They stood outside every form of ‘justice’ or ‘rights’. The farmer ploughing his fields, a female working in the kitchens of German units, the smithy, or the administrator of our quarters, could belong to that horde. A gruesome fate awaited those who fell into their hands. Torture, using methods from the Middle Ages, was on every day’s agenda. It was even used for a fragment of information about future attacks, troop movements, and weaponry. Prisoners had their eyes poked out, their tongues and ears cut off. Those were not single cases, it was the system with which those lynch-mobs worked. No one escaped those barbarians alive, and those who were shot in the back of the neck were the lucky ones.
It is believed by some, it has to be said, that without such illegal activities, whether on the Eastern Front, in the Balkans or in western Europe, the reprisals of the Wehrmacht would never have taken place.
Today the picture is different, and not based on the reality of those times. The illegality of partisan activity is ignored and a very one-sided presentation is the norm, to the disadvantage of Germany. In court cases of later years one cannot speak of objectivity, of fairness in assessing both sides of the coin. It was deliberate and was none other than a reappraisal of the past. No one took the time or trouble to present the unadulterated truth.
The ten pledges in the pay-book of every German soldier, gave very strict guidelines over our treatment of prisoners. For instance number 3. ‘It is an offence to kill prisoners who have surrendered, including partisans or spies’. 4. ‘Prisoners are not to be abused or mishandled’. 6. ‘Wounded prisoners are to be humanely treated’.
Until December 1941, the Wehrmacht in Russia occupied a territory of 65 million inhabitants and amongst them were 10,000 partisans. Those numbers grew very quickly. By the middle of 1942, 100,000 men and women were involved in underground activities against the German forces. There was not much success at first, with only half a dozen ‘Security’ divisions, mostly of older men who were badly equipped, but who had military control of the hinterland. Much more success was had from bands of fremdvolkische members from the surrounding ‘lands’, such as Ukraine/White Russia. The former were deserters from the Red Army, but they were supported by the ‘locals’ sympathising with the Germans. They possessed the same knowledge and determination as the ‘partisans’ and not even they could avert the problem.
To quote, “In the years from 1941 to 1943, Russian soldiers killed 500,000 enemy soldiers, including 47 German Generals, and many anti-communist Ukrainians”. These figures are taken from the Russian author B.S. Telpukovski’s book, A History of the Partisan Movement. Their weapons included knives and machine-pistols. On films there can be seen the 70-shot revolving barrel-type guns, and rifles and shotguns. Molotov cocktails, i.e. petrol-filled glass bottles with a wick, were first used in the Russian/Finnish war of 1939/40, were used by them for close combat with tanks. There was, as it happened, an excess of empty vodka bottles in Russia! Later those simple but effective bottle-bombs were filled with a mixture of phosphorus and sulphur, which produced a heat of1300° when in flames.
Stalin knew what he was doing when he ordered partisan activities. Twelve days after Hitler’s invasion, Stalin gave his orders for ‘Partisan activity’. He also started his ‘scorched earth’ policy, whereby everything of use that could not be taken when retreating, was to be destroyed. Alexander Werth wrote, “Blow for blow was now the order of the day.” The German troops never had time to make a thorough search of harmless looking villages for the leader of those bandits. They could only try to find the source and then extinguish the fires. It all drove the inhabitants into the lap of the partisans. The German Army, in their advance, had been looked upon as liberators from the yoke of Communism. They had been greeted with the traditional bread and salt, from girls wearing flowers.
Only a year later, how could it come to the situation where the partisans had such a hold over the inhabitants in the same areas? The answer was a simple one and the good relationship held only as long as the Military Directive ruled with goodwill. Russian so-called Commissars or Inspectors were used, in order to undermine and destroy any sympathy shown for the occupying forces, and to prepare the ground for partisan activity. Those ‘Red’ commissars replaced the ‘brown’, and Stalin made fun of the ‘dumb’ in Berlin.
The same lack of understanding stood between the Waffen SS and the Armed Forces, when it came to the interference from party officials in the re direction of the inhabitants. We soldiers saw the policy as an expression of extreme arrogance, which was to our disadvantage, and the advantage of the partisans. There were exceptions of course. Conscientious officials not only with ideals but also local understanding, tried to even out the inadequacies of the Ministry for Eastern Policy.
One of those was a genuine NS Head Administrator, who had been a general commissioner in the Crimea. This educated and upright national socialist, Alfred Frauenfeld, administered with so much level-headedness and expertise, that he could afford to travel hundreds of miles through the Steppe without any armed protection. He treated those working for him with decency and propriety. He understood the mentality, interests and needs of the inhabitants in the areas. Because of that, he himself was also treated with decency and propriety. He produced a highly efficient economy in the Crimea that was second to none. In complete contrast, one of the ‘gravediggers’ of the Third Reich was a man called Erich Koch, District Commissioner in Ukraine and former district commissioner in East Prussia. He directed with brutality, not the consideration and ‘fingertip’ feeling of his counterpart.
It is clear that Germany did not use the one-off chance that they had in the East. There were experts who with far-sightedness tried to save the situation. But their suggestions of altering the policy of the occupying forces, were only put into action as the Red Army took Budapest.
Despite the order to “hold at any price”, the German Wehrmacht was threatened with the same fate in the winter of 1941/42, as Napol eon’s army. In between times, the front was no longer intact and the Red Army held the initiative in the south. Only with extreme exertion, and against the will of Stalin’s favourite general, General Zhukov, could the offensive on Moscow be averted at the end of January. The situation on the Eastern Front stabilised gradually. However, Operation ‘Barbarossa’ with its aims and plan of operation, from Archangelesk in the north in a straight line down to Astrakhan in the south, faded into the background. The hard winter in which the German Army found itself and which destroyed their plan, lasted four long, unending months. In March there was another terrible snowstorm, which was followed by ‘the thaw’. It was then a ‘bog-down’ period.
“At the end of the winter, the faces of our men were old, from stress that was present every day. They had an unhealthy hue from the frost, that they would never lose. It was to be seen on both sides. The only visible difference could be seen from the uniform that they wore, or the language that was to be heard, i.e. German or Russian”. This is quoted from the diary of Leutnant Wolfgang Paul, in his book Erfrorener Sieg.