Probation Battalion

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Probation battalions , colloquially penal battalions were, during the Second World War the units Wehrmacht in the army , all three in the 1941 condemned soldiers armed services to front probation were added. Comparable was the parole troop 999 established in 1942 , in which previously convicted persons classified as “unworthy of defense” served.

Special departments

At first, as a “lesson from the November Revolution”, when the Wehrmacht was built , the intention was to keep “corrosive elements” and potential troublemakers away from the troops. The Defense Act of May 21, 1935 therefore excluded people as “unworthy of defense” who had been judicially punished for “activities hostile to the state”. "Disciplinary difficult elements", which were "worthy of defense" but posed a threat to the "male discipline of the troops", were transferred to "special departments" from 1936 onwards. For this purpose, Reich Minister of War Werner von Blomberg announced on May 25, 1936 that "camp formations" would be set up, which were then put into service from October 1936.

Before the war there were nine such special departments. The declared goal was to influence the inmates "in their attitude towards the state and the people and to train them to become decent, dutiful and honorable, capable soldiers." Those who conformed were placed in a regular unit; those who “maliciously” resisted could be transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp . According to estimates, between 3000 and 6000 Wehrmacht members passed through these special departments by the start of the war , of which 320 were probably transferred to the concentration camp as "incorrigible Wehrmacht pests".

At the beginning of the war, these special departments were dissolved, but soon afterwards they were re-established as a "field special battalion" with intensified service. As the war went on, the demand for “human material” increased, so that members of the Wehrmacht who had been convicted and imprisoned by the military tribunal as well as those previously retired as “unworthy of military service” were sent to the front for “probation”.

"500" probation battalions

By secret decree of December 21, 1940, Adolf Hitler decreed that a soldier who had been convicted for the first time could in future be assigned “after part of his sentence has been carried out [...] to a special troop for probation from the enemy”. However, this probation group has "in no way the character of a criminal group". Since April 1941, convicted and imprisoned soldiers - including some sentenced to death - could be re-accepted into the troops as "conditionally worthy of military service". The men of the parole troop had to prove themselves on dangerous frontline missions through "extraordinary bravery". Otherwise there was a risk of the imposed sentence being carried out or being transferred to the Emsland camps or to punishment units.

In the 500 battalions, around 27,000 “probationers” served in the course of the war, who were monitored and commanded by selected officers, non-commissioned officers and men, who made up around a quarter of the total strength. The pressure of probation and the "will to probation" made this troop into strong combat units, but the losses were extraordinarily high. Important locations were Kamenka , Grusino and Sinjawino in the east and the front in France.

A unit with the same objective was created in 1943 with the SS-Fallschirmjäger-Bataillon 500 also in the Waffen-SS .

Field prisoner departments

On April 2, 1942 - again through the "Führer Decree" - the "reorganization of the execution of sentences in the Wehrmacht" came about. According to this, the incentive for "unfounded elements" should be removed to evade the front line by serving their sentences.

From May 1942, three field prisoner detention units with 200 men each were set up in Glatz , Germersheim and Anklam , to which convicted Wehrmacht members were transferred if Wehrmacht courts had imposed a prison sentence of three months. From these, field criminal units formed. By the end of the war there were 22 field prisoner detachments, each with four to six companies. An estimated 20,000 men were deployed there on average.

The service on the Eastern Front was demanded unarmed with “the toughest work under dangerous circumstances”: building bunkers and positions, clearing mines and recovering corpses.

"Probation Force" 999

The parole troop 999 was formed from civilians who had not been called up as prisoners or prison inmates as "unworthy of defense", but were urgently needed from October 1942. They were given the prospect of wiping the eyesore on their honor through “exemplary brave work ... before the enemy and thereby becoming full soldiers and citizens again.” Otherwise, they were threatened with repatriation “without counting the war period against the duration of the sentence” or the transfer to the concentration camp.

A third of these 28,000 soldiers were "political". It was set up at the Heuberg and Baumholder military training areas . The 999 units were initially deployed in Tunisia in the spring of 1943 , briefly in early 1944 on the Eastern Front and from mid-1943 mainly as an occupation force in Greece and against partisans during the 1944/45 retreat in the Balkans. A few hundred members of this troop defected to the enemy and resisted the German occupiers.

See also

literature

  • Hans-Peter Klausch : The probation troop 500. Position and function of the probation troop 500 in the system of Nazi military law, Nazi military justice and Wehrmacht penal execution. Temmen, Bremen 1995, ISBN 3-86108-260-8 ( DIZ-Schriften 8).
  • Hans-Peter Klausch: "educators" and "unworthy of defense". The special and probation units of the Wehrmacht. In: Norbert Haase, Gerhard Paul (ed.): The other soldiers. Destruction of military strength, refusal to obey and desertion in World War II. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-596-12769-6 , pp. 66-82 ( Fischer 12769 history. The time of National Socialism ).
  • Manfred Messerschmidt: The Wehrmacht Justice 1933-1945 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2005, ISBN 978-3-506-71349-0 .
  • Fritz Wüllner: The Nazi military justice and the misery of historiography. A basic research report. 2nd revised and supplemented edition. Nomos Verlags-Gesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1997, ISBN 3-7890-4578-0 .
  • Military regulation H.Dv. 39, M.Dv.Nr. 851, L.Dv. 73 - The special departments of the Wehrmacht (Sdr.Abt.) - 1938

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Hans-Peter Klausch: 'Erziehungsmänner' and 'Unworthy of defense'. The special and probation units of the Wehrmacht. In: Norbert Haase / Gerhard Paul (ed.): The other soldiers. Frankfurt / M. 1995, ISBN 3-596-12769-6 , pp. 66f
  2. ↑ RGBl. I, p. 609 Defense Act § 18 (1) e .
  3. ↑ Hans-Peter Klausch: 'Educators' and 'Unworthy of Defense'. P. 68.
  4. ↑ Messerschmidt, Wehrmachtjustiz , p. 324ff
  5. ↑ quoted from Hans-Peter Klausch: 'educators' and 'unworthy of defense'. P. 69.
  6. ↑ Hans-Peter Klausch: 'Educators' and 'Unworthy of Defense'. P. 70.
  7. ↑ Hans-Peter Klausch: 'Educators' and 'Unworthy of Defense'. P. 71.
  8. ↑ Martin Moll (Ed.): Leader Decrees 1939-1945. Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-515-06873-2 , p. 156
  9. ↑ Ulrich Baumann et al. (Ed.): What was right then ... soldiers and civilians before courts of the Wehrmacht. Berlin 2008, ISBN 3-89809-079-5 , p. 188.
  10. ↑ Ulrich Baumann et al. (Ed.): What was right then ... p. 189
  11. ↑ Martin Moll (Ed.): Leader Decrees 1939-1945. P. 244 f.
  12. ↑ Michael Eberlein et al .: Torgau in the hinterland of the Second World War . Leipzig 1999, ISBN 3-378-01039-8 , p. 65.
  13. ↑ Michael Eberlein et al .: Torgau in the hinterland of the Second World War . Leipzig 1999, ISBN 3-378-01039-8 , p. 66.
  14. ↑ Ulrich Baumann et al. (Ed.): What was right then ... p. 190
  15. ↑ Ulrich Baumann et al. (Ed.): What was right then ... p. 191