Max von Schenckendorff
Max Heinrich Moritz Albert von Schenckendorff (born February 24, 1875 in Prenzlau , † July 6, 1943 in Krummhübel ) was a German officer , most recently a general of the infantry . During the First World War , he fought on the front lines in several major battles in France and later worked as a head of training units. In the Second World War he was in command of the rear army area of Army Group Center and thus in command of an area of 150,000 km² with almost 10 million inhabitants. He was considered the partisan expert of the Wehrmacht . Despite the use of terrorist measures, he was unable to neutralize the partisan units in his area, but from 1942 increasingly lost control of his army territory.
family
Max von Schenckendorff came from an old noble family that was first mentioned in a document in the 13th century. The family's ancestral home was in Schenkendorf in Lower Lusatia in Brandenburg . The region around the village, where the family owned large estates, was called Schenckenländchen . Today the village is called Sękowice and belongs to the rural community of Gubin on the Neisse in Poland . The male members of the Schenckendorff family had mostly been squires, civil servants and officers. His father Albert was an officer in the infantry regiment "General Field Marshal Prince Friedrich Karl von Prussia" (8th Brandenburgisches) No. 64 , most recently as a colonel and commander . As the eldest of three brothers, Max was named after his ancestor Max von Schenkendorf (1783-1817), a lyric poet who worked as a patriotic poet during the Napoleonic Wars of Liberation . His two brothers also became officers. In the Battle of Verdun in 1917, his brother Günther fell as captain and commander of the III. Battalion of the 64th Infantry Regiment at Fort Douaumont . His brother Heinrich died in 1941 as a lieutenant general and commander of the military replacement inspection in Liegnitz .
In 1904 he married Lena Sophie von Langendorf from Schleswig-Holstein . A son and four daughters were born over the next few years.
Military service until the First World War
Max von Schenckendorff was educated in the Prussian cadet corps and prepared for an officer career. On March 17, 1894 Max resigned from Schenckendorff as a lieutenant in the Infantry Regiment "King Ludwig III. von Bayern ”(2nd Lower Silesian) No. 47 in Posen . In 1898 he was assigned to a field airship department with tethered balloons in Berlin-Reinickendorf for half a year . On 1 October 1898, he was for three years Adjutant of the II. Battalion of Infantry Regiment 47. There was a use as regimental adjutant in the Infantry Regiment 47. On 19 May 1903 he was appointed lieutenant promoted. He was trained from October 1903 to July 1906 at the Prussian War Academy in Berlin . In December 1911, like his father before him, he became chief of 10th Company in Infantry Regiment No. 64 in Angermünde .
First World War
During the First World War, Max von Schenkendorff kept a war diary. It was revised by Schenckendorff after the war and transferred to 900 typewriter pages. Historian Jörn Hasenclever used this source as the basis for depicting Schenkendorff's war career, as Schenckendorff's personal file no longer exists.
On August 2, 1914, Schenckendorff was appointed company commander in the 64th Infantry Regiment. Shortly after the start of the war, his unit marched through neutral Belgium . The company took hostages at every night's quarters , as attacks were feared. The hostages were released in the morning. From September 1914, Schenckendorff was involved in heavy fighting in northern France. He saw the end of the German offensive and the retreat on the Aisne . After the fighting began at Vailly, he was temporarily used as a battalion leader. He was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class in October . In his diary entries his dislike of higher staff and the stage in general was expressed. In December 1914, his unit was pulled from the front for the first time. Schenckendorff fell ill with severe migraines and was sent to the hospital . He was then commander of a recruit depot that was responsible for training the replacement teams of the III. Army Corps was responsible. There he developed new training methods from March 1915 and thus attracted the attention of his superiors. In April the entire recruit training of the III. Army Corps transferred. On April 18, 1915, he was promoted to major .
The general fear of espionage and militants among the German troops also spread at Schenckendorff. He advocated a large-scale evacuation of the area of operations of the civilian population. He saw four French soldiers arrested near the village of Crepcy who had been hiding there for months. In the diary, his hatred of Great Britain emerged in contrast to his attitude towards the French people. At the end of September 1915 he was awarded the III. Army corps relocated to Serbia . Schenckendorff was there in command of the Danube crossing. This was followed by employment as a liaison officer to the Austrian 57th Infantry Troop Division and the IV Reserve General Command. His criticism of the KuK army and the Serbian “unculture” was expressed in the diary . In mid-November 1915 his corps was transferred back to Belgium. He took over the recruit training again. He was commissioned by the commanding general to draw up guidelines for company commanders. He had already written instructions for training recruits beforehand. In January 1916 he became commander of the 3rd Jäger Battalion . For a short time, Schenckendorff was the liaison officer to the XVIII. Army corps retired. This was followed by the deployment of his battalion in the Battle of Verdun . After demonstrating flamethrowers , he wrote in his diary:
“This war made everything inventive. In this way, in keeping with modern times and taking into account the meanness of our opponents, one moves far away from the knightly manner of waging war of our ancestors. "
During the intense fighting near Verdun, he briefly took command of the grenadier regiment "Prince Carl of Prussia" (2nd Brandenburg) No. 12 . After four weeks of heavy fighting, his battalion was withdrawn from the front. Schenckendorff was again given command of the corps' recruit training in Alsace . In the diary, his distrust of the Alsatians was expressed. From the stage he observed the renewed deployment of his corps at Verdun with skepticism. He now confided doubts about victory to the diary. In August he became deputy commander of the 24th Infantry Regiment . During the champagne battle he experienced his first gas attack . He was still used at the front in the Somme area. He was a liaison officer between the two army corps deployed there. In November 1916 he was given command of Infantry Regiment No. 24 and was transferred to the Argonne with this . In the hilly area he saw enemy positions being undermined by explosive charges.
