Terror in the Balkans (90 page)

Such orders ensured that these operations too infl icted a massively

disproportionate tally of “enemy” dead. During the last ten days of Octo-

ber, for example, the 342d lost six men, together with four offi cers and

twenty men wounded. Yet it reported that it had, in turn, killed two hun-

dred of the enemy in combat and shot one hundred after capture—three

hundred persons against the thirty-seven guns the division had seized

from them.65 Between October 10 and 19, the 342d reported, its troops

had killed 546 insurgents in combat and shot a further 1,081 following

their capture—from whom they had recovered just four guns.66

Some of the explanations for these massive contrasts do not point to

the 342d itself. These are explanations that, indeed, need keeping in

mind throughout this study. Insurgents sometimes retrieved or buried

the weapons of the fallen before retreating. Some, such as medics, pio-

neers, and some members of less well-equipped groups generally, would

probably have been unarmed anyway. Figures for insurgent dead may

also have been infl ated for other intentional or unintentional reasons. Yet

this is still such a colossal shortfall that the mass shooting of unarmed

civilians must account for a very great deal of it.67

More grisly still were the 342d’s reprisal shootings. Yet they are also

more signifi cant, for they highlight even more clearly just how ferocious

the division’s campaign was becoming. During the Krupanj operation’s

Settling Accounts in Blood
131

opening stages the 342d reported that, in reprisal for the killing of one of

its offi cer and seven of its men, and the wounding of a further three offi -

cers and twenty-seven men, it planned to execute twenty-three hundred

hostages—four hundred of whom it had already shot.68

This grim fi gure corresponded to General Boehme’s stipulated

reprisal ratios. But then the 342d took things even further. By the time

it had relieved Valjevo in late October, it had lost ten dead and thirty-

nine wounded; in reprisal, it declared it would shoot one thousand hos-

tages in retaliation for its dead, and 3,950 hostages in retaliation for its

wounded. It sharply reminded its troops of Boehme’s stipulated 1:100

and 1:50 killing ratios. This was a likely sign that not all the division’s

rank-and-fi le soldiers had been administering those ratios as thoroughly

as the division wished.69 But simple calculation reveals that the 342d’s

command was now actually
exceeding
Boehme’s ratios. For it intended to

shoot one hundred hostages not just for every one of its dead, but also for

every one of its wounded. In fact, by November 11 the division had actu-

ally run out of prisoners with which to meet its target.70

Clearly then, the need to follow orders was not the only thing pow-

ering the butchery which the 342d Infantry Division was infl icting. It

should also be remembered that the division had been butchering with

particular aplomb for a fortnight
before
Boehme issued his 1:100 reprisal

order. Indeed, not content just to outdo Boehme for ruthlessness, Hing-

hofer also challenged his superior when he felt Boehme was going “soft.”

Perhaps surprisingly, there was one occasion when Boehme did provide

Hinghofer with such grounds.

By October 20 the SD, at Boehme’s command, had released over fi ve

thousand of the more than twenty-two thousand prisoners who had been

incarcerated in the Šabac concentration camp for most of the period

since the start of the Drina-Sava operation. Boehme’s decision was not

prompted by humanity. He acted as he did partly because the Germans

needed more native informers and collaborators, and partly because

the SD simply had too many prisoners to cope with inside the camp.

Hinghofer, however, opined that the action would enable thousands of

insurgents, and their accomplices, to disappear undetected among the

population and reemerge once the 342d had left the area.71

132
terror in the balk ans

Given the scale of the production-line carnage the 342d was infl icting,

it may at fi rst appear obscene to argue that the conditions the division

encountered on the ground could have helped to fuel it. Certainly, oner-

ous though the 342d’s travails were, they do not even begin to justify

bloodletting of such magnitude. Yet their effect, alongside other possible

explanations, needs to be considered.

Following the relative failure of the Drina-Sava operation, General

Boehme and the 342d Infantry Division were under even greater pres-

sure to produce results. And by the time of the Mount Cer operation, the

342d also faced increasingly arduous conditions. Insurgents frustrated

the 342d’s advance by razing villages to the ground in “scorched earth”

