Russia at war 1941-1945

And yet the general picture that emerges is harrowing enough. It is not only one of great bravery and enterprise —for it takes a brave man to join the partisans—but also one of a world in which human life is terribly cheap. There are many boasts of "hundreds" of Germans being killed even in some relatively small partisan engagement, and of dozens of trains being wrecked; there are lamentations over the extermination of thousands of women and children in the "partisan areas'" by Einsatzkommandos and other punitive troops; there are fewer references to the losses suffered by the partisans; but these must have been extremely heavy, especially at the beginning, when small improvised groups were either wiped out by the Germans, or died of cold and hunger and illnesses and

wounds in the forest camps. These early units had mostly been improvised by Russian

soldiers left behind the enemy lines, and by local communists.

A glimpse into the German methods of dealing with partisans and "partisan regions" is also provided by a number of German documents. Thus, at the Nuremberg Trial a report was read from the (German) General Commission for Belorussia, dated June 5, 1943, on the results of an anti-partisan operation called "Cottbus". The figures given were: enemy dead, 4,500; dead suspected of belonging to bands, 5,000; German dead, 59.

These figures (the report went on) indicate again a heavy destruction of the

population... If only 492 rifles are taken from 4,500 enemy dead, this shows that among them were numerous peasants from the country. The Dirlewanger Battalion

especially has the reputation for destroying many human lives. Among the 5,000

people suspected of belonging to bands, there are numerous women and children.

By order of the chief of the anti-partisan units, SS Obergruppenführer von dem

Bach-Zelewski, units of the Armed Forces have also participated in the operation.

[TGMWC, vol. 3, p. 174.]

Von dem Bach, a Himmler nominee in charge of the anti-partisan operations in the Soviet Union, who was later to distinguish himself as No. 1 killer in the German repression of the Warsaw rising in 1944, giving evidence at Nuremberg, explained that the anti-partisan operations were mainly carried out by regular Wehrmacht formations, and that the high military leaders had ordered the greatest severity in dealing with partisans.

Col. Telford Taylor {U.S. Prosecution): Did these measures result in the killing of an unnecessarily large number of civilians?

Von dem Bach: Yes...

Taylor. Was an order issued by the highest authorities that the German soldiers who had committed offences against the civilian population were not to be punished in a military court?

Von dem Bach: Yes, there was such an order... The Dirlewanger Brigade consisted for the greater part of previously convicted criminals, among them murderers and

burglars. These were introduced into the anti-partisan units partly as a result of Himmler's directives which said that among the purposes of the Russian campaign

was the reduction of the Slav population by thirty millions.

[TGMWC, vol. 4, pp. 26 ff.]

Hence the destruction of hundreds of villages and the massacre of thousands of civilians, including women and children, in the "partisan regions". Among the "enemy killed", as the above report shows, there were thousands of unarmed peasants in this one operation only. And there were very many more. And most of this "anti-partisan activity", as Bach-Zelewski stressed was "mainly undertaken by Wehrmach formations", the "principal task of the Einsatzgruppen of the SD" being "the annihilation of the Jews, Gypsies and political commissars."

[ Ibid., p. 26.]