Sönke Neitzel - Soldaten

SRM 746, 3 August 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

SRX 1978, 13 August 1944, TNA, WO 208/4164.

SRM 726, 30 July 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

SRM 1150, 30 December 1944, TNA, WO 208/4140. The anti-Semitic commentary supposedly came from the division commander, SS brigade leader Heinz Lammerding.

SRM 899, 15 September 1944, TNA, WO 208/4139. On plunder, see SRM 772, 1 August 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

An NCO reported that ten English POWs had been shot in his unit. SRM 741, 4 August 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138. NCO Kaun reported that a Canadian POW was killed with a pickax. The perpetrator could have been a member of the SS division “Hitler Youth” or a regular army soldier. SRM 737, 3 August 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

For a general overview, see Lieb, Konventioneller Krieg .

SRM 892, 15 September 1944, TNA, WO 208/4139.

SRM 855, 29 August 1944, TNA, WO 208/4139.

Room Conversation, Hanelt–Breitlich, 3 April 1945, NARA, RG 165, Entry 179, Box 479. The mention of tanks destroying the village makes it seem likely that this incident was part of the battle against “partisans,” carried out by Waffen SS units and not by a Security Service commando.

GRGG 225, 18–19 November 1944, TNA, WO 208/4364.

See Neitzel, Abgehört, pp. 300–303, 572ff.

SRX 1799, 23 June 1943, TNA, WO 208/4162.

There is unfortunately only scant research on the topic of war crimes committed by the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front.

SRN 3929, 10 July 1944, TNA, WO 208/4153.

SRM 1079, 24 November 1944, TNA, WO 208/4139. On massacres of civilians in Belarus, see the statement by Rottenführer Otto Gregor. PWIS (H)LDC/762, TNA, WO 208/4295. Lieutenant Colonel Müller-Rienzburg told as a POW of how Standartenführer Kurt Meyer had bragged at a training session of how he took Charkow with only two casualties and then destroyed the entire village, including “women, children and old people.” SRGG 832, 13 February 1944, TNA, WO 208/4168.

SRM 648, 15 July 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

SRM 643, 13 July 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138. On the execution of POWs by the SS Division “The Reich,” see SRM 764, 8 August 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138. Untersturmführer Karl-Walter Becker from 12th SS Division “Hitler Youth” recalled comrades telling him about the invasion: “In Russia, the standard operating procedure was that only the POWs who seemed most important would be transported. All others were usually murdered.” TNA, WO 208/4295.

SRM 1205, 12 February 1945, TNA, WO 208/4140. On the crimes of the 12th SS Armored Division in Normandy, see Howard Margolian, Conduct Unbecoming: The Story of the Murder of Canadian Prisoners of War in Normandy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998); Lieb, Konventioneller Krieg, pp. 158–66.

SRM 753, 3 August 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

Further crimes are mentioned in SRM 706, 28 July 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138; SRM 367, 9 November 1943, TNA, WO 208/4137 (the murder of hostages in Panevo, Serbia, in April 1941).

Leleu, La Waffen-SS, pp. 233–35; 420–41; Jürgen Matthäus, Konrad Kwiet, Jürgen Förster, and Richard Breitman, eds., Ausbildungsziel Judenmord? “Weltanschauliche Erziehung” von SS, Polizei und Waffen-SS im Rahmen der “Endlösung” (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2003).

GRGG 262, 18–20 February 1945, TNA, WO 208/4177.

SRM 1214, 12 February 1945, TNA, WO 208/4140.

SRM 1216, 16 February 1945, TNA, WO 208/4140. The wording of Himmler’s order of 20 February 1943 was nearly identical. See Matthäus et al., eds., Ausbildungsziel Judenmord?, p. 106.

Bernd Wegner, Hitlers politische Soldaten: Die Waffen-SS, 1933–1945 (Paderborn: Schoeningh Verlag, 2009), p. 189.

Matthäus et al., eds., Ausbildungsziel Judenmord?

SRM 649, 16 July 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

Leleu, La Waffen-SS, pp. 468–70.

Wegner, Hitlers politische Soldaten, p. 48ff.; Leleu, La Waffen-SS, pp. 456ff., 483ff.

SRM 649, 16 July 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

SRM 705, 28 July 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

SRM 649, 16 July 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

Carlo Gentile, “‘Politische Soldaten’: Die 16. SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Division ‘Reichsführer-SS’ in Italien 1944” Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 81 (2001), pp. 529–61.

Peter Lieb, “‘Die Ausführung der Maßnahme hielt sich anscheinend nicht im Rahmen der gegebenen Weisung’: Die Suche nach Hergang, Tätern und Motiven des Massakers von Maillé am 25. August 1944,” Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift 68 (2009), pp. 345–78.

SRM 766, 8 August 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

Leleu, La Waffen-SS, p. 794ff.

SRM 668, 21 July 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

See Matthias Weusmann, “Die Schlacht in der Normandie 1944: Wahrnehmungen und Deutungen deutscher Soldaten” (Master’s thesis, University of Mainz, 2009).

Christian Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde: Die deutsche Wirtschafts- und Vernichtungspolitik in Weißrußland (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1999), pp. 609–22; Peter Lieb, “Die Judenmorde der 707: Infanterie division 1941/42,” VfZG 50 (2002), pp. 523–58, esp. 535–44.

Hartmann, Wehrmacht im Ostkrieg, pp. 469–788; Hermann Frank, Blutiges Edelweiss: Die 1. Gebirgsdivision im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 2008); Peter Lieb, “Generalleutnant Harald von Hirschfeld: Eine nationalsozialistische Karriere in der Wehrmacht,” in Von Feldherrn und Gefreiten: Zur biographischen Dimension des Zweiten Weltkrieges, Christian Hartmann, ed., (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2008), pp. 45–56.

See Hans-Martin Stimpel, Die deutsche Fallschirmtruppe, 1936–1945: Innenansichten von Führung und Truppe (Hamburg: Mittler & Sohn, 2009).

The British concluded that the officer POWs of the 3rd Paratrooper Division consisted almost exclusively of Nazi true believers. Corps Intelligence Summary, No. 56, 8 September 1944, TNA, WO 171/287. We owe this reference to Peter Lieb, Sandhurst.

SRGG 971, 9 August 1944, TNA, WO 208/4168.

That is the conclusion reached by a study that systematically compared the surveillance protocols of officers from the Waffen SS and paratrooper divisions. Frederik Müllers, “Des Teufels Soldaten? Denk- und Deutungsmuster von Soldaten der Waffen-SS” (Master’s thesis, University of Mainz, 2011).