In mid-November he became head of the company commander courses of the Supreme Army Command (OHL) at the Arys military training area in East Prussia . Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff commissioned him to help revise the training regulations for the army. In June 1917 Schenckendorff was assigned to the so-called Sedan courses for general staff officers . This was followed by his transfer to Landwehr Regiment No. 9 in Romania , where he led a battalion. He then led the Guard Reserve Jäger Battalion, which was deployed on the Alpine front near Feltre . He also had middle-class soldiers trained there to become officers, even if their parents were not socially “up to date” according to the pre-war ideas. The unit was relocated to Alsace after two and a half months. On March 30, 1918, he was given command of the Brandenburg Jäger Battalion No. 3 , which he had briefly commanded in 1916. This was now an independent elite association of the XXIII. Reserve corps for special tasks. The battalion was engaged in combat with British forces in northern France in early 1918. At the same time he was to help prepare the divisions arriving from the Eastern Front for the conditions on the Western Front . His battalion served as a demonstration force. At this point in time, Schenckendorff still firmly believed in the victory of the empire. He wrote in his diary on March 7, 1918:
"This offensive will finally bring the insane Entente to insight, the victory remains ours and with it the German peace comes."
The retraining courses were so successful that Max von Schenckendorff was received on April 22, 1918 at the headquarters of the Supreme Army Command von Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Hindenburg expressed his thanks there for the efficient training. In a half-hour lecture, Schenckendorff made suggestions for improving the training. He was commissioned with his battalion as a teaching force to train other units in the methodology of modern combat techniques. A few days later, Ludendorff inspected his training and shortly afterwards came to visit with Hindenburg and Crown Prince Wilhelm . By the end of June, almost 1,000 staff officers and commanders, including the generals, attended the demonstrations, where modern methods of coordinated attack and defense were demonstrated. On August 10, 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II inspected Schenckendorff's unit. In the meantime, the German army had to withdraw after heavy fighting. On September 14, 1918, Schenckendorff had the opportunity to speak to Hindenburg and Ludendorff at the headquarters of the OHL. He noted in his diary:
“I openly expressed my view, which briefly goes to the point that there is an interaction in the contamination of the mood between home and army. At home, people grumble that our people are polluting their spirits, and we grumble about the bad thoughts with which our people return from their vacation. "
In October he shot an educational film for the army at Sedan , with a German and a British tank at his disposal. At the end of October he came to Berlin to help with the completion of the film. Here he experienced the collapse of the Empire and the armistice . He believed, as his diary entries show, how many fellow officers of the so-called stab in the back legend , according to which the undefeated army in the field was "stabbed from behind" by "patriotic" civilians from home.
Schenckendorff experienced eleven major changes of location during the First World War, mostly associated with new commands, and was awarded the Iron Cross II and I Class, the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords and the Austrian Military Merit Cross III. Class awarded with war decoration. He was also appointed legal knight of the Order of St. John .
Interwar period
On November 12, 1918, he went on vacation to Angermünde with the permission of the soldiers' council of the Image and Film Office. In mid-January 1919 he was given command of the 2nd Battalion of Infantry Regiment No. 64. He had to work with the local soldiers' council. In April the regiment, the house regiment of the Schenckendorff family, was disbanded. He began revising and typing up his diary entries. He wrote in June 1919:
"Undefeated in the field, the army gradually poisoned from home according to plan and finally stabbed from behind on November 9, 1918, that is how it will judge history, which will later be judged fairly!"
From October 1, 1919, he was then appointed battalion commander in the 29th Infantry Regiment. He also served with the 200,000-man transitional army in the spring of 1920 in the 29th Reichswehr Infantry Regiment. Like only 4,000 other officers from around 34,000 officers in the Imperial Army, he was easily selected and accepted into the Reichswehr . It should have helped him that he almost all important officers of the new Reichswehr such. B. knew Major General Hans von Seeckt , Chief of the Troop Office, personally from his training courses. In 1920 he was appointed commander of the 2nd Battalion in the 9th (Prussian) Infantry Regiment in Berlin-Groß-Lichterfelde. As such, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1921 . On April 1, 1923, he was transferred to the Reichswehr Ministry as Chief of Staff to inspect the infantry (In 2) in Berlin. There he was promoted to colonel on May 1, 1924. On February 1, 1926, he was appointed commander of the 8th (Prussian) Infantry Regiment in Görlitz . He has been described as a strict and caring commander who placed a high value on training. In 1928 his book was published: Frontdienst. A manual for the officer. Experiences and advice from a regimental commander in Mittler-Verlag , Berlin. It was a book on all matters of training. With a series of leaflets, questionnaires and examples contained in the book, Schenckendorff provided help for the efficient management of large associations. In the book Schenckendorff also dealt with a possible partisan war, which he calls the Little War , the Reichswehr against a superior enemy. Max von Schenckendorff also writes in the book:
"The officer must neither do injustice nor suffer because injustice is done to himself or to others."
