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91-411: It was intended that the auxiliary police would consist of one policeman for every 100 villagers and one policeman for every 300 city residents. On July 7, 1941, the commander of Army Group Centre , General Max von Schenckendorf , in the occupied territory of Belarus, issued an order to create a local administration and order service called Miliz or Order Service ( German : Ordnungsdienst ; OD). After

182-571: A doctorate in political science in 1922, he worked at a bank and at a knitwear factory. By 1923 he had joined the Nazi Party . In 1934 he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for "contributing to the delinquency of a minor with whom he was sexually involved", and for stealing government property. The conviction led to him being expelled from the Nazi Party (but he was permitted to reapply for membership). Soon after his release, Dirlewanger

273-498: A "terrifying rabble" of "cut-throats, renegades, sadistic morons, and cashiered rejects from other units". Some Nazi officials romanticized the unit, viewing the men as "pure primitive German men" who were "resisting the law". During the organization's time in the Soviet Union, Dirlewanger's unit burned women and children alive, let packs of starved dogs feed on them, and injected Jewish women with strychnine . Transcripts of

364-671: A colonel from the Allied Forces High Command was escorted through the American lines to see Schörner. The colonel reported that Schörner had ordered the men under his operational command to observe the surrender but that he could not guarantee that he would be obeyed everywhere. Later that day, Schörner deserted his command and flew to Austria where on 18 May 1945 he was arrested by the Americans. Dirlewanger Brigade The Dirlewanger Brigade , also known as

455-471: A division of 4,000 men, regular army units were attached to the formation, a Grenadier regiment, a Pionier brigade, and a Panzerjäger battalion. Individual Sturmpionier demolition engineers had already been attached to the force during the fighting in Warsaw. The next day, Dirlewanger was seriously wounded in combat for the twelfth time during the counterattack to recapture the town of Sommerfeld. He

546-565: A front that included the river Neisse . Before dawn on the morning of 16 April 1945 the 1st Ukrainian Front under the command of General Konev started the attack over the river Neisse with a short but massive bombardment by tens of thousands of artillery pieces. Some of the Army Group Centre continued to resist until 11 May 1945, by which time the overwhelming force of the Soviet Armies sent to liberate Czechoslovakia in

637-562: A month of fighting, the brigade suffered many casualties and was pulled back to Slovakia to refit and reorganize. In February 1945, orders were given to expand the brigade to a division but before this could begin it was sent north to the Oder-Neisse line to halt the Soviet advance. On 14 February 1945, the brigade was renamed the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS. With its expansion to

728-503: A postponement of the offensive against Moscow in order to conquer Ukraine first. The commander in chief as of 19 December 1941 was Günther von Kluge (for a short time before Christmas of 1941, this role was fulfilled by Günther Blumentritt ). 1942 opened for Army Group Centre with continuing attacks from Soviet forces around Rzhev. The German Ninth Army was able to repel these attacks and stabilise its front, despite continuing large-scale partisan activity in its rear areas. Meanwhile,

819-574: A pro-Soviet version of the resistance to the German invaders." Army Group Centre Army Group Centre ( German : Heeresgruppe Mitte ) was the name of two distinct strategic German Army Groups that fought on the Eastern Front in World War II . The first Army Group Centre was created during the planning of Operation Barbarossa , Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, as one of

910-659: A regiment. Over 700 men signed up as volunteers for the battalion, and most of them arrived in June 1944. Additionally, the battalion included 300 anti-communists from Soviet territory. In March 1943, together with the Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118 , carried out operations against partisans and civilians in the Smalyavichy and Lahoysk districts. It participated in the Khatyn Massacre , which

1001-496: A reputation for burying women and children alive. A witness reported "drunken soldiers practicing Caesarean sections with bayonets". During the massacres, Dirlewanger was notorious for plundering, with it being noted that, The desire to plunder . . . so great that they cut off fingers with a single blow, on which they noticed rings, so as not to waste time, they took out gold teeth with bayonets, and while plundering, out of greed, they killed each other. In what became known as

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1092-569: A while the auxiliary police, being locals, not only led the Jews out of the ghettos to places of massacres but also took active part in the shooting actions. Such tactic was successful (without much exertion of force) in places where the destruction of the Jews was carried out in early September, and throughout October and November 1941. In winter 1942, a different tactic was used – the killing raids in Zhlobin , Pyetrykaw , Streszyn, Chachersk. The role of

