Reiter-SS
The Reiter-SS , known as SS-Reiterstandarten (official abbreviation SS-RSt. ) From the summer of 1934 , comprised all mounted units of the General SS of the NSDAP at the time of National Socialism . Members of the Reiter-SS were involved in war crimes and the Holocaust and the organization was banned and dissolved under the Control Council Act No. 2 passed by the Allied Control Council on October 10, 1945 .
The Reiter-SS was subordinate to the inspection of the SS cavalry on the one hand and to the inspection of the SS riding schools under SS-Brigadführer Christian Weber on the other hand . Both were offices in the SS main office . Since March 1936 it was officially subordinate to the NS-Reiterkorps (NSRK), but de facto it was deprived of its influence. The 15th SS rider standard under Hermann Fegelein was also used to guard the Dachau concentration camp .
The members of the Reiter-SS wore the black SS uniform until the end of the war (1945) because they belonged to the General SS . They originally wore an "R" on the right collar flap . With the creation of the NSRK, the letter was replaced by the NSRK emblem, which consisted of two crossed lances. This was worn in the lower and middle leader ranks on the right collar tab and in the upper leader ranks on a sleeve diamond on the left forearm.
At the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals , the SS was declared a criminal organization, so that its members could be tried and convicted of membership in a criminal organization under Control Council Act No. 10 in a military or occupation court without any further individual crime being proven had to. The Reiter-SS was excluded from this in the sense of the statute for the International Military Tribunal .
history
prehistory
The history of the Reiter-SS begins in February 1931 when a mounted SS division was set up in Munich from 25 members of the former Bund Oberland . She received her horses from the owner of the stables, Hans Fegelein , on whose stables the first regular exercises were held. Hans' eldest son Hermann , who to this new mounted unit reported had, is generally regarded as the driving force and as the founder of the later Reiter-SS. He was supported by his younger brother Waldemar , who later also reported to the Reiter-SS. In 1937 the equestrian estate of the Fegeleins near Munich was named an SS main riding school and this was subject to Himmler's "special use".
The way of the Reiterstürme to the Reiter-SS and organizational assignment
The mounted SS department in Munich was expanded into an SS Reitersturm by 1932 and is the base of the Reiter-SS. As a special unit of the General SS, the various rider storms were assigned to the SS foot standards located in the relevant SS section and named after them (e.g. rider storm of the SS I / 10 Zweibrücken / Rheinpfalz ).
The Reiter-SS experienced greater importance and an increase in membership after the National Socialist seizure of power , when ten percent of the horse breeding and rider associations in Germany joined the SS in April 1933. In order to prevent their members from joining the mounted SA units set up in 1929/30 , Heinrich Himmler had to assure them that they would be accepted into the SS. The new members were also not screened because of their political convictions. From this point on, the Reiter-SS brought together mainly German-national elements. A fact that was repeatedly criticized by veteran SS leaders. Above all, the German nobility and the upper middle class belonged to the Reiter-SS. A well-known member of the Reiter-SS was Bernhard zur Lippe-Biesterfeld , who later became the husband of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and father of the former Queen Beatrix .
Structure of the Reiter-SS and their use in World War II
The Reiter-SS was controlled by a senior section leader of the General SS. Each SS equestrian standard had at least five storms and usually also included a medical team and a trumpeter corps. The SS upper sections were the highest commanding body of the Reiter SS. If several equestrian standards belonged to an SS upper section, an SS rider section was formed from them. In the end, however, the Reiter SS was not represented in every upper section of the General SS. Like all Nazi combat groups , the Reiter-SS was organized in standards. These consisted of three active Sturmbannes (I-III) and a reserve unit, the IV. Sturmbann .
After September 1, 1939, the former influence of the Reiter-SS in Himmler's black medal declined. Most of the members of the Reiter-SS did their military service in the Wehrmacht and were deployed there in the respective cavalry units. Only a very small part of the Reiter-SS came to the Waffen-SS , where they also formed mounted units.
