![]() Anti-partisan activity was originally handled by the army, but in October 1942 responsibility for anti-partisan activity was transferred to the SS. The German High Command recognized both the importance and difficulty of combating partisans as the war progressed. I used to think one should act humanely, but this sub-humanity just isn’t worth it.” A grenade chucked in through the window, and it was done…We took revenge straight away, and rightly. “Two of our comrades in first company tragically lost their lives…Though we kept watch, a partisan still was able to creep up to one of our houses. Hans Schröder described how Soviet partisan activity killed two Germans on June 19, 1942: ![]() The danger is there wherever you go and wherever you stay…and you only breathe out when you’ve come back from your post unhurt…If the moon’s not out, you stay awake at your post like an ox.” “These are dangerous swine, and no soldier is safe from them. If the sentry drops his guard just once it could be over for all of us. We’re awake and alert almost every night you have to be in case they attack suddenly. We’re losing more men to the bandits than in the fighting itself. Sadly, though, many of our own comrades have been lost to their dirty methods. Any snipers who fall into our hands are of course shot their bodies lie everywhere. Hans Brüning illustrates how the wooded areas of the Soviet Union were especially effective locations for partisan warfare: Letters from German soldiers reveal the danger of partisan warfare. In summer huge swarms of flies and mosquitos made life miserable for German soldiers in winter frostbite and trench foot were rampant. The German anti-partisan forces operated in an extremely unpleasant environment that made the German units resent the partisans whose activities had caused them to be there. The partisans almost always killed captured German soldiers, frequently after inflicting brutal torture. The combat of Soviet partisans in forests and swamps was regarded by German troops as the most dangerous of all types of warfare-favoring the hunted rather than the hunter. Consequently, German army officers were trained to take a severe line against partisan activity in the Soviet Union. Because German forces were always limited and always in demand at the front, German military and civilian authorities were all the more fearful of the disruption partisans could bring. Soviet partisan warfare was extremely brutal and capable of severely disrupting German military planning. Partisan warfare has traditionally been considered illegal, since it undermines the convention of uniformed armies directing violence against each other rather than against civilian populations. Soviet Commissars agitated troops to engage in “barbaric, Asiatic fighting methods”. ![]() The exact number of people killed by the Einsatzgruppen will never be known, but there is no question the Einsatzgruppen murdered large numbers of Soviet commissars and partisans during the war. The Einsatzgruppen generally had a good working relationship with the German army since they freed up army security forces for front-line action. ![]() The Germans formed four Einsatzgruppen units each having between 500 to 800 men per unit. The Germans used special mobile formations called the Einsatzgruppen designed to carry out the Commissar Order and to crush partisan activity in the Soviet Union. Thus, the commissars were ordered liquidated not because of any crime they had committed, but because of their function in the Soviet system. Denied combat status by the terms of this order, the commissars were to either be shot by the troops or turned over to the SS to suffer the same fate. In the language of Hitler’s Commissar Order, the Soviet commissars were the “originators of the barbaric, Asiatic fighting methods” that the enemy practiced. On June 6, 1941, before the invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler gave the Commissar Order to execute the political commissars captured with Soviet units. ![]()
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