1183-642: The Allgemeine SS (General SS) with the rank of SS- Untersturmführer . In mid-1940, after the invasion of Poland , Berger arranged for Dirlewanger to command and train a military unit of convicted poachers for partisan-hunting ( Bandenbekämpfung ). On 23 March 1940, a department in the Ministry of Justice received a telephone call from Himmler's headquarters informing them that Adolf Hitler had decided to give "suspended sentences to so-called 'honourable poachers' and, depending on their behaviour at

1274-598: The SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger (1944), or the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS ( German : 36. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS ), or The Black Hunters ( German : Die schwarzen Jäger ), was a unit of the Waffen-SS during World War II . The unit, named after its commander Oskar Dirlewanger , consisted of convicted criminals. Originally formed from convicted poachers in 1940 and first deployed for counter-insurgency duties against

1365-554: The 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division , was assigned to the Dirlewanger Brigade by Himmler as punishment for refusing to carry out orders. With his extensive combat experience, Schmedes became the unofficial advisor to Dirlewanger on front-line combat. In December, the brigade was sent to the front in Hungary. While fighting there, several new battalions made up of communist and socialist volunteers fell apart. During

1456-573: The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (modern Belarus ) was occupied in 1941 and formed part of Reichskommissariat Ostland . In this region, the unit came under the command of local HSSPF Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski . The unit resumed its so-called anti-partisan activities ( Bandenbekämpfung ), working in cooperation with the Kaminski Brigade , a militia force composed of Soviet nationals under

1547-736: The Nisko Plan ) in the General Government territory of German-occupied Poland . According to the historian, Matthew Cooper, "wherever the Dirlewanger unit operated, corruption and rape formed an every-day part of life and indiscriminate slaughter, beatings and looting were rife". Even within the brutal regime of the General Government concerns were raised about the unit's conduct. Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer (HSSPF) Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger eventually demanded

1638-543: The Nuremberg trials show Soviet prosecutors frequently questioning defendants accused of war crimes on the Eastern Front about their knowledge of the Dirlewanger Brigade. Heinrich Himmler noted the brutality of Dirlewanger , expressing that "The tone in the regiment is, I may say, in many cases a medieval one with cudgels and such things. If anyone expresses doubts about winning the war he is likely to fall dead from

1729-685: The Polish resistance movement , the brigade saw service in German-occupied Eastern Europe , with an especially active role in the anti-partisan operations in Belarus . The unit is regarded as the most brutal and notorious Waffen-SS unit, with its soldiers described as the "ideal genocidal killers who neither gave nor expected quarter". The unit is regarded as the most infamous Waffen-SS unit in Poland and Belarus , and arguably

1820-569: The Prague Offensive gave them no option but to surrender or be killed. By 7 May 1945, the day that German Chief-of-Staff General Alfred Jodl was negotiating surrender of all German forces at SHAEF , the German Armed Forces High Command (AFHC) had not heard from Schörner since 2 May 1945. He had reported that he intended to fight his way west and surrender his army group to the Americans. On 8 May 1945,

1911-602: The SS Special Battalion Dirlewanger and other destruction units. They included the 46th Belarusian Battalion from Novogrodek, the 47th Belarusian Battalion from Minsk, the 51st Belarusian Battalion from Volozhin, and the 49th Belarusian Battalion also from Minsk. Little is known about the specifics of the wartime atrocities committed by the Belarusian Auxiliary Police in the vast number of small Belarusian communities because

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2002-549: The Slovak National Uprising began in late August 1944, the new brigade was committed to action. The brigade played a large part in putting down the rebellion by 30 October. With the outcome of the war no longer in doubt, large numbers of communist and socialist political prisoners began applying to join the unit in the hopes of defecting to the Soviets. SS- Brigadeführer Fritz Schmedes , former commander of

2093-556: The Wehrmacht that the main Soviet summer offensive would be launched further south, against Army Group North Ukraine . The German High Command was fooled and armored units were moved south out of Army Group Centre. The Soviet offensive, code-named Operation Bagration , was launched on 22 June 1944, the third anniversary of Germany's own invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa. 185 Red Army divisions, comprising 2.3 million soldiers and 4,000 tanks and assault guns, smashed into

2184-662: The Wola massacre , RONA and Dirlewanger personnel indiscriminately massacred Polish combatants along with civilian men, women and children, in the Wola District of Warsaw . However, the role of Dirlewanger in the Wola massacre itself may have been limited in the beginning days, and Dirlewanger may not have arrived himself until the 7th of August. Up to 40,000 civilians were murdered in Wola in less than two weeks of August, including all hospital patients and staff. According to