By November 9, 1944, the General SS comprised a total of 22 equestrian standards, but most of the units established after 1940 only existed on paper and mostly did not reach the nominal strength prescribed by Himmler.
| SS equestrian standard | Upper section | Seat | SS equestrian standard | Upper section | Seat | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Northeast" | Insterburg | 13 | "Rhein-Westmark" | Frankfurt (Main) | |
| 2 | "Vistula" | Danzig | 14th | "Southwest" | Stuttgart | |
| 3 | "Northeast" | Treuburg | 15th | "South" | Munich | |
| 4th | "North Sea" | Hamburg | 16 | "Elbe" | Dresden | |
| 5 | "Baltic Sea" | Szczecin | 17th | "Main" | regensburg | |
| 6th | "West" | Dusseldorf | 18th | "Danube" | Vienna | |
| 7th | "Spree" | Berlin | 19th | "Vistula" | (without naming) | |
| 8th | "West" | Pelkum | 20th | "Northeast" | Tilsit | |
| 9 | "North Sea" | Bremen | 21st | "Center" | Hanover | |
| 10 | "Fulda-Werra" | Arolsen | 22nd | "Warta" | Poses | |
| 11 | "Southeast" | Wroclaw | "Skull" | "South" | Munich | |
| 12 | "Baltic Sea" | Schwerin |
Reiter-SS and the death's head associations
While the rider sections of the rider SS were subordinate to an upper section leader, the SS rider section V was a specialty. This was de jure set up on April 1, 1935, but did not actually start operating until October 31, 1936. Section leader was the then SS-Hauptsturmführer Hermann Fegelein , who led his section within the General SS autonomously. The organizational assignment of Rider Section V to SS Upper Section “South” was only formal. The equestrian section received its special role within the Reiter-SS from the fact that in its area at that time not only the equestrian standards 15 and 17 were located, but also the Dachau concentration camp . So the Reiterstandarte 15 took over the external guarding of this concentration camp under the command of Hermann Fegelein . For this purpose, their relatives wore the uniforms of the SS guard units without legally belonging to them. The leader of the SS-Totenkopfverband , Theodor Eicke , had decreed that the members of the Totenkopf and the guard associations as well as the equestrian standards delegated to them by the General SS had to wear uniform uniforms in public, the road and in the concentration camp field service.
In 1939, parts of the equestrian standards 15 and 17 were used to form the SS equestrian standard "Totenkopf" . This was officially incorporated into the SS Totenkopfverband and was divided into the new SS Cavalry Regiments 1 and 2 in 1940. The new regiments were directly subordinate to the RFSS command staff and part of the Waffen SS. They were later combined in the SS Cavalry Brigade , which was then expanded to form the 8th SS Cavalry Division "Florian Geyer" . See there for details.
Status of the Reiter-SS after the Second World War
After the end of the Second World War , all Nazi fighting organizations were charged internationally for their numerous crimes. Members of the Reiter -SS were brought to justice because they belonged to the entire SS . But in 1946 the Reiter-SS was exempted from being convicted of criminal organization . Rather, it was regarded as an “elitist equestrian association” within the SS. The equestrian SS was therefore not convicted, although its members, provided they were deployed within the Waffen SS, were involved in numerous war crimes .
literature
- Robin Lumsden : General-SS. Ian Allan Publishing 1992, ISBN 978-0-7110-2905-7 .
- Robin Lumsden: General-SS. Men-at-Arms series, Osprey Publishing 1993, ISBN 978-1-85532-358-2 .
- Henning Herbert Pieper: The SS Cavalry Brigade and its operations in the Soviet Union, 1941-1942 . Dissertation. University of Sheffield, 2012 PDF
Individual evidence
- ↑ Federal Archives: Horses in Action ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Matthias Rötsch: Die Münchner NSDAP 1925-1933 , accessed on November 5, 2011.
- ↑ Bastian Hein: Elite for people and leaders , p. 67.
- ↑ Heinz Höhne : The order under the skull. The history of the SS. Weltbild, 1992, p. 129 f.
- ^ SS seniority list, November 9, 1944.
- ↑ Listing of the last regular SS seniority list from November 9, 1944, Appendix "SS-Reiterstandarten", p. 60.
- ↑ Federal Archives: Horses in Action ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 5, 2011.
- ^ Arnd Krüger and Bernd Wedemeyer-Kolbe (eds.): Forgotten, repressed, rejected. On Exclusion in Sport , p. 36 , accessed on August 2, 2013.
