Hitler's Bandit Hunters (49 page)

The Soviets encountered a dilemma. To seal off Warsaw, assaults across the River Vistula would involve facing German siege artillery and intensive defensive firepower, thus sustaining serious losses. The Soviet predicament, therefore, was either securing the front line and allowing the Polish resistance to collapse or capturing Warsaw and placing the Soviet central front inside the jaws of Germany’s armored forces. Hitler had metaphorically placed Stalin under the “Sword of Damocles” since the Red Army’s finest assault troops, committed to capturing the city, would be left exposed to the German armored forces concentrated against their flanks. The conditions offered the Germans a classic Cannae with the Red Army pressed against a river. The Soviet dilemma
had diplomatic implications; Stalin faced growing allied suspicions over Soviet territorial ambitions. Strategically the overall military situation, since the opening of “Bagration,” had lost momentum as the Germans forced a stalemate through vicious counter-attacks and probes. Stalin also faced another problem—the Germans held the advantage of shortened internal lines and could use the telephone system instead of military signals. “Ultra” and the German police signals went silent causing the Allies intelligence gaps.

The German response in 1944 compared to the 1943 uprising appeared slow more so because Himmler had received warnings within a half hour of the opening shots. Richard Lukas rhetorically asked why the Germans were so unprepared.
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His explanation of the slow response came from German testimony after the war. These testimonies generally confirmed that the uprising triggered a crisis among the Nazis. Norman Davies relied on evidence from former SS-Untersturmführer Gustav Schielke given in 1949.
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Schielke told his Polish interrogators that the Germans expected the uprising but were physically unprepared. In 1972, Günther Deschner suggested that the Germans had left Warsaw largely unprotected, having withdrawn or evacuated bases and depots.
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The situation was frantic; German troops were hastened to the front, while rear-area formations were withdrawn. According to most sources, the Germans had approximately two thousand troops of differing caliber garrisoned in Warsaw at the time of the outbreak. The experience of the Warsaw ghetto uprising taught Himmler that the way to defeat armed resistance was to support a garrison in place, using it to divide the attention of the resistance. Thus, instead of a necessarily rapid response, Himmler’s response was measured and predictable. He had complete confidence in the capability of the SS-Police. The SS evidently believed that they had contained the uprising within ten days of its start. The SS reaction, therefore, was party to the Wehrmacht’s operational intentions of an armored Cannae.

From the beginning, the Germans adopted widespread “kill and destruction” tactics. Hans Frank notified Berlin that “Burning down the houses is the most reliable means of liquidating the insurgents’ hideouts.”
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Himmler told a gathering,

I simultaneously gave orders for Warsaw to be totally destroyed. You may think I am a fearful barbarian. If you like I am one, if I have to be. My orders were to burn down and blow up every block of houses. As a result, one of the biggest abscesses on the eastern front has been removed.
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The Allies, after the war, believed August 5 was the day the brutalities officially ended. Joanna Hanson found the killing continued until at least August 12 before the Germans attempted more subtle methods to defeat the Poles.
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In this context a couple of questions need to be asked: what were Bach Zelewski’s
movements prior to the uprising, and when did he receive the command? Virtually all accounts accept that he took command on August 5, 1944, which correlates his version of the events. His diary, however, makes interesting reading. The week prior to the uprising he spent visiting East Prussia defenses and formations. On July 30, 1944, he lunched with Himmler and von Gottberg. On July 31, he joined Himmler (recently promoted to commander of the reserve army) to meet with Col. Gen. Heinz Guderian. The latter was promoted to chief of the General Staff of the Army on July 20, 1944, following the bomb plot against Hitler. Bronislav Kaminski, leader of the Russian National Liberation Army, was also present. On August 1, Bach-Zelewski’s diary referred to a meeting with Katzmann in Danzig, which was plausible because the latter had become HSSPF Weichsel. His diary referred to the events in Warsaw on August 2, a day he spent relaxing, swimming, and reflecting by the sea at Zoppot. He recalled with sentimentality that thirty years earlier he had been in the same place with two friends, both killed in the First World War. In 1934, while visiting Zoppot, he received orders to travel to Berlin to participate against the “Röhm putsch.” Thus it was that, while in Zoppot, he heard of the “great mess” (
grosse Schweinerei
) in the General Government.
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On August 3, he took his airplane through stormy weather to reach the KSRFSS in Lötzen. This appears a strange move, not because the offices of the Chef der Bandenkampfverbände and the KSRFSS had been relocating to southern Germany since March 1944 but because, by staying where he was within Reich borders (East Prussia), there was complete access to Hitler, Himmler, and any SS facilities via telephone.
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Then, according to his diary, on August 4, he traveled to Kraków to meet Himmler and, while en route, received word that he had been ordered to take command. Bach-Zelewski added that he later received official notification from Himmler by telephone. Bach-Zelewski wrote down that it was a suicide mission (
Himmelfahrts-kommando
), as in Kovel earlier that year.
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After the war, Bach-Zelewski told interrogators that he had made representations to the KSRFSS but was told Himmler had gone to Posen to conduct operations personally. Not wishing to be ignored, Bach-Zelewski said he spoke directly with Hitler’s headquarters. Fegelein told him the situation was being contained by Himmler and Luftwaffe Lt. Gen. Rainer Stahel. They expected an early collapse, but some days later, Fegelein telephoned Bach-Zelewski.