2275-765: The 73rd Waffen Grenadier Regiment of the SS within the division, was severely wounded and lost an arm during the battle in Halbe, according to former Oberst SS-Hauptsturmführer Harald Momm who commanded the II.battalion in Ehlers's regiment. Ehlers joined the unit on 15 September 1944 . Ehlers served in the SS-Totenkopfverbände as a company commander in Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Some account had him hung by his own troops and disemboweled. On 1 May 1945,

2366-516: The Belarusian police in the killings became particularly noticeable during the second wave of the ghetto liquidation actions, starting in February–March 1942. During Operation Cottbus which began on 20 May 1943 in the areas of Begoml , Lyepyel and Ushachy , a number of Belarusian auxiliary police battalions took part in the mass murder of unarmed civilians (predominantly Jews), along with

2457-759: The Belarusian police's involvement in the Holocaust is not acknowledged publicly in the country. Article 28 in the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus , under the "Procedures Governing Access to Documents Containing Information Relating to the Secret Life of Private Citizens" (added in July 1996) denies access to information about Belarusians who served with the Nazis. "The official memorial narrative allows only

2548-454: The Dirlewanger troops looted, gang-raped women and children, played 'bayonet catch' with live babies and tortured captives by hacking off their arms, dousing them with petrol and setting them alight to run flaming down the street. The soldiers' behaviour was so bad that even Himmler became alarmed. He ordered a battalion of SS military policemen to stand by, in case the Dirlewanger troops turned on their own leaders or on nearby German units. When

2639-431: The German positions on a 200km-wide front. The 850,000-strong Army Group Centre was almost completely destroyed by the attack. It is estimated that over 450,000 Germans were killed, wounded, or captured, notably the 57,000 soldiers captured east of Minsk , who were paraded through Moscow on 17 July on Stalin's orders as proof of the immense success of the Soviet offensive. The Soviet forces raced forward, liberating Minsk and

2730-411: The German strategic focus on the Eastern Front shifted to southwestern Russia, with the launching of Operation Blue in June. This operation, aimed at the oilfields in the southwestern Caucasus , involved Army Group South alone, with the other German army groups giving up troops and equipment for the offensive. Despite the focus on the south, Army Group Centre continued to see fierce fighting throughout

2821-481: The Polish resistance. During the course of the two-month urban warfare Dirlewanger's regiment lost 2,733 men, 315% of the unit's initial strength. While some of the regiment's actions were criticized by Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski (who after the war described them as "a herd of pigs") and the sector commander, Generalmajor Günter Rohr , Dirlewanger was promoted to SS- Oberführer der Reserve on 12 August 1944 and

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2912-645: The Posen Police Group advanced north of the street. The assault was delayed and continued into the night due to the street being heavily defended. On 6 August 1944, Kampfgruppe Steinhauer arrived in Warsaw and, along with Kampfgruppe Meyer, immediately began their attack to reach the Brühl Palace .They eventually had advanced through Chlodna and Elektoralna streets. On the evening of 7 August 1944, after receiving orders from Himmler to return to his regiment, Dirlewanger flew back from Germany and united

3003-568: The SS, but under the control of the SS. Accordingly, the unit name was changed to Sonderkommando Dirlewanger ("Special Unit Dirlewanger"). As the unit strength grew, it was placed under the command of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (the formation responsible for the administration of the concentration camps ) and redesignated as the SS-Sonderbataillon Dirlewanger . In January 1942, to rebuild its strength,

3094-831: The Second World War. After enlisting in the German Army as a machine gunner in 1913, Dirlewanger served in the XIII (Royal Württemberg) Corps rising to the rank of Leutnant ( lieutenant ) and receiving the Iron Cross first and second class during WWI. He joined the Freikorps and took part in crushing the German Revolution of 1918–19 . After graduating from Frankfurt 's Goethe University with

3185-577: The Security Police and the SD, the other two branches were still fully under the military authorities. The number of police officers stationed at local posts was relatively small, assumed to be no more than 300 for each district and city, with 500 expected in larger cities. The threat from partisan units led to the rapid expansion of local forces and the formation of peasant militias in the form of Hilfs-OD units and village police. The Schutzmannschaften