On October 1, 1928, he was promoted to major general. On December 31, 1928 he gave up his command. On February 1, 1929 he was appointed Infantry Leader VI in Hanover. As such, he was promoted to lieutenant general on October 1, 1929 . On February 28, 1930 he gave up his command. On that day he was also retired from active service.
He now organized the voluntary "Lower Saxony Labor Service" (Ardin) for young people in Hanover. When the voluntary labor service in the Reich was organized by the state in 1932 , this work was finished. He tried to get a post in the Reich Board of Trustees for Youth Enhancement , which was headed by Edwin von Stülpnagel , an acquaintance. When Stülpnagel died, he tried in vain to become head of this organization with the help of his friend Major General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord . Then in September 1933 he was appointed Gauverbandführer Niedersachsen in the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge . He took care of the maintenance of the war cemeteries in his area and organized trips to theaters of war in the First World War and their burial grounds. In 1936 Schenckendorff took over the chairmanship of the Hanover Federal Group in the German Soldiers' Union . The soldiers' union represented a collective association for all former soldiers. Schenckendorff was impressed when the SS used the song written by his ancestor in 1814 as a so-called loyalty song, but with a changed text. Max von Schenckendorff had already joined the NSDAP with his wife in 1933 .
Reactivation and deployment until March 1941
During the mobilization for the Second World War in August 1939 he was reactivated and appointed commander of Border Guard Command 13 in Glogau ( Upper Silesia ). In September he received orders to act as the commanding general of the Higher General Command XXXV. to set up. From October 25 to November 10, Max von Schenckendorff was also the city commander of Posen .
In November 1939 Schenckendorff witnessed a pogrom against Jews in Ostrów Mazowiecka northeast of Warsaw . In Ostrów Mazowiecka, a section of a police regiment shot first 159 male Jews and later 196 Jewish women and children. The local German district administrator held the Jews responsible for a fire in the city. Schenckendorff wrote the "Report on the events in Ostrow-Mazowiecka on November 9th / 11th, 1939" and sent it to the Wehrmacht Supreme Commander East, Colonel General Johannes Blaskowitz . In the report he emphasized that the Wehrmacht was not involved in the massacre. The report is archived in the Freiburg Federal Archives under the signature RH 20-18 / 14. In December Max von Schenckendorff was promoted to General of the Infantry.
Commander of the Rear Army Area of the Army Group in mid-1941
In March 1941 he was appointed Commander of the Rear Army Area 102, Army Group Center, and held this post until his death. The commanders of the rear army areas were practically the same as commanders of army corps.
The three security divisions 221 , 286 and 403 , as well as other units briefly under Schenkendorff's command, were busy capturing dispersed Soviet soldiers in the first weeks of the campaign against the Soviet Union. Schenckendorff ordered the systematic search of villages and forests. By July 20, 1941, 3,200 soldiers had been captured without major combat operations. At the end of July, four Soviet cavalry divisions broke through the front of the 2nd Army of Army Group Center into the rear Army Area Center and had to be fought. For this Schenkendorff were briefly subordinated to the 87th , 252nd and 707th Infantry Divisions . As the first of the three commanders of a rear army area, Schenkendorff prepared the experiences he had made so far in the fight against dispersed persons and partisans for his units in Corps Command No. 39 of August 11th. This order was mainly about the tactical behavior of the troops when combing through towns and forests. This task was missing in the "Guidelines for the training of the security divisions and the forces subordinate to the commander of the rear army area, RH22 / 271" of the OKH issued on March 21, 1941 . Therefore, the security troops had not practiced this, as they probably wanted to leave this task to the police associations. Since the combing through of large forest areas was not very successful, Schenkendorff demanded concentration on villages and individual farms. In the villages, the inhabitants were to be questioned in order to filter out people who did not live there and to treat them according to the “generally given orders”. At the same time, he ordered the establishment of provisional administrative structures. For this purpose, suitable persons should be appointed as mayors who had to ensure “orderly conditions”. In the event of attacks in and near these villages, they should be liable with their lives. The corps order No. 39 led to an initial radicalization in the Wehrmacht's operations in the occupied area. On August 16, Schenkendorff announced in Corps Order No. 40:
“I make it an obligation of all unit commanders, including those of the army and army troops who are not subordinate to me, to continue the pacification measures tirelessly. My area must be pacified and cleared of scattered people by August 31 at the latest. "
The units then stepped up their combing efforts. In a daily report dated September 10, Schenckendorff stated that there were organized partisan groups east of the Dnieper , which were systematic and better armed. Before that, you had to deal with mostly haphazardly dispersed soldiers. There were now attacks on individually moving vehicles as well as explosive attacks on bridges and railway lines. It was noted that they were now in the area of hostile Russian people. The actual partisan war had now begun for the units of the Wehrmacht. On September 14, 1941, Schenckendorff held a commanders' meeting at which the fight against partisans was the subject. On the same day, the corps order No. 52 was issued, and Army Group Center sent out a "leaflet on the organization and fight against partisans". The partisans were to be destroyed by large companies and supporters of the Germans in the countryside were to be won. At the same time, the security divisions were divided into smaller units down to the strength of the train. These smaller associations should now control the localities nationwide and also constantly change their quarters. The associations should each take quarters in the villages for two to three days and pay a control visit a few days later. Schenckendorff recommended a similar approach to the SS cavalry brigade. For this purpose, the units should suddenly occupy the outskirts and the village itself at dawn. Then the whole population should be rounded up and questioned. Assigned SD men and men of the Secret Field Police (GFP) should help with their interpreters. Schenkendorff also ordered several major actions in the form of kettle drives against the partisans. At the commanders' meeting on September 14, 1941, he had the impression that his officers were largely helpless against the partisans. His corps command No. 53 of September 16 was therefore entitled "Exchange of experience, fight against partisans". According to the daily report of September 20, Schenckendorff ordered “to proceed more ruthlessly than before” and to use “the strictest means”.
