SS soldiers: history and photos. How Hitler's elite troops actually fought - Waffen-SS

How Hitler's elite troops actually fought - Waffen-SS("Die Welt", Germany)

A total of 1,327 German soldiers were taken prisoner, a spokesman for the Canadian Second Army Corps told Allied High Command Europe after an exceptionally fierce battle for the city of Caen in early August 1944. Although almost a quarter of the fighters on the German side belonged to Waffen-SS units, among the prisoners there were no more than eight representatives of these special units of the Third Reich - that is, no more than 3% of the statistically expected number.

This is probably explained by two reasons: On the one hand, the Waffen-SS units fought especially fiercely, and the SS men were still in more indoctrinated than soldiers from other units. On the other hand, they were especially feared and hated by their Allied opponents. As a result, soldiers from Waffen-SS units were often not taken prisoner at all.

A surrendered SS man was more likely to die on the way to the collection points for prisoners of war than ordinary German soldiers who did not have a double runic sign. In Caen, especially French-speaking Canadians of the Régiment de la Chaudière, this is how they vented their hatred.

The reason was that the units of the Waffen-SS were considered by their opponents on the Western and Eastern Fronts to be especially cruel, treacherous and fanatical National Socialists. It is true that the military units of Heinrich Himmler's "Black Order" took part in the most famous war crimes - for example, on the Western Front during the massacre in Oradour-sur-Glane or in Malmedy.

Historian Bastian Hein, who with his doctoral thesis on the "General SS" (Allgemeine SS), has already significantly expanded our understanding of this part of the Nazi system, now in his new book, published in the popular scientific series by CHBeck, gives interesting assessments of Himmler's apparatus.

As a result of the study, Bastian Hein came to the conclusion that the reputation of the Waffen-SS as a "military elite" that has survived to this day may well be questioned. Hine gives three reasons. First, a clear distinction should be made between some of the well-equipped "exemplary units" of the Waffen-SS with such sonorous names as the "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler" or the "Totenkopf" division. In quantitative terms, however, especially in the second half of the war, those SS divisions that were formed from ethnic Germans living abroad, and sometimes forcibly from foreigners substituted under arms, were of greater importance. Often they were armed only with captured weapons, were poorly trained and not fully equipped. In total, the Waffen-SS included 910 thousand people, of which 400 thousand were the so-called imperial Germans, and 200 thousand were foreigners.

Secondly, the most famous “successes” of the Waffen-SS units fall on the second half of the war, when “after the failure of the“ blitzkrieg ”against the Soviet Union and after the entry of the United States into the war, the“ final victory ”was already objectively excluded,” Hein notes, who currently works in the office of the Federal Chancellor. However, the most important, apparently, is the third conclusion: the Waffen-SS units suffered more serious losses in comparison with the regular units of the Wehrmacht, not because they fought more stubbornly. On the contrary - if spread over time - the losses, according to Hine, were the same. "Only in the final phase of the war, in 1944-1945, did the Waffen-SS units fight more desperately and suffer greater losses than the Wehrmacht units."

At the same time, Bastian Hein confirms the prevailing opinion about a higher level of indoctrination in the ranks of the Waffen-SS. Recruits were purposefully processed by experienced SS men in the spirit of the "Black Order". In addition, the Waffen-SS, faster than the Wehrmacht, had centralized training programs. Wehrmacht soldiers received a similar ideological corset only after the so-called National Socialist Leading Officers (NSFO) were sent to the army at the end of 1943.

The misconception that Waffen-SS units were more capable than Wehrmacht units was the result of intense propaganda. Every time the elite divisions of Himmler's subordinate SS apparatus took part in the fighting, there were especially many war correspondents on the spot, and such Nazi publications as Illustrierter Beobachter and Das Schwarze Korps were especially active in reporting their "heroic deeds". In fact, according to Hine, the result of such actions was the same: "They only dragged out a militarily hopeless war."

Nevertheless, the following perception turned out to be true: the SS carried out more massacres and other crimes than the soldiers of the Wehrmacht, who often fought indiscriminately themselves. Hein quotes the military historian Jens Westemeier as rightly calling the Waffen-SS involvement in the fighting "an endless chain of violent crimes." However, it does not follow from this that every single SS man was a criminal. This also applies to the much larger Wehrmacht.

It must be borne in mind that in no period of time did the number of active members of the Waffen-SS exceed 370 thousand - while in the regular Wehrmacht there were about 9 million soldiers. That is, soldiers with runes made up about 4% of the total number of the German army.

However, Hein also refutes a convenient lie that is still common in right-wing extremist circles: parts of the Waffen-SS supposedly have nothing to do with concentration camps. The management of these camps, indeed, was carried out by another part of Himmler's "state within a state".

However, out of the 900,000 members of the Waffen-SS between 1939 and 1945 - and almost half of them were not citizens of the German Reich - about 60,000 people "at least temporarily served in the concentration camp system" - this applies, for example, to a native of the Baltic states Hans Lipschis and Hartmut H. from the Saarland.

The more closely we look at the Waffen-SS, the more bleak the picture becomes. Bastian Hein presented all this in a concise and visual form - this is the merit of his pocket book.

Original publication: Waffen-SS - Wie Hitlers Elitetruppe wirklich kämpfte

Question: Were Waffen-SS soldiers really effective or is it a myth?
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Knocked down, fight on your knees Can't get up, attack lying down.

Schutzstaffel, or guard detachment - so in Nazi Germany in 1923-1945. SS soldiers were called, paramilitary formations The main task of the combat unit at the initial stage of formation is the personal protection of the leader, Adolf Hitler.

SS soldiers: the beginning of the story

It all started in March 1923, when A. Hitler's personal security guard and driver, a watchmaker by profession, together with a stationery dealer, and part-time politician Nazi Germany Josef Berchtold created a headquarters guard in Munich. The main purpose of the newly formed military formation was to protect the Fuhrer of the NSDAP Adolf Hitler from possible threats and provocations from other parties and other political formations.

After humble beginnings as a defense unit for the leadership of the NSDAP, the combat unit grew into the Waffen-SS, an armed defense squadron. The officers and soldiers of the Waffen-SS were a huge fighting unit. The total number was more than 950 thousand people, in total 38 combat units were formed.

Beer hall putsch by A. Hitler and E. Ludendorff

"Bürgerbräukeller" - a beer hall in Munich at Rosenheimerstrasse, 15. The area of ​​​​the premises of the drinking establishment allowed up to 1830 people. Since the days of the Weimar Republic, thanks to its capacity, the Bürgerbräukeller has become the most popular venue for various events, including those of a political nature.

So, on the night of November 8-9, 1923, an uprising took place in the hall of a drinking establishment, the purpose of which was to overthrow the current government of Germany. The first to speak was A. Hitler's comrade-in-arms for political convictions, Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff, outlining the common goals and objectives of this gathering. The main organizer and ideological inspirer of the event was Adolf Hitler, the leader of the NSDAP - the young Nazi party. In his, he called for the ruthless destruction of all enemies of his National Socialist Party.

To ensure the safety of the Beer Putsch - this is how this political event went down in history - the SS soldiers, led by the treasurer and close friend of the Fuhrer J. Berchtold, undertook at that time. However, the German authorities reacted in time to this gathering of Nazis and took all measures to eliminate them. Adolf Hitler was convicted and imprisoned, and the NSDAP party was banned in Germany. Naturally, the need for the protective functions of the newly-made paramilitary guards also disappeared. The SS soldiers (the photo is presented in the article), as the combat formation of the "Shock Squad", were disbanded.

Restless Fuhrer

Released from prison in April 1925, Adolf Hitler orders his fellow party member and bodyguard J. Shrek to form a personal guard. Preference was given to former fighters of the "Shock Squad". Having gathered eight people, Y. Shrek creates a defense team. By the end of 1925, the total strength of the combat formation was about a thousand people. From now on, they were given the name "SS soldiers of the National Socialist German Workers' Party."

Not everyone could join the organization of the SS NSDAP. Strict conditions were imposed on candidates for this “honorary” position:

• age from 25 to 35 years;
• living in the area for at least 5 years;
• the presence of two guarantors from among the members of the party;
• good health;
• discipline;
• sanity.

In addition, in order to become a member of the party and, accordingly, an SS soldier, the candidate had to confirm his belonging to the superior Aryan race. These were the official rules of the SS (Schutzstaffel).

Education and training

The soldiers of the SS troops had to undergo appropriate combat training, which was carried out in several stages and lasted for three months. The main objectives of intensive recruit training were:

• excellent;
• knowledge of small arms and impeccable possession of them;
• political indoctrination.

The training in martial arts was so intense that only one in three people could complete the entire distance. After the basic training course, recruits were sent to specialized schools, where they received additional education corresponding to the chosen branch of the military.

Further training in military wisdom in the army was based not only on the specialization of the military branch, but also on mutual trust and respect between candidate officers or soldiers. This is how the Wehrmacht soldiers differed from the SS soldiers, where strict discipline and a strict policy of separation into officers and privates were at the forefront.

New division chief

Adolf Hitler attached special importance to the newly created own troops, which were distinguished by impeccable devotion and loyalty to their Fuhrer. The main dream of the leader of fascist Germany was the creation of an elite formation capable of fulfilling any tasks that the National Socialist Party set for them. It needed a leader who could handle the task. So, in January 1929, on the recommendation of A. Hitler, Heinrich Luitpold Himmler, one of A. Hitler's faithful assistants in the Third Reich, became Reichsfuehrer SS. The personal personnel number of the new SS chief is 168.

The new boss began his work as the head of an elite division by tightening the personnel policy. Having developed new requirements for personnel, G. Himmler cleared the ranks of the combat formation by half. The Reichsführer SS personally studied photographs of members and candidates for the SS for hours, finding flaws in their "racial purity". However, soon the number of SS soldiers and officers increased markedly, increasing almost 10 times. The SS chief achieved such successes in two years.

Thanks to this, the prestige of the SS troops increased significantly. It is G. Himmler who is credited with the authorship of the famous gesture, familiar to everyone from films about the Great Patriotic War - “Heil Hitler”, with a right straightened arm raised at an angle of 45º. In addition, thanks to the Reichsführer, the uniform of the Wehrmacht soldiers (including the SS) was modernized, which lasted until the fall of Nazi Germany in May 1945.

Fuhrer's Order

The authority of the Schutzstaffel (SS) has grown significantly thanks to the personal order of the Fuhrer. The published order stated that no one had the right to give orders to soldiers and officers of the SS, except for their immediate superiors. In addition, it was recommended that all units of the SA, the assault detachments known as the "brownshirts", assist in every possible way in the staffing of the SS army, supplying the latter with their best soldiers.

Waffen SS uniform

From now on, the uniform of the SS soldier was noticeably different from the clothes of the assault squads (SA), the security service (SD) and other combined arms units of the Third Reich. A distinctive feature of the SS military uniform was:

• black jacket and black trousers;
• White shirt;
• black cap and black tie.

In addition, on the left sleeve of the jacket and / or shirt, from now on, there was a digital abbreviation indicating belonging to one or another standard of the SS troops. With the outbreak of hostilities in Europe in 1939, the uniform of the SS soldiers began to change. Strict implementation of G. Himmler's order on a single black and white uniform color, which distinguished the soldiers of A. Hitler's personal army from the combined arms color of other Nazi formations, was somewhat relaxed.

The party factory for sewing military uniforms, due to the huge workload, was not able to provide uniforms for all SS units. The servicemen were asked to change the signs of belonging to the Schutzstaffel from the combined arms uniform of the Wehrmacht.

Military ranks of the SS troops

As in any military unit, the SS army had its own hierarchy in military ranks. Below is a comparative table of the equivalent of the military ranks of the military personnel of the Soviet army, the Wehrmacht and the SS troops.

Red Army	Ground Forces of the Third Reich	SS troops
Red Army man	Private, shooter
corporal	Chief Grenadier	Rottenführer SS
Lance Sergeant	non-commissioned officer	Unterscharführer SS
	Unter sergeant major	Scharführer SS
Staff Sergeant	Feldwebel	Oberscharführer SS
foreman	Chief sergeant major	SS Hauptscharführer
Ensign
Lieutenant	Lieutenant	Untersturmführer SS
Senior Lieutenant	Ober Lieutenant	Obersturmführer SS
	Captain/Hauptmann	SS Hauptsturmführer
		Sturmbannfuehrer SS
Lieutenant colonel	Oberst Lieutenant	Obersturmbannführer SS
Colonel		SS Standartenführer
Major General	Major General	SS Brigadeführer
Lieutenant General	Lieutenant General	SS Gruppenführer
Colonel General	Troop General	Oberstgruppenführer SS
Army General	Field Marshal General	Oberstgruppenführer SS

the highest military rank in the elite army of Adolf Hitler was the Reichsführer SS, which until May 23, 1945 belonged to Heinrich Himmler, which corresponded to the Marshal of the Soviet Union in the Red Army.

Awards and decorations in the SS

Soldiers and officers of the elite division of the SS troops could be awarded orders, medals and other insignia, just like the military personnel of other military formations of the army of Nazi Germany. There were only a small number of distinctive awards that were developed specifically for the "favorites" of the Fuhrer. These included medals for 4 and 8 years of service in the elite unit of Adolf Hitler, as well as a special cross with a swastika, which was awarded to the SS for 12 and 25 years of devoted service to their Fuhrer.