I was told furthermore that the full power which I had requested of the Führer was granted, and that I should put down the uprising quickly and forcefully. Replacements could not be counted upon, because the Russian breakthrough at Minsk tied up all forces as far as the Vistula River.
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Not surprisingly, therefore, Bach-Zelewski’s diary and his post-war
testimony record his command beginning on August 5. The general lack of urgency also did not change with Bach-Zelewski’s command. He established his command post outside the city in Sochaczew to the west. On August 6, he observed the street fighting in Warsaw and wrote that he saved many Polish civilians through deportation. He observed that one of his Kampfgruppe commanders, SS-Gruppenführer Heinz Reinefarth, was fighting with “stronger nerves” than himself. The next day, following Luftwaffe air raids, Bach-Zelewski witnessed scenes of vicious street fighting, masses of corpses, and burning buildings. He ordered assault guns to reduce Polish barricades. One intercepted signal requested flamethrowers and incendiary bombing of the city by Luftwaffe.
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On August 8, Bach-Zelewski met Gen. Nikolas von Vormann, commander of the 9th Army and the Wehrmacht commander for the city. He then drove to Warsaw, took a nap before lunch, met with Dirlewanger, and received report updates. The Germans regarded the situation contained by August 9, and that same day, Bach-Zelewski again met with Vormann. In his notes, however, he seemed more concerned over the loss of his chief of staff Gölz in a traffic accident. The measured pace of life continued. On August 21, Bach-Zelewski received a message from Himmler to meet with Guderian. He arrived in Lötzen early so he went swimming in the nearby lake. At 5:30 p.m., as he awaited Himmler, he decided to go to the cinema. The next day, while still waiting for Himmler’s arrival, he went off to the hairdresser. Senior command of this political-military battle meant regular politicking with Nazi bosses. Bach-Zelewski complained in his diary that, until 4:00 p.m. each day, he was under hostile enemy fire and was then forced to brave a dangerous flight, in foul weather, to meet with party bosses. On August 23, he noticed blood in his stools for first time since his operation. He was concerned was about inflamed hemorrhoids or possibly cholera, then spreading among his troops.

Bach-Zelewski’s command gradually increased the size of its order of battle during the pacification. Initially two Kampfgruppen were formed, the smaller under Major General Rohr and the larger under SS-Gruppenführer Reinefarth. Kampfgruppe Reinefarth was further broken down into three attack groups (
Angriffsgruppe
) under SS-Oberführer Dirlewanger, Major Reck (from the Infantry School in Posen), and Colonel Schmidt (commander of 608th Security Regiment). Each attack group was assigned eight flamethrowers.
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Bach-Zelewski’s reputation for achieving solid performances from mixed-quality troops enabled the Germans to economize their efforts. It allowed the gradual release of frontline formations from the wasting effects of street fighting. The Germans employed a massive array of specialist units whose purpose was wholesale destruction. An interrogation report of Lt. Eduard Kunze, an engineer, on May 1, 1945, revealed that the Germans had released a gas into airtight buildings or tunnels and ignited it. This gas he claimed was called “A-Stoff” and was odorless and colorless.
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On October 5, 1944, the final order of battle of Korpgruppe von dem Bach was,

Corps level formations:
34th SS-Police Rifle Regiment and the I SS Flak Detachment (KSRFSS).

