Koruck 532 and Brig Kaminski - 1942
Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 7:37 pm
Hello to all folks, hoping someone find this interesting....
1942- One Last Opportunity: The German Experience with Indigenous Security Forces.
The German Army had one last opportunity in 1942 to recover from its failure to secure the occupied areas and pre-empt the massive expansion of the partisan war to an uncontrollable scale. A number of senior field commanders that understood the reality of the situation raised warnings back to Berlin that continuing the current occupation policies would further antagonize the indigenous population and only strengthen the ranks of the partisan bands. Some advocated that the German Army could separate the indigenous people in the occupied areas from Stalin by gaining their trust through fair treatment and allowing some degree of self rule. Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, the Commander of Army Group Center, declared “he could successfully fight the Soviet partisans only if Berlin promised to create a new Russian state and instituted a policy ending collectivization.”73 In February 1942, Hitler responded to the growing course of arguments emanating from his commanders in the East:
Germany wages war in the East for self-preservation, that is, in order to improve the basis for a secure food supply for Europe, but particularly for the German nation. It is not the purpose of this war to lead the people of the Soviet Union to a happier future, or to give them full freedom or political independence.74
Hitler’s message to the German Army in the Soviet Union in early 1942 did not provide the pragmatic planning guidance the German Army needed to confront the growing partisan war. By this point in the war, most German Army commanders realized they had squandered their opportunity to establish an effective administration for the occupied areas.75 It was during the spring of 1942 however, that some innovative German commanders actually implemented effective security and anti-partisan solutions that achieved local success. These operations marked the first and only period in the war where the German Army actually created pockets of stability within the military zone of operations and made substantial progress against the partisan movement. One of the most successful examples that illustrated the potential of using indigenous security forces was the Kaminski Brigade experiment in self-rule and indigenous anti-partisan operations in the Second Panzer Army Rear Area beginning in the spring of 1942. Indigenous units like the Kaminski Brigade represented an effective alternative to the “force and terror” policy of direct military control on the Eastern Front.
In the spring of 1942, partisan bands controlled almost the entire rear area of Army Group Center’s area of operations and the number of partisan attacks had significantly increased, particularly in the Bryansk sector. A group of officers on the Army Group Center staff studied the problem and reported their findings to Army High Command:
A necessary precondition for the lasting destruction of the partisans is the friendship of the Russian population. If we do not achieve this, the partisans will have every means of obtaining supplies and recruits assured them … it is difficult for a primitive people to believe in the friendship of someone who has taken his last cow.76
While the Army Group Center planners realized the necessity for a radical paradigm shift in occupation policy, it lacked sufficient resources to implement these manpower intensive policies in the rear areas. In the spring of 1942, the German Army in the East was experiencing the first of many manpower crises. As a matter of expediency, the Army High Command finally allowed for “additional native units to be enlisted from among anti-Soviet inhabitants and reliable former prisoners of war.”77
73 Leonid Grenkevich, The Soviet Partisan Movement, 1941-1944, (London: Frank Cass and Company, 1999), 109 - 110.
74 Edgar Howell, The Soviet Partisan Movement, 1941-1944, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Army, 1989), 97 n 1
75 Pronin, “Guerilla Warfare in the German Occupied Soviet Territories, 1941-1944,” 203.
76 Message communicated from Army Group Center Headquarters to Berlin in March 1942. Pronin, 206.
77 Howell, 86.
Source: taken from "After the Blitzkrieg: The German Army’s Transition to Defeat in the East". A Monograph by Major Bob E. Willis Jr. U.S. Army. School of Advanced Military Studies United States Army Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. AY 04-05.
Will follows. Regards. Tigre.
1942- One Last Opportunity: The German Experience with Indigenous Security Forces.
The German Army had one last opportunity in 1942 to recover from its failure to secure the occupied areas and pre-empt the massive expansion of the partisan war to an uncontrollable scale. A number of senior field commanders that understood the reality of the situation raised warnings back to Berlin that continuing the current occupation policies would further antagonize the indigenous population and only strengthen the ranks of the partisan bands. Some advocated that the German Army could separate the indigenous people in the occupied areas from Stalin by gaining their trust through fair treatment and allowing some degree of self rule. Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, the Commander of Army Group Center, declared “he could successfully fight the Soviet partisans only if Berlin promised to create a new Russian state and instituted a policy ending collectivization.”73 In February 1942, Hitler responded to the growing course of arguments emanating from his commanders in the East:
Germany wages war in the East for self-preservation, that is, in order to improve the basis for a secure food supply for Europe, but particularly for the German nation. It is not the purpose of this war to lead the people of the Soviet Union to a happier future, or to give them full freedom or political independence.74
Hitler’s message to the German Army in the Soviet Union in early 1942 did not provide the pragmatic planning guidance the German Army needed to confront the growing partisan war. By this point in the war, most German Army commanders realized they had squandered their opportunity to establish an effective administration for the occupied areas.75 It was during the spring of 1942 however, that some innovative German commanders actually implemented effective security and anti-partisan solutions that achieved local success. These operations marked the first and only period in the war where the German Army actually created pockets of stability within the military zone of operations and made substantial progress against the partisan movement. One of the most successful examples that illustrated the potential of using indigenous security forces was the Kaminski Brigade experiment in self-rule and indigenous anti-partisan operations in the Second Panzer Army Rear Area beginning in the spring of 1942. Indigenous units like the Kaminski Brigade represented an effective alternative to the “force and terror” policy of direct military control on the Eastern Front.
In the spring of 1942, partisan bands controlled almost the entire rear area of Army Group Center’s area of operations and the number of partisan attacks had significantly increased, particularly in the Bryansk sector. A group of officers on the Army Group Center staff studied the problem and reported their findings to Army High Command:
A necessary precondition for the lasting destruction of the partisans is the friendship of the Russian population. If we do not achieve this, the partisans will have every means of obtaining supplies and recruits assured them … it is difficult for a primitive people to believe in the friendship of someone who has taken his last cow.76
While the Army Group Center planners realized the necessity for a radical paradigm shift in occupation policy, it lacked sufficient resources to implement these manpower intensive policies in the rear areas. In the spring of 1942, the German Army in the East was experiencing the first of many manpower crises. As a matter of expediency, the Army High Command finally allowed for “additional native units to be enlisted from among anti-Soviet inhabitants and reliable former prisoners of war.”77
73 Leonid Grenkevich, The Soviet Partisan Movement, 1941-1944, (London: Frank Cass and Company, 1999), 109 - 110.
74 Edgar Howell, The Soviet Partisan Movement, 1941-1944, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Army, 1989), 97 n 1
75 Pronin, “Guerilla Warfare in the German Occupied Soviet Territories, 1941-1944,” 203.
76 Message communicated from Army Group Center Headquarters to Berlin in March 1942. Pronin, 206.
77 Howell, 86.
Source: taken from "After the Blitzkrieg: The German Army’s Transition to Defeat in the East". A Monograph by Major Bob E. Willis Jr. U.S. Army. School of Advanced Military Studies United States Army Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. AY 04-05.
Will follows. Regards. Tigre.