From September 24 to 26, Max von Schenckendorff led the Wehrmacht's first anti-partisan course in Mogilew . This course went down in history as a prime example of the cooperation between the Wehrmacht and SS in the rear of the army. In the exhibition catalog of the first Wehrmacht exhibition “War of Extermination. Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941–1944 ”he was referred to as the“ School of Terror ”. 61 officers of the OKH, the army group, the security divisions, the field command, the economic inspectorate , the police and the SS took part in the course. These were to serve as multipliers to make known the methods against partisans in the rear Central Army Area. The course participants also took part in two activities in villages. Once, the Central Police Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Max Montua searched a village and dug a “partisan's nest” again. Partisans were not found, but some Jews were shot. The lectures dealt with all topics of fighting partisans with reports from officers of the security associations. Sturmbannführer Gustav Lombard from the 1st SS Cavalry Regiment gave one of these short presentations . Two SS officers, SS Brigade Leader and Major General of the Police Arthur Nebe , Commander of Einsatzgruppe B , and SS Brigad Leader and Lieutenant General of the Police Erich von dem Bach Higher SS and Police Leader Central Russia (HSSPF), gave keynote speeches. Nebe spoke about the cooperation between the Wehrmacht and the SS as well as the "Jewish question with special consideration of the partisan movement". Bach spoke about "Detecting commissioners and fighting partisans during combing operations". The fact that two high-ranking SS officers gave important lectures at a Wehrmacht training course was unusual and was not based on any objective necessity.
On October 12th, Schenckendorff presented a sixteen-page guide to partisan struggle with the title “The partisan, his organization and his fight”. Schenkendorff wrote in it z. B .:
“The enemy must be completely destroyed. The uninterrupted decision about the life and death of hired partisans or suspects is difficult even for the toughest soldier. Action must be taken. Acts correctly whoever grabs ruthlessly and mercilessly while completely ignoring any personal emotional impulses. "
The work contains a historical review of the partisans, describes their fighting style and how they were combated. It is based on individual partisan groups of only up to 100 men. Schenckendorff recognized that the main problem was finding small, flexible groups. Since these were dependent on support from the population, he focused his work on treating the population. He made three points:
- Find and kill partisan supporters in the population.
- Win the trust of the population.
- Achieve popular participation in the fight.
He wanted to prevent partisans from relocating on the normal street. For this purpose, the relocation of the population, including women and young people, should be strictly prohibited. Those caught should be handed over to SD, GFP or POW camps. In order to show presence in the area, he was in favor of dividing the security associations into smaller units, spread over as many villages as possible. He urged the elimination of non-residents because he suspected them to be partisans or their supporters. Schenkendorff does not seem to have been interested in the fact that the fighting, destruction and hunger had led to frequent changes of location. The villagers should set up their own police and be responsible for security. He also dealt with propaganda and the acquisition of informants . Larger partisan groups were supposed to be destroyed by “big companies”. Since previous boilers were mostly unsuccessful because the partisans had slipped through the loose security lines in the woods, driven hunts should now take place. During the hunt, the enemy was to be driven towards lines occupied by Germans and wiped out. In addition to his associations, Schenkendorff also sent his work to Quartermaster General Eduard Wagner . The Commander-in-Chief of the Army Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch took over Schenckendorff's work on October 25 as a "guideline for fighting partisans" for the Army. Schenckendorff had thus established himself as a “partisan expert” until his death. It is noticeable that Schenckendorff and other German officers used catchphrases such as “developing a relationship of trust with the population” more often, but in practice they almost always relied on terror. Schenckendorff and his anti-partisan organization immediately sent a field report from Sergeant Schrader of the 286th Security Division . Schrader was always in favor of being beaten when being questioned, since threats of being shot would not work. On October 21, Schenckendorff issued an order that an arbitrary number of people should be shot in the event of acts of sabotage from nearby villages. The 403rd Security Division burned down more and more villages from mid-October and the 221st Security Division killed 1,100 alleged partisans in just three weeks. According to Corps Order No. 75 of December 16, villages that support partisans or even sympathize with them should be burned down. Since troops had to be delivered to the front after the failure of the attack on Moscow ( Operation Taifun ) and the subsequent counterattack, the partisan fight came to a standstill due to the weather conditions in winter. The partisans could now reorganize. On December 26, 1941, he was awarded the German Cross in Gold for his achievements in the rear of the army . Three other commanders in the rear army areas, however, only received the German cross in silver when they were transferred to the Führerreserve. He had already received the clasp for the Iron Cross II and I class earlier.
