7/23/2023 0 Comments Bloodlands signal mountain murdersBy September 1940, the formation numbered over 300 men. The unit was sent to Poland where it was joined by four Waffen-SS NCOs selected for their previous disciplinary records and twenty other recruits. On 14 June 1940, the Wilddiebkommando Oranienburg ("Oranienburg Poacher's Unit") was formed as part of the Waffen-SS. After two months training, 55 men were selected with the rest sent back to prison. In late May 1940 Dirlewanger was sent to Oranienburg to take charge of 80 selected men convicted of poaching crimes who were temporarily released from their sentences. The men were to combine their knowledge of hunting and woodcraft similar to traditional Jäger elite riflemen with the courage and initiative of those who willingly broke the law. A confirmation of Hitler's order was sent specifying that the poachers should, where possible, be Bavarian and Austrian, not be guilty of crimes involving trap setting, and were to be enrolled in marksmen's rifle corps. On 23 March 1940, a department in the Ministry of Justice received a telephone call from Himmler's headquarters informing them that Adolf Hitler had decided to give "suspended sentences to so-called 'honorable poachers' and, depending on their behaviour at the front, to pardon them". In mid-1940, after the invasion of Poland, Berger arranged for Dirlewanger to command and train a military unit of convicted poachers for partisan-hunting ( Bandenbekämpfung). On his return to Germany in 1939, Berger helped Dirlewanger join the Allgemeine SS (General SS) with the rank of SS- Untersturmführer. Berger used his influence to help Dirlewanger join the Condor Legion, a German unit which fought in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). In desperation, he contacted his old WWI comrade Gottlob Berger who was now a senior Nazi working closely with Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Soon after his release, Dirlewanger was rearrested for sexual assault and sent to a concentration camp at Welzheim. The conviction led to him being expelled from the Nazi Party (but he was permitted to reapply for membership). In 1934 he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for "contributing to the delinquency of a minor with whom he was sexually involved", and for stealing government property. After graduating from Frankfurt's Citizens' University with a doctorate in political science in 1922, he worked at a bank and a knitwear factory. He joined the Freikorps and took part in crushing the German Revolution of 1918–19. Īfter enlisting in the German Army as a machine gunner in 1913, Dirlewanger served in the XIII (Royal Württemberg) Corps rising to the rank of Leutnant ( lieutenant) and receiving the Iron Cross first and second class during WWI. The eponymous Dirlewanger Brigade was led by World War I veteran and convicted criminal Oskar Dirlewanger, considered an amoral violent alcoholic who was claimed to have possessed a sadistic sexual orientation and a barbaric nature he has been described as "the most evil man" in the SS. Amongst other actions, the unit took part in the destruction of Warsaw in late 1944 and in the massacre of around 100,000 of Warsaw's inhabitants in August 1944 during the Warsaw Uprising – as well as in the brutal suppression of the Slovak National Uprising of August to October 1944. Several commanders attempted to remove Dirlewanger from command and to dissolve the unit, but powerful patrons within the Nazi apparatus protected Dirlewanger and intervened on his behalf. Several members such as Hans von Cullen were put to death post-war by ad-hoc tribunals. It gained a reputation among Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS officers for its brutality. Originally formed in 1940 and first deployed for counter-insurgency duties against the Polish resistance movement, the brigade saw service in anti-partisan actions in German-occupied Eastern Europe.ĭuring its operations, the unit participated in the mass murder of civilians and in other war crimes in German-occupied Eastern Europe. The unit, named after its commander Oskar Dirlewanger, consisted of convicted war criminals who were not expected to survive their service with the unit. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS), or The Black Hunters ( German: Die schwarzen Jäger), was a unit of the Waffen-SS during World War II. The Dirlewanger Brigade, also known as the SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger (1944), or the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS ( German: 36.
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