Faithful sons of their Fuhrer

Recollection of an SS soldier: “The principles driving us were duty, loyalty and honor. Defense of the Fatherland and a sense of camaraderie are the main qualities that we brought up in ourselves. We were forced to kill everyone who was in front of the muzzle of our weapons. A feeling of pity should not stop a soldier of great Germany, either in front of a woman begging for mercy, or in front of children's eyes. We were inspired by the motto: "To accept death and bear death." Death should become commonplace. Each soldier understood that by sacrificing himself, he thereby helped great Germany in the fight against a common enemy, communism. We considered ourselves warriors behind Hitler's elite."

These words belong to one of the soldiers former Third Reich, an ordinary infantry unit of the SS Gustav Frank, who miraculously survived the Battle of Stalingrad and was captured by the Russians. Were these words of repentance or the simple youthful bravado of a twenty-year-old Nazi? Today it is difficult to judge this.

The prototype of the SS was such a unit as the headquarters guard. Its number was only 30 people, designed to protect the party leadership, specifically the future Nazi dictator. It is worth noting that the SS or security units, as the German word “Schutzstaffeln” is translated, at the time of their birth were not at all some kind of unique paramilitary structure.

The prototype of the SS troops was the headquarters guard

Actually, security detachments were formed a little later, in April 1925. But even then they did not have an independent status. (Recall that until 1934, the SS were part of the assault squads). The guard units began to play a more or less independent role from January 1929, when the young, 28-year-old agronomist Heinrich Himmler became the chief or Reichsfuehrer of the SS, who dreamed of turning the structure subordinate to him, as he said, “into the aristocracy of the party,” and since the arrival of the Nazis to power - "to the aristocracy of the state." By by and large, even in the charter of the SS it was written that the security detachments are an "order of Nordic men." (Note that this was somewhat different from the tasks that the Nazi Party set itself, dreaming of creating a "people's community", "Volksgemeinschaft").

An SS soldier performs a practical shooting exercise in a shooting range

In 1933 (formally 1934) the "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler", the Führer's bodyguard regiment, was formed, nicknamed the "asphalt soldiers" because it performed mainly ceremonial functions. In parallel with it, the SS division "Dead Head" was formed. Thus, by the end of the 1930s, these two formations, plus the so-called SS reinforcement units, became part of the Waffen-SS.

For Heinrich Himmler, the SS troops were a favorite brainchild

As for the physical and psychological preparation of the SS fighters, it was at the highest level. For example, recruits were taught not just to disassemble, clean and assemble rifles, but brought these actions to automaticity.

However, such fanaticism - the desire to solve the assigned combat mission at any cost - led to the fact that at the initial stage of World War II, the SS troops suffered heavy losses. But here we must not forget that between the command of units, formations and in general the leadership of the SS troops and the command of the Wehrmacht there was a certain, to put it mildly, hostility. Therefore, often army commanders (and the SS troops were operationally subordinate to the command of the Wehrmacht) were the first to throw SS units into the offensive, which naturally led to high losses.

Jews are driven by SS soldiers to the loading area. Warsaw, April - May 1943

Just a few words about the SS catechism. Documents of this kind were drawn up taking into account a certain ideological and psychological impact. It is no secret that Himmler sought to create some kind of order, so he needed a set of rules.

“In battle, be cruel, but noble,” says one of the postulates of the Reichsfuehrer. And what was really? In the Polish campaign, for example, as many as three regiments created from among the Totenkopf fighters took part in anti-Jewish actions. Subsequently, with the outbreak of the war against the Soviet Union, the 1st and 2nd SS infantry brigades were specially formed for the same functions.

The physical and psychological preparation of the SS fighters was at the highest level

If we talk about mysticism, then most people know that Heinrich Himmler had a great interest in the traditional German religion, the cult of Wotan. On the other hand, he also focused on some of the Christian order patterns (for example, the Teutonic Order).

At the time of the attack on the Soviet Union, four SS divisions were involved on our borders: the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, the Dead Head, the Reich and the Viking. In total, over forty divisions were formed by the end of the war (in fact, there were fewer), but some of them were never fully equipped: the last combat units were generally recruited from the remnants (remember, for example, the Nibelungen division). The 29th SS Grenadier Division "RONA" lasted only three months, then its number was transferred to the Italians.

Call for entry into the SS division "Galicia". Poland, May 1943

A few words should be said about the relationship between officers and soldiers in the SS divisions. Unlike the Wehrmacht, outside the conduct of hostilities and outside the exercises, the SS officer called the soldier "kamerad", and he, in turn, addressed him as "you". For the Wehrmacht, with its aristocratic Prussian traditions, this was completely unacceptable. Although both there and there, officers and soldiers "dined" the same way. That is, an SS officer ate the same thing from a bowler hat as a private from his platoon, company or battalion. There were no officers' canteens. And this, by the way, also had a certain psychological impact.

The SS troops were the most effective part of the Nazi war machine

As for the formation of national units, the total percentage of foreigners in the SS troops was about 40%. This is towards the end of the war. Again, this figure is due to the fact that the Wehrmacht did not want to share personnel with the SS troops, so Himmler had no choice but to recruit volunteers from other states for his army.

Indeed, if at first representatives of the Nordic peoples were recruited into the SS troops: Danes, Dutch, then by the end of the war, the selection requirements became less stringent. For example, the SS included a whole formation of Soviet Muslims, plus three divisions - "Khanjar", "Skanderbeg" and "Kama" - from the Balkan Muslims. True, we note that the Muslims did not live up to the hopes that Himmler had placed on them, so these divisions did not last long.

As for other peoples, here we can recall the 15th Cossack Cavalry Corps, included in the SS, the aforementioned 29th RONA Grenadier Division (aka 1st Russian), 30th SS Grenadier Division (2nd Russian ), the 14th division "Galicia", defeated near Brody, and a number of others.

From 1916 until the end of the war, he served in the reserve of the machine gun team (Ersatzmaschinengewehr Kompanie) of the 2nd Army Corps on the Western Front. Eike ended the war with the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd classes.

At the end of 1914, the commander granted him leave and approved his marriage to Bertha Schwebel from Ilmenau. Bertha bore Theodor Eicke two children: daughter Irma in 1916 and son Hermann in 1920. After spending 4 years on the Western Front, Eike returned home as a wayward, hardened man. The Kaiser he had previously served was gone, and Germany was in the throes of revolution. All this filled Eike's soul with hatred and disgust. He had no desire to serve in the army of the Weimar Republic. Like many disillusioned contemporaries, including Adolf Hitler, Eicke blamed the democrats, communists, Jews and other "November criminals" for everything, who, in his opinion, "stabbed a knife in the back of Germany" and thereby contributed to its defeat. in the war

March 1, 1919 Theodor Eicke was demobilized 10 years of service were wasted. There were no prospects in life.

Classes at a technical school in Ilmenau (Thuringia), he was forced to quit due to lack of funds. Eike counted on the financial support of his father-in-law, which, however, he did not receive. Unemployment in revolutionary Germany assumed catastrophic proportions, and in the end Eicke found himself in such a desperate situation that he was forced to take on the job of a paid police informant. In July 1920, he lost it for campaigning against the Weimar Republic and the "November criminals." Nevertheless, the service in the police came to his liking. Over the next three years, Eicke changed at least four places of residence (Cottbus, Weimar, Sorau-Niederausitz and Ludwigshafen). Twice he found himself a job as a policeman again and twice lost it due to anti-state activities. Finally, in January 1923, Eicke became a security officer for the I. G. Farben "in the Rhine town of Ludwigshafen. Here, his ardent nationalism and hatred of the republic did not interfere with work, he worked for Farben until he switched to full-time service in the SS in 1932.

During this time, he joined the NSDAP and the Assault Troops (SA) in 1928 and transferred to the much more disciplined SS, then part of the SA, in 1930. In November of the same year, Heinrich Himmler awarded him the rank of Untersturmführer and entrusted him with the command of the 147th SS platoon in Ludwigshafen.

Eike plunged headlong into work, devoting himself to a new business with his characteristic frenzied energy. His service success during the first three months of the SS was so obvious that Himmler promoted him to SS-Sturmbannführer and instructed him to form the second battalion of the 10th SS standard (regiment), later reorganized into the Rhineland-Palatinate. Eike was extremely lucky this time too: by the following order of the Reichsführer SS, he was awarded the rank of SS Standartenführer, and on November 15, 1931, he was appointed commander of the 10th standard.

Although Eicke joined the NSDAP quite late, his movement through the ranks was swift. By this time, he had already parted with Farben. Eike was fired due to the fact that political activity began to take up the lion's share of his working time, forcing him to neglect his official duties. Eicke turned to political violence, which led to his arrest on charges of illegal possession of explosives and conspiracy to commit political assassination.

In 1932, fortunately, Eicke, the Bavarian Minister of Justice, who sympathized with the Nazis, released him on parole for health reasons. Eicke immediately resumed his political activities, but soon, pursued by the police, he was forced to flee to Italy on a fake passport.

To console a capable subordinate, Himmler awarded him the rank of SS Oberführer. and appointed commandant of the SA and SS refugee camp at Bosen Gris, Italy. Theodor Eicke was able to return to his homeland only in 1933, after Hitler became chancellor. While he was in exile, one of his many enemies, Josef Bürkel, Gauleiter of Rhineland-Palatinate, attempted to remove him from his command of the 10th Standard. Returning to his homeland, Eike behaved, as usual, very decisively. On March 21, 1933, together with a group of armed SS men, he broke into the Ludwigshafen headquarters of the NSDAP and kept Burkel locked up in a closet for 3 hours until the local police rescued him from impromptu arrest. Eike has gone too far. Insulted, Burkel repaid him in full. On his orders, the offender was arrested, declared mentally ill and placed in a psychiatric hospital in Würzburg "as a madman representing a public danger." Eicke aroused the wrath of Heinrich Himmler (we should not forget that at that time the Nazis had not yet fully consolidated their forces, and this incident could greatly undermine the reputation of the SS).

On April 3, 1933, the Reichsführer SS struck Eicke's name off the SS lists and approved his indefinite stay in a mental hospital.

Finally pacified, Eike managed for several weeks to restrain his violent temper and even play the role normal person- a great acting feat! He wrote to Himmler several times and, with the help of a Würzburg psychiatrist, was eventually able to convince the former owner of the poultry farm to order his release and reinstatement in his former rank. Himmler, of course, chose not to send Eicke back to Rhineland-Palatinate. On June 26, 1934, SS Oberführer Theodor Eicke left the psychiatric hospital and went straight to a new job: to head Dachau, the first German concentration camp for political prisoners. When Eicke arrived at the camp, located 12 miles northwest of Munich, there, from the point of view of the Nazis, was in complete disarray. The former commandant was charged with the murder of several "brothers in arms". The guards were undisciplined, openly accepted bribes, and had a tendency to boast of their "exploits" in beer halls and dance halls. Eicke soon discovered that Sepp Dietrich had overrun the Dachau guards with his cronies. Eicke quickly replaced half of the camp staff (about 60 out of 120 people) and established rules of conduct that became a model for all concentration camps in Nazi Germany.

Senseless cruelty gave way to systematic, well-organized cruelty, based on the principle of unconditional and absolute obedience to any orders of senior SS officers. Eicke put prisoners in a punishment cell and subjected them to various types corporal punishment. Usually they amounted to 25 lashes in the presence of all comrades in misfortune and SS personnel. Flogging was legalized on the basis of a rotation of officers and rank and file, in order to harden the SS to such an extent that they could torture captives without regard to faces, without any mercy or remorse. “Under the experienced guidance of Eicke,” Heinz Hehne later wrote, “anyone in whom the slightest vestige of decency was still preserved very soon turned into an insensitive beast.”

Eicke showed particular cruelty to Jewish prisoners, Manvel and Frenkel called him "one of the most ardent supporters of Himmler's views on racial problems." Eicke often spoke to his subordinates with anti-Semitic lectures and ordered to hang out in the barracks, in a conspicuous place, the newspaper of explicit racist content "Der Sturmer" ("Stormtrooper"). He made every effort to push the prisoners against each other on the basis of anti-Semitism.

Eike's "successes" at Dachau made such a strong impression on Himmler that on January 30, 1934, he awarded him the rank of SS Brigadeführer and again began to treat him as a devoted and valuable subordinate. And he really was selflessly devoted to Himmler and the Fuhrer. When Hitler purged the ranks of the SA on the so-called "Night of the Long Knives", Eicke played a major role in the preparations for it and helped draw up lists of stormtroopers to be destroyed. His people became part of the death squads, and he himself was personally chosen by Himmler to kill Ernst Röhm, the leader of the Brownshirts.

On the evening of July 1, 1934, Eike not only unquestioningly, but also with pleasure carried out the order of his boss. Having shot at Rem, he mortally wounded him and while he was bleeding, he finished off with his feet.

For the services rendered to the leadership during the purge, Eicke was appointed chief inspector of concentration camps and commander of the SS guard units (Inspeektor der Konzentrazionslager und Fuhrender SS Wachverbande). Six days later, he was promoted to the rank of SS Gruppenführer, corresponding to the rank of Lieutenant General of the Wehrmacht.

Eike placed his headquarters in a building on Friedrichstrasse in Berlin. He recruited employees and set to work, the purpose of which was to organize the concentration camps dispersed throughout Germany into a single centralized system. He soon moved offices to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp from Oranienburg, north of Berlin, where the inspection apparatus remained until the fall of the Reich in 1945.

In 1937, Eicke closed several small camps and opened four large ones: Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald (near Weimar) and Lichtenburg. After the Anschluss of Austria, which took place in 1938, he organized a fifth in this country - in Mauthausen, not far from Linz, where Austrian political prisoners, Jews and other arrested Gestapo were placed.

All the "developments" made by Eicke at Dachau were used as a model for the creation of other concentration camps.

