Relay of the German team

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Relay of the German team

Lineup July 31, 1941
Country Flag of Croatia (1941–1945) .svg Independent state of Croatia
Armed forces Croatian armed forces
militia Ustaška vojnica
( Ustasha militia)
structure a) Disposal battalion ,
consisting of:
3 rifle companies
1 escort weapon company
1 motorbike rifle platoon
1 cavalry platoon
1 pioneer platoon
1 intelligence
platoon b) Staff guard
(including DG guard in Zagreb )
Strength 2,700 (until June 1, 1942)
Origin of the soldiers Independent state of Croatia
motto Firmly faithful
Butcher Second World War
insignia
Identification symbol double upright wolf fishing

The operational relay of the German team (short ES der DM , ES or E-Staffel ) was a paramilitary National Socialist militia of the Yugoslav Germans in the independent state of Croatia during the Second World War .

The German “ ethnic group leaderBranimir Altgayer was formally responsible for personnel issues and political education, but in fact the later Hauptsturmführer of the Waffen SS, Jakob Lichtenberger, commanded the team. For armament, weapons training and deployment was chief of staff of the Ustasha militia responsible.

history

With the "Legislative Decree on the Provisional Legal Status of the German Ethnic Group" of June 21, 1941, the "German Ethnic Group in the Independent State of Croatia" (DVGK), in which all Yugoslav Germans in the territory of the Independent State of Croatia were combined, became a public legal entity Law declared and received equality in public and private life. A division of the DVGK or its "only and sole political will-bearer", the National Socialist German Followers in Croatia (NSDGK) was the "German team" (DM). In the DM, "genetically healthy, racially and ideologically impeccable men over 21 (in exceptional cases over 18) years for the purpose of team education and physical training" should be summarized.

The operational relay of the German team was formed by the Croatian leader Ante Pavelić through the "Legislative Decree on the establishment of a militia of the German ethnic group within the framework of the Croatian Ustasha Militia in the Independent State of Croatia" of July 31, 1941. In this legal decree it was said that the establishment was in recognition of the achievements of the German ethnic group in restoring peace and order, in establishing the new order and in disarming the royal Yugoslav army. From the “German team” a “deployment squadron” consisting of three companies and a staff guard should be formed. The ES was deployed within the framework of the Ustaša militias, the main task of which was to protect the towns inhabited by Germans. At first, the strength of the ES was limited to one battalion , but due to the growing threat from partisans , additional units were soon formed. By June 1, 1942, the ES reached a strength of 1,500 men, while two reserve battalions, which had been formed with the consent of the government of the NDH regime , comprised another 1,200 men.

According to the agreement between the Croatian government and the German occupying power of September 16, 1941, the ethnic Germans were to serve in their own formations within the Croatian army . However, 10 percent of the conscripts of a given year should serve in German units, especially the Waffen SS .

From June 1942 the German conscripts between 17 and 30 years of age were to do service in the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division “Prinz Eugen” by Heinrich Himmler's decision . In an exchange of notes on September 21, 1942 and October 10, 1942, between the Reich government and the NDH government, it was agreed that all ethnic Germans between the ages of 17 and 35 could volunteer for service in the Waffen SS.

By April 1, 1943, 10,270 ethnic Germans were accepted into the Waffen SS in two recruitment campaigns, while 5,000 remained in the Croatian army. A further 2,900 reports were initially disregarded.

In an additional protocol on April 24, 1943, the creation of a German-Croatian gendarmerie was agreed, in which older cohorts should serve among the ethnic Germans. In this context, Konstantin Kammerhofer was appointed as "Commissioner of the Reichsführer-SS" for the affairs of the German ethnic group in Croatia. By the end of April 1943, the ES was disbanded except for three railway protection battalions and the teams were transferred to units of the SS and the police.

In July 1943, about 15 percent of the German ethnic group served the German Reich in one way or another. According to the records of a meeting in the German embassy in Zagreb on July 1, 1943, a total of 25,800 ethnic Germans from Croatia served the Reich. 15,000 of them in units of the SS and the police in the Reich, 2,500 in German police units in Croatia, 350 in the Wehrmacht , 700 as translators for the Wehrmacht, 1,600 in the Croatian army and in railway protection battalions, 450 as specialists in the Croatian army, 2,200 in the Todt Organization and 4,500 as workers in the Reich.

uniform

From 1941 on, soldiers of the Einsatzstaffel initially wore uniforms of the Croatian Home Guard ( Hrvatsko Domobranstvo ), then from the beginning of 1942 uniforms in the style of the Waffen SS. On the right black collar tab they wore two simple, vertical white / silver wolf fishing rods , on the left black collar tab the white / silver rank badges with six pointed stars (which were adopted from the Kuk and Croatian tradition , based on the left collar tabs of the Waffen SS ).

Awards

Commemorative badge

All members of the ES who were involved in the founding of the ES and who had taken part in the first training course from September 28 to November 4, 1941 in Zagreb, or members who had an uninterrupted 18-month service in, had the right to wear the silver commemorative badge of the ES, or ES members who were wounded in the war.

All members of the ES who had performed an uninterrupted 6-month service in the ES had the right to wear the commemorative badge of the mission team in bronze.

The wearer received a corresponding ID about the right to wear.

In addition, the ethnic group leader could award the badge to people who had contributed to setting up, training and equipping the ES or who had contributed to the protection of German settlements on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia.

Known relatives

literature

  • Wilhelm Sattler: The German ethnic group in the independent state of Croatia . Ed .: Südostdeutsches Institut Graz. Styrian Publishing House Graz, 1943.
  • Holm Sundhaussen: On the history of the Waffen-SS in Croatia 1941-1945 . In: Southeast Research . No. XXX , 1971, p. 176-1196 .
  • Krunoslav Mikulan, Siniša Pogačić: Hrvatsko oružane snage: 1941–1945 . PC grafičke usluge, Zagreb 1999, ISBN 953-97564-2-1 , p. 168 ff .
  • Jozo Tomasevich: War and revolution in Yugoslavia: 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration . Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3615-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Item 6 of the preliminary guidelines on the organization of the "German team" of January 31, 1942
  2. ^ Carl Bethke : “No common language?” LIT Verlag Münster, 2013, ISBN 3-643-11754-X , p. 265.
  3. ^ Johann Böhm : The German ethnic groups in the independent state of Croatia and in the Serbian Banat: their relationship to the Third Reich 1941-1944. Lang, 2012. ISBN 3-631-63323-8 , p. 15.
  4. Article 12 of the preliminary statutes of the National Socialist German Followers in Croatia from January 31, 1942
  5. Item 19 of the provisional organizational provisions of the People's Organization of the German Ethnic Group in Croatia of May 14, 1941 with later changes and additions
  6. ^ Nigel Thomas: Axis Forces in Yugoslavia 1941-45 . With illustrations by Darko Pavlovic. Osprey 1995, ISBN 978-1-85532-473-2 .
  7. Borna Barac / Siniša Pogačić: Odlikovanja i znakovlje Nezavisne Države Hrvatske 1941. – 1945 . Obol, Zagreb 1998, ISBN 953-6388-02-2 , p. 166 ff .