Partners in Genocide: The German Police and the Wehrmacht in the Soviet Union

Abstract

In the Soviet Union, SS and police forces adopted the strategy of the direct approach as the keystone of German security policy in the occupied territories. Operating in conjunction with Wehrmacht units and indigenous auxiliaries, Reich Leader of the SS and Chief of the German Police Heinrich Himmler's Uniformed Police (Ordnungspolizei) battalions, became essential instruments in the subjugation, exploitation, and pacification of the German rear areas. This essay examines the cooperative relationship that developed between SS and police forces, the Wehrmacht, and indigenous auxiliaries during the German anti-partisan campaign in the East. On the one hand, the cooperation of the police with the German armed forces reflected a true ‘inter-agency’ approach to counter-insurgency warfare; an approach formalised in policy agreements between both organisations prior to the 1941 invasion of Russia and cemented in combined operations aimed at Soviet partisans and their supporters. On the other hand, this analysis of combined operations between German SS and police and Wehrmacht forces offers further evidence of the key role played by the German Army and Air Force in the anti-partisan campaign, and ultimately genocide.

Key Words:

• Uniformed Police
• Wehrmacht
• Atrocity
• SS
• Holocaust
• Counterinsurgency
• Soviet Union
• Poland

Notes

¹Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, Peacekeeping[1971] (Hamden, CT: Archon 1974), 49.

²C.E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice[1896], 3rd edn. (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press 1996 1906).

³Ibid., 21, 24.

⁴Ibid., 41. Callwell's sentence ends ‘still it is unfortunate when this is the case.’

⁵See Edward B. Westermann, Hitler's Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East (Lawrence: UP of Kansas 2005); Ben Shepherd, War in the Wild East: German Army and Soviet Partisans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 2004); Manfred Oldenburg, Ideologie und militärisches Kalkül: Die Besatzungspolitik der Wehrmacht in der Sowjetunion 1942 (Cologne: Böhlau 2004); Christian Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde: Die deutsche Wirtschafts- und Vernichtungspolitik in Weißrußland 1941 bis 1944 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition 1999).

⁶Omer Bartov, Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich (Oxford: OUP 1992).

⁷Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939–March 1942 (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press 2004), 274–5.

⁸Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann (eds.), War of Extermination: The German Military in World War II, 1941–1944 (New York: Berghahn 2000), 97.

⁹Wolfram Wette, The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality, trans. Deborah Lucas Schneider (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 2006), 106–7, 125–31.

¹⁰Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, vol. 1, rev. edn. (New York: Holmes & Meier 1985), 301.

¹¹Shepherd, War in the Wild East, 89.

¹²Oldenburg, Ideologie und militärisches Kalkül, 160–2.

¹³Peter Witte et al. (eds.), Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers, 1941/42 (Hamburg: Christians 1999), 294.

¹⁴Barch [Bundesarchiv], NS 19 [Persönlicher Stab Reichsführer SS], folder 1706, p.28, Report from Himmler to Hitler, 10 May 1943.

¹⁵Bernd Wegner, The Waffen-SS: Organization, Ideology, and Function, trans. Ronald Webster (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1990), 106–29.

¹⁶See Alexander Rossino, Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity (Lawrence: UP of Kansas 2003).

¹⁷NARA [National Archives and Records Administration], T580 [Captured German Documents Microfilmed at the Berlin Document Center], reel 96, ‘Vortrag über die Deutsche Ordnungspolizei’, 2 Sept. 1940.

¹⁸Elisabeth Wagner (ed.), Der General Quartiermeister: Briefe und Tagebuchaufzeichnungen des Generalquartiermeisters des Heeres General der Artillerie Eduard Wagner (Munich: Günter Olzog 1963), 127.

¹⁹NARA, T580, reel 216, file 2, ‘Die Ordnungspolizei jederzeit einsatzbereit’, 13 Feb. 1941.

²⁰NARA, T580, reel 96, Oberfeldkommandantur 530, 12 Sept. 1939.

²¹NARA, T580, reel 96, Oberfeldkommandantur 530, 23 Dec. 1939.

²²NARA, T580, reel 37, Der Reichsführer SS, 13 Sept. 1939.

²³See John Horne and Alan Kramer, ‘German “Atrocities” and Franco-German Opinion, 1914: The Evidence of German Soldiers’ Diaries’, Journal of Modern History 66 (March 1994), 1–33.

²⁴German propaganda depictions include: Rolf Bathe, Der Feldzug der 18 Tage: Chronik des Polnischen Dramas (Berlin: Gerhard Stalling 1939), 29–44; Helmuth Koschorke, Polizeireiter in Polen (Berlin: Franz Schneider 1940), 40–50.

²⁵Rossino, Hitler Strikes Poland, 62.

²⁶Ibid., 64.

²⁷Klaus-Michael Mallmann, ‘‘‘Mißgeburten, die nicht auf diese Welt gehören”: Die deutsche Ordnungspolizei in Polen 1939–1941’, in Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Bogdan Musial (eds.), Genesis des Genozids: Polen 1939–1941 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2004), 74.

