departmental correspondence and documents of other military units, which mention the actions of the Sonderkommando, etc. It is on these data, as well as the extremely small number of existing publications, that my attempt to shed a little light on this dark and little-known chapter in the history of the Second World War is based. world war, and also, as far as possible, impartially analyze the successes and failures combat use Sonderkommando "Dirlewanger" when performing tactical tasks and operations in various military zones behind the front line and on the front line.
Germany - 1940. Offenders
Probably, we need to start with the fact that from the very beginnings of its existence, the Sonderkommando was already conceived as a penal formation. Now all attempts to guess for what purpose this unit was originally created would be pure speculation, but the fact is that penal companies and battalions in all the armies of the world and at all times were created to perform the most “menial jobs”, and not to participate in parades in front of the lenses of photojournalists and cameramen - this is a naked fact that does not require confirmation. This is also how the story of the Sonderkommando Dirlewanger began. But the most noteworthy is the fact that, unlike the great many military penal units created on the basis of regiments or divisions and naturally subordinate to them, the decision to create this particular unit arose right at the “very top” of the Third Reich, and all the time During its existence, Sonderkommando Dirlewanger was actually directly subordinate to the central SS apparatus, and not to the local military command. From this we can already conclude that the future use of the Sonderkommando was to be very specific.
From the testimony of SS-Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger at the Nuremberg Tribunal:
“...The Dirlewanger Brigade arose thanks to the decision of Adolf Hitler, made back in 1940 during the Western Campaign. One day, Himmler called me to his place and said that Hitler had ordered to find and gather all the people who were at that moment serving a sentence for poaching with firearms, and to form them into a special military unit ... "
It was quite strange that the vegetarian Hitler, who despised hunting and was generally known to dislike hunters themselves, should suddenly become interested in armed poachers, but Berger explains it this way:
“...Shortly before this, he received a letter from a woman whose husband was a so-called “Old Party Comrade.” This man was illegally hunting deer in the National Forests and was caught in the act. At that moment, the man was already in prison, and his wife asked the Fuhrer to give him the opportunity to make amends by distinguishing himself at the front... This was the impetus..."
SS-Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger
“...in accordance with these orders, I came into contact with the chief of the Imperial Criminal Police, Nebe, and we agreed that by the end of the summer all suitable candidates would be selected and sent to the barracks in Oranienburg...”
The first officially recorded mention in the archives of the possibility of creating a new special unit specifically from convicted poachers actually appears even before the start of active hostilities in the West.
On March 23, 1940, the adjutant of Reichsführer SS Himmler, SS Gruppenführer Karl Wolf, contacted by telephone the adviser to the Reich Minister of Justice and informed him that the Fuhrer had decided to grant amnesty to some convicted poachers in order to send them subsequently to atone for their guilt at the front, also adding that the letter, The Reichsfuehrer will personally sign this decision and send it the next day. The adviser, a certain Sommer, made a note about the conversation in his desk journal and passed on the information received above, namely to the ministerial secretary, a convinced Nazi, for whom every word of the Fuhrer was law, Dr. Roland Freisler. Freisler set to work so diligently that the search and selection of people convicted of poaching actually began even before the ministry received official letter Himmler. It arrived only a week later, on March 30, 1940. In the document, the Reichsführer emphasized Hitler’s personal interest in this action, and also clarified some specific details: firstly, only people involved in poaching with firearms could fall under the amnesty program, secondly, preference in the selection was given to convicts from Austria and Bavaria. A little later, another clarification appeared - only real “professional” repeat offenders deserved attention, and not beginners or simply people arrested by accident while trying to hunt without permission. According to the first assumptions, it was decided to form a special sniper brigade from the poachers selected in this way. And since the initiative actually came from the Reichsfuehrer’s apparatus, it was quite natural that the formation of a new unit naturally fell under the auspices of the SS. In this regard, many questions immediately arose: for example, how to include prisoners in the selection program of the SS, proclaimed to be the elite of the elite of the nation, or whether to take into account the terms of imprisonment of each specific candidate?.. Can professional poachers imprisoned for crimes be considered as candidates? other offenses, etc.
An entire motorcycle platoon of the Slovak army on the side of the partisans during the uprising
December 5, 1944 Soviet Second The Ukrainian front under the command of Marshal Malinovsky went on the offensive, striking from the area of the city of Gatvan in the northeast of Budapest in the direction of the junction of the positions of the German 6th and 8th armies. Soviet troops, which included, among other things, two guards tank armies - the 6th and 7th - covered about 90 km in the first week of fighting, bypassing Budapest from the north. Until December 10, Sonderkommando Dirlewanger was in positions along the Slovak-Hungarian border between the cities of Nitra and Levice. On December 12, 1944, Sonderkommando forces of 4 battalions were in the city of Ipolisag, which was taken by the Red Army by December 14. During the retreat, many buildings in the city were blown up by Sonderkommando soldiers.
On December 19, 1944, in the documents of the German armed forces, the unit is called the “SS Assault Brigade “Dirlewanger” and is subordinate to the 4th Panzer Corps of the 8th Army, the unit has two regiments, each of them has three battalions of four companies, a separate reconnaissance company and two artillery batteries.
By December 21, the Sonderkommando moved to our area. point Polost, and the next day Dirlewanger attacked Polost, knocking out enemy troops from it and taking possession of an important commanding height. On December 23, the Sonderkommando continued to successfully counterattack, repelling Soviet troops the next height is southwest of the city. On the 26th of the same month, the Red Army again went on the offensive, striking with greatly superior forces on the right flank of the Dirlewanger assault brigade, forcing the SS men to retreat to our area by the end of the month. point Masovce and us. Previdza point. At this moment, the brigade consisted of five battalions, an artillery battalion of two artillery batteries, a battery of heavy rocket launchers, reconnaissance company, as well as various auxiliary units in the total number of about a company.