fashion. The division’s troops were hindered in their advance by a road

system resembling a “baseless mass of mud.”72 They endured a debilitat-

ing slog through harsh terrain; slept under canvas in lashing rain, cold,

and snow; and lived on invariably cold rations.73 The 342d’s Chetnik

opponents, meanwhile, posed an ever greater challenge. Even though

between 50 percent and 30 percent of their men were reportedly without

arms,74 they were increasingly well armed overall. At times they turned

on their attackers and infl icted signifi cant casualties. The 697th Infan-

try Regiment faced especially stubborn resistance on September 27, for

instance. So too did the 699th Infantry Regiment on October 10.75

Together, these conditions gnawed at the troops’ resilience. “The

troops’ state of health can no longer be described as good,” the 342d

reported on November 12. “The duration and relentlessness of the oper-

ations has meant that shoes, uniforms, weaponry, and equipment cannot

be brought up to strength or cared for properly . . . The character and

duration of the operations (combing, searching, shooting, and living off

the land) are beginning to affect the troops’ discipline and demeanor

badly. The division urgently needs a reasonably long period of peace and

quiet in which to re-establish its fi ghting worth, and immunize its troops

against infection and malaria.”76 The 342d also lacked specialist moun-

tain warfare equipment. Finally, though it did not lack for tanks—having

acquired two from another unit—they were inferior French models in

constant need of maintenance, which the absence of a proper workshop

rendered impossible. They were also so loud that they quickly alerted

the insurgents to the Germans’ imminent approach.77

Settling Accounts in Blood
133

Fighting in such conditions, feeling the pressure from above for

results, and frustrated at their failure to capture or kill actual insur-

gents in large numbers, soldiers were more likely to respond when their

commanders exhorted them to ever greater ruthlessness. Indeed, some

of the troops were so brutally inclined that their discipline was seri-

ously threatened. Consequently, at different times in September and

October, the 342d Infantry Division felt compelled to forbid its troops

to plunder, destroy churches, shoot prisoners who could be screened

for information, shoot dogs and livestock, seize livestock except on the

highest authority, or execute persons outside the domain of the proper

legal offi ces.78

And there are signs that some of the 342d’s own senior offi cers could

barely keep themselves on a leash, let alone their men. During the 1970s

the Federal German Central Offi ce of Land Administration inter-

viewed witnesses for preliminary investigations, later abandoned, into

war crimes committed by the 342d Infantry Division. The interviews

revealed that Colonel Trüstedt, commander of the 342d’s artillery regi-

ment, had been unhealthily fond of alcohol and known to issue orders

while under the infl uence. He had also been a terror to work under;

when his subordinates had nicknamed him the “Lion of Mannheim,”

they had not meant it as a compliment.79

But the conditions the 342d experienced do not explain the division’s

especially ferocious conduct on their own. Units within the permanent

German army occupation divisions stationed in Serbia—the 704th,

714th, and 717th Infantry Divisions—had even more reason to lash out in

frustration at their circumstances. For the situation their isolated units

faced did not just impede them; it could also imperil them. Yet whilst

the actions of the some of the units within these divisions were horren-

dous, neither they nor the division-level orders that spawned them actu-

ally went further than General Boehme’s dictates. But the 342d Infantry

Division’s actions did go further.

It is not just the 342d’s particular situation that needs examining,

then, but also the attitudes that ensured that it would react to them in

singularly brutal fashion. The main source of such attitudes lies at the

division’s apex—divisional command, and particularly General Hing-

hofer himself.

134
terror in the balk ans

Divisional command implemented vicious measures not only out of obe-

dience to Boehme, but also according to its own convictions. The quar-

termaster department’s summary at the end of the Drina-Sava operation

of September exhibited both a steadfast faith in the effi cacy of terror, and

a marked indifference to the plight of civilians caught up in the fi ghting:

“It is clear that the population of the Sava-Drina bend, due in part to

being terrorized by bandits and Communist groups, has by and large

cooperated in the uprising. The division’s harsh and vigorous action has

seriously weakened its moral power to resist.”80 It also credited the divi-

sion’s use of extreme terror with ensuring suspects’ “willingness” to line

up to be transported to concentration camps.81

Such language oozes the German military’s decades-old proclivity

for maximum force and terroristic counterinsurgency warfare. The fact

that Hinghofer himself had been born in Austria, not Germany, does not

detract from this. This is not least because Austrians too had plenty in

the way of terroristic counterinsurgency tradition on which to draw.

A divisional command that harbored these convictions so strongly

was more likely to lash out excessively at the slightest trouble from armed

civilians. And while the 342d’s opponents could hardly be described as

the “slightest” trouble, nor could they yet be described as truly formi-

dable. Indeed, perhaps because they were attempting to get more rein-

forcements and equipment put their way, the 342d’s offi cers sometimes

overblew the scale of diffi culty that they faced. This point needs keeping

in mind when considering any report in which a German army coun-

terinsurgency formation loudly protested the parlousness of its condi-

tion. For instance, the 342d asserted that the Chetnik forces in the Mount

Cer region possessed an excellent communications network. In fact, the

Chetniks lacked modern communication equipment and relied almost

entirely upon runners and riders.82 Nor should it be forgotten that the

342d was able to summon Luftwaffe support against the rebels. Stuka

attacks could sometimes be hindered by poor visibility, but they pro-

vided the 342d with telling offensive impact.83

That the 342d Infantry Division’s travails were not always as oner-

ous as it made out is a further indication that the principal source of its

singular brutality lay elsewhere. Indeed, the divisional fi les also indicate

that the 342d’s command was suffused with that anti-Serb prejudice then

Settling Accounts in Blood
135

particularly prevalent among Austrians. The Chetniks, it claimed, did

not just employ underhand irregular tactics and avoid direct confronta-

tion; they also responded strongly to “their leaders’ constant appeals to

the old Serbian tradition of taking up arms in ‘small wars’ against ‘the

other.’”84 The Chetniks’ attempts to break out of the division’s encircle-

ments, meanwhile, were marked by “fanaticism and desperation.”85

Given the large gaps in the records of the 714th and 717th Infantry

Divisions, it is diffi cult to be completely certain how far the 342d Infantry

Division’s attitude differed from theirs. But those 700-number division

orders and reports that do survive in archives, material that for the 704th

at least is extensive, neither advocate terror nor evince anti-Serbism with

the same alacrity as the 342d’s. The clearest clues as to the origins of the

342d’s particularly obdurate attitude lie with General Hinghofer. Indeed,

when Hinghofer was replaced in mid-November, because his superiors

doubted his offensive spirit,86 the 342d began behaving in a manner that,

brutal though it continued to be, was less brutal than before.

Hinghofer was not dismissed, but he was required, in mid-November,

to swap divisional commands with that of the 717th Infantry Division,

hitherto led by Brigadier General Paul Hoffmann. In being shunted

from a relatively powerful, mobile Category Fourteen division to a sub-