3276-700: The Sonderkommando attempted to advance further using a shield of Polish women and children in front of them — but the Poles fired anyway and drove the Germans back. By 3 October 1944, the remaining Polish insurgents had surrendered and the remnants of the regiment spent the next month guarding the line along the Vistula . During this time, the regiment was made a brigade and named SS-Sonderbrigade Dirlewanger (SS Special Brigade Dirlewanger). In early October, it

3367-585: The Soviet Union was expected by mid-November. The Army Group's other operational missions were to support the army groups on its northern and southern flanks, the army group boundary for the later being the Pripyat River . Bitter fighting in the Battle of Smolensk as well as the Lötzen decision delayed the German advance for two months. The advance of Army Group Centre was further delayed as Hitler ordered

3458-479: The Soviet Union. Their armies, totaling over three million men, were to advance in three geographical directions. Army Group Centre's initial strategic goal was to defeat the Soviet armies in Belarus and occupy Smolensk. To accomplish this, the army group planned for a rapid advance using Blitzkrieg operational methods for which purpose it commanded two panzer groups rather than one. A quick and decisive victory over

3549-688: The Soviets wiped out all that was left of the unit in the Halbe pocket . Only a small remnant of the division managed an escape attempt to reach the US Army lines on the Elbe river . SS-Obersturmbannführer Kurt Weisse led a large group of around 400 men escaping from Halbe Pocket . He was later put in British captivity and escaped on 5 March 1946. His later fate is unknown. Schmedes and his staff(excluding Kurt Weisse) were taken prisoner in Soviet captivity. Schmedes

3640-599: The Special Commando Dirlewanger lost only ninety-two men—many of them, no doubt, to friendly fire and alcoholic accidents. A ratio such as that was possible only when the victims were unarmed civilians. In September 1942, the unit murdered 8,350 Jews in Baranovichi ghetto and then a further 389 people labelled "bandits" and 1,274 "bandit suspects". According to the historian, Martin Kitchen ,

3731-593: The Voronezh defensive operations, the army high command expected another attack on Army Group Centre in early 1943. However, Hitler had decided to strike first. Before this strike could be launched, Operation Büffel was launched to forestall any possible Soviet spring offensives, by evacuating the Rzhev Salient to shorten the frontline. The commander in chief as of 12 October 1943 was Ernst Busch . The following major anti-partisan operations were conducted in

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3822-763: The army group's commander until he was injured in October 1943 and replaced by Field Marshal Ernst Busch , who would then be replaced by Field Marshal Walter Model in June 1944. When Model was transferred to the Western Front in August 1944, he was replaced by Ferdinand Schörner , who would command the army group until his desertion in May 1945 after Germany surrendered to the Allies. On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany and its Axis allies launched their surprise offensive into

3913-490: The army group's sector that year, Operation Mars , took place in November. It was launched concurrently with Operation Uranus , the counteroffensive against the German assault on Stalingrad . The operation was repulsed with very heavy Soviet losses, although it did have the effect of pinning down German units that could have been sent to the fighting around Stalingrad. Following the disaster of Stalingrad and poor results of

4004-984: The army groups in the east changed names later that month. The force known as "Army Group Centre" at the start of the Soviet Vistula-Oder Offensive on 12 January 1945 was renamed "Army Group North" less than two weeks after the offensive commenced. At the start of the Vistula-Oder Offensive, the Soviet forces facing Army Group Centre outnumbered the Germans on average by 2:1 in troops, 3:1 in artillery, and 5.5:1 in tanks and self-propelled artillery. The Soviet superiority in troop strength grows to almost 3:1 if 200,000 Volkssturm militia are not included in German personnel strength totals. On 25 January 1945, Hitler renamed three army groups. Army Group North became Army Group Courland , Army Group Centre became Army Group North, and Army Group A became Army Group Centre. Army Group Centre fought in

4095-409: The battalion and by late February 1944, the battalion was back to full strength. It was decided that Eastern volunteers would no longer be admitted to the unit, as the Russians had proven to be particularly unreliable in combat. On 26 June 1944, an attachment of German Ordnungspolizei artillerymen led by Hauptmann der Schutzpolizei Josef Steinhauer was assigned to the second battalion. Steinhauer

4186-422: The brutal suppression of the Slovak National Uprising of August to October 1944. The eponymous Dirlewanger Brigade was led by World War I veteran and habitual offender , Oskar Dirlewanger, considered an amoral violent alcoholic who was claimed to have possessed a sadistic sexual fetish and a barbaric nature; he has been described as "the most evil man" in the SS and possibly the most sadistic commander of