Schenckendorff, who was in poor health, was on vacation at home at the turn of the year. He did not return until the beginning of February 1942.
Commander of the Rear Army Area of the Army Group from mid-1942 to 1943
In the spring of 1942 the partisans began to destabilize the German occupation administration in a concentrated manner and to attack the supplies. The partisans killed collaborating residents and their families because the local law enforcement officers in the villages were only weakly armed. In January 47 and in February 138 mayors and law enforcement officers were killed. There was looting and destruction of factories. Roads, railways and bridges were attacked at military targets. The partisans mostly shied away from direct attacks on German soldiers. With words, Schenckendorff and the other Berücks campaigned increasingly for the interests of the population. In practice nothing changed about terror. A large part of the security associations now had to be used to secure the railway lines. The presence of the German troops in the area decreased and the partisans took over more and more control, some of them also ruling with terror.
In January / February 1942 at Toropez, on the northern flank of Army Group Center, during an attack by the Red Army, a line of support of the 403rd Security Division was breached and its 85th Infantry Regiment was practically destroyed. Breakthrough units united with partisans and conquered or occupied various villages and areas east of Smolensk. Smolensk, as one of the most important bases of the German army, was threatened with many staffs and supply bases. From February 1942 onwards there were intensified attacks near Bobruisk and Brjansk. The partisans in the area of Berück Mitte formed larger units which also had artillery . On March 13, 1942, Schenckendorff reported to the Quartermaster General that there was a serious threat to the security of the supply routes. On February 8, he ordered the doubling of the Cossack squadrons and the Ukrainian hundreds. Since Hitler forbade this, the order was revoked on February 12, 1942. On February 15, 1942, Max von Schenckendorff discussed the fight against the enemy formations east of Smolensk with the newly appointed commander of the Army Group, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge . On February 24, 1942, Kluge asked the OKH to massively strengthen the associations of Berück Mitte. On March 1, 1942, the Army Chief of Staff, Colonel General Franz Halder , ordered the annihilation of the partisans on the railways and taxiways as well as in the Brjansk area. To this end, Schenckendorff was assigned 18 security battalions and the 707th Infantry Division.
On March 1, Schenckendorff published the memorandum "Proposals for the annihilation of the partisans in the rearward army area and in the rearward army areas". He called for an increase in the number and quality of the security units in order to switch to offensive combat again. Fighting the partisans should be given the same priority as fighting at the front. He demanded the abolition of the term "rear military area", as this led to the impression that it was a stage. Among other things, this leads to a deterioration in the quality of the officers, since the best people want a front command. In addition, half of the troops had been handed over to the front, so that the partisans took the initiative. He called for a realignment of the occupation policy in order to obtain popular support in fighting partisans. On March 15, he was able to give the only situation lecture ever given at Halder and at OKH. He also held talks with von Kluge, the new commander of Army Group Center, and Wagner. Hitler was informed of Schenckendorff's assessment of the situation. On April 1, 1942, the name of his command was changed to “Commanding General of the Security Forces and Commander in Central Army Area”. Now he was nominally on an equal footing with the commanders of army corps. New large enterprises to fight partisans were planned. First, the Bamberg company west of Bobruisk was planned as a pilot project. The last cow and all of the seeds should be confiscated in areas that cannot be occupied. The aim was to deprive the partisans of their food base by plundering an area and at the same time to supply the armed forces. The Berücks' troops were supposed to be self-sufficient through looting. In addition to partisans and their supporters, all non-residents should also be shot. After the end of the Bamberg enterprise at the end of March to the beginning of April 1942, the 707th Infantry Division under Major General Gustav von Bechtolsheim reported the shooting of 3,423 partisans and their helpers on April 7, 1942. Their own losses were seven dead and eight wounded. Schenckendorff's staff also recognized the disparity between allegedly killed partisans and their own losses:
“The mass of partisans must have known how to evade in good time after they had previously hidden their weapons. The high number of reported enemy losses is misleading. Apparently there are many among those registered by the division as partisan helpers who had only very loosely connected with the partisans. "
Instead of destroying partisan groups as planned, villages that were easily accessible via roads were looted and destroyed. The partisan groups themselves were able to evade and were not followed in the snow. At the end of April 1942, Schenckendorff had to withdraw his initial report to the OKH about a successful operation. In the daily report of April 24, 1942, he attributed the failure to an early relocation of the 707th Division. Only internally did he criticize the unit's approach. As with all subsequent operations against partisans, the contradiction between Schenckendorff's findings on the treatment of the population and practice was clear.