“By 1937,” wrote Snyder, “among his SS colleagues, Eicke had a terrible reputation for being unbridled and vicious. Suspicious, absurd, completely devoid of a sense of humour, consumed by morbid ambitions, Eicke was a true Nazi fanatic who devoted himself to the cause of political and racial "liturgy" with the zeal of a neophyte.

With the new concentration camp system finally in motion, Eicke set his sights on transforming the SS Tokenkopfverbande or SSTV guard units into paramilitaries of the Nazi Party. Skillfully working his way through the jungle of political intrigue, by the beginning of 1935, Eicke had formed and equipped six motorized "Dead Head" battalions.

By the end of 1938, he increased them to the size of regiments, each of which bore the name of the place of deployment and was located directly on the territory of a large concentration camp. By the time the war broke out, a few standards existed only on paper or in the process of being formed.

Soldiers from the Totenkopf units guarded the prisoners for one week of the month, and spent the remaining three weeks in classes that included grueling drill and physical training, the study of weapons and political studies, aimed at turning them into insensitive and obedient executors of the will of Adolf Hitler.

Eicke relentlessly drilled his subordinates, most of whom were young men between the ages of 17 and 22, fanatically devoted to the cause of National Socialism. Those who did not stand the test or did not show proper obedience were expelled from the ranks of the SS or transferred to the general parts of the SS (Allgemeine SS).

Eicke brought a special "spirit of blood fraternity" into the ranks of his soldiers. His men were more cohesive than their counterparts in the Wehrmacht. Eike hated not only Judaism, but religion in general. By 1937, the vast majority of his soldiers had officially renounced the faith, which often led to a breakdown in relations between young SS men and their families. Those poor fellows who had nowhere to go during the holidays, Eike invited to his place, where they were given the opportunity to feel the warmth of the hearth. Theodor Eicke strongly encouraged officers and non-commissioned officers who showed a special disposition to the soldiers, who, in his opinion, had problems with their parents.

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When the second broke World War, Eicke mobilized three of his regiments (Upper Bavarian, Brandenburg and Thuringian - about 7 thousand people in total) and followed the Wehrmacht to Poland. His soldiers did not engage in battles with the Polish army (with the exception of individual skirmishes), instead, in cooperation with the SD security service led by Reinhard Heydrich) formed the infamous Einsatzgruppen (Einzatzgruppen - special forces groups), engaged in the extermination and confiscation of the property of Polish citizens, in particular politicians, clerics, intellectuals and Jews. In one city, the commander of the SS standard ordered all the synagogues to be set on fire, after which the leaders of the local Jewish community were beaten until they signed a confession that they had set the fires. He then fined them thousands of marks for deliberate arson. Yet, despite the brutality of the episode mentioned, its victims were "lucky" more than many others. Most of those who fell into the hands of the Einsatzgruppen were simply killed "while trying to escape." Some lunatic asylums were completely devastated, and their helpless inhabitants were shot. In addition, there were dozens more cases of atrocities by the SS.

The extremes in which the "Dead Head" and the SD fell into a state of shock led many generals of the Wehrmacht and caused them strong discontent. At least three of them made a formal protest. But the complaints were shelved by Colonel-General Walter von Brauchitsch, commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, who did not have the courage to bring them to the attention of Hitler.

Instead of punishing Eicke and his ilk, Hitler followed Himmler's advice and decided to create a motorized division "Totenkopf". Naturally, Theodor Eicke was appointed to command it. In mid-October, he returned to Dachau, where he began to form a new team, whose personnel soon exceeded 15 thousand people.

The SS division "Totenkopf" consisted of 3 motorized infantry regiments, an artillery regiment, a sapper, anti-tank and reconnaissance battalions and administrative and support units that were supposed to be in a motorized division. Motorized infantry regiments arose from the old security units - Upper Bavarian, Brandenburg and Thuringian (concentration camps), artillery were recruited from the ranks of the Danzig SS Heimwehr (Danzig guards). Recruits and privates from the SS reserve teams (Verfugungstruppen), general SS units, civilian police of the new “Dead Head” units, the formation of which in 1939 was still ongoing, were called to the rest of the units. All these formations, which included more than half of the division's personnel, were poorly trained, poorly equipped and, by Eicke's standards, did not differ in the proper level of discipline.

Eicke showed remarkable talent in the material supply of his division and became known in the SS as a "great beggar". He introduced discipline in his usual manner. Soldiers who committed the slightest offense were transferred back to the concentration camps by the guards. One former guard, dissatisfied with the brutal drill, filed a report asking to be transferred back to the camp. Eike immediately approved this request, but sent this soldier there as a ... prisoner. He was given a life sentence. There were no further requests for translation. The newcomers had no choice but to try to adjust to the environment and get used to the drill.

By May 10, 1940, the day Hitler launched his invasion of Holland, Belgium and France, the soldiers of the SS Totenkopf Motorized Division were ready for battle. But the level of readiness of the officers was extremely low. Only a few of them had military experience that was in any way relevant to the posts they held. There was not a single professional staff officer in the entire division, except for SS Standartenführer Cassius von Montigny, who could not bear the colossal stress and fell ill with a heart attack.

Since the orders of the authorities were vague and not distinguished by logic, and huge traffic jams formed in the rear, the division was left without supplies on the third day of the offensive and had to rely on food confiscated from the French or borrowed from Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division, which was operating in the neighboring area.

As a division commander, Eike was simply a punishment for his subordinates and, being completely unable to correctly assess the situation, he became angry over any little thing. In crisis situations, Eike gave one order, canceled it after 15 minutes, giving completely opposite instructions, and soon, with a third, nullified both previous orders.

But the shortcomings of Theodor Eike as a division commander were more than compensated for by the fanatical courage and excellent combat and physical training of his soldiers, who swept away everyone who got in the way of the Fuhrer. Despite heavy losses, the "Dead Head" won one victory after another, and Eicke gradually learned from his mistakes and by the end of the French campaign gained experience as a division commander.

In the days when the tip of the German tank wedge was directed to the English Channel, the "Dead Head" was used to prevent attempts by those surrounded in the Dunkirk pocket to break through and connect with the main forces of the French army, located south of the Somme. On May 21, Totenkopf and Rommel's 7th Panzer Division repulsed an Allied counterattack near Arras. During the battle, the anti-tank battalion of the SS division shot 22 British tanks with direct fire. The next day, Eicke made a blunder of tactics when he ordered an attack on the allies entrenched behind the La Basse Canal. He did not carry out reconnaissance of the area and artillery preparation, and sent one infantry battalion without cover along the canal, which was simply unacceptable and led to heavy losses and disruption of the attack.

On May 24, Eicke again tried to break through the Allied defenses - and again to no avail. Panzer General Erich Henner, in the presence of division headquarters officers, called him a "butcher" and accused him of disregard for the lives of soldiers. Even Himmler himself chastised Eike for taking too many casualties.

After the evacuation of Dunkirk, the "Dead Head" already without any difficulty drove the demoralized French south, all the way to Orleans. When the act of surrender of France was signed in the Compiègne Forest, the division was stationed in Austen, a village southwest of Bordeaux, where it performed occupation functions. Then she was transferred to Avallon, then to Biarritz and finally to Bordeaux, from where in early June 1941 she was transported by rail to East Prussia.

On June 24 of the same year, two days after the start of the Nazi invasion of the USSR, as part of Field Marshal Ritter Wilhelm von Leeb's Army Group North, the SS motorized division "Dead Head" crossed the Dvina near Dvinsk (Daugavpils), broke the fierce resistance of the Russians in Central Lithuania and broke through the "Stalin Line", for which she received enthusiastic praise from the commander of the LVI Panzer Corps, General Erich von Manstein.

On July 6, when the fighting on the “Stalin Line” was still in full swing, the car in which Theodor Eicke was returning to his command post was blown up by a Soviet mine. Eike's right foot was crushed and his leg badly mutilated. After an emergency operation, he was evacuated to Berlin, where he was treated for three months. Until mid-1942, Eike limped heavily and walked with a cane.

If Theodor Eicke had rested on his laurels and stayed: in Berlin, he would not have heard a single bad word addressed to him. Another, more balanced and less fanatical person would hardly want to return a second time to the Eastern Front. Eike rushed there, not even recovering from his wounds. On September 21, 1941, he returned to his duties as division commander.

From September 24 to 29, Manstein's corps, which included the "Dead Head", repelled near Luzhno, south of Lake Ilmen, the fierce counterattacks of the Red Army. These days, Eicke's division single-handedly defeated three Soviet divisions. For the courage shown in the elimination of the breakthrough. , Eike was presented to the Knight's Cross.

Since the beginning of the campaign, the "Dead Head" has lost 6,000 people, while receiving only 2,500 reinforcements. By the end of November, the losses amounted to 9 thousand people, which was approximately 60 percent of the initial power of the division. The soldiers needed rest, and the equipment needed repairs, but “Dead Head remained at the forefront. In this position were the rest of the German troops in Russia.

On December 5, 1941, Stalin launched a large counteroffensive along the entire Eastern Front. Despite the fierce defense of the SS, the Soviet troops broke through the front line in several places and made their way to the city of Demyansk. Field Marshal von Leeb urgently requested permission to withdraw troops, but Hitler did not give his consent. On February 8, the Russians managed to surround Demyansk. Inside the cauldron were six divisions - 103 thousand people, including Eike's division. The encirclement were under the command of the general of infantry, commander of the second corps, Count Walther von Brockdorf-Alefeldt.

The "Dead Head" was transferred to the western paradise of the perimeter, where it "plugged" the breakthrough of the 34th Soviet army.

Among the snows and swamps, two irreconcilable opponents came together in a deadly battle. The fighting was so intense that Eike had to put even the walking wounded under arms. The Dead Head repulsed all Russian attacks and destroyed the elite 7th Guards Division. But the losses were simply enormous. By April 6, less than 10,000 people remained in the ranks, of which a third were in a state of extreme physical and nervous exhaustion.

But it was this, half-bled, division that broke through the encirclement in May 1942 and joined with the army that came to the rescue, forming a narrow corridor near Demyansk. From that moment on, it was already impossible to do without the "Dead Head". Through the corridor, which she covered, the supply of those surrounded was carried out. The division managed to beat off many fierce attacks by the Red Army, and by the end of July, less than 3,000 people remained in its ranks.

Even the most captious critics had no reason to doubt Theodor Eicke's courage. During the battles near Demyansk, Eike patiently endured the same hardships that befell his soldiers. He spent the night in the snow, for many days did not take off his soaking wet clothes, repeatedly found himself under enemy fire and sat on starvation soldiers' rations.

As a reward for his outstanding services, for the battles near Demyansk on December 26, 1941, Eicke was awarded the Knight's Cross. He was awarded the rank of Ober-Gruppenführer and General of the Waffen SS, and on April 20, Hitler's birthday, the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross. These gestures of trust, however, did not reassure the former head of the concentration camp.

He was greatly upset by the loss of such a huge number of people whom he had personally trained. The Obergruppenführer was indignant at what, in his eyes, was a manifestation of the Wehrmacht's indifference to the fate of his division. He was infuriated by the desire of the Wehrmacht to fight at the expense of the SS to the last soldier. Eicke had previously claimed that Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt deliberately sacrificed his division in all critical situations, while sparing the remaining units whenever possible during heavy fighting.

Weeks passed, and the situation remained the same, and Eicke's criticism became more and more outspoken.

It looks like he was right. From the very beginning of the war, Count Brockdorf-Ahlefeldt found himself in the circle of participants in the anti-Hitler conspiracy and did not have much love for the SS. Eicke also rebuked Himmler, demanding that the remnants of his elite division be withdrawn from the Eastern Front. On June 26, 1942, he obtained a personal audience with Adolf Hitler at the Wolfschanz (Wolf's Lair), near Rastenburg, East Prussia, and, without hesitation in expressions, described the situation to him. Hitler promised that he would withdraw the division in August if the situation south of Lake Ilmen remained stable. He also promised to transfer her to France, where she would be reorganized and increased to the volume in which she was before the start of Operation Barbarossa. Hitler did not keep his word, and until August 26 he did not give the order to withdraw the "Dead Head" from the Eastern Front. By that time, the division had suffered even greater losses. And then the operational situation near Demyansk completely made it impossible for her to withdraw immediately.

Theodor Eicke became even more critical of the Berlin leadership of the SS due to the fact that he did not receive proper replenishment. Himmler satisfied his demands reluctantly, since he had already begun to gain strength for the new (i.e., reorganized) division "Dead Head", and the reserves of manpower were not unlimited. Eike's demands became so frank and insistent that Himmler sent him on indefinite leave to improve his health. Eike was succumbing to mortal fatigue caused by grueling battles. In the last battles near Demyansk, the "Dead Head" was commanded by senior regimental commander Oberführer Max Zimon. In October, after the final withdrawal from the encirclement of the remnants of the division, he repelled several more powerful attacks by Soviet troops. All non-combatant units were completely disbanded and their personnel transferred to the infantry. There were less than 300 left.

* * *

In the winter of 1942–43, the Totenkopf Division was reorganized into a Panzergrenadier division. In November 1942, she took part in the occupation of Vichy, and then remained in the south of France, in the Angouleme region, where she underwent many tests. Having gained strength and rest, Eike, with his characteristic zeal and ruthlessness, took up the training of new personnel.

At this time, Hitler decided to increase Eicke's tank battalion to the size of a regiment, and the "Dead Head" became, in essence, a tank division, despite the fact that it officially continued to bear the name of the "Dead Head" SS Panzergrenadier Division.