4277-409: The command of Bronislav Kaminski . Dirlewanger's preferred method of operation was to gather civilians in a barn, set it on fire, and shoot at anyone who tried to escape; the victims of his unit numbered about 30,000. Some estimate around 200 villages were destroyed and around 120,000 were killed. According to historian Timothy Snyder , As it inflicted its first fifteen thousand mortal casualties,

4368-402: The criminally insane and homosexuals, also joined the unit. From the beginning, the formation attracted criticism from both the Nazi Party and the SS for the idea that convicted criminals who were forbidden to carry arms, therefore then exempt from conscription in the Wehrmacht , could be a part of the elite SS. A solution was found where it was proclaimed that the formation was not part of

4459-399: The defence of Slovakia and Bohemia-Moravia as well as sections of the German heartland. Between January and February 1945, Army Group Centre sustained 140,000 casualties, including 15,000 dead, 77,000 wounded (not counting non-evacuees), and 48,000 missing. The last Soviet campaign of the war in the European theater, which led to the fall of Berlin and the end of the war in Europe with

4550-575: The end of the war. Anti-partisan operations continued until June 1944, when the Soviets launched Operation Bagration , which was aimed at the destruction of the Army Group Centre. The unit was caught up in the retreat and began falling back to the town of Lida . Under the Kampfgruppe von Gottberg, the unit hold their position against the Soviet so that the remaining retreating Germans have the time to fall back to safety. The regiment sustained heavy casualties during several rearguard actions and were detached from Kampfgruppe von Gottberg on 20 July 1944 .At

4641-464: The expansion of the battalion to regimental size was authorized by SS-Führungshauptamt under Hans Jüttner . However, the order faced delays due to a shortage of soldiers to fill the newly planned regiment and a lack of weapons to equip them. To overcome this problem, Dirlewanger armed his troops with captured Soviet weapons stocks. The actual expansion of the Sonderbattalion into a regiment did not begin until May 1944, when two battalions were formed from

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4732-428: The front, to pardon them". A confirmation of Hitler's order was sent specifying that the poachers should, where possible, be Bavarian and Austrian, not be guilty of crimes involving trap setting , and were to be enrolled in marksmen's rifle corps . The men were to combine their knowledge of hunting and woodcraft similar to traditional Jäger elite riflemen with the courage and initiative of those who willingly broke

4823-407: The historian Alex J. Kay , Dirlewanger murdered some 12,500 people on 5 August. Dirlewanger "burned prisoners alive with gasoline, impaled babies on bayonets and stuck them out of windows and hung women upside down from balconies". Polish nurses were repeatedly raped, and in some instances, hand grenades were inserted into their vaginas and detonated. Many otherwise unknown crimes committed by

4914-495: The identity of the Jews. The German Order Police battalions as well as Einsatzgruppen carried out the first wave of killings. The pacification actions were conducted using experienced Belarusian auxiliary guards in roundups (as in Gomel , Mazyr , Kalinkavichy , Karma ). The Belarusian police took on a secondary role in the first stage of the killings. The ghettoised Jews were controlled and brutalized before mass executions (as in Dobrush , Chachersk , Zhytkavichy ). After

5005-506: The image of the hunt and the animalization of the enemy". According to French historian Christian Ingrao , Dirlewanger's unit committed the worst atrocities of the Second World War, while the American historian Timothy Snyder noted they committed more atrocities than any other. The unit killed at least 30,000 civilians in Belarus alone, with up to over 120,000 killed and 200 villages destroyed by Dirlewanger's unit in Belarus. Several members such as Hans von Cullen were put to death after

5096-437: The law. In late May 1940, Dirlewanger was sent to Oranienburg to take charge of 80 selected men convicted of poaching crimes who were temporarily released from their sentences. After two months of training, 55 men were selected with the rest sent back to prison. On 14 June 1940, the Wilddiebkommando Oranienburg ("Oranienburg Poacher's Unit") was formed as part of the Waffen-SS . Himmler made Dirlewanger its commander. The unit

5187-413: The original 1st company and 2nd company. The formation of a third battalion was delayed due to a shortage of men and did not occur until August 1944. Recruits were to come from criminals, Eastern volunteers ( Osttruppen ), and military delinquents. On 19 February 1944, permission to take volunteers from concentration camps was granted by Himmler in order to fill the battalion before it could be expanded to

