Hitler's Bandit Hunters: The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe

506 Pages·2006·3.79 MB·English

by  Phillip W. Blood

HITLER’S
Bandit Hunters
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An AUSA Book
HITLER’S
Bandit Hunters

The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe

Philip W. Blood
Published in the United States by Potomac Books, Inc. All rights reserved. No
part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Copyright© 2006 by Potomac Books, Inc.
Blood, Philip W., 1957–
Hitler’s bandit hunters: the SS and the Nazi occupation of Europe /
Philip W. Blood.—
1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-59797-021-2 (alk. paper)
1. World War, 1939–1945—Occupied territories. 2. World War, 1939–1945
— Destruction and pillage—Europe. 3. Internal security—Europe—History–
20th century.
4. Waffen-SS. I. Title.
D802.A2B66 2006
940.54’1343—dc22
2005032891
ISBN-10 1-59797-021-2
ISBN-13 978-1-59797-021-1

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that meets the American
National Standards Institute Z39-48 Standard.
Potomac Books, Inc.
22841 Quicksilver Drive
Dulles, Virginia 20166
First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Geh nicht nach Norden, und hüte dich
Vor jenem König in Thule,
Hüt dich vor Gendarmen und Polizei,
Vor der ganzen historischen Schule.
Don’t go North and beware
of the king in Thule,
Beware of gendarme and police
of the historic school.
From the poem “Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen”
by Heinrich Heine (1844)
in Atta Troll: Ein Sommernachtstraum,
Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen.
CONTENTS

Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Bibliographic Abbreviations
PART ONE: ORIGINS AND IMPLEMENTATION
1. Security Warfare
2. The New Order
3. Hitler’s Bandenbekämpfung Directive
PART TWO: BANDENBEKÄMPFUNG
4. Bandenbekämpfung Operational Concept
5. Die Bandenkampfverbände
6. Das Bandenkampfgebiet
7. Die Bandenunternehmungen
PART THREE: CLIMATIC DECLINE
8. Poland
9. Western Europe
10. Deniability
Conclusion
Diagrams
Appendix 1:
Glossary of Bandenbekämpfung and Related Terminology
Appendix 2:
German Rank Structures
Appendix 3:
The Perpetrators
Appendix 4:
The Mixed Fortunes of Former Bandenkampfverbände in 1965
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the Author
FOREWORD

This book does not make for comfortable reading. It is a meticulous examination
of Bandenbekämpfung, a term that has much broader and more pervasive
meaning than simply “antipartisan warfare” and that characterized the German
approach to security in occupied areas during the Second World War. Philip
Blood demonstrates that the concept predated this conflict and actually stretched
into Germany’s colonial past and its conduct in France in the Franco–Prussian
War of 1870–71. Indeed, by its conception of “bandits” as microbes hostile to
the very existence of the body politic, its roots go deeper, to the Thirty Years’
War or even to the Roman Empire. But on September 16, 1941, a decree under
Keitel’s signature established Bandenbekämpfung as the strategic doctrine
behind the Germanization of Europe. It affirmed that immediate and drastic
action was imperative at the first sign of trouble, and the death penalty was to be
used lavishly as a reprisal: this was how “great peoples restored order.” The
implementation of this doctrine was eventually to become the responsibility of
an SS officer who occasionally changed his name but is best known as Erich von
dem Bach-Zelewski. He had served as an infantry officer in the First World War
and by 1942 was the higher SS and police leader in the region of Russia-Centre.
In August 1942, he became inspector of Bandenbekämpfung for the entire
eastern area and was speedily appointed “plenipotentiary” that autumn,
representing Himmler in all relevant matters and providing a key link between
the SS and the Wehrmacht. But, in a way so typical of the rival fiefdoms that
characterized the Nazi state, there were numerous squabbles and overlaps, and
Bach-Zelewski’s appointment in mid-1943 as Chef der
Bandenbekampfverbände, responsible, as he put it “for all partisan reports for
the whole of Europe,” was intended to produce overall coherence.
Philip Blood describes Bandenbekampfverbände as “an exceptional form of
information warfare and the driving force of an asset-stripping strategy that
encompassed extermination and enslavement.” The details of the process and the
troops involved, including formations that combined SS Police with Waffen-SS
units, a variety of non-German units, and even the Dirlewanger brigade recruited
from criminals serving prison sentences, are carefully cataloged. For instance, in
1943, Operation “Nasses Dreiek” (“Wet Triangle”) near Kiev, involved an ad
hoc battle group supported by river police, a Luftwaffe signals regiment, pro-