After Stalingrad, she was urgently transferred to the Eastern Front and in February 1943 joined the tank corps of SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser after the second battle for Kharkov. Then the "Dead Head" took part in the brilliant counteroffensive of Field Marshal von Manstein, which was followed by the capture of this Ukrainian city. In this lightning-fast operation, the division distinguished itself. However, Theodor Eicke did not have a chance to witness her triumph. On the afternoon of February 26, 1943, he was worried about the lack of radio communication with the tank regiment, so he got into the Fieseler Fi.156 Storch (light single-engine reconnaissance aircraft) to sort out what was happening from the air. Eicke discovered the location of a group of SS tanks near the village of Mikhailovka, but did not see from the air that the neighboring village of Artelny was still in Russian hands. His "Storch" descended to a height of 100 meters and began to slowly turn around over the well-camouflaged positions of the Red Army. The Russians opened heavy machine-gun and rifle fire on him and in the blink of an eye shot down the plane, which burned down between the two villages. The next day, the SS men removed the charred remains of their boss from the wreckage of the plane and buried him in the neighboring village of Otdokhnino with full military honors, filling the grave of the SS general with the land of the country he hated so much. In a panegyric to the deceased, Adolf Hitler renamed one of the units of the division into the 6th Panzergrenadier Regiment "Theodor Eicke". Eike's death was mourned by few outside the SS.

Himmler had Eike's remains temporarily transferred to the Hegewald Cemetery in Zhytomyr to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Soviets. And yet, when the Red Army liberated Ukraine in the spring of 1944, the SS men failed to take the remains of the head of the “Dead Head” with them. It was customary for the Soviets to bulldoze graves or otherwise desecrate the graves of German soldiers, and it is clear, almost certain, that the same thing happened to Eicke's grave. Whatever it was, but his remains disappeared.

PAUL HAUSSER, perhaps the only one who had a huge influence in the military improvement of the SS, was born in Brandenburg on October 7, 1880, in the family of a Prussian officer.

He was educated at cadet schools and in 1892 he transferred to the Berlin-Lichterfelde school. Among his classmates were the future field marshals Theodor von Bock and Gunther von Kluge.

Hausser graduated from the school in 1899, with the rank of Fahnejunker, and was assigned to the 155th Infantry Regiment, in Ostrau near Posen. After 8 years of military service, in 1907, he entered the military academy, from which he graduated in 1912. Then he was appointed to the General Staff, and two years later he was awarded the rank of Hauptmann. At the end of the same 1914, when the mobilization of the German army began, caused by the outbreak of the First World War, Hausser received a new appointment - to the headquarters of the 6th Army, commanded by Crown Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria. Hausser later served on the headquarters of the IV Corps of the 109th Infantry Division, as part of the I Reserve Corps, and as a company commander in the 38th Infantry Regiment. He fought in France, Hungary, Romania and was awarded the Iron Cross in both classes. By the end of the war, Hausser was commander of the 59th reserve team in Glogua (Germany). After the war, he served in the volunteer corps on the eastern frontier.

During the Reichswehr era, Hausser served on the headquarters of the 5th Infantry Brigade (1920–1922), 2nd Military District, 2nd Infantry Division (1925–1926), 10th Infantry Regiment. He was also Commander of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment (1923-1925), 10th Infantry Regiment (1927-1930) and finished his military service with the rank of Infantry Commander IV (Infanteriefueherer IV) - this post he occupied from 1930 to 1932.

In this last post, Hausser simultaneously served as one of the two deputy commanders of the 4th Infantry Division.

On January 31, 1932, at the age of 51, he retired with the rank of lieutenant general. Paul Hausser, once a zealous German nationalist, tied his fate with the NSDAP. He was an SA Standartenführer and brigade commander in the Berlin-Brandenburg area when Heinrich Himmler offered him a job training the SS Special Forces, the embryonic Waffen SS. On November 15, 1934, Hausser joined the SS with the rank of Standartenführer. His first appointment was commandant of the SS officers' school in Braunschweig.

In the Special Forces of the SS, Hausser met determined but untrained young Nazis who were fanatically loyal to the Fuhrer and who, for the most part, wanted to form themselves into a soldered military organization. The military experience and organizational skills of the former officer of the General Staff were met with joy and approval. He soon developed the curriculum of the school, which was copied by all military schools of this kind throughout Germany, and later throughout Europe. Hausser emphasized physical training, sports, group work, and friendly relations between military personnel of different ranks.

Hausser himself was an excellent athlete and rider, able to successfully compete with people who were 30 years younger. Under his leadership, the SS ralita surpassed everything that the army could compete with - at least outwardly. Himmler was so impressed by this that he gave Hausser the title of Inspector of the SS Officers' Schools, responsible for the activities of the officer training institutions in Braunschweig and Bad Tölz, as well as in the SS Medical Academy in Graz. On April 20, 1936, he was promoted to Oberführer, and on May 22 of the same year he became Brigadeführer. At the end of 1936, due to the rapid increase in the ranks of the SS, Hausser was appointed Chief Inspector of the Special Forces of the SS and was responsible for the military training of all SS formations with the exception of those that were under the jurisdiction of Theodor Eicke.

Hausser turned out to be a sensible curator with a broad professional outlook. It was he, for example, who insisted that the SS special forces wear camouflage uniforms on the battlefield, and defended his opinion, although this caused laughter from the army soldiers, who called the SS men "tree frogs." Over the next 3 years, Hausser led the organization, improvement and training of the Deutschland, Germania and Führer SS regiments, as well as smaller support, maintenance and supply units.

Paul Hausser quickly saw the potential for "blitzkrieg" (blitzkrieg), and as a consequence, most of the SS units were motorized. In the autumn of 1939, he was engaged in the formation of special-purpose SS divisions, but the outbreak of war caught him by surprise, and not all units managed to complete their training. Therefore, not a single SS division took part in the battles in Poland.

Most of the special-purpose SS units prepared for battle (and Hausser himself personally) were transferred to a tank division led by Army Major General Werner Kempf. After this campaign, on October 10, 1939, the first full division of the SS troops was created at the military training ground in Brdy Wald near Pilsen (Czech Republic). Its commander was the newly minted SS Gruppenführer Paul Hausser.

Hausser trained his motorized division of the SS Special Forces during the winter of 1939–40. and together with her he distinguished himself during the conquest of Holland, Belgium and France in 1940. In the winter of 1940-41. Hitler ordered the formation of new SS divisions. The SS Special Purpose Division (garrisoned in Holland) formed the core of these divisions, giving them a motorized infantry regiment and several smaller units. In the meantime, in December 1940, the SS special forces were redeployed to the city of Vesoul in southern France and attached to the SS division "Deutschland". It was easy to confuse it with the regiment that bore the same name, so in early 1941 it became the SS division "Reich". By the end of the war, it was renamed the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich.

Paul Hausser did not particularly complain about the loss of half of the veteran soldiers, preferring to devote himself to the training of "unfired" replacements, preparing for the future invasion of England. However, in March 1941, the Reich division was redeployed to Romania and in April took part in the capture of Yugoslavia. Urgently returning to Germany, she was reorganized for Operation Barbarossa, and then sent to Poland, where the formation process continued until June 15.

The invasion of the Soviet Union began on June 22, 1941. Paul Hausser crossed the border near Brest-Litovsk and took part in the battles to encircle the enemy in the zone of operations of Army Group Center. In extremely difficult battles, the Das Reich division especially distinguished itself. In July, she destroyed 103 Soviet tanks and defeated the elite 100th Infantry Division of the Red Army.

By mid-November, Das Reich had suffered forty percent casualties. Its commander, Paul Hausser, was also personally injured. On October 14, in a battle near Gyach, he lost his right eye. He was evacuated to Germany, where it took him several months to recover.

Hausser (already an Obergruppenführer) returned to service only in May 1942, as commander of the newly created SS Motorized Corps, which became the SS Panzer Corps on June 1, 1942. He spent the second half of 1942 in France, commanding the 1st, 2nd and 3rd SS divisions, later reorganized into the SS Panzergrenadier divisions Leibstandarte, Das Reich and Totenkopf). Among other things, these well-equipped units were assigned a tank battalion and a company of the first tanks (PZKW VI "Tiger").

While Hausser prepared his new command for the next campaign, disaster struck on the Eastern Front. Stalingrad was surrounded, fell, and the Red Army rushed to the west. In January 1943, Hitler abandoned the SS Panzer Corps near Kharkov, the fourth largest city in the USSR, which, for reasons of prestige, he ordered to be defended to the last drop of blood. “Now Hitler was finally given confidence,” Paul Carrel later wrote. “He relied on the absolute obedience of the SS corps and turned a blind eye to the fact that the corps commander Paul Hausser was a man of common sense, an experienced strategist who had the courage to contradict his superiors.”

At noon on February 15, Hausser was almost completely surrounded by the 3rd Panzer and 69th Armies. In order not to sacrifice two elite SS divisions (the “Dead Head” had not yet arrived from France), Hausser ordered his corps to break through to the southwest at one in the afternoon, despite the orders of Hitler and the generals of the Wehrmacht.

Hausser's act horrified his immediate superior, General Huber Lanz. After all, there was a deliberate disobedience to the order of the Fuhrer!

At 3:30 p.m., he told Hausser: "Kharkov will defend itself under all circumstances!"

Paul Hausser ignored this order as well. The last soldier of the German rearguard left Kharkov on the morning of February 16th. Hausser successfully led the retreat and thereby saved the 320th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht "Grossdeutschland". The question now was how Hitler would react to this event.

The mentality of Adolf Hitler demanded a scapegoat - responsible for the disaster, but Hausser was not the right person for this role. After all, he was an SS officer devoted to the nation, the owner of the gold party badge that Hitler had awarded him only three weeks earlier. Instead, the Fuhrer removed Huber Lanz, the very same general who, until the very last minute, insisted on carrying out the order. And yet, contrary to the then practice, instead of resigning Lanz, they were soon sent to command the mountain rifle corps.

Hitler did not immediately forgive Hausser, even after the reports and the events of the next few days made the validity of his actions clear to everyone and everyone, even at the Fuhrer's headquarters. As punishment, it was recommended that the Oak Leaves be withheld in addition to the Knight's Cross.

Meanwhile, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, commander of Army Group South, developed a brilliant plan to level the line of the southern sector of the Eastern Front. Aware of the fact that the overconfident Russians were in danger of stretching their communications, Manstein allowed them to charge forward while massing his troops for a massive counterattack. This strike would have entailed a double pincer grip to cut off a massive breakthrough south of Kharkov, followed by an attempt to retake that city. Hausser, whose forces were now reinforced by the SS Totenkopf Division, was to take command of the pincers' left flank.

The third battle for Kharkov began on February 21, 1943. It was fierce. On March 9, the 6th Army and Popov's armored army were destroyed. Losses included 600 tanks, 400 guns, 600 anti-tank guns and tens of thousands of soldiers. On that day, Hausser's forward units again entered the burning Kharkov, engaging in the most controversial battle of his general career.

Military historians generally agree that Kharkov was doomed and that Hausser should have surrounded the city. Instead, he attacked him frontally from the west and started six days of bloody street fighting. And he met fanatical resistance from the Russians. The capture of Kharkov was finally completed only on March 14. During the battle, the losses of the SS tank corps amounted to 11 thousand killed, while the Red Army - 20 thousand.

* * *

Hausser saved his reputation as a military leader in July of the same year, during the Battle of Kursk. The 2nd SS Panzer Corps, which was under his command, broke through the enemy's front line deeper than other German units and destroyed 1149 Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers. General Hermann Goth, commander of the 4th Panzer Army, introduced him to the Oak Leaves, noting that, despite the fact that he was maimed by previous wounds, Hausser "tirelessly led the course of hostilities every day. His very presence, his courage and humor in the most difficult situations gave stability and enthusiasm to his troops, and at the same time he firmly held the command of his corps in his hands ... Hausser again distinguished himself as a highly qualified military leader.

Simultaneously with the defeat of the Germans near Kursk on July 25, dictator Benito Mussolini was overthrown in Italy. On the same day, Hitler ordered the transfer of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps to northern Italy, although in the end only the corps headquarters and the 1st SS Panzergrenadier Division left the Eastern Front.

Hausser remained in Italy until December 1943, without getting involved in any battles, and then was transferred to France, where the newly formed 9th Panzer Division "Gogestaufen" and the 10th Panzer "Frundsberg" joined his corps.

Hausser's corps was supposed to be kept in reserve to be ready for D-Day, but when the 1st Panzer Army was surrounded in Galicia in April 1944, Hausser was again sent to the Eastern Front to rescue it. This task was carried out without much hassle, thanks to Manstein, Hausser and army commander Hans Valentin Hübe. Instead of returning the SS corps back to France, Hitler sent it to Poland, where a reserve was formed to resist the Soviets. And only on June 11, 5 days after the Allied landing in Normandy, Hitler gave the order to return the corps to France. The area to the west of Caen was determined as the place of his deployment, and he was ordered to hold the dominant height 112.

The Battle of Normandy was the most difficult of Hausser's career. Confronting the significant superiority of the forces of the enemy attacking from the air and from the sea, he experienced difficulties that did not give him the opportunity to maneuver and supply the troops. Meanwhile, the left flank of the German front in Normandy, which was under the command of the commander of the 7th Army, Oberst General Friedrich Dollmann, was in big trouble. At the end of June, shortly after the fall of Cherbourg, the general died on the spot of a heart attack (see Chapter 4). He was replaced by Paul Hausser, who was soon promoted to the ranks of SS-Oberstgruppenführer and Oberst-General of the Waffen-SS. He became the first SS man appointed to the post of commander of the army on a permanent basis.