One day in December, after carrying out another counterattack, the commander of Army Group South, Colonel General Johannes Freisner, arrived at the Sonderkommando. When Freisner arrived, Dirlewanger was sitting at the table in his headquarters and smoking, playing with a tame monkey sitting on his shoulder. According to the Colonel General, neither the unit commander himself nor the people at his headquarters had the slightest idea about the real situation at the front, but at the same time Dirlewanger simply announced his intention to retreat. Freisner immediately forbade him to retreat and ordered him to gain a foothold and hold his positions. That same evening, Freissner, who considered Dirlewanger's unit to be an undisciplined and uncontrollable crowd, again went to the Sonderkommando headquarters to make sure that his order was carried out, but neither SS-Oberführer Dirlewanger, nor his headquarters, nor the soldiers of his unit were no longer there.
The SS assault brigade “Dirlewanger” celebrated the New Year, 1945, in the area of the Slovak city of Zvolen.
On January 25, 1945, the complex materials of the investigation into the charges of SS-Oberführer Oskar Dirlewanger, resumed by the SS Office of Justice since April 1943, finally reached the desk of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Having familiarized himself with the contents of several folders marked “Secret”, Himmler simply ordered the investigation into SS-Oberführer Dr. Dirlewanger to be stopped, without explaining his decision in any way. Having been constantly under the sword of Damocles of various judicial bodies since 1934 for a long time, Dirlewanger was now, in fact, finally freed from this threat in the highest of all possible instances.
By February 2, 1945, the Sonderkommando was already in the area northeast of Bratislava, from where it was soon railway transferred to the territory of already warring Germany - to Dresden.
Germany -1945. The end under new command
The first records of the combat actions of the SS assault brigade "Dirlewanger" on German territory begin with a message about the capture on February 15 and retention of the villages of Somerfeld, Christianstadt and Naumburg, and from this moment the unit already appears in official headquarters documents under a new name - SS Grenadier Division No. 36 Thus, February 15, 1945 can be considered the birthday of a new unit in the German armed forces - the 36th SS Infantry Division, as well as the day of its first baptism of fire.
The next day, the forces of the 36th SS Division occupied two more small settlements in the area.
The procedure for maintaining discipline in the unit has not changed, and here in Germany, one of the former political prisoners from among the personnel describes what happened to him:
“...My personal acquaintance with Dirlewanger occurred in February 1945. Through field binoculars, he watched as I drove a horse-drawn cart with ammunition under fire. Then he stopped me and accused me of cowardice, since I did not respond to enemy fire with fire. After I told him that at that moment I did not even have time to have such a desire, he beat me so that I fell to the ground covered in blood. In addition to this, three days later I also received 30 blows with a ramrod “for cowardice in the face of the enemy” on Dirlewanger’s personal order.
Also on February 15 or 16, Dirlewanger himself was once again wounded, apparently, as usual, again personally leading his soldiers in one of the counterattacks. In addition to this, his old chest wound opened. After a short stay in a field hospital, Oskar Dirlewanger was sent to the rear for treatment, then he was prescribed a long leave for health reasons. SS-Brigadeführer Fritz Schmedes was appointed in his place as commander of the newly formed division. Also in February 1945, another new officer appeared in the unit - SS-Obersturmführer Theodor Kretzer.
On February 17, Sonderkommando fighters entrenched in Somerfeld repulsed a strong attack Soviet army, destroying 1 tank, after which they themselves counterattacked the enemy. The successful SS counterattack continued the next day.
On February 20, the unit underwent its final reorganization, already as the 36th Waffen-SS Rifle Division, and it now also included Wehrmacht units.
The composition of the newly formed 36th SS Division was as follows:
72nd Waffen-SS Grenadier Regiment.
73rd Waffen-SS Grenadier Regiment.
SS Artillery Section No. 36.
SS Motorized Reconnaissance Company No. 36.
SS Signal Company No. 36.
Tank department of the Wehrmacht "Stansdorf 1".
681st Anti-Tank Division of the Wehrmacht.
687th Engineer Brigade of the Wehrmacht.
Wehrmacht motorized rifle regiment No. 1244.
Each of the SS grenadier regiments consisted of five companies, organized into two battalions, the weak artillery department of SS No. 36 consisted of only two batteries, a motorized SS reconnaissance company and an SS communications company with their own personnel and technical support met normal army standards. The 1244th Infantry Regiment of the Wehrmacht was a varied mixture of personnel and was very similar to the formation of the Volksgrenadiers: about a quarter were shelled front-line soldiers, 50% were mobilized cadets of the non-commissioned officer schools and junior command schools located in the vicinity in Treptow, Prenzlau, Freiberg, Mengerskirchen, Eutin and Deggendorf, the rest were Volkssturm recruits, that is, mostly elderly people and teenagers called up to serve as the last human resources of the dying Third Reich. The tank department "Stansdorf 1" joined the division with three tank companies - two of them each had 14 self-propelled units"Sturmgeschütz", the third was armed with mostly outdated tanks various types. Anti-tank department No. 681, which had previously participated in battles on the Western Front as part of the 1st Army, consisted of two artillery companies and was armed with 88-mm guns - the most successful guns of the German army in World War II. The 687th Engineer Brigade, consisting of two battalions, joined the new SS division at Rathenow.