Planned operations near Bryansk were not carried out or, as east of Smolensk, only partially carried out. If operations were carried out, the partisans simply evaded the larger German units, while the civilian population suffered from terrorist measures. It also showed that it was a mistake to carry out the only major operation in the southern army area, as the partisans mainly operated in the central and northern area.
The troops promised to Schenckendorff were only partially made available or troops were even withdrawn. As early as April 16, 1942, he reported to Wagner that additional troops and equipment were needed. The units also lacked rifles. Once again a change in the brutal occupation policy was called for. Schenckendorff clearly recognized the situation when he wrote:
"Although the population would not be basically anti-German, wherever the partisans ruled, they would inevitably have to get along with them."
So while Schenckendorff clearly recognized the situation and reported this to his superiors, he was simultaneously issuing terror orders to the troops and allowing the terrorism.
While the partisans organized themselves better and better and increasingly committed acts of sabotage, Schenckendorff was only left with the defensive protection of 1,700 km of railways and 1,100 km of roads. A control of the areas away from the traffic routes took place less and less, and the troops were simply lacking for offensive action. On May 20, 1942, a second course began on “Fighting Partisans.” Once again, Bach and Brigadefuhrer Erich Naumann , the new commandant of Einsatzgruppe B, gave lectures on commissioners and the “ Jewish question ”. A representative of the Central Economic Inspectorate gave a lecture on the recording of supplies in anti-partisan operations. In May, Schenckendorff reported that his entire army area was now affected by partisan attacks. Schenckendorff ordered the removal of cover options along railway lines. Along the routes, wide aisles were cut in the forest and houses were destroyed. Watchtowers and other defenses were also built. On May 31st, bypassing the Army Group, he sent a situation report directly to the OKH . Now the command department of the OKH took over the partisan fight from the Quartermaster General. In the company Hannover the east standing in the room and Jelna Dogrobush Smolensk partisans were destroyed under General Belov from 4 June 1942nd In June the SS special unit Dirlewanger and police units carried out a "fight against partisans" in the area between Bobrujsk and Mogilev. On June 15, 1942, over 2,000 people were murdered in the village of Borki and the surrounding area. Schenckendorff complained about this massacre to von dem Bach. On June 20, 1942, the economic inspection stopped the food supply of the security divisions, because they were supposed to be supplied from the partisan areas. Schenckendorff now made the confiscation of food supplies one of the main tasks involved in counter-partisan measures. In the summer of 1942 there were several large companies, using a mixture of units of the Wehrmacht, SS and police. Partisans were only killed or their units destroyed in isolated cases, but there was looting and destruction. On June 16 and August 3, 1942, Schenckendorff ordered in vain to refrain from setting fire to houses and shooting women and children. This was the first time there was a violent argument with Bach, who denied the validity of this order for the SS units. With the help of Himmler , Bach was able to assert his position so that the SS itself could decide on the measures to be taken. Bach later falsified these facts in his diary and claimed that he shared Schenckendorff's opinion. On July 14, 1942, in the monthly report for June, Schenckendorff stated "that Stalin's order to create conditions unbearable for the enemy in the rear of the German army is not far before its implementation". In Corps Order No. 110, Schenckendorff declared a hundred meters wide strip along railway lines to be no man's land with an order to shoot. The first 50 m should be cut down and mined. He had to withdraw this order, as this led to casualties among railway workers and telecommunications clearance troops of the army. The required expansion of defense systems also remained in its infancy. When more of his troops had to be surrendered, he therefore declined on July 24, 1942 to assume further responsibility for the development of the situation in relation to the Army Group and threatened to resign. In July 1942 there were 266 skirmishes, 168 raids on villages and 85 attacks on vehicles by the partisans.
During a visit by the Chief of Staff of Berück to the OKH, it became apparent that the reports and reports had remained with the Quartermaster General and therefore the OKH was not informed of the actual situation. Because Hitler had decided in July that fighting partisans was a police task. Heinrich Himmler wanted to take on the partisan fight in the entire German occupied territory. With instruction no. 46 of August 18, 1942, responsibility in the army area finally changed to OKH, more precisely to Colonel Adolf Heusinger . In this directive Hitler also demanded the annihilation of the partisans by winter. Hitler's instructions partly took over literal passages from Schenckendorff's partisan pamphlet, whereby he admitted for the first time that the population had to be guaranteed a subsistence level. Field replacement units (training units) of around 50,000 men were to be relocated to the operational area in the occupied hinterland of the Eastern Front.
The Greif operation took place in the area between Orsha and Vitebsk from August 18-29 . 796 people, allegedly partisans, were killed directly and 599 prisoners shot with only 26 dead on the German side. All of Schenckendorff's orders to protect the population were ignored, as in all subsequent anti-partisan actions.