Hausser's army, which included the LXXXIV Corps and the II Parachute Corps, was much weaker than its "sister" army (5th Panzer), located on the right. She had, for example, only 50 medium tanks and 26 panther tanks against the 250 medium and 150 heavy 5th Panzer and only one third of her anti-tank artillery guns. On the other hand, the 7th Army took up positions that were perfectly suited for active defense, Hausser's men made excellent use of this advantage. Yet they were gradually forced back, and Hausser's divisions were gradually defeated. By July 11, only 35 percent of the original strength of the elite 20th Parachute Division remained, and most of the other divisions had been reduced to regimental size. In mid-July, Hausser was already resorting to tactical patchwork to secure any kind of reserve, at any cost.

The decisive breakthrough in Normandy occurred on the Hausser sector on 25 July 1944. On this day, the air operation "Cobra" began. 2,500 Allied aircraft, 1,800 of which were heavy bombers, dropped about 5,000 tons of fragmentation, high-explosive, napalm and phosphorus bombs on a 6-square-mile area - the main base zone of a tank training division. Its advanced units were wiped off the face of the earth. By the end of the day, only a dozen tanks and self-propelled guns remained of her, and the parachute regiment attached to her simply disappeared under a hail of bombs. A few days before the bombing, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge (who had taken over from the wounded Rommel a week earlier) had suggested to Hausser that the Panzer Division be replaced by the 275th Infantry Division, which Hausser then held in reserve. Meanwhile, on the extreme left flank, LXXXIV Corps managed to withdraw the 353rd Infantry Division from the front. Kluge suggested that Hausser use it to replace the 2nd Panzer Division "Das Reich", thus creating a reserve of two armored divisions. The SS General ignored both suggestions of his former classmate. "Hausser did little more than clamor for reinforcements, more artillery and supplies, and the appearance of air cover," notes the official US military history.

When the American ground forces began their offensive on July 25 at 11 pm, Hausser did not react immediately, because he did not appreciate the scale of the catastrophe that befell his army. And yet, by the end of the day, he realized that the front line in the Lesse-Saint-Lô sector was broken in seven places, and without an armored reserve, there was little he could do to “close” these holes. Therefore, Hausser applied for permission to carry out the withdrawal of his troops to Kutan. But Kluge also underestimated the seriousness of the situation and approved only a partial withdrawal. As a result, the LXXXIV Corps was soon cut off from the rest of the troops on the western coast of the Cotentin Peninsula, and managed to break through only with heavy losses. Meanwhile, the Yankees were already in the rear of the 7th Army, SS-Oberführer Christian Tychesen, commander of Hausser's old Das Reich division, was killed by an American patrol at his command post, and Hausser himself narrowly escaped death from a shot by an American self-propelled gun near Le Havre. The little he could do was to withdraw the remnants of his army, which was melting right before his eyes, to the east, since the rapidly advancing American troops had already captured Avranches (at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula) and deepened into French territory. They, without knowing it, were only a few hundred yards from the command post of the 7th Army, located three and a half miles from Avranches. Cut off from his soldiers, Hausser and many of his staff officers were forced to flee, outflanking American military patrols on foot. Hausser, of course, could not influence the outcome of the battle, which was already completely out of control.

When he finally learned of the scale of the catastrophe that had befallen the 7th Army, Kluge's displeasure with the commander of the 7th Army reached a "boiling point". On July 30, he inspected Hausser's headquarters, considered the state in which it was "farcical, full of confusion" and concluded that "a whole army is engaged in window dressing."

Lacking all the power to remove the SS General (perhaps simply not daring to do so given his proximity to the conspirators who had tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler a few days earlier), Kluge removed only the Chief of Staff, Hausser and the commander of the LXXXIV Corps. , who was responsible for this disaster to a lesser extent than Kluge himself, and replaced them with his people. The field marshal was actively involved in the command of the left flank of the troops. But whatever you say, by then it was already too late. The battle was almost lost.

After July 28, Paul Hausser had little influence on the course of the campaign in Normandy. As US General George Patton's 3rd Army approached Morten from the east and south, the 5th Panzer and 7th Armies were threatened south of Caen. Hausser joined Kluge in objecting to Hitler's unrealistic plan to concentrate nine panzer divisions on the western flank of the salient with the aim of breaking through to the west of the coast and blocking Patton. Kluge and Hausser instead wanted, while there was time, to retreat behind the Seine and gain a foothold on its banks. Kluge was forced to obey the order of the Fuhrer. By order of Adolf Hitler, the last attempt to reach the west coast was made by a panzer group led by General Heinrich Eberbach, former commander of the 5th Panzer Army, and not by Hausser. This desperate offensive failed, and on August 17 almost the entire Army Group B fell into a pocket near the town of Falaise. On the night of August 19-20, Hausser, who found himself with his people in the center of the boiler, ordered combat-ready units to break through one by one or in small combat groups.

Hausser's actions saved the lives of about a third of the soldiers of his army, located on the far flank of the pocket. A much larger part of the 5th Panzer Army was saved because it did not have to push too far.

The general himself joined the 1st SS Panzer Division "Leibstandarte" Adolf Hitler "and on August 20 made his way on foot with a machine gun around his neck, when an Allied artillery shell exploded in front of him, and he received a portion of shrapnel right in the face. Several Leibstandarte soldiers placed him on the stern of the tank and miraculously managed to transport their seriously wounded commander to the German positions. Hausser was admitted to the Luftwaffe hospital in Greifswald, where he slowly began to recover.

Six days later, after being wounded, he was awarded the Swords to the Knight's Cross. Hausser was unable to return to action until 23 January 1945, when he took over as commander of the Upper Rhine Army Group, replacing Heinrich Himmler. Six days later, this group was liquidated, and Hausser was given command of Army Group G, as well as the 1st and 19th armies, and later the 7th. He was given the task of defending South Germany. The war was already lost, and there was little he could do other than last attempts at a counter-offensive in the Saar and Rhineland-Palatinate. By this time, Hausser, rather disappointed in the Nazi elite, fell into prostration caused by Hitler's constant meddling in the details of operations. Hausser resented the Führer's demands to "hold on at all costs", especially the order forbidding retreat across the Rhine, which cost the lives of many German soldiers. The personal relationship between Hitler and Hausser, which had deteriorated since the second Battle of Kharkov, reached a breaking point after a heated argument over questions of tactics. On March 30, 1945, Hitler told the Reich Minister of Propaganda, Dr. Goebbels, that neither "Sepp" Dietrich nor Hausser possessed military talent and that not a single commander of the highest class had yet emerged from the ranks of the SS.

Three days later, a message came from Hausser proposing to close the gap in the line connecting the 1st and 7th armies by retreating deep into southern Germany. An enraged Hitler immediately removed Hausser from his post and replaced him with infantry general Friedrich Schultz. Left without a job until the very end of the war, Hausser surrendered to the Americans in May. At the Nuremberg trials, he was the most important defense witness for the SS, stating that his subordinates are soldiers like any other. Despite this, the SS, including the Waffen SS, were condemned as a criminal organization. However, Hausser himself was not subjected to a long prison term.

* * *

Paul Hausser proved to be a capable, above-average divisional commander and an excellent corps commander, although his performance during the third Battle of Kharkov hardly lends itself to any criticism. As for his military-pedagogical abilities, there were no equals to Hausser.

It bears considerable responsibility for the creation of the Waffen SS as a potential fighting force. Still, as commander of the 7th Army in Normandy, his actions left much to be desired. It is not possible to objectively evaluate Hausser's leadership of Army Group G. It might have been more effective if he had been left to his own devices rather than receiving "help" from Adolf Hitler. It would obviously have been better for the "Third Reich" if Hausser had been left in command of an SS Panzer Corps or, as early as 1943, an SS training chief.

* * *

In the post-war years, Paul Hausser actively participated in the activities of the Mutual Aid Society of SS Members - HIAG (Hilfsorganisation auf Gegenseitigkeit der Waffen SS or "HIAG") - an organization of Waffen SS veterans and was the author of numerous articles for its magazine "Viking Call" ("Wiking Ruf") , now called "Volunteer" ("Der Freiwillige"). In 1953, Hausser wrote his first book, Waffen SS in Einsatz, which he expanded and renamed Soldiers Like Everyone Else (Soldaten wie andere auch) in 1966. Hausser died on December 28, 1972 at the age of 92. Thousands of his former subordinates attended the funeral.

In addition to Paul Hausser, the only SS man to be awarded the title of Oberst General of the Waffen SS (SS-Obersgruppenfuehrer und Generaloberst der Waffen SS) was JOSEF "SEPP" DIETRICH, a close friend of Adolf Hitler at the dawn of the Nazi Party and a supporter of his removal from the post of Supreme Commander in 1944 .

"Sepp" Dietrich was born on May 28, 1882 in the village of Hawangen near Memmingen in Swabia. He was one of three sons of the butcher Palagius Dietrich. His father, who was described as a good Catholic, had 3 more daughters. Sepp's younger brothers were killed on the fields of the First World War.

For 8 years, young Sepp attended school, and then dropped out and began to transport agricultural products.

IN adolescence he traveled to Austria, Italy and Switzerland, where he found work in the hospitality industry. In 1911, he was drafted into the Imperial Bavarian Army, but Dietrich stayed in the service for only a few weeks, due to a wound received in a fall from a horse. Demobilized on disability, he returned to Kempten (where his parents now lived) and became a peddler in a bakery. When the First World War broke out, Joseph Dietrich, like many Germans, stood up under the battle banners. In 1914, as part of the 7th Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment, he took part in the battle of Ypres and was wounded by shrapnel in the leg, as well as with a bayonet just above the left eye. In the Battle of the Somme, he was wounded a second time - by a shrapnel in the right side of the head. Despite all this, Sepp Dietrich volunteered to join an elite assault battalion and ended the war as part of one of the few tank units in Germany at that time.

Like many tireless young veterans, Sepp Dietrich joined the Volunteer Corps after the war. When Polish troops, instigated by the French, invaded Silesia in 1920, Dietrich contributed to the fighting and took part in the partially successful German attempt to prevent the annexation of this province by the Poles. After that, he returned to Bavaria, where he married and joined the "green" land police (Landespolizei). And for the first time, he settled in one place.

However, like his marriage, the sedentary lifestyle did not last long. Sepp joined the right-wing Oberland and took part in the unsuccessful Hitler's "beer putsch", which ended on November 9, 1923 in a shootout between the Nazis and their supporters (including the Oberland) on the one hand and the "green" police on the other. This incident best explains Dietrich's sudden dismissal from the local police force the following year. From 1924 to 192E, he remained in Munich and tried many professions: he worked part-time selling tobacco, was a waiter at a gas station. At the same time, Sepp joined the NSDAP and the SS and soon became the favorite of Adolf Hitler, who gave him the nickname "chauffeur" and took him with him in his car on trips throughout Germany. As the Nazi Party gained popularity, Sepp Dietrich's career also took off. In 1930 he became a member of the Reichstag, and at the end of 1931 he received the rank of SS Gruppenführer. Dietrich attracted attention with his simple manner and coarse sense of humor.

Hitler considered him an exemplary bodyguard. In March 1933, only a few weeks after he had concentrated power in his hands, he gave him a building to form an SS unit to guard the Reich Chancellery. On March 17, on Friesenstrasse, in front of the barracks of Empress Augusta-Victoria, Dietrich gathered 117 people. This modest gathering of half a kilo was the beginning of the powerful 1st Panzer Division - the Leibstandarte "Adolf Hitler", whose personnel eventually exceeded 20 thousand people and distinguished themselves in dozens of bloody battles on the fields of Europe. In the face of young people who then bore modest ranks, Germany subsequently acquired 3 division commanders and 8 regiment commanders.

As a commander, Sepp Dietrich was considered a pleasant, active and courageous officer, but not very smart. Field Marshal von Rundstedt called him “decent, but narrow-minded,” and SS General Willi Bietrich, who headed his headquarters in 1939, recalled: “I once spent a whole hour and a half trying to explain the situation to Sepp Dietrich using a staff map. It was completely useless. He didn't understand at all."

Dietrich, undoubtedly, did not have sufficient training, but nevertheless, by the end of the war, he had risen to the post of commander of an entire SS tank army. Fortunately for him, he possessed the innate ingenuity of a Bavarian peasant and deep common sense. These features partially made up for the lack of education and training. Dietrich had a useful habit of choosing excellent chiefs of staff, which provided him with invaluable assistance.

On June 30, 1934, the "Night of the Long Knives", Dietrich personally commanded a firing squad that executed many senior SA commanders. “In the name of the Fuhrer, you are sentenced to death for treason. Heil Hitler!” he shouted to each new victim. “Sepp, my friend, what is going on? We are absolutely innocent!” exclaimed his longtime friend, SA Obergruppenführer August Schneidhuber, as the SS put him up against a wall. Dietrich treated him the same way as the others, but he became sick and left the place of execution before the SS gunners opened fire on Schneidheuber.

For services rendered to the Nazi movement during the "bloody purge", Dietrich was awarded the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer (equal to the rank of General of the Wehrmacht). Under his leadership, Hitler's elite security unit took part in the capture of the Saarland (1935), the Anschluss of Austria (1938), the campaign against the Sudetenland (1938) and the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia. Further, her route ran through Poland (1939), Holland, Belgium and France (1940), and then, in 1941, through Yugoslavia, Greece and Russia. During this time, the Leibstandarte was transformed into a motorized division.