5278-427: The passage of the front and the stabilization of the civil administration in western Belarus in the form of Generalbezirk Weissruthenien , the OD units passed from under the authority of the German army to the Order Police (Orpo) and were transformed on November 6, 1941, into permanent Guarding Troops ( German : Schutzmannschaft , Schuma) subordinated to the commander of Orpo in Belarus. In eastern Belarus , which

5369-427: The quick removal of the unit from his territory or he would have the men arrested. The unit's crimes continued when it returned to Poland to help suppress the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Crimes included the mass rape and murder of 15 Red Cross nurses and the killing of thousands of civilians. After troops entered a makeshift military hospital, they first killed the wounded with bayonets and rifle butts before gang-raping

5460-427: The rear of Army Group Centre, alongside many smaller operations: Increasing coordination of the partisan activity resulted in the conducting of Operation Concert against the German forces. In the spring of 1944, the Soviet High Command started concentrating forces along the front line in central Russia for a summer offensive against Army Group Centre. The Red Army also carried out a deception campaign to convince

5551-414: The regiment was informed to form a battalion-sized Kampfgruppen to support the suppression of the uprising. The first Kampfgruppe was formed out of the 1st Battalion and was named Kampfgruppe Meyer, under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Herbert Meyer, who was now fully rehabilitated. Next morning , with a strength of 356 men, they departed for Warsaw by trucks and arrived that night. The second Kampfgruppe

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5642-419: The regiment, led a group of troops in an assault on the Market Hall . This decisive action led to the complete defeat of the retreating Polish insurgents. Schreiner’s assault played a crucial role in the immediate capture of the Brühl Palace. Dirlewanger , with the Waffen-Sturm-Brigade RONA , are notorious for being the two units which committed the worst crimes during the Warsaw Uprising. Dirlewanger had

5733-418: The rest of Belorussia by mid-July, and reaching the Vistula and the Baltic States by early August. In terms of casualties this was the greatest German defeat of the entire war. The commander in chief of Army Group Centre as of 28 June 1944 was Walter Model . The commander in chief as of 16 August 1944 was Georg Hans Reinhardt . Discussion of the army group's situation in January 1945 should note that

5824-461: The same time , they were sent to East Prussia for reconstitution at the Arys trraining center in the town of Lyck . The Sonderregiment arrived on 21 July 1944 and used their time to re-organised its regiment and received replacement. In late July 1944, Dirlewanger left the regiment and flew to Berlin to lobby Gottlob Berger for more troops and equipment. The command of the regiment was given temporarily to SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Kurt Weisse. The command

5915-420: The stairs. There is a memorial plaque in that place stating that 350 children were killed. I think there were many more, maybe 500. The regiment arrived in Warsaw with only 865 enlisted personnel and 16 officers but it soon received 2,500 replacements. These included 1,900 German convicts from the SS military camp at Danzig-Matzkau. Extremely high casualties were inflicted on the unit during fighting in Warsaw by

6006-482: The surrender of all German forces to the Allies. The three Soviet Fronts involved in the campaign had altogether 2.5 million men, 6,250 tanks, 7,500 aircraft, 41,600 artillery pieces and mortars , 3,255 truck -mounted Katyusha rocket launchers (nicknamed "Stalin Organs" by the Germans), and 95,383 motor vehicles. The campaign started with the battle of Oder-Neisse . Army Group Centre commanded by Ferdinand Schörner (the commander in chief as of 17 January 1945) had

6097-437: The table." The deputy commander, Kurt Weisse, has been described as the soldier in Dirlewanger that came closest to matching Dirlewanger in "brutality, cruelty, and outright sadism", and if "there was anyone in the unit who matched the classic profile of a psychopath , it was he." On 1 August 1940, the unit was assigned to guard duties in the region of Lublin (site of a Nazi-established "Jew reservation" established under

6188-402: The three German Army formations assigned to the invasion. After Army Group North was trapped in the Courland Pocket in mid-1944, it was renamed to Army Group Courland and the first Army Group Centre was renamed "Army Group North". The second iteration of Army Group Centre was formed by the redesignation of Army Group A as the replacement for the first Army Group Centre. The army group

6279-488: The two Kampfgruppen to form Kampfgruppe Dirlewanger. By August 7 Dirlewanger had occupied the Saxon Gardens and had linked with other German troops on the Kierbedzia Brigde . The next day, they reached the palace and also captured the Theatre Square . During the assault, several hospitals were burned down, except for St. Stanisław Hospital , which was later used as the regiment's headquarters. On 8 August 1944, SS-Untersturmführer Max Schreiner, an experienced member of

