Bandenbekämpfung

Heinrich Himmler's report Number 51 from 1 October 1942 to 1 December 1942 detailing killings of "bandits" and Jews in Southern Russia, Ukraine, Bialystok.

Bandenbekämpfung is a German-language term that means "bandit fighting" or "combating of bandits". In the context of German military history, Bandenbekämpfung was an operational doctrine that was part of countering resistance or insurrection in the rear during wars. The doctrine of "bandit-fighting" provided a rationale to target any number of groups, from armed guerrillas to civilian population, as "bandits" or "members of gangs". As applied by the German Empire and then Nazi Germany, it became instrumental in the genocidal programs implemented by the two regimes, including the Holocaust.

Origins and practice

Under the German Empire established by Bismarck in 1871 after the Franco-Prussian War—formed also with the union of twenty-five German states under the Hohenzollern king—Prussian militarism flourished; martial traditions that included the military doctrine of Antoine-Henri Jomini's 1837 treatise, Summary of the Art of War were put into effect.[1] Some of the theories laid out by Jomini contained instructions for intense offensive operations and the necessity of securing one's "lines of operations."[1] German military officers took this to mean as much attention should be given to logistical operations used to fight the war at the rear as those in the front; this most certainly entailed security operations to protect the lines.[1] Following Jomini's lead, Obersleutnant Albrecht von Boguslawski published lectures entitled Der Kleine Krieg (The Small War), which outlined in detail the tactical procedures related to partisan and anti-partisan warfare—likely deliberately written without clear classifications of combatant and non-combatants.[2] To what extent this contributed to the intensification of military operations without boundaries cannot be known, but Prussian officers like Alfred von Schlieffen encouraged his professional soldiers to embrace a dictum that advocated the idea that "for every problem, there was a military solution."[3]

Prussian security operations during the Franco-Prussian War included the use of the Landwehr, whose duties ranged from guarding railroad lines, to taking hostages, and carrying out reprisals to deter activities of the franc-tireur.[4] More formal structures like Chief of the Field Railway, a Military Railway Corps, District Commanders, Special Military Courts, intelligence units, and military police of varying duties and nomenclature were integrated into the Prussian system to bolster security operations all along the military's operational lines.[5] Operationally, the first attempts to use tactics that would later develop into Bandenbekämpfung were carried out in China in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion, after two German officers went missing, which was followed up with more than fifty operations by German troops, who set fire to a village and held prisoners. Shortly after these operations, the infantry was provided with a handbook for "operations against Chinese bandits" (Bänden).[6] The first full application of Bandenbekämpfung in practice, however, was the Herero and Namaqua genocide, a campaign of racial extermination and collective punishment that the German Empire undertook in German South West Africa (modern-day Namibia) against the Herero and Nama people.[7]

During the First World War, the German army ignored many of the commonly understood European conventions of war, when between August and October 1914, they deliberately killed some 6,500 French and Belgian citizens.[8] Throughout the war, Germany's integrated intelligence, perimeter police, guard network, and border control measures all coalesced to define the German military's security operations.[9] Along the Eastern front sometime in August 1915, Field Marshal Falkenhayn established a general government under General von Beseler, creating an infrastructure to support ongoing military operations, which included guards posts, patrols and a security network. Unfortunately, maintaining security meant dealing with Russian prisoners, many of whom tried to sabotage German plans and kill German soldiers, so harsh pacification measures and terror actions were carried out to deal with these partisans (including brutal reprisals against civilians), otherwise known as bandits.[10] Before long, similar practices were being instituted throughout both the Eastern and Western areas of German occupation.[11]

During World War II, the term Bandenbekämpfung supplanted Partisanenkämpfung (anti-partisan warfare) to become the guiding principle of Nazi Germany's security warfare and occupational policies. Immediately after the start of war in Europe, and especially during the German-Soviet War, 1941–45, these doctrines amalgamated with the Nazi regime's genocidal plans for the racial reshaping of the Eastern Europe to secure "living space" (Lebensraum) for Germany.[12]

Officially launched under the Bandenbekämpfung name in 1942, the program was headed by SS General Erich von dem Bach-Zalewski. Implemented by units of the SS, Wehrmacht and Order Police, Bandenbekämpfung as applied by the Nazi regime and directed by the SS across occupied Europe led to mass crimes against humanity and was an instrumental part of the Holocaust.[13]

Führer Directive 46

Original caption reads: "Soviet Union: Execution of partisans. 21 January 1941" (Source: PK 666).

In July 1942, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, was appointed to lead the security initiatives in rear areas. One of his first actions in this role was the prohibition of the use of "partisan" to describe counter-insurgents. "Gangs" and "members of gangs" (Banden) were supposed to be used instead. The organisational changes, putting experienced SS killers in charge, and language that criminalised resistance, whether real or imagined, presaged the transformation of security warfare into massacres.[14]

The radicalisation of "anti-bandit" warfare saw further impetus in the Führer Directive 46 of 18 August 1942, where security warfare's aim was defined as "complete extermination". The directive called on the security forces to act with "utter brutality", while providing immunity from prosecution for any acts committed during "bandit-fighting" operations.[15]

The directive designated the SS as the organisation responsible for rear-area warfare in areas under civilian administration. In areas under military jurisdiction (the Army Group Rear Areas), the Army High Command had the overall responsibility. The directive declared the entire population of "bandit" (i.e. partisan-controlled) territories as enemy combatants. In practice, this meant that the aims of security warfare was not pacification, but complete destruction and depopulation of "bandit" and "bandit-threatened" territories, turning them into "dead zones" (Tote Zonen).[15]

See also

References

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 Blood 2006, p. 5.
  2. ↑ Blood 2006, pp. 5–6.
  3. ↑ Blood 2006, pp. 8–9.
  4. ↑ Blood 2006, pp. 10–11.
  5. ↑ Blood 2006, pp. 12–14.
  6. ↑ Blood 2006, p. 15.
  7. ↑ Blood 2006, pp. 16–18.
  8. ↑ Blood 2006, p. 20.
  9. ↑ Blood 2006, p. 21.
  10. ↑ Blood 2006, pp. 22–23.
  11. ↑ Blood 2006, pp. 24–25.
  12. ↑ Shepherd 2008.
  13. ↑ Hale 2011, p. xx.
  14. ↑ Westermann 2005, pp. 191–192.
  15. 1 2 Geyer & Edele 2009, p. 380.

Bibliography

  • Blood, Philip W. (2006). Hitler's Bandit Hunters: The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe. Potomac Books. ISBN 978-1-59797-021-1.
  • Geyer, Michael; Edele, Mike (2009). Geyer, Michael; Fitzpatrick, Sheila, eds. Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism compared. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-89796-9.
  • Hale, Christopher (2011). Hitler's Foreign Executioners: Europe's Dirty Secret. The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-5974-5.
  • Shepherd, Ben (April 2008). "Hitler's Bandit Hunters: The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe. By Philip W. Blood". The American Historical Review. American Historical Association. 113 (2): 597–598. |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  • Westermann, Edward B. (2005). Hitler's Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East. Kansas City: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1724-1.
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