Sepp Dietrich played an outstanding role in the Battle of Rostov in November-December 1941. After this battle (which, by the way, was lost by the Germans), Hitler arrived in southern Russia with the intention of removing Colonel General Ewald von Kleist, commander of the 1st Panzer Army, from his post. But Dietrich spoke in favor of Kleist and stubbornly told the Fuhrer that it was he, Adolf Hitler, and not Kleist, who was to blame for the failure. He also added that Hitler's other mistake was to remove Field Marshal von Rundstedt from his post for intending to evacuate Rostov a few days earlier. Dietrich's courageous intervention saved Kleist's career as well as that of his Chief of Staff, Oberst (later Oberst General) Kurt Zeigler, and ultimately led to Rundstedt's return to service in March 1942. This was not the last time that Hitler's former bodyguard saved his army comrade. In 1944, his personal intervention facilitated the release of Lieutenant General Hans Speidel, Rommel's former chief of staff, arrested by Himmler's service in connection with the assassination attempt on Hitler on 20 July. Since he was in fact guilty, Dietrich's actions saved his life.

Near Rostov, Dietrich received frostbite of the toes of his right foot of the first and second degree. In January 1942, he returned to Germany for medical treatment and, while at home, married a second time, this time to Ursula Moninger, the daughter of the owner of a famous beer factory. Before that, back in 1939, she gave birth to Dietrich's first son, Wolf-Dieter. In the meantime, the Leibstandarte was withdrawn to be reorganized in France, where Dietrich arrived in 1942 and from where in December of the same year he left back to the Eastern Front. By this time, the Leibstandarte had become the SS Panzergrenadier Division, which included 21,000 troops.

Sepp Dietrich spent the last two years of the war in continuous battles. On July 27, 1943, he took command of the 1st SS Panzer Corps, and at the end of September 1944, the 6th Panzer Army, which later became the 6th SS Panzer Army.

In August 1944 he was promoted to Obergruppenführer and became the sixteenth of only 27 soldiers to receive the Diamonds to the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. Despite the honors accorded him by the Nazi elite, Dietrich was completely disillusioned with the Hitlerite style of leadership. In July 1944, he told Field Marshal Erwin Rommel that he would obey his orders even if they ran counter to the Fuehrer's orders. It remains to be seen whether he would have sided with the Desert Fox and the July 20 conspirators, because on July 17 Rommel was seriously wounded and in a coma when the plot failed.

* * *

Whatever they say about Dietrich, he sincerely loved his soldiers and took care of them. For example, in 1936, he had to order the arrest of a young SS lieutenant who, in a fit of rage during a drinking bout, poured a glass of beer on the head of a colleague and thus provoked a brawl. The usual disciplinary punishment for such an offense was a court-martial and dismissal from the Leibstandarte. But when Dietrich found out that the wife of this officer was pregnant, he slowly put the matter on the brakes. This young lieutenant was Kurt Meyer, who later became a Brigadeführer. He was awarded a large number of awards and became famous, brilliantly commanding the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth" during the battles in Normandy.

General Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin recalled one typical incident involving Sepp Dietrich during the fighting in Hungary at the very end of the war. An 18-year-old boy, pampered by his mother, was drafted into the SS tank troops. His crewmates gave the guy an unbearable life. Soon he deserted and went straight home to his mother, but halfway through he was arrested, interrogated and sentenced to death. The SS Oberstgruppenführer Dietrich had to approve the verdict. Instead of waving the paper without reading, as many of the Nazi generals would have done, Sepp carefully studied the whole matter and ordered the deserter to be brought to him. After listening to a sad story about the suffering of a young tanker, he stood up solemnly and at the same time hit the poor fellow with his palms on the ears (this was a favorite method of punishing the lower ranks of the Kaiser officers, whose eardrums sometimes burst). Then Dietrich gave the soldier a week's leave, punishing him to return to the ranks after that as a good fighter. It can be assumed that the young man eventually reformed. And the minutes of the court-martial and the death sentence disappeared.

* * *

Dietrich defended stubbornly in Normandy. He managed to slip out of the Falaise pocket before the allies closed the encirclement. Sepp himself almost fell into the hands of a British military patrol. Dietrich was then sent back to Germany to organize a new 6th Panzer Army, intended for a counteroffensive in the Ardennes. The General objected to this unrealistic plan, but Hitler remained deaf to his remarks. Dietrich tried to advance, but did not achieve noticeable success. Together with the 5th Army led by General Baron Hasso von Manteuffel, he was transferred to the south. This failure was followed by the dispatch of Dietrich to the East along with his headquarters. He was entrusted with the leadership of the counteroffensive at Lake Balaton. Even before all his units were ready, he began to advance, but was soon defeated by the Red Army, which had a huge superiority in all respects - in manpower and material support.

Enraged by the failure suffered by his elite troops, in April 1945 Hitler issued an order stripping the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 9th SS Panzer Divisions of their armbands. All four divisions were at that time part of the 6th SS Panzer Army.

Dietrich answered this in the following way: together with the officers, he filled a chamber pot with his medals and sent it to Berlin, to Hitler's bunker. Dietrich ordered the pot to be tied with the ribbon of the SS standard “Goetz von Berlichingen” (in Goethe’s drama, Goetz von Berlichingen, a knight, says to the Bishop of Bamberg: “You can kiss my ass!”). Dietrich knew that Hitler would definitely understand the unambiguity of this allusion. As Snyder wrote, "this incident perfectly characterizes Sepp Dietrich."

As for the order to remove the armbands, the commander of the tank army made sure that it was not passed on to the authorities (that is, he simply ignored the order). Unfortunately, Hitler's reaction to the pot was not documented.

Despite this notorious chamber pot (or, perhaps, precisely because of it), in early April 1945, Sepp Dietrich was sent to Vienna in order to keep the Austrian capital from the onslaught of the advancing Red Army at any cost. Dietrich knew that this mission was doomed to failure. "We call ourselves the 6th Panzer Army because we only have six tanks left," he told his staff officers grimly.

Of course, this much war-worn and disillusioned, but sane commander could not blindly obey such a ridiculous order. Despite Hitler's directive "to shoot on the spot anyone who gives the order to retreat." , April 17, 1945 Dietrich withdrew from Austrian capital remnants of his tank army. Fearing possible reaction Hitler, he surrounded himself and his headquarters with a heavily armed SS unit loyal to him personally. However, this turned out to be an unnecessary precaution, because the "Third Reich" died before Hitler could take any repressive action against his former favorite.

On May 8, 1945, in Austria, SS-Oberstgruppenführer Dietrich surrendered along with his army to the Americans. He was charged with murder in connection with the executions at Malmedy, when a group of SS men executed 86 American prisoners during the Battle of the Bulge. Some time later, Charles Whiting proved with almost one hundred percent certainty that Dietrich was not in the Malmedy area at that time and he knew nothing about this atrocity.

Despite all this, Dietrich was found guilty and on July 16, 1946 he was sentenced to a 25-year term in prison.

Ironically, he was imprisoned in the fortress at Landsberg, where 22 years earlier Adolf Hitler had written his Mein Kampf. When the passions caused by the war subsided a little, on October 22 the former SS man was released on parole.

Joseph Dietrich's conflict with the law still did not end, because the West Germans soon accused him of yet another crime, and this time it was the one that he actually committed. Sepp Dietrich, justly convicted by a court in Munich, served a year and a half in prison for participating in the "bloody purge" of 1934. On August 7, 1958, he was again placed in Landsberg and released only five months later due to a serious heart condition.

After his release, Dietrich returned to Ludeburg. His wife broke off relations with him during his first imprisonment.

Left alone, the former SS general devoted himself to hunting and HIAG activities. Sepp Dietrich died suddenly in his bed from a massive heart attack on April 21, 1966, at the age of 73. He could tell a lot of interesting things, but, unfortunately, he did not leave memoirs.

From today's point of view, HELMUT BECKER, the protege of Theodor Eicke, was not without the contradictions inherent in some SS commanders, especially those who were related to the 3rd Totenkopf Panzer Division. He was born in Alt-Ruppin, Brandenburg district, on August 12, 1902, in the family of a painter Hermann Becker. He graduated from the local secondary school and continued his vocational training in Alt-Ruppin. On August 1, 1920, Becker joined the Reichswehr as a private in the 5th Prussian Infantry Regiment stationed in Neu-Ruppin.

Becker's choice of a military career could not have been accidental, since the minimum term of service in the Reichswehr at that time was 12 years. He served in the 16th company of the 5th Infantry Regiment in Greifswald and then in the 5th company in Angermünde and gradually rose to the rank of non-commissioned officer. In 1928, Becker was assigned to the headquarters of the 2nd Artillery Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division. In 1932, his contract expired. Becker was dismissed from the ranks of the 100,000th army. The dismissal was not connected with anything shameful, it was not in the interests of the Reichswehr to leave experienced non-commissioned officers in its ranks, vacancies were needed for younger people so that the Reichswehr did not turn into an army of old people. Among those asked from the army were also future SS generals Hermann Priss and Wilhelm Bietrich (who later defeated the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem).

At that time there were many enthusiastic young men in the SS, but there was a desperate shortage of those who were able to give them good military training. Thanks to the experience gained over the years of service in the Reichswehr, and a purposeful, strong nature, Becker quickly made a career and within a year became Oberscharführer (analogous to an army sergeant major) and adjutant of the 74th SS standard. He coped well with his duties and in March 1934 he was promoted to the rank of Hauptscharführer (Oberfeldwebel), and already on June 17 he became an SS Untersturmführer. Nine months later, a new rank followed - SS Obersturmführer. By this time, Helmut Becker served as a military instructor and adjutant of the 2nd Battalion of the SS Standard "Germany" in Greifswald.

It seemed that he found refuge here, but was transferred to the 1st standard of the SS division "Dead Head" "Oberbayern". This happened in 1935.

In his new unit, Becker served as commander of the 9th (replenishment and training) company "Oberbayern" and was responsible for the physical training of the entire regiment. He was also charged with conducting courses for non-commissioned officers. Becker succeeded in this field and in 1936, having received the rank of Hauptsturmführer, he was appointed commander of the 1st battalion. In the same year, he became an SS-Sturmbannführer, and in early 1939, an SS-Obersturmbannführer. He took part in all SS operations of the pre-war period, including the occupation of Austria, the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia. As the Sudetenland Crisis reached its climax (before Britain and France went under Hitler's lead in Munich), Becker followed the army into Poland with his battalion, where in 1939 the battalion was used as one of the fearsome Einsatzgruppen. It is difficult to determine Becker's role in subsequent atrocities, but no doubt he did as he was ordered, no matter what that entailed.

The SS Obersturmbannführer first saw what real fighting was like in 1940, during the Western Campaign, and fought bravely, earning the Iron Cross for it. Sent to Russia in 1941, he briefly commanded the division's motorcycle battalion and played a significant role in the German victory at Luzhno. But Becker especially distinguished himself during the battles in the Demyansk cauldron.

For the division "Dead Head", holding back the vital section of the "cauldron", Demyansk became hell on earth. Helmut Becker, now in command of the battle group, despite the fact that the ratio with the number of enemy troops was not in his favor - five to one, beat off one attack after another. Out-of-season SS soldiers huddled in trenches and trenches faced blizzards and endless attacks, meager rations and shortages of supplies of every kind. During the siege, the ubiquitous Helmut Becker moved from place to place, trying to inspire his soldiers, despite the fact that the situation in which they found themselves seemed hopeless. His efforts were successful. When the spring thaw came, Becker and his surviving soldiers, with their former high morale, held their positions. Becker's personal contribution did not go unnoticed by his superiors, Theodor Eicke and Adolf Hitler. For his leadership during the Demyansk crisis, Becker was awarded the German Gold Cross and the rank of SS Standartenführer. In the autumn of 1942, when the Dead Head was taken to France for reorganization, Becker was appointed commander of the 6th Panzergrenadier Regiment. Meanwhile, Helmut Becker displeased Himmler. The Reichsführer, like most other leaders of the military elite, was busy building the Nazi empire. Together with his deputy, the head of the SS department responsible for replenishing the ranks of the SS, he recruited hundreds of Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans from the occupied territories), many against their will. This was a violation of the principle of the elite voluntary composition of the SS troops.

The newly minted SS men sent to Becker as reinforcements were poorly developed physically and poorly prepared. Becker filed a report containing sharp criticism of Himmler's methods. Becker, with his characteristic categoricalness, stated that the matter of replenishing the SS should be approached more selectively, in order to preserve the racially elite Waffen SS. He also described the situation in the area of ​​the Demyansk Cauldron, criticized the lack of support provided to the "Dead Head" by the SS high command and advised the immediate withdrawal of the division. When this report lay on Himmler's desk, the enraged Reichsführer SS forbade future writing of such reports. In retaliation, he ordered an internal investigation into Becker, accusing him of sexual deviance and military incompetence. Among other things, he was credited with constantly appearing in the service in a state of intoxication, raping Russian women, keeping prostitutes at the command post, and also that he drove a horse to death in an officers' club in France in 1942, while officers of his staff copulated with prostitutes right on the tables.

None of the allegations were substantiated, and Himmler was unable to bring Becker to trial or even halt his promotion, all of which indicate that the Führer had a high opinion of Becker and signify that the accusations were dubious. In any case, the Becker case shows that some SS men were at least slightly distinguished from the rest of the Himmler camarilla and many, including Helmut Becker, treated the Reichsführer SS with thinly concealed contempt.

* * *

In early 1943, the 6th Panzergrenadier Regiment returned to Russia and took part in the third battle for Kharkov, in the battles near Kursk and in the subsequent retreat on the southern sector of the Eastern Front. After the death of the first commander of the division, the regiment received the honorary name "Theodor Eicke". And in August, Helmut Becker received the Knight's Cross for military skill and personal courage shown in repelling an attempt by the Red Army to break through on the Mius sector of the front. Three of his company commanders also received awards for their courage during this operation.

