SS Paratrooper Battalion 500

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SS-Fallschirmjäger-Bataillon 500 / (SS-Fallschirmjäger-Bataillon 600)
- SS-Fsjg.-Batl. 500 / SS-Fsjg.-Batl. 600 -
II

active September 6, 1943 to May 8, 1945
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Flag of the Schutzstaffel.svg Armed SS
Armed forces Army (Wehrmacht)
Branch of service Parachute force
Type Paratrooper Battalion
Strength 900-1000 men
Installation site Chlum and Vlašimi (Bohemia)
commander
1st commander SS-Stubaf Herbert Gilhofer
2. Kdr. SS Hstuf Kurt Rybka

The SS-Fallschirmjäger-Bataillon 500 (short: SS-Fsjg.-Batl. 500 ; from October 1944 part of the SS-Fallschirmjäger-Bataillon 600 ) was the only airborne unit of the Waffen-SS and a so-called " probation battalion ". It was an SS - special unit to crush the armed resistance against the Nazi occupation regime (so-called " anti-partisan ").

Creation and training

The battalion was set up on September 6, 1943 in Chlum u Vlašimi in occupied Bohemia on the basis of an order from the SS Headquarters . It was a "probation unit" of the Waffen-SS and initially consisted largely of SS members of the prison camp of the SS and police in Danzig-Matzkau who had committed criminal offenses .

The first commander was SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Gilhofer . As of November 1943, the jump training took place at the Air Force - Parachute School III in Mataruška Banja in Kraljevo ( Serbia ) and in Pápa ( Hungary ). At the same time, the unit was used to suppress the armed resistance against the German occupation.

War effort

Soldiers of the battalion prepare for Operation Rösselsprung (spring 1944)

At the end of May 1944, the unit was involved in the company Rösselsprung commando operation, with which the leadership of the Yugoslav resistance around Josip Broz Tito was to be smashed at their headquarters . At that time it consisted of about 900 to 1000 officers and men , of which 634 were used.

Due to the lack of practical airborne experience of the SS troops, the battalion had been assigned two companies of paratroopers of the Luftwaffe belonging to the 1st Parachute Division . Under the command of SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt Rybka (1917–1957), the first wave after an air force bombing landed on the open ground in the city of Drvar . The second wave missed its target and landed several kilometers outside the city. Before the German troops could even locate the cave system in which the Yugoslav leadership ("Supreme Staff") and the British, Soviet and US military missions were staying, massive British air support was provided for the resistance fighters and a British landing operation to relieve them Brač island , so that the members of the headquarters and their allies had the time and opportunity to escape largely unnoticed after their departure by train to Jajce , while the SS troops were effectively wiped out.

During the fighting in Dvar, which could not be adequately defended at first, the SS battalion proceeded “with the utmost severity”. After the city was in German hands, anyone who still resisted was shot immediately. Likewise, “apparently all the residents of the houses in which the Allied missions had resided were (shot). Some of the prisoners were forced to transport the wounded and to haul ammunition, with the wounded being taken to the cemetery. According to Yugoslav sources, “numerous civilians were murdered, including women and children”, when Dvar was “combed” for hidden resistance fighters. The operation included "brutal" questioning of the Yugoslav rural population "from house to house". At least 6000 people categorized as alleged "partisans" in German literature fell victim to the attack. After strong additional Yugoslav resistance forces could be drawn in, the German commando operation ended in a few hours. The Germans were almost completely trapped in the Dvar cemetery; the survivors there found it difficult to save themselves. Rybka, head of the Rösselsprung company, was wounded and in the end flown out in the small plane that was intended to transport Tito.

After this failure, the 292 survivors led by SS-Hauptsturmführer Siegfried Milius (1916? –1992) - only 250 of them were still fit for action - were reorganized in Ljubljana . At the end of June 1944, the unit was posted to the West Prussian Gotenhafen ( Gdynia ), where it was to be used as an infantry force in the planned conquest of the Åland Islands controlled by Finland . When this plan ( company Tanne Ost ) had to be abandoned, they were in support of III. SS Panzer Corps sent to Narva , but ordered to Kaunas in July in order to free the trapped German troops in Vilnius from there together with the Greater Germany Division . The enterprise succeeded insofar as the last German soldiers were able to leave Vilnius on July 14th. Of the 260 SS paratroopers deployed in Vilnius, only just under 70 survived.

