Oscar Dirlewanger

SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, the Himmelfahrtskommando

In my story about the Murder Factories, I have already mentioned Oscar as one of the biggest criminals in World War II. Now the number of criminals working in the concentration camps and at the Einsatzgruppen and Sonderkommandos were numerous. If I have to describe all of them, this story will be very long and that is not the intention. I assume that with some imagination the accompanying facts can be thought of. The number of victims of the concentration camps can be found in my story about the Murder Factories, so I leave them out here.

The Einsatzgruppen and the Sonderkommandos operated in the slipstream of the Wehrmacht and had the task of purging the conquered territory of “unwanted elements”. That could be anything, but mainly the Jews living in the area were meant. Einsatzgruppe A, under the command of Franz Walter Stahlecker (later Heinz Jost), Einsatzgruppe B, Arthur Nebe (later Erich Naumann), Einsatzgruppe C, Otto Rasch (later Max Thomas) and Einsatzgruppe D of Otto Ohlendorf (later Walter Bierkamp). Still, there are a number of individuals that stand out head and shoulders. The Japanese Shiro Ishii with his crimes committed at the village of Quzhou (see story about the attack on Pearl Harbor), Bronislav Kaminski, an ex-red army commander of the SS-Sturm Brigade RONA, consisting of defected Russians, who made it so exceptional with looting and killings in the suppression of the Warsaw uprising, that the SS decided to liquidate the brigade and execute Kaminski just outside Warsaw. But yet there is only one that has reached the absolute top in the field of looting and murders; Oscar Dirlewanger, an exceptionally bloodthirsty sadist, criminal and rapist.

Oscar Dirlewanger was born in Würzburg on September 26, 1895. In the First World War he was awarded the Iron Cross first and second class as an infantry officer. He was wounded several times and left the war for 40% as a disabled person. He was a fierce anti-communist and joined the NSDAP in 1923. From 1936 to 1939 he became involved in the Spanish Civil War, became a member of the Condor legion and fought with Franco. He was awarded the Spanish Cross. At the beginning of the Second World War he became Obersturmführer at the Waffen – SS. The new SS unit, SS-Sonderkommando Dirlewanger, was founded and consisted mainly of murderers, rapists, psychopaths and antisocial soldiers, who had been kicked out of other SS units by their misconduct. With a sadistic sex offender at the head, the bloodthirsty brigade was more than motivated to execute the task in the Nazi-occupied areas.

The Dirlewanger Brigade was Heinrich Himmler’s most foolish idea. He initially wanted to include convicted poachers in the army where they would be more useful than in prison. Adolf Hitler agreed with the idea on the condition that a right choice had to be made. In August 1940, the brigade counted 300 men. In Sachsenhausen concentration camp, they met their commander: Oscar Dirlewanger. Dirlewanger had a very special past. He was a doctor of economics but also had a serious drinking problem. In the 1930s, he was twice in a disciplinary home for rape and attempted rape of minors. In 1934 he was kicked out of the NSDAP for immoral behavior. He left for Spain to participate in the Spanish Civil War. After his participation, he preferred to return to German service. He wrote a petition to Himmler and thanks to the help of his friend Gottlob Berger, general at the SS, he was appointed commander of the SS – Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger.

The new SS unit was sent to the border area with Russia after training. In the Jewish ghetto of Lublin, Dirlewanger’s troops plundered and killed to the maximum. Lawyer Georg Konrad Morgen was sent to occupied Poland to investigate the huge number of complaints about Dirlewanger. The list of crimes was huge. Dirlewanger had looted the ghetto several times and extorted residents. It also turned out that he had conducted “scientific experiments” on Jewish women. After the report, the SS wanted to cancel the brigade of criminals. Friedrich Krüger called Berger, but Berger kept on defending his old friend. Dirlewanger was sent with his brigade further east to hunt Russian partisans. In their new territory, the brigade went beyond murder and other atrocities. For two years, Dirlewanger commited all kind of crimes behind the front in Belarus. Villages were burned down and Dirlewanger did not make prisoners. Men, women and children were murdered without pardon. The Nazi summit did nothing to stop the crimes. At least 120,000 Belarusians were the victims. The brutal performance of Dirlewanger, despite Hitler’s green light, aroused a lot of horror in Germany. The barbarity of the brigade was unacceptable for Wilhelm Kube, governor-general in Belarus and he protested at Himmler. But again Berger defended his friend Dirlewanger.

In 1943, the brigade consisted of 760 men, but Dirlewanger needed new fresh blood. The losses were considerable because of the way they fought, much more than with other SS units. The brigade was now also known as the Himmelfahrts commando. Due to the high consumption of troops, the selection procedure was simplified and the brigade now also gained access to Russian collaborators, convicted criminals, rapists, child abusers and the mentally ill. Himmler spoke proudly about the brigade in 1944 and praised the strict discipline. The atmosphere in the brigade was often medieval in terms of physical punishments that were handed out in case of disobedience. If anyone doubted whether Germany was winning the war, he was immediately shot by the others. In December 1943, Dirlewanger even set the death penalty for cowardice in the fight.

In 1944, the brigade was deployed to fight the Polish partisans. The unit then had 16 officers and 865 men. The unit was extended with 2500 men, of which 1900 from the SS prison camp Matzkau near Danzig. Upon arriving in the area, even the most experienced German soldiers were surprised by the new brigade. These SS people were overflowing with energy, had no rank marks and smelled of alcohol. Without hesitation, the SS men stormed forward. Dozens were killed, but the brigade was unstoppable. The Dirlewanger Brigade fit well into the chaos that prevailed in the streets of Warsaw in 1944. The Warsaw uprising had just begun and the resistance fighters fought with their limited arsenal of weapons a bloody battle with the occupiers. The Polish resistance fighters were unbeatable until the moment the Dirlewanger brigade was deployed. The brigade went full on the attack and the man with the skinny face full of scars ordered his men to kill all that moved, men, women and children. Large piles of corpses lay on the streets of Warsaw and were topped with petroleum and set on fire. The sick and wounded in the hospitals were also murdered on the spot. Sisters, nuns, doctors and helpers struck the same fate (Wola massacre).

The unit was now called SS-Regiment Dirlewanger. Drinking Vodka for breakfast was part of the discipline. Their working method was still unchanged and the (drunken) soldiers acted more cruelly and bloodthirsty than ever. In the first week of the Warsaw Uprising, Dirlewanger killed between 40,000 and 50,000 people. After two months, the Warsaw uprising came to an end. Some 200,000 Poles had been killed. SS regiment Dirlewanger had lost 2700 men.

From Warsaw, Dirlewanger’s troops departed for Slovakia to knock down another uprising and in early 1945 they were transferred to Germany, where the last battle against the Russians would take place. Dirlewanger escaped the Russians’ revenge. June 1945 he was captured in southern Germany. His guards were Polish and gave him such a firm beating that he was not able to move anymore. Two days later, he was pronounced dead.

Source:

Historianet.nl

Holocausthistoricalsiciety.org

Wikipedia