Soon Becker was transferred to Italy, where he led the formation of the regiment of the 16th Panzergrenadier Division "Reichsführer SS". His stay in Italy was relatively short. When Gruppenführer Hermann Priess was appointed commander of the newly formed XIII SS Corps in mid-1944, Becker succeeded him as commander of the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf. On 21 June he was promoted to the rank of SS Oberführer, and on 1 October he became SS Brigadeführer and Major General of the Waffen SS.

* * *

Hastily rushing out of Romania to aid the rapidly decaying Army Group Center, the 3rd SS Panzer Division launched a series of counterattacks and a well-planned containment operation that helped level the front lines in Poland in July and August 1944. On August 26, the Dead Head single-handedly withstood the attack of eight Soviet rifle divisions and several Air Force squadrons. Despite the lack of air support and the ever-increasing loss of personnel, the Dead Head was not defeated and slowly rolled back to Warsaw. On September 21, with a furious counterattack, she stunned the Soviet troops and threw them out of Prague, a northeastern suburb of Warsaw. The bloodless SS division continued to hold its positions there until the start of the Russian offensive, undertaken in the last days of the same month. For personal participation in this battle, Becker received the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross.

The 3rd SS Panzer Division continued to fight defensive battles in Poland until the end of September 1944, when it was hastily transferred to Hungary and attached to Army Group South, which was trying to break the blockade of Budapest. But it proved impossible to do so. The division retreated across Hungary and took part in the last German offensive of the Second World War, in the area of ​​Lake Balaton, in March 1945, and in April ended its last battles near Vienna. After Hitler's death, Becker led the remnants of his badly battered division across Austria to the west, and on May 9, 1945, surrendered what was left of it to units of the 3rd US Army.

The next day, based on the fact that the division fought only on the Eastern Front, the famous American commander agreed with the Soviet demands and handed over the surviving soldiers of the "Totenkopf" to the Red Army. This doomed most of them to a slow death from backbreaking labor and chronic malnutrition. Among those who were destined to die was the last division commander, Brigadeführer Helmut Becker.

In the Soviet Union, Becker, along with many of his subordinates, was put on a "show trial" and received a 25-year prison term. "In captivity, Helmut retained great courage," SS-Brigadeführer Gustav Lombard later wrote. "He helped all his people to brighten up the horrors of camp life a little." The generals with whom Becker was imprisoned were sure that the Soviet authorities were turning Special attention on the last commander of the "Dead Head" division, he was a speck in the Russian eye.

This mote was removed on February 28, 1953, when General Becker was executed on charges of sabotaging construction work. His widow Lisalotte and their five children were notified of the death of her husband and father only 20 years later.

* * *

Today, historian-researchers of the Nazi era are largely divided into two camps. Traditionalists or "official" historians hold the view that the SS was a criminal organization, the SS are thus guilty, if not of any specific crimes, then at least of belonging to it. The second group - the revisionist (they are also "apologists") insist that the vast majority of SS employees (and some say that every single one) were the same soldiers as everyone else. This group has big number supporters in today's Germany, and their number in the United States and other countries is constantly growing. Because history is a dispute that will never end, discussions among historians will no doubt continue for years to come. Be that as it may, in the case of Helmut Becker there is very little reason for the "golden mean" - he was either a lowly war hero who fell at the hands of the Soviets, or a disgusting Nazi, a fiend, a monster who ultimately got what he deserved. Readers are, of course, better off drawing their own conclusions.

* * *

MICHAEL WITTMANN, the greatest tanker of the Second World War, was born on April 22, 1914 in Vogeltal, in the Upper Oberpfalz region.

Having received a secondary education, he worked at his father's farmstead, in 1934 at a short time joined the Volunteer Labor Service (FAD or Freiwillige Arbeits Dienst). and in the same year he was drafted into the army. After serving 2 years in the 19th Infantry Regiment in the Munich Military District, he received the rank of non-commissioned officer. He volunteered for the SS in 1937 and was assigned to the Leibstandarte "Adolf Hitler", which provided personal protection for the Fuhrer and later became the 1st SS Panzer Division, stationed in Berlin-Lichterfeld.

A calm, balanced, modest and conscientious young man was brought into the ranks of the SS by the camaraderie (on which special emphasis was placed there) that existed among the SS men, and not least beautiful shape black, which at that time attracted many German youths to the SS. (Even Manfred Rommel, the only son of the legendary Desert Fox, considered joining the SS at a young age.)

By the time World War II broke out, Wittmann was already an SS-Unterscharführer in the division's artillery battalion. Having sniffed gunpowder in Poland, France and Belgium, he received a self-propelled gun with which he participated in the Greek campaign. He did not stand out among his comrades until the Leibstandarte crossed the border of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Unlike tanks, German self-propelled guns were used mainly as vehicles, as anti-tank guns and as an organized mobile reserve for the divisional commander.

Unterscharführer Wittmann soon gained a reputation as a brave, cold-blooded and determined warrior. Possessing strong nerves, he allowed enemy tanks to close range and knocked them out with the very first shell. In the summer and autumn of 1941, he destroyed several Soviet tanks in this way, but in August he was slightly wounded. Once Wittmann held back an attack by eight Soviet tanks. He coolly let them in close range and opened fire. Six of them caught fire, and two fled. In 1941 he was awarded the Iron Cross of both classes, as well as the badge of an attack tanker.

In mid-1942, after the Leibstandarte "Adolf Hitler" was transferred back to France for rest and re-formation, Wittmann was sent to Germany to study at a military school in Bad Tölz. After his successful graduation, he was awarded the title of SS Untersturmführer - this happened on New Year's Eve 1942. Then he returned to the Eastern Front.

In Russia, Wittmann was given command of a "Tiger" platoon in the 13th Panzer Company (Heavy Tanks) of the 1st SS Panzer Corps. Although these monster tanks moved slowly, had poor maneuverability and often broke down, they were protected by thick armor and equipped with powerful long-barreled 88mm guns.

Michael Wittmann has become a recognized virtuoso of this deadly weapon. On July 5, 1943, on the first day of the Battle of Kursk, he personally destroyed 8 Soviet tanks and 7 artillery pieces. Always calm and methodical, Wittmann determined his tactics and the degree of his own risk according to the combat situation. This approach, coupled with daring, and the concerted action of his highly trained crew soon earned Wittmann an almost legendary reputation as the greatest tank warrior in all of military history. During Battle of Kursk he alone destroyed 30 Soviet tanks and 28 guns.

After the failure of Operation Citadel, the Nazi legions turned back. Michael Wittmann was one of those who remained on the front line and close to it, covering the retreat of the troops, or undertaking counterattacks if the situation required it. For example, in one of the battles of the winter campaign of 1943-44, in one day he personally knocked out ten Soviet tanks. It is noteworthy that on January 14, 1944 he was awarded the Knight's Cross, and sixteen days later he was presented to the Oak Leaves. A few days later, Wittmann was awarded the title of SS Obersturmführer. In April 1944, when Wittmann left the Eastern Front, he had 119 destroyed Soviet tanks on his account. But he faced the most difficult trials on the Western Front.

On June 6, 1944, the 501st battalion was stationed in Beauvais (France), when the landing of the combined forces of the allies took place - D-Day. The next day, the SS heavy tank battalion marched to reunite with the I SS Panzer Corps in Normandy. The task was not easy. Allied aircraft destroyed most of the bridges south of Paris and made advances extremely dangerous during the day. After the 2nd company was taken by surprise on open area near Versailles and destroyed by attack aircraft, the 501st battalion moved only at night. The "spearhead" of the battalion - Wittmann's company arrived in the combat zone on the night of June 12-13 and took up camouflaged positions northeast of Villers-Bocage on the left flank of the rear of Dietrich's corps.

Wittmann intended to devote the next day to repairing tanks damaged by bomber raids. However, the British forced him to change his plans. On the morning of June 13, a strong battle group of the British 7th Armored Division found a gap in the extended German defense line and, launching an offensive along the entire left flank of the SS training division, infiltrated the German rear, bypassing Villers-Bocage. They, rounding the flank of the I Panzer Corps, headed for Caen - the key position of the Wehrmacht in Normandy and the main obstacle between the troops of Montgomery and Paris. They were about three miles east of Villers-Bocage when they were discovered by Lieutenant Wittmann, whose own position was unenviable. At his disposal there were only five "tigers" that were not injured after a difficult transition. The rest of the battalion was still at some distance from him, and the reserves of the Panzer Training Division and I Corps were sent to contain the furious onslaught of the British in the areas of Tillie and Caen. In other words, a handful of Wittmann tanks were the only German force preventing Montgomery's troops from encircling most of the SS corps and capturing Caen. The SS decided to attack immediately. This marked the beginning of one of the most outstanding feats of the German army in the Normandy campaign.

The guards of the British column, which included the 22nd Armored Brigade and parts of the 1st Infantry Brigade, did not expect to meet resistance here and lowered their guard. Wittmann opened fire on the first British Sherman from a distance of 80 meters, instantly turning it into a pile of burning metal. In just a few seconds, he knocked out three more Shermans and crashed into the convoy at full speed. The British were horrified when Wittmann's "Tiger" crushed the first armored car. Many British soldiers jumped out of their armored vehicles and fled, Wittmann approached them at a distance of 30 meters, stopped, fired, watched his target explode into millions of pieces, and then headed for his next victim.

A British Cromwell tank fired at Wittmann's Tiger with its 75mm gun, but the shell bounced off the thick armor of the giant German tank without causing the slightest harm. Wittmann aimed his 88-millimeter gun at the Cromwell and set it on fire. And the Wittmann crew, meanwhile, was pouring machine-gun fire on the British infantrymen and vehicles, which lost their distance and huddled together. The light tanks of the British 8th Regiment were attacked by four other "Tigers" of Wittmann's company, and soon more Allied tanks were set on fire. Wittmann broke the wedge of enemy troops and slowly advanced towards Villers-Bocage, while destroying several more tanks and armored vehicles of the enemy.

Hauptsturmführer Adolf Möbius of the 501st Panzer Battalion arrived to help Wittmann and joined four Wittmanns with his eight Tigers, after which the SS tanks headed straight for Villers-Bocage. Having burst into the city, the Germans entered into battle with British tanks, anti-tank units and infantrymen in its narrow streets. Bazooka shots from windows and doorways At home, the British knocked out two "tigers" and damaged the rest, but during the battle they were completely dispersed. Wittmann's "tiger" was also put out of action, on which he drove into the city from the other side. Pursued by English infantrymen, Wittmann was able to join Möbius, was forced to leave his tank and headed north, where an SS training panzer division was still holding out. Wittmann and his crew had to make a ten-mile march before they got to the German lines.

Wittmann's counterattack halted the British breakthrough, and by nightfall Villers-Bocage was again in German hands. “By his decisive actions,” Dietrich wrote that night about Wittmann, “against the enemy far beyond his own positions, acting alone, on his own initiative, showing great personal courage, he destroyed most of the armored vehicles of the British 22nd Armored Brigade on his tank and saved the front of the I SS Panzer Corps from the imminent danger that threatened it. He presented Wittmann for the award of the Swords to the Knight's Cross.

Lieutenant General Fritz Beyerlein, commander of a tank training division, gave Wittmann exactly the same recommendation. Michael Wittmann received the award on 22 June and was promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer a few days later. By June 14, 1944, he had destroyed 138 enemy tanks and 132 artillery pieces.

* * *

Despite the urgent advice of Rundstedt, von Kluge, Dietrich and others, Adolf Hitler refused to give permission for Army Group B to retreat from the barrage-carved fields of Normandy to positions beyond the Seine. Ultimately, the German troops on August 8 were dismembered and destroyed. On August 9, the Canadian II Corps, with air support from five hundred British heavy bombers and seven hundred aircraft of the USAF, destroyed the German 89th Infantry Division and broke through the German front. But the Allies, with some delay, activated their armored reserve - the 4th Canadian and 1st The "tanker" Kurt Meyer did not fail to take advantage of this hitch, realizing that the only correct course of action should be a counterattack by the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth", which would pin the allies before they could retreat south to the rear. After two months of continuous fighting, only 50 combat-ready tanks remained in the 12th SS division, including the company of Michael Wittmann, which the corps headquarters temporarily attached to Meyer. The young SS general divided his assault forces into two battle groups - under the command of Wittmann and SS Sturmbannführer Hans Waldmüller. and launched an immediate attack.

On the last day of his life, Captain Wittmann was in command of the Hitler Youth battle group, which recaptured Sintje and let off steam from the Allied advance.

The allies restored the balance with a counterattack on the ruined village, throwing six hundred tanks there, after a battle that lasted several hours, they were able to retake their previous position. But they did not have time to develop success, because the Germans brought up reinforcements.

When the "tanker" Meyer retreated under the onslaught of the 85th Infantry Division, the German front was no longer threatened with disintegration. However, Wittmann was no longer with him. He was last seen alive when he was in command of the rear guard and his lone "Tiger" got involved in a furious battle with five "Shermans".

It was reported that he went missing that evening, as was believed for the next 43 years.

* * *

In 1987, the French road service, working on the expansion of a section of the road near Sintje, stumbled upon an unmarked grave. It contained the remains of Michael Wittmann, the greatest tanker of all time. Now he is buried in the soldiers' cemetery in La Cambe.

Notes:

Walter Gerlitz, "Keitel, Verbrecher oder Offizier, Erinnerungen, Briefe und Documente des Chef OKW (Goettingen: Nusert-Schmidt Verlag. 1961), p.71.