SS Parachute Battalion 600

On October 1, 1944, the SS Parachute Battalion 500 was disbanded. The approximately 90 survivors were relocated to Deutsch-Wagram , where they were integrated into the newly established SS Parachute Battalion 600 (short: SS-Fsjg.-Batl. 600 ). Shortly afterwards, parts of the battalion were deployed in Hungary with the " Operation Panzerfaust ", which was supposed to prevent the Reich Administrator Admiral Miklós Horthy from agreeing a Hungarian armistice with the Soviet Union . A detachment kidnapped the son Niklaus von Horthy on October 15, 1944, thereby extorting his father's abdication.

The battalion in Neustrelitz was reorganized for a month and increased to around 1,000 men. On November 10, 1944, it was incorporated into the SS hunting associations . Parts of the battalion were placed under Otto Skorzeny's 150 Panzer Brigade in December 1944 , which the Greif company was supposed to carry out during the Battle of the Bulge . It was an attempt to stir up unrest in the Allied ranks behind the front, by means of a group dressed and equipped as a US unit. However, the intention was known to the US authorities early on. The "spectacular costume piece on the edge of the Ardennes offensive" or the "desperate arabesque" ( Klaus-Dietmar Henke ) failed completely at the first attempt, a second remained without significant effects with high losses.

The remaining units of the battalion were involved in retreat skirmishes in northern Germany. In the end, the SS-Fallschirmjäger-Battalion 500/600 was practically completely wiped out after an existence of only eighteen months. In early May 1945 the remnants of the battalion surrendered to American troops.

War crimes

The paratrooper battalion 500 was mainly used against resistance fighters and against the civilian population. The unit is said to have executed executions of women and children, and violated the Geneva Conventions in the treatment of prisoners , for example when they were deployed in Yugoslavia in 1944.

In the regional population of the scene of the " Operation Rösselsprung " there are numerous reports of German atrocities against the civilian population and even the burning of houses with the residents.

Nothing is known of investigations, proceedings and judgments against members of units 500 and 600 after the end of National Socialism.

To the sources

Monographs on this SS unit only exist from the pen of authors who were accepted or published by right-wing extremists. A professional recognition as a contemporary historian is not recognizable with them. There is no positive reception of their writings through serious contemporary historiography.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Romedio Graf von Thun-Hohenstein : Rösselsprung . In: ÖMZ 45: 1 (2007), pp. 23–30 ( PDF ).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Bruce Quarrie: German Airborne Divisions. Mediterranean Theater 1942-45. Oxford 2005, pp. 63-65.
  3. ^ A b c d Wayne D. Eyre: Operation Rosselsprung and the Elimination of Tito, May 25, 1944. A Failure in Planning and Intelligence Support. , in: Journal of Slavic Military Studies, vol. 19, issue 2 (June 2006), pp. 343-376, doi : 10.1080 / 13518040600697969 ; see also: PDF .
  4. ↑ s. a. The panther reached into the void in: Der Spiegel 31/1980 of July 28, 1980.
  5. ^ Karl-Dieter Wolff: The company "Rösselsprung". In: VfZ 18 (1970), H. 4, pp. 476-509, here: 489-492 ( PDF ).
  6. ↑ Bruce Quarrie: German Airborne Divisions. Mediterranean Theater 1942-45. Oxford 2005, p. 64.
  7. ^ A b Gordon Williamson: German Special Forces of World War II. Oxford 2012, p. 42.
  8. ↑ Klaus-Dietmar Henke, The American Occupation of Germany (sources and representations on contemporary history, edited by the Institute for Contemporary History, Vol. 26), Munich 1996, pp. 320-324.
  9. ^ Romedio Graf von Thun-Hohenstein: Rösselsprung . In: ÖMZ 45: 1 (2007), p. 23–30, here: p. 26, based on Charles D. Melson: Red Sun. A German Airborne Raid, May 1944. In: The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 4/2000, pp 101-126 (here p 112), doi : 10.1080 / 13518040008430462 ; s. a. Karl-Dieter Wolff: The company "Rösselsprung". In: VfZ 18 (1970), H. 4, pp. 476-509.
  10. ^ Adolf Kunzmann / Siegfried Milius, Die Fallschirmjäger der Waffen-SS in the picture. The history of the only airborne unit of the Waffen-SS, Osnabrück 1986 (ND Riesa 2007); Rolf Michaelis : The SS-Fallschirmjäger-Bataillon 500/600 , Berlin 2004; Rüdiger WA Franz: Combat mission: "Probation". The SS Paratrooper Battalion 500/600. Martensrade 2010 and by the same author Das SS-Fallschirmjägerbataillon 500/600 and the fighting in the Baltic States ; for the reception of the font, see the relevant book services such as Nordland-Verlag, Nation & Wissen Versand, Druffel-Vowinckel Versandbuchhandlung and others