Hitler's Bandit Hunters by Philip W. Blood

Author:Philip W. Blood [Blood, Philip W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Germany, Military, World War II
ISBN: 159797157X
Amazon: B005CWHL0S
Publisher: Potomac Books Inc.
Published: 2006-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

Victims and Violence

In examining Operation “Winterzauber,” Birn found a series of actions that revolved around “special treatment.” The Schuma committed the destruction of villages when the SD or GFP were unavailable. The executions were ordered carried out in the villagers’ houses, with the corpses covered in straw and set alight. Birn stated that evidence from Russian sources indicated that many victims were deliberately burned alive.41 The question of whether witnesses were allowed to live or die has yet to be established. Birn noted that the Schuma Battalion 279 had been rounding up civilians and had released a mentally disturbed woman into their “care.” Eventually a Latvian Schuma trooper had brought the woman to the German security police. The German in command reported that this woman required long-term “special treatment” and said, “I think that it’s a great danger if one person knows of our methods and can lead to disaster.”42

Prior to the Bandenbekämpfung directive, killing Jews in security operations was usually phrased as “Jew-hunts,” while in 1943, Kutschera warned the troops to accept the justice of dealing with the Jewish members of bands.43 Generally, the terminology settled on the presumption that all Jews were bandits and vice versa, and when Jewish bandits (Juden-Banden) were encountered, they suffered excruciating death. A Luftwaffe sergeant reported the details of one cleansing action (Säuberungsaktion): “we had orders to kill all persons over 5 years of age.” He added, “we found a bunker in the forests. They were destroyed.”44 Later, “on June 28, 1943, three houses with Jews inside were set on fire. We sensed the Jews had munitions in the top floor, because explosions were heard.” The following day, a further report stated, “on 29 June we searched a larger area of forest where fifty bandits had escaped. At 7:00 p.m., the wood was encircled and the Luftwaffe companies began a search. By 8:00 p.m., the Luftwaffe and police forces had joined signifying the destruction of all the bandits.”45

There were many cases of assassination in Russia. In November 1942, Himmler’s pilot was killed in what Bach-Zelewski coolly described as a “serious day for the Reichsführer.”46 The capture of assassins and agents led to execution after brutal interrogation. Captives not killed in the field but subject to execution were brought into the towns for public or secret execution. The public execution in Russia was hanging. This entailed makeshift gallows. The use of lampposts, telegraph posts, and even balconies has been recorded. There is little evidence to show how long the bodies were left to hang. The bodies sometimes had placards fixed to them to deter would-be bandits. The British codebreakers found that captured parachutists were killed with drugs or gas. There appear to be only snippets of evidence as to the instructions for executing these prisoners in the field. An interception from May 1942 indicated that the police were warned to have the gas equipment prepared for handling enemy air-landing troops.47 The SSPF Dnjepropetrowsk made a request to the SS-Sanitätsdienst in Berlin:

Experiments to date of injecting parachutists with scopolamine were successful.

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