6370-480: The unit "committed such shocking atrocities in the Soviet Union, in the pursuit of partisans, that even an SS court was called upon to investigate". A witness reported Dirlewanger men roasting captured partisans alive and then throwing their bodies to a herd of hungry pigs. Women were raped and then kept as "sexual cattle", in which they would be traded amongst the men for "two bottles of vodka", with even children being raped and tortured to death. On 10 August 1943,

6461-604: The unit at Wola were later revealed by Mathias Schenck, a Belgian national who was serving in the area as a German Army sapper . Regarding an incident in which hundreds of Polish children were murdered, Schenck stated, We blew up the doors, I think of a school. Children were standing in the hall and on the stairs. Lots of children. All with their small hands up. We looked at them for a few moments until Dirlewanger ran in. He ordered to kill them all. They shot them and then they were walking over their bodies and breaking their little heads with butt ends. Blood and brain matter streamed down

6552-539: The unit was authorised to recruit Russian and Ukrainian volunteers. By February 1943, the number of men in the battalion doubled to 700 (half of them Volksdeutsche ). It became a Waffen-SS unit again in late 1944. In May 1944, the 550 men (Turkestanis, Volga Tartars, Azerbaijanis, Kirghiz, Uzbek, and Tadjiks) from the Ostmuselmanische SS-Regiment were attached to the Dirlewanger Brigade. Although other Strafbataillons were raised as

6643-549: The war by ad-hoc tribunals. Several commanders attempted to remove Dirlewanger from command and to dissolve the unit, but powerful patrons within the Nazi apparatus protected Dirlewanger and intervened on his behalf. Amongst other actions, the unit took part in the destruction of Warsaw in late 1944 and in the Wola massacre of more than 50,000 of Warsaw's inhabitants in August 1944 during the Warsaw Uprising – as well as in

6734-497: The war proceeded and the need for further manpower grew, these penal military units were for those convicted of military offences, whereas the recruits sent to the unit were convicted of major crimes such as premeditated murder , rape, arson, and burglary. Dirlewanger provided them with an opportunity to commit atrocities on such a scale that it even raised complaints within the brutal SS. Historian Martin Windrow described them as

6825-419: The women. The naked bleeding nurses were then taken outside, hanged by their feet and shot in their stomachs. Investigations also showed that the unit had cut off the breasts of at least one of the nurses while still alive during the rapes. The unit would carry out atrocities during the Wola massacre in which more than 40,000 Polish civilians were killed in reprisal on the orders of Himmler. The territory of

6916-608: The worst military unit in modern European history based off its criminality and cruelty. During its operations, the unit participated in the mass murder of civilians and committed other atrocities in German-occupied Eastern Europe. It gained a reputation among Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS officers for its brutality. The unit epitomized the "anti-partisan activity on the Eastern front that emerged from

7007-403: The year. While the Soviet attacks in early 1942 had not driven the Germans back, they had resulted in several Red Army units being trapped behind German lines. Eliminating the pockets took until July, the same month in which the Soviets made another attempt to break through the army group's front; the attempt failed, but the front line was pushed back closer to Rzhev. The largest Soviet operation in

7098-458: Was a formation whose main task, in addition to guarding order, was to combat hostile activity. For this reason, in addition to the normal police force, there were trained battalions of a military nature. Schutzmannschaften were categorized into: The exact number of Belarusian Schuma battalions is uncertain, the most accepted estimation is 7 guard battalions, 4 field and 1 reserve battalions: The 36th Police Rifle Regiment, with about 1,100 soldiers,

7189-512: Was also formed from some of the Schuma volunteers, with one battalion to be German and the other two Belarusian with German officers. Belarusian Auxiliary Police participated in civilian massacres across villages on the territory of modern-day Belarus; dubbed the anti-partisan actions . The role of the local policemen was crucial in the totality of procedures, as only they – wrote Martin Dean – knew

7280-618: Was decided to turn the unit into a Waffen-SS combat brigade and it was renamed 2. SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger (2nd SS Assault Brigade Dirlewanger ) in December 1944, and had soon reached its complement of 4,000 men. The journalist and history writer Nigel Cawthorne noted how Dirlewanger committed worse atrocities than the Kaminski Brigade, and how they enjoyed committing them, Encouraged by their commander SS- Oberführer Oskar Dirlewanger, who told them to take no prisoners,