On the night of August 26-27, 1942, the Slavnoye railway station was attacked. The security battalion there was able to repel the attack, but the station and village caught fire. Far worse, however, was that the main line from Minsk to Smolensk was closed for 30 hours. On August 28, 1942, Hitler demanded the most severe retaliatory measures. Schenckendorff approved the proposal of the 286th Security Division to shoot 100 men and women in public. According to eyewitness reports, there were also small children among those shot. On August 2, 1942, Schenckendorff gave the order not to kill children up to the age of ten and to treat defectors well. Like all of Schenckendorff's other orders to protect people, this order had no consequences. On September 4, 1942, Schenckendorff went on vacation. Since the transport performance had meanwhile fallen to only two thirds of the target, in the Smolensk area even by half, Kluge gave the order on September 5, 1942, to deploy all security battalions in railway protection. The Army Group finally gave up its hinterland except for the railway lines. On September 22, 1942, Schenckendorff's war diary noted that the German-friendly population had been murdered in the evacuated hinterland and that the blasting of the railway lines had not abated.
On October 5, 1942, Schenckendorff was back after almost four weeks of vacation. Instead of trained combat troops, he received only two field training divisions in his own army area. There were also not enough troops to protect the railway. For a short time even villagers, including women and children, were forcibly used to protect the railway. However, these proved to be more of a burden than reinforcement. Bach had now also been appointed by Himmler as the “agent for combating gangs” in the General Commissariat of Belarus (Belarus). With the consent of Schenckendorff, he expanded his responsibilities into the Berück area. Thus Bach and Himmler, bypassing the OKH, increased their influence in the army's operational area and in the fight against partisans. Göring had air force training units relocated to the army area and on October 16, 1942 gave the order to shoot all residents who approached railway lines closer than 1000 m without an order. All villages whose inhabitants did not take part in the fight against partisans were to be burned down in the event of sabotage in the vicinity. This led to criticism from the Army Group. Thereupon Goering issued a guideline on October 26, 1942. The directive meant creating "dead zones" with total looting of these areas. Those able to work should be deported and children should be brought to the camp if they were not shot immediately. On October 28, 1942, Schenckendorff Kluge declared that this guideline would play into the hands of the partisans' goals. When all 3,000 people were to be evacuated by the 1st SS brigade at the Frida company near Borissow, Schenckendorff ordered “only” men and women without detachments to be removed. On November 25, 1942, he issued the instruction “Recording of state supplies during pacification measures”, in which the looting of villages was precisely regulated. In corps order No. 128 of December 14, 1942, Schenckendorff gave the instruction not to shoot partisan defectors, while otherwise all partisans or suspects or violators of the curfew would have to be shot. At the Waldwinter company from December 23, 1942 to the end of January 1943, 1627 people were killed shortly thereafter and 2041 rounded up for forced labor. The looting yielded 5060 cattle and 894 horses. Due to a lack of transport capacity, not everything was possible. B. only 50-60% of the potatoes are transported away. In March 1943, because of the advance of the Red Army, Schenckendorff had to relocate his headquarters from Smolensk to Mogilew and surrender eastern areas of his army territory, as these became army territory. In the north and south-west of the army, the partisans now ruled the hinterland. In March, Schenckendorff ordered that 300 m along the taxiways and rails be cleared by a ruthlessly compulsory population. The rural population was now used as a living mine detector along roads and rails. It was no longer possible to protect the 2205 km of taxiways and rails. Large-scale counter-partisan enterprises were still taking place. Since these now often exceeded the boundaries of individual military and civil administrative borders, they were no longer under Schenckendorff's command, but often under the orders of various SS officers. As early as January 1943, Bach was in command of the large companies, and Schenckendorff had to support them. In April Schenckendorff tried again at least to get control of the SS units in his army area. The attempt failed because of Himmler's resistance, which the Army Chief of Staff, Kurt Zeitzler, had agreed to. Schenckendorff provided the 286th security division for the Cottbus company in the partisan-controlled area near Ustaschi. About 20,000 people were killed in this operation and the area was turned into a "dead zone". In May alone, there were 209 blasts on railway lines and 204 blasts prevented. As a result, railway lines in the Central Army Area could not be used on either of the two tracks for 3,853 hours and only single-tracked for 2,132 hours. At the end of June 1943, Schenckendorff went on a vacation from which he never returned.
On January 1, 1943, some older officers on the Eastern Front, from the division commander up, were transferred to the Führer Reserve . Including the two commanders of the Rear Army Area of Army Groups North and South, Karl von Roques and Franz von Roques . Schenckendorff, two or five years older, was not there, presumably because he had made a name for himself as an “expert” in fighting partisans. As part of the “Winter Resistance” campaign, the Army Personnel Office transferred those generals “who are unlikely to be able to cope with the high demands of the Russian winter” to the Führer reserve. At the same time, Schenckendorff's health had been affected for a long time by a heart condition, unlike other generals who had been transferred to the Fuehrer's reserve.
Max von Schenckendorff died of a heart attack on July 6, 1943 while on vacation in Krummhübel in the Giant Mountains .