²⁸NARA, T501 [Records of the German Field Commands: Rear Areas, Occupied Territories, and Others], reel 229, frame 568, ‘Verordnung über Waffenbesitz vom 12. Sept. 1939’.

²⁹Mallmann, ‘Mißgeburten’, 73.

³⁰NARA, T580, reel 216, file 5, ‘Der Weg der Ordnungspolizei’, 23 Jan. 1939.

³¹Helmut Krausnick, Hans Buchheim, Martin Broszat and Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Anatomy of the SS State, trans. Richard Barry, Marian Jackson, and Dorothy Long (New York: Walker 1968), 216.

³²NARA, T580, reel 88, file 437, ‘Betrifft: Säuberungsaktion östlich der Weichsel’, 7 Dec. 1939.

³³ SS: Unter Sigrune und Adler (Krakau: Buchverlag Ost 1940), 5.

³⁴USHMMA [US Holocaust Memorial Museum Archive, Washington DC], RG 15.011M [Der Kommandeur der Gendarmerie im Distrikt Lublin], reel 20, file 271, ‘Der Höh. SS-u. Pol.-Fhr Ost, Betr. Verhältnis Wehrmacht, SS und Polizei’, 24 Dec. 1939.

³⁵Barch, RH 1 [Adjutantur des Chefs der Heeresleitung/Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres], folder 58, p.80, Oberbefehlshaber Ost, 9 April 1940.

³⁶Barch, RH 1, folder 58, pp.83–4, Oberbefehlshaber Ost, 9 April 1940.

³⁷Jochen Böhler, Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg: Die Wehrmacht in Polen, 1939 (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer Taschenbuch 2006), 239–40.

³⁸Westermann, Hitler's Police Battalions, 145–6.

³⁹Böhler, Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg, 238–9.

⁴⁰See Mallmann and Musial (eds.), Genesis des Genozids.

⁴¹Westermann, Hitler's Police Battalions, 146.

⁴²Barch, RH 1, folder 58, p. 80, Oberbefehlshaber Ost, 9 April 1940.

⁴³Jürgen Förster, ‘Operation Barbarossa as a War of Conquest and Annihilation’, in Research Institute for Military History (eds.), The Attack on the Soviet Union trans. Dean S. McMurry, Ewald Osers, and Louise Wilmot (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1998), 482.

⁴⁴Helmut Krausnick, Hitlers Einsatzgruppen: Die Truppen des Weltanschauungskrieges, 1939–1942 (Frankfurt/M: Fischer Taschenbuch 1981), 100–1.

⁴⁵Arnold Lissance (ed.), The Halder Diaries, vol. 2 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1976), 846.

⁴⁶Förster, ‘Operation Barbarossa’, 496–507.

⁴⁷Peter Klein (ed.), Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion, 1941/42 (Berlin: Druckhaus Hentrich 1997), 367–8.

⁴⁸Barch, NS 19, folder 2818, fiche 1, frame 1, Oberkommando des Heeres, 6 May 1941.

⁴⁹Förster, ‘Securing Living Space’, 1225–35.

⁵⁰See Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, 4th edn. (London: Arnold 2000), 69–92.

⁵¹Edward B. Westermann, ‘Himmler's Uniformed Police on the Eastern Front, 1941–1942’, War in History 3 (1996), 309–29.

⁵²Martin Cüppers, Wegbereiter der Shoah: Die Waffen-SS, der Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS und die Judenvernichtung, 1939–1945 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2006), 125–7, 135–6.

⁵³Ibid., 137.

⁵⁴NARA, T580, reel 96, Der Chef der Ordnungspolizei, Feb. 1942.

⁵⁵Ben Shepherd, ‘Hawks, Doves and Tote Zonen: A Wehrmacht Security Division in Central Russia, 1943’, Journal of Contemporary History 37/3 (July 2002), 349–69, here 350.

⁵⁶Westermann, Hitler's Police Battalions, 177.

⁵⁷ Trials of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, vol. 38 (Nuremberg: Secretariat of the Military Tribunal 1949), 92.

⁵⁸Gerhard Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1994), 264.

⁵⁹ZStl [Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen, Ludwigsburg], CSSR (Russland), folder 147, 59a–59d, Kommandostab RFSS, 28 July 1941.

⁶⁰Leon Kahn, No Time to Mourn: The True Story of a Jewish Partisan Fighter (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press 2004), 117.

⁶¹NARA, T175 [Records of the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police], reel 3, frame 2503434, Der Chef der Ordnungspolizei, 17 Nov. 1941. Emphasis in original.

⁶²Barch, RH 26-221, folder 13b, Sich.-Division 221, 12 Aug. 1941. Emphasis in original.

⁶³Barch, RH 26-221, folder 13a, Der Befehlshaber des rückw. Heeres-Gebietes Mitte, 19 Sept. 1941.