7371-482: Was formed out of the regiment's 2nd Battalion, named Kampfgruppe Steinhauer, led by SS-Sturmbannführer Josef Steinhauer, with a strength of 350 men. They arrived on 6 August 1944, and the two Kampfgruppen fell under the command of Reinefarth. On 5 August 1944, under the leadership of Weisse, Kampfgruppe Meyer began their assault on the Wola district, advancing along the Litzmannstadt-Strasse, while

7462-525: Was later appointed by Dirlewanger as the second battalion's commander. On March 1944, Hauptmann der Schutzpolizei Herbert Meyer volunteered to serve in the battalion and was assigned as the commander of the first company. Meyer had been convicted of petty theft and embezzlement in November 1942 and was sent to the Danzig-Matzkau prison. He later served as the commander of the first battalion in Warsaw in August 1944 and remained in this position until

7553-549: Was not charged with any crime and discharged shortly due to poor health. Only about 700 men of the division survived the war. In June 1945, Dirlewanger was captured by French forces in Germany and died in their custody by 8 June, allegedly beaten to death by Polish soldiers in Altshausen . SS Assault Brigade Dirlewanger (October 1944) 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (March 1945) The cross-grenades emblem of

7644-452: Was officially created by Adolf Hitler when he issued Führer Directive 21 on 18 December 1940, ordering German forces to prepare for an attack on Soviet Russia in 1941. The first commanding officer of Army Group Centre was Field Marshal Fedor von Bock , who would lead it until he was relieved on 18 December 1941 after the failure of the Battle of Moscow and was replaced by Field Marshal Günther von Kluge . Günther von Kluge would remain

7735-462: Was perpetrated on 22 March. In November 1943, the battalion went into action with Army Group Centre to halt the Soviet advance, and suffered extreme casualties due to ineptitude. Dirlewanger received the German Cross in gold on 5 December 1943 in recognition of his earnestness, but by 30 December 1943, the unit consisted of only 259 men. Large numbers of amnestied criminals were sent to rebuild

7826-575: Was rearrested for sexual assault and sent to a concentration camp at Welzheim . In desperation, he contacted his old WWI comrade Gottlob Berger who was now a senior Nazi working closely with Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler . Berger used his influence to help Dirlewanger join the Condor Legion , a German unit which fought in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). On his return to Germany in 1939, Berger helped Dirlewanger join

7917-512: Was recommended for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 30 September 1944 by Reinefarth . He actually received the medal on 16 October 1944 at Krakow and was presented by Hans Frank . During one fierce fight on 6 August 1944, Dirlewanger's men used civilians as body shields, Dirlewanger's men spread out along the square and with armor support, rooted out several insurgent positions. Then

8008-587: Was returned back to Dirlewanger when he flew back from Germany in August 1944. When the Armia Krajowa began the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August 1944, under the command of SS-Sturmbannführer Kurt Weisse , SS-Sonderregiment Dirlewanger was sent into action as part of the Kampfgruppe formation led by SS- Gruppenführer Heinz Reinefarth ; once again serving alongside Bronislav Kaminski's militia (now named SS Sturmbrigade RONA ). On 3 August 1944,

8099-442: Was sent to Poland where it was joined by four Waffen-SS NCOs selected for their previous disciplinary records and twenty other recruits. By September 1940, the formation numbered over 300 men. Dirlewanger was promoted to SS- Obersturmführer by Himmler. With the influx of criminals, the emphasis on poachers was now lost, though many of the former poachers rose to NCO ranks to train the unit. Those convicted of other crimes, including

8190-422: Was sent to the rear and Schmedes took command; Dirlewanger would not return to the division. The division was pushed back to the northeast when the final Soviet offensive began on 16 April 1945. Desertion became more and more common, and when Schmedes attempted to reorganize the division on 25 April, he found that it had virtually ceased to exist. On 28 April 1945, SS-Sturmbannführer Ewald Ehlers, who commanded

8281-558: Was still the area of operations of Army Group Centre , the OD continued to operate. The division between Schuma in western Belarus and OD in eastern Belarus persisted until the end of the German occupation. The Ordnungsdienst, which operated in the eastern part of the country, was divided into four branches: criminal police (OD I), state police (OD II; prosecuting anti-German activity), order police (OD III) and combat police (OD IV), dealing with enemy "bands". OD I and OD II were under authority of

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