Treatment of the Jews and Russians in the rear Central Army Area
Even before the attack on the Soviet Union, the first agreements between Schenckendorff and Bach were made on July 7, 1941, which probably also concerned the treatment of the Jews. There was also a smooth cooperation with the commander of Einsatzgruppe B, Arthur Nebe. Nebe noted that the task force was visiting their locations as instructed by Schenckendorff. On July 7, 1941, Max von Schenckendorff issued administrative order No. 1, according to which Jews from the age of ten had to mark themselves with a yellow star of David. There was also a ban on greeting Jews and slaughtering was forbidden. On July 8, Schenckendorff was with parts of his staff at a commanders' meeting in Bialystok, which was held on the occasion of a visit by Himmler and Kurt Daluege , chief of the regulatory police. Himmler complained that too few Jews had been rounded up. The next day, thousands of Jews were shot outside the city of Bialystok. Neither in this shooting nor in all other mass murders that followed, any resistance or even protest from Schenckendorff or other military personnel was noted. In the general “cleanup operations” ordered by Schenckendorff, the units of the Einsatzgruppen and the police were always deployed, and they shot all Jews at once.
On July 12, 1941, until dawn the next day, 4435 Jews were shot near Brest by the 307th Police Battalion, with a battalion subordinate to Schenckendorff providing transport assistance to the 162nd Infantry Division with their trucks. Schenckendorff expressed his displeasure with this help and asked for an explanation. His staff later reported that railroad workers had allegedly been shot at, and the massacre was played down as a "special action". With administrative order No. 2 of July 13, 1941, Jews were forbidden to leave their place of residence and they were ghettoized. At first there were no fences or walls around the ghettos. It was not until August 19, 1941, that the OKH issued an order to round up the Jews in ghettos, known as the fenced off Jewish quarter. In communities with up to 10,000 inhabitants, 12 Jewish councils were to be elected, in larger ones 24. The Jewish councils were supposed to implement the orders of the Germans and were liable for them with their lives. Administrative ordinance No. 3 introduced compulsory labor for Jews in order to repair war damage and to repair the runways. The first three administrative orders from Schenckendorff did not deal with the order of civil administration, but with the exclusion of Jews.
Anti-Semitic rhetoric can hardly be found in his or the army area orders. He also forbade his subordinates to take part in special measures or shootings . The war diary of the army area also clearly mentions these special measures. Schenckendorff was nevertheless responsible for ensuring that the administration he commanded created the essential prerequisites for the murder of Jews in his area of 150,000 km² with almost 10 million inhabitants. Schenckendorff and his administration are responsible for the murder of Jews in the Central Army Area through the registration, identification and ghettoization of Jews. Max von Schenckendorff viewed neither the Jews nor the Russians as subhumans. With Schenckendorff, however, as with many Germans at that time, there was a feeling of superiority over other peoples.
The historian Jörn Hasenclever rates Max von Schenckendorff as a "classic anti-Semite", whose worldview was not only anti-Semitic but also anti-Bolshevik since the end of the First World War. The following quote from Schenkendorff's diary is available as evidence, in which he comments on the transfer of an officer as follows:
"I don't cry after him. He was a seldom disagreeable person because of his intrusive Jewish nature and extremely Jewish appearance."
The assumption of the line of argument of the SS in the fight against partisans, where the Jew was staying, also the partisans and vice versa , as well as the close cooperation with SS and police units in the registration of Jews in the rear of the army, testifies to how the orders and actions Schenkendorffs were also influenced by anti-Semitic models.
While the Nazis wanted to turn the Soviet Union into a German colony with an enslaved and partly annihilated population, Schenckendorff had other ideas. Schenckendorff's political ideas went towards halfway autonomous states in Eastern Europe under German hegemony. He also represented these political ideas publicly, e. B. at a meeting of the German East Ministry on December 18, 1942.
Fonts
- Front duty. A manual for the officer. Experience and advice from a regimental commander. Mittler, Berlin 1928.
literature
- Jörn Hasenclever : Wehrmacht and occupation policy in the Soviet Union. The commanders of the rear army areas 1941–1943 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-76709-7 .
- Ekkehard Meyer-Düttingdorf : General of the infantry Max von Schenckendorff. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. Volume 1. Primus, Darmstadt 1998, ISBN 3-89678-083-2 , pp. 481-488.
- Bogdan Musial : Soviet Partisans 1941–1944: Myth and Reality. Schöningh, Paderborn 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76687-8 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Max von Schenckendorff in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres , Ed .: Reichswehrministerium , Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1924, p. 116.
- ↑ Ekkehard Meyer Düttingdorf: Infantry General Max von Schenckendorff . In: Ueberschär (Ed.) Hitler's military elite p. 483.
- ↑ Klaus D. Patzwall , Veit Scherzer : The German Cross 1941-1945. History and owner. Volume II. Verlag Klaus D. Patzwall, Norderstedt 2001, ISBN 3-931533-45-X , p. 403.
- ↑ Dieter Pohl: The rule of the Wehrmacht - German military occupation and native population in the Soviet Union 1941-1944 . s. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2011, p. 287.
- ↑ Hasenclever, Jörn: The commanders of the rear army areas and the murder of the Soviet Jews. In: Richter, C. Timm (ed.): War and crime. Situation and intention: case studies. Martin Meidenbauer: Munich 2006, pp. 207–218, here p. 216.
- ↑ Max v. Schenkendorff, TB, March 4, 1915, private property. Quoted from ibid., Pp. 216–217.
- ↑ Ibid, pp. 208-209.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schenckendorff, Max von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German officer, most recently General of the Infantry in World War II |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 24, 1875 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Prenzlau |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 6, 1943 |
| Place of death | Krummhübel |