⁶⁴Reinhard Rürup, Der Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion, 1941–1945 (Berlin: Argon-Verlag 1991), 122. In this order, the commander of Sixth Army Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau noted that ’The primary goal of the campaign against the Jewish-Bolshevist system is the complete destruction of the power structure and the extermination of the Asiatic influence in the European cultural centre‘, providing one of the clearest expressions of the racial and apocalyptic nature of the war against the Soviet Union.

⁶⁵Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen, 1941–1945 (Bonn: J.H.W. Dietz 1991), 107–8.

⁶⁶Barch, R 19, folder 333, page 5, Der Reichsführer SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei, 2 Aug. 1941.

⁶⁷USHMMA, RG 53.002M [Selected Records of the Belarus Central State Archive, Minsk], folder 698, Der Kommandant in Weissruthenien des Wehrmachtbefehlshaber Ostland, 18 Nov. 1941. The majority of Gendarmerie forces in the occupied East consisted of small outposts responsible for literally hundreds of square kilometers. As a result, German Gendarmes routinely relied on indigenous police forces under their command to conduct operations.

⁶⁸USHMMA, RG 15.011M, reel 21, frame 279, Der Kommandeur der Ordnungspolizei im Distrikt Lublin, 18 July 1941.

⁶⁹Lissance, Halder, 1355. This number excludes medical casualties.

⁷⁰Barch, NS 19, reel 1671, frame 155, Oberkommando des Heeres, 28 March 1942.

⁷¹Barch, NS 19, reel 1671, frame 156, Der Reichsführer-SS, 31 March 1942.

⁷²Truman Anderson, ‘Incident at Baranivka: German Reprisals and the Soviet Partisan Movement in Ukraine, October–December 1941’, Journal of Modern History 71/3 (Sept. 1999), 602.

⁷³USHMMA, RG 53.002M, folder 698, Der Kommandant in Weissruthenien des Wehrmachtbefehlshaber Ostland, 24 Nov. 1941. Emphasis in original.

⁷⁴Barch, NS 19, reel 1671, frame 11, ‘Betr.: Lage im Reichskommissariat Ukraine’, 5 March 1942.

⁷⁵USHMMA, RG 15.011M, reel 21, frame 278, ‘Einsatzbericht’, 10 June 1943.

⁷⁶USHMMA, RG 53.002M, fond 658, reel 5, folder 3, Der Kdeur. d. Gend. Shitomir, 15 Sept. 1942.

⁷⁷Barch, NS 19, reel 1671, frame 110, Der Reichminister für die besetzten Ostgebiete, 25 Aug. 1942.

⁷⁸ Trials of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, vol. 35 (Nuremberg: Secretariat of the Military Tribunal, 1949), 408.

⁷⁹Barch, NS 19, reel 1671, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, 23 July 1942.

⁸⁰BArch, NS 19, reel 1671, frames 118-119, personal letter to Himmler, 5 Sept. 1942.

⁸¹BArch, NS 19, reel 1671, frame 77, Kommandostab RF-SS, 28 July 1942.

⁸²USHMMA, RG 48.004M [Records of the Military Historical Institute, Prague], reel 2, frames 201615–201616, ‘Tagesbefehl Nr. 27’, 31 July 1942.

⁸³Daluege Collection, Former Berlin Document Center, Der Reichsführer SS, 17 June 1942.

⁸⁴BArch, NS 19, reel 1671, frame 77, Kommandostab RF-SS, 28 July 1942.

⁸⁵BArch, NS 19, reel 1671, frames 87–8, Der Reichsführer-SS, 7 Aug. 1942.

⁸⁶For a discussion of this issue, see Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship.

⁸⁷See Rüdiger Hachtmann and Winfried Süss (eds.), Hitlers Kommissare: Sondergewalten in der nationalsozialistischen Diktatur (Göttingen: Wallstein 2006).

⁸⁸Dieter Pohl, ‘Die Kooperation zwischen Heer, SS und Polizei in den besetzten sowjetischen Gebieten’, in Christian Hartmann, Johannes Hürter and Ulrike Jureit (eds.), Verbrechen der Wehrmacht: Bilanz einer Debatte (Munich: C.H. Beck 2005), 112, 115.

⁸⁹Ibid., The Wehrmacht also created its own auxiliary forces, Osttruppen (Eastern Troops). In Army Group North alone, there were almost 70,000 Eastern Troops by July 1943. See Timothy P. Mulligan, The Politics of Illusion and Empire: German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1942–1943 (New York: Praeger 1988), 147–61.

⁹⁰Leonid Rein, ‘Local Collaboration in the Execution of the “Final Solution” in Nazi-Occupied Belorussia’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies 20 (Winter 2006), 393.

⁹¹Ralph Peters, ‘The Roots of Today's War’, USATODAY.COM, <http://blogsusatoday.com/oped/2007/02/the_roots_of_to.html> (accessed 9 Aug. 2007); idem, ‘Plan B for Iraq’, Armed Forces Journal (Nov. 2006), <www.afji.com/2006/11/2129512> (accessed 18 April 2008). Ralph Peters is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and a frequent commentator on US military issues.