Percy Schram, Hitler: The Man and the Myth, Donald Detwiler, trans. (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1971). p. 204.

Earl F. Ziemke, "The German Northern Thaeter of operations, 1940–1945", United States Department of the Army Pamphlet # 20–271 (Washington. D. C.: United States Department of the Army. 1059), pp. 300–10 (hereafter cited as "Ziemke, Northern Theatre").

Wolf Keilich, Die Generate des Heeres (Friedberg: Potzun-Pattas Verlag, 1983), p. 159 (hereinafter cited as "Keilich. Die Generate").

David Irving, Hitler's War (New York: Viking Press, 1977), Volume I. p. 112 (hereinafter cited as "Irving, Hitler's War"),

Before the start of the war, the German military district consisted of two components, tactical and auxiliary. When the army mobilized, the tactical component became the headquarters of the corps and directed the actions of combat units on the battlefield. The auxiliary component (consisting mainly of elderly officers and soldiers) became a military district as such. His tasks were no less important: recruiting, drafting, training soldiers, training officers, directing army schools, mobilizing divisions and providing them with replenishment. The number of military districts increased from 7 in 1932 to 18 in 1943. See Samuel W. Mitchan, Jr., Hitler Legions (Briarcliff Manor, N. Y.: Stein and Day, 1985), pp. 27–35.

Ibid., p. 229.Among the guards was Adolf Eichmann, the future "specialist in the final solution of the Jewish question" of the Reich Security Office (RSHA), a man who would be charged with committing genocide. Another pupil of Eike was Rudolf Hess, the future commandant of the death camp at Auschwitz (Auschwitz).

Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, Himmler (New York G P Puntam's Sons, 1965, reprint ed., New York Paperback Library 1968), p 45.

At this time, approximately 80 percent of Dachau's prisoners were political. During this period, probably a little less than a quarter of all the inhabitants of Dachau were of Jewish nationality.

Röhm was shot dead by Eicke, along with his adjutant, SS-Sturmbannführer Michael Lippert, in Munich's Stadelheim prison. On Hitler's orders, Eicke initially gave Röhm the opportunity to commit suicide, but he refused. When the badly wounded head of the SA lay on the floor of the cell, he shouted: “My Fuhrer! My Fuehrer!" Eike replied, “That should have been thought of earlier. It's too late now.” A bullet in the chest freed Rem from all his problems. See Hoehne, Death's Head, p 140–44. In 1957, the Munich court heard the cases of Lippert and Sepp Dietrich (who commanded a group dispatched for execution), by the decision of which each of them was punished according to the role that he played in that matter.

Preradovich, Waffen-SS, p 27.

Syndor, Destruction, pp. 22–23.

The 1st SS Regiment "Dead Head" was stationed in Dachau, the second ("Brandenburg") - in Sachsenhausen, the 3rd ("Thuringian") - in Buchenwald, the 4th ("Ostmark") - in Mauthausen.

Most of them did not join the Totenkopf Division Tak. The 6th and 7th SS Totenkopf Infantry Regiments were assigned to the 6th SS Mountain Division Nord and fought in Russia and Finland. The 1st SS Motorized Infantry Brigade was formed on the basis of the 8th and 10th Totenkopf Regiments. After a two-year stay on the Eastern Front, the 18th SS Panzergrenadier Division "Horst Wessel" was formed on its basis. The 1st and 2nd "Totenkopf" Cavalry Regiments formed the SS Cavalry Brigade, which was later transformed into a division, and finally became the famous 8th SS Cavalry Division "Florian Geyer", which performed well in the battles for Budapest and when the city fell, to the last soldier was exterminated. You can read more about this and other Death's Head compounds in Roger J Bender and Hugh P Taylor Uniforms, Organization, abd History of the Waffen-SS (Mountain View, Calif.: R. James Bender Publishing. 1969–82), Volumes 1–5 (hereafter cited as "Bender and Taytor, Waffen-SS", Siegrunen, Volume 7 (1985) Number 1, pp. 3–35.

Syndor. destruction, p. 62.

During the First World War, Baron von Montigny served as an officer on a submarine, in the Volunteer Corps (Freicorps) fought against the Poles and the Communists (1919-1920), was a police officer in several cities (1920-1935), in the army (1935-37) , where he rose to the rank of oberst and commanded a regiment. He joined the SS in 1938 as an instructor in military tactics, and was assigned to the Dead Head in October 1939. Apparently, on July 15, 1940, when Himmler appointed him commandant of the school for SS officers in Bad Tölz, Montigny finally recovered. On November 8, 1940, he died suddenly of a heart attack. See Syndor, Destruction, pp. 48–49,105.

Reittinger, S.S., p. 148. Hepner later commanded the 4th Panzer Army on the Eastern Front (1941-1942), in August 1944 he was hanged for participating in a conspiracy against Adolf Hitler.

Manstein, despite the fact that he spoke about the officers of the "Dead Head", that they lacked thorough training and due experience, noted the courage and discipline of the soldiers of the division. He wrote about this that “in the attack, she always showed a rapid breakthrough, and in defense she stood as if rooted to the spot. And it was probably one of the best SS divisions that I have ever seen. (Manstein, Lost Victories, pp. 187–88).

During the Sudeten Crisis of 1938, the old-fashioned aristocrat Count von Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt intended to use his 23rd Infantry Division, stationed in Potsdam, near Berlin, against the NSDAP and the SS. But this coup, which was led by General Oberst Erwin von Wittleben, crashed after Britain and France signed the Munich Agreement, according to which Czechoslovakia was given to the Nazis. Brockdorf escaped the gallows only because he died of natural causes in 1943. (Reinc, Die Generale, p. 52).

Max Simon (1899–1961) later became an SS Gruppenführer and on the Italian front commanded the 16th Panzergrenadier Division "Horst Wessel" (1943–1944) and on the Western Front the XIII SS Corps (1944–1945). Then, for the fight against partisans in Italy, he served a prison sentence and was released in 1954.

On October 22, 1943, on the orders of Hitler, the Totenkopf Division was transformed into the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf. (Tessin, Verbaende, Volume 2, pp. 212–13).

In the Soviet Union, German war graves were usually leveled by a bulldozer, so Eicke's resting place is unknown.

Bender and Tayfor, Waffen-SS, Volume H, pp. 80.

Paul Carell, Scorched Earth, Ewald Osers, trans. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966; reprint ed., New York: Ballantine Books, 1964), p. 196.

Before the fall of Kharkov, Lanz commanded a combined army formation, which included the remnants of Army Group B and the Hausser Corps. He was replaced in this post by Werner Kempf. Shortly thereafter, the headquarters of the army formation was transformed into the 8th Army. Lanz became commander of the XXII Mountain Corps, then stationed in Greece. (Keilich, Die Generale, pp. 166 and 197; Tessin, Verbaende, Volume 4, pp. 175).

Mark C. Yeager, Oberstgruppenfuhrer SS und Generaloberst der Waffeh-SS Paul Hausser (Winnipeg, Canada; John Fedorowicz, 1986), p. 11 (hereinafter cited as "Yeager, Hausser").

The first SS man to become a combat commander at the army headquarters level was Sepp Dietrich, who on June 9, 1944 led the remnants of the Zapad tank group (which later became the 5th Panzer Army). Shortly after the location of the headquarters was revealed by radio interceptors, it was bombed by the Allied Powers, during which the commander of the group, General of the Tank Forces, Baron Leo Geyer von Schweppenburg, was seriously wounded. The headquarters was so badly damaged that it had to be moved the next day

Martin Blumenson, Breakout abd Pursuit, United States Army in the World War II, European Thater of Operations, United States Army, Office of the Chief of Military History (Washington. D. C United States Government Printing Office, 1961), p. 226 (hereafter cited as "Martin Blumenson, Breakout and Pursuit").

Albert Seaton, The Fall of Fortress Europe. 1943–1945 (New York-Holmes Meier Publishers, 1981), p. 121.

Martin Blumenson, Breakout and Pursuit, p. 328. The chief of staff of Hausser, Major General Max Pemsel, was replaced by Oberst Baron Rudolf-Christoph von Gersdorff. The command of the LXXXIV Corps was taken over by Lieutenant General Otto Elfeldt, who was taken prisoner on 20 August in the Falaise pocket. The man he replaced, Dietrich von Choltitz, was promoted and three days after Kluge fired him was promoted to General of the Infantry, which provided a clue to Berlin's attitude toward Kluge's methods. Appointed Commandant of the Greater Paris Zone, Choltitz surrendered the city on 24 August.

On 15 August at 7:30 p.m., Hitler relieved Kluge of command and ordered Hausser to replace him before Kluge's replacement commander of the Army Group, Field Marshal Model, arrived. The model arrived on August 17th.

A total of 1,327 German soldiers were taken prisoner, a spokesman for the Canadian Second Army Corps told Allied High Command Europe after an exceptionally fierce battle for the city of Caen in early August 1944. Although almost a quarter of the fighters on the German side belonged to Waffen-SS units, among the prisoners there were no more than eight representatives of these special units of the Third Reich - that is, no more than 3% of the statistically expected number.

This is probably due to two reasons: On the one hand, the Waffen-SS units fought particularly fiercely, and the SS men were even more indoctrinated than soldiers from other units. On the other hand, they were especially feared and hated by their Allied opponents. As a result, soldiers from Waffen-SS units were often not taken prisoner at all.

A surrendered SS man was more likely to die on the way to the collection points for prisoners of war than ordinary German soldiers who did not have a double runic sign. In Caen, especially French-speaking Canadians of the Régiment de la Chaudière, this is how they vented their hatred.

The reason was that the units of the Waffen-SS were considered by their opponents on the Western and Eastern Fronts to be especially cruel, treacherous and fanatical National Socialists. It is true that the military units of Heinrich Himmler's "Black Order" took part in the most famous war crimes - for example, on the Western Front during the massacre in Oradour-sur-Glane or in Malmedy.

Historian Bastian Hein, who with his doctoral thesis on the "General SS" (Allgemeine SS), has already significantly expanded our understanding of this part of the Nazi system, now in his new book, published in the popular scientific series by CHBeck, gives interesting assessments of Himmler's apparatus.

As a result of the study, Bastian Hein came to the conclusion that the reputation of the Waffen-SS as a "military elite" that has survived to this day may well be questioned. Hine gives three reasons. First, a clear distinction should be made between some of the well-equipped "exemplary units" of the Waffen-SS with such sonorous names as the "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler" or the "Totenkopf" division. In quantitative terms, however, especially in the second half of the war, those SS divisions that were formed from ethnic Germans living abroad, and sometimes forcibly from foreigners substituted under arms, were of greater importance. Often they were armed only with captured weapons, were poorly trained and not fully equipped. In total, the Waffen-SS consisted of 910 thousand people, of which 400 thousand were the so-called imperial Germans, and 200 thousand were foreigners.

Secondly, the most famous “successes” of the Waffen-SS units fall on the second half of the war, when “after the failure of the“ blitzkrieg ”against the Soviet Union and after the entry of the United States into the war,“ the final victory ”was already objectively excluded,” Hein notes, who currently works in the office of the Federal Chancellor. However, the most important, apparently, is the third conclusion: the Waffen-SS units suffered more serious losses in comparison with the regular units of the Wehrmacht, not because they fought more stubbornly. On the contrary - if spread over time - the losses, according to Hine, were the same. "Only in the final phase of the war, in 1944-1945, did the Waffen-SS units fight more desperately and suffer greater losses than the Wehrmacht units."

At the same time, Bastian Hein confirms the prevailing opinion about a higher level of indoctrination in the ranks of the Waffen-SS. Recruits were purposefully processed by experienced SS men in the spirit of the "Black Order". In addition, the Waffen-SS, faster than the Wehrmacht, had centralized training programs. Wehrmacht soldiers received a similar ideological corset only after the so-called National Socialist Leading Officers (NSFO) were sent to the army at the end of 1943.

The misconception that Waffen-SS units were more capable than Wehrmacht units was the result of intense propaganda. Every time the elite divisions of Himmler's subordinate SS apparatus took part in the fighting, there were especially many war correspondents on the spot, and such Nazi publications as Illustrierter Beobachter and Das Schwarze Korps were especially active in reporting their "heroic deeds". In fact, according to Hine, the result of such actions was the same: "They only dragged out a militarily hopeless war."

Nevertheless, the following perception turned out to be true: the SS carried out more massacres and other crimes than the soldiers of the Wehrmacht, who often fought indiscriminately themselves. Hein quotes the military historian Jens Westemeier as rightly calling the Waffen-SS involvement in the fighting "an endless chain of violent crimes." However, it does not follow from this that every single SS man was a criminal. This also applies to the much larger Wehrmacht.

It must be borne in mind that at no time did the number of active members of the Waffen-SS exceed 370,000 - while the regular Wehrmacht had about 9 million soldiers. That is, soldiers with runes made up about 4% of the total number of the German army.

However, Hein also refutes a convenient lie that is still common in right-wing extremist circles: parts of the Waffen-SS supposedly have nothing to do with concentration camps. The management of these camps, indeed, was carried out by another part of Himmler's "state within a state".

However, out of the 900,000 members of the Waffen-SS between 1939 and 1945 - and almost half of them were not citizens of the German Reich - about 60,000 people "at least temporarily served in the concentration camp system" - this applies, for example, to a native of the Baltic states Hans Lipschis and Hartmut H. from the Saarland.

The more closely we look at the Waffen-SS, the more bleak the picture becomes. Bastian Hein presented all this in a concise and visual form - this is the merit of his pocket book.