Kampfgruppe Rohr:
10th Mixed Wehrmacht Police Battalion; 906th Artillery Battalion; 944th Security Battalion; 1st Battalion, 17th SS-Police Regiment; and 246th Landesschützen Battalion.
Kampfgruppe Reinefarth:
SS-Brigade Dirlewanger (with 2 battalions of easterner Muslims), 501st SS-Jäger Regiment, Police Regiment Schmidt, Police Battalion Burghardt, Police Regiment
Reck;
Sturm-Pionier Regiment Herzog, Police Battalion Sarnow; 3rd Cossack Regiment; 2nd Azerbaijan Battalion; Police Flamethrower Battalion; 302nd Panzer Detachment (and 218th Assault Panzer Company); 2nd Sturmgeschütz Detachment; 1000th Assault Mortar Company; 2nd Battery Heavy Artillery; 201st Heavy Fortifications Mortar Battery; 695th Railway Battery; and the 5th Armored Train.

Supporting organizations:
25th Panzer Division; Kampfgruppe Bernhard (Korück 532); and 1st Luftwaffe Division.
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During the uprising, Bach-Zelewski as a senior force commander was responsible for enforcing discipline and maintaining troop morale. On August 28, he was instrumental in ordering the drumhead court-martial (
Standgerichtssitzung
) and the execution of Bronislav Kaminski. This self-styled tribal leader of anti-Bolshevik Russians had successfully collaborated with the Germans since 1942. His success in eradicating Soviet partisans in the forests of Bryansk even garnered praise from Hitler. When the German army retreated, Kaminski’s horde and their dependents went with them. In the early days of the uprising, Kaminski and Dirlewanger appeared to compete for the crown of the most abominable behavior, including drunkenness, killings, rapes, and pillage.
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Bach-Zelewski wrote of Kaminski’s trial in his diary mentioning that it was conducted in Litzmannstadt (Lodz, Poland). After the war, Guderian claimed Bach-Zelewski eliminated Kaminski because he was a dangerous witness.
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Under allied interrogation, Bach-Zelewski admitted to spiriting Kaminski away with three of his staff officers in a ruse. An SS court-martial declared Kaminski (an SS-Brigadeführer) guilty of the misdemeanor of failing to obey orders. Bach-Zelewski also admitted that once new and better units became available he could afford to dispense with the Kaminski Brigade.
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Sven Steenberg, formerly a German army interrogator with the Russian émigrés, later claimed the execution was hushed up and a rumor spread that Polish partisans had killed Kaminski. Kaminski’s men demanded a visit to the scene of the supposed incident. Kaminski’s command car was allegedly driven into a ditch, riddled with machine-gun bullets, and liberally daubed with goose blood.
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Evidence also suggests that Kaminski had lost control of his men, and the SS feared a repeat of Gil-Rodionov’s Druzhina mutiny of 1943.
Perhaps it was for this reason that they executed him. There again Bach-Zelewski also breached German law four days before on August 24 to overhear his name being announced on the BBC. On September 9, the BBC broadcast that he had joined the list of allied war criminals. “What honour!” he exclaimed in his diary. “Just for Warsaw, where I have shown the extreme humanity before God!”
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Examining Bach-Zelewski’s actual combat and leadership performance in Warsaw reveals predictable behavior. Since August 29, the SS-Police had been awaiting an assault by the Red Army; that same day, Luftwaffe Col. Gen. Ritter von Greim visited Bach-Zelewski. The Germans were still waiting on August 30 when Bach-Zelewski observed Dirlewanger’s performance clearing houses on the northern bank of the city. He made another inspection of the defenses and discussed the placement of antitank units with his troop commanders. Eventually the Soviet attack came on September 2; Bach-Zelewski was barely left with time to record the events. He later recorded that the German repulse was his greatest success to date, while his command watch period stretched from early morning to late night. He informed Himmler that the northern encirclement of the city was complete and that Kampfgruppe Rohr had captured Czerniakov and advanced to the south of Siedlce. In the message, he boasted having “driven through prisoners of war while standing-up in the car to end the fighting. I guaranteed their lives. This was the only way to control prisoners with so few guards.” Was he implying that at other times the captives were simply executed? He concluded his message by confirming the capture of 60 percent of Warsaw although “he was still in competition with the Bolsheviks.” His written commentary on the fighting over three days from September 5 in the southern part of city was erratic. He confirmed, “The Poles are fighting like heroes.” Then he wrote a cryptic line: “We have to hurry because of the Bolsheviks. Better here than in the west” (no doubt meaning the campaign in France where the Germans were losing). On September 6, he took time out to visit Pruszkow transit camp, which was being used as a collection point for Polish partisans.