Hitler's Commanders (54 page)

In his new unit, Becker served as commander of the 9th (Replacement and Training) Company of the Oberbayern and was responsible for the physical training and sports program of the entire regiment. He was also in charge of the regimental NCO training course. Becker excelled in his new jobs and in 1936 was promoted to
Hauptsturmfuehrer
(SS captain) and given command of the battalion. Later that year he was promoted to Sturmbannfuehrer (SS major) and in early 1938 was advanced to SS lieutenant colonel (
SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer
). He took part in all the peacetime operations of the 1st Totenkopf, including the occupations of Austria, the Sudetenland, and Czechoslovakia. When the Sudetenland crisis reached its high point (before Britain and France gave in to Hitler’s demands at Munich), Becker was busy forming the I SS Battalion (Bann) of the Sudeten Freikorps, which he was preparing for use against the Czechs. Returning to his own command (I/1st Totenkopf), Becker and his battalion followed the army into Poland in 1939, where it was employed as one of the dreaded Einstazgruppen.

What part it played in the subsequent atrocities is difficult to determine, but he no doubt did just as he was told—no matter what that entailed. In any event, Becker’s battalion was motorized in the winter of 1939–1940, as part of the Death’s Head (later 3rd SS Panzer) Division.

SS Lieutenant Colonel Becker first saw combat in the Western campaign of 1940 and fought bravely, winning both grades of the Iron Cross. Sent to Russia in 1941, he was for a time commander of the division’s motorcycle battalion and played a significant role in the German victory at Lushno. It was during the battles of the Demyansk Pocket, however, that Becker really distinguished himself. Demyansk was hell on earth for the Totenkopf Division, which held the vital western edge of the pocket. Helmut Becker—now commanding a
Kampfgruppe
(battle group)—beat back attack after attack, despite odds of about five to one against him. The temperature was 30 degrees below zero Fahrenheit as the inadequately clothed SS men huddled in their trenches and foxholes, holding out through blizzards and human-wave attacks on pure willpower, starvation rations, and lack of supplies of every kind. During the siege, Helmut Becker appeared to be everywhere, extolling and cajoling, keeping his men on their toes and their spirits high, despite the fact that their situation appeared to be hopeless on more than one occasion.

His efforts were successful in every respect. When the spring thaw came, Becker and his ragtag survivors still held their position with their morale unbroken. Becker’s personal contribution to this amazing feat did not go unnoticed by his superiors, including Theodor Eicke and Adolf Hitler. For his leadership in the Demyansk crises, Becker was awarded the German Cross in Gold, was promoted to Standartenfuehrer (SS colonel), and was earmarked for higher command. In the fall of 1942, when the Totenkopf was withdrawn to France to rebuild, Becker was named commander of the 6th Panzer Grenadier Regiment. Meanwhile, Helmut Becker had already run afoul of Heinrich Himmler, who, like most in the Nazi hierarchy, was engaging in empire building. Specifically, Himmler and his deputy, Gruppenfuehrer Gottlob Berger, the chief of the Waffen-SS recruiting office, were enrolling hundreds of
Volksdeutsche
(“racial” or ethnic Germans from the occupied territories) into the SS—many against their will. This was an obvious compromise of the SS ideal of an elite, volunteer body of Aryan supermen. Some of these new-breed SS men were sent to Becker as replacements, and he was not at all satisfied with them—especially with their poor training and inadequate state of physical fitness—and he said so, in writing.

In a report that was highly critical of Himmler’s methods, Becker categorically stated that the SS recruiters should exercise greater selectivity in order to preserve the racially elite status of the Waffen-SS. He also described the situation in the Demyansk Pocket, criticized the lack of support the Totenkopf had received from higher SS headquarters, and recommended that the division be withdrawn at once. When the report reached Himmler’s desk, the Reichsfuehrer-SS angrily forbade reports of this nature to be written in the future. In retaliation, Himmler later ordered an investigation of Becker on charges of sexual and military misconduct. It was alleged (among other things) that he had repeatedly been drunk on duty, had raped Russian women, had kept prostitutes in his forward command post, and had ridden a horse to death inside an officers’ club in France in 1942, while members of his staff fornicated with French whores on the tables.
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Nothing was ever proven, however, and Himmler was unable to bring Becker up on charges or to even prevent his advancement—indicating that Becker stood high in the opinion of the Fuehrer and suggesting that the allegations were questionable. In any event, the Becker case does demonstrate that some members of the Waffen-SS had achieved at least a degree of distinctiveness from the rest of Himmler’s crowd and that many members of the Waffen-SS—Helmut Becker among them—held the Reichsfuehrer-SS in ill-concealed contempt.

Meanwhile, the 6th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment returned to Russia in early 1943 and fought in the Third Battle of Kharkov, at Kursk, and in the subsequent retreats on the southern sector of the Eastern Front. Following the death of the original divisional commander, it received the honorary designation “Theodor Eicke.” Meanwhile, in August, Helmut Becker received his Knight’s Cross for the skill and personal courage he exhibited in smashing a Soviet breakthrough attempt in the Mius sector. Three of his company commanders received the same decoration for their courage in this action. Shortly thereafter, Becker was transferred to Italy where he directed the formation of a regiment of the 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division “Reichsfuehrer-SS.” Becker’s stay in Italy was relatively brief, however. When Gruppenfuehrer Hermann Priess was appointed commander of the newly formed XIII SS Corps in mid-1944, Helmut Becker succeeded him as commander of the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf. He was promoted to SS-Oberfuehrer on June 21 and to SS-Brigadefuehrer und Generalmajor der Wuffen-SS on October 1, 1944.

SS General Becker exhibited considerable tactical skill as he led the Death’s Head Division in its last campaigns. Hurriedly rushed from Rumania to help the rapidly disintegrating Army Group Center, the 3rd SS Panzer launched a series of counterattacks and conducted a well-planned delaying action as it helped stabilize the front in Poland in July and August 1944. On August 26 alone Totenkopf was attacked by eight Soviet rifle divisions and several squadrons of Red Air Force fighters. Despite its lack of air support and its growing casualty lists, Totenkopf did not break but fell back slowly on Warsaw. On September 11 it turned on its tormentors and delivered a vicious counterattack, which took the Soviets by surprise and threw them out of Praga, Warsaw’s northeastern suburb. The depleted SS division continued to hold its positions there until the Soviet summer offensive had at last been checked by the end of the month. For his part in this campaign, Becker received the Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross on September 21.

The 3rd SS Panzer Division continued to fight in the successful defensive battles in Poland until late December 1944, when it was hurried to Hungary and assigned to Army Group South, then trying to break the Siege of Budapest. This it was unable to do. The division then fell back across Hungary, took part in Hitler’s abortive Lake Balaton offensive in March 1945, and fought its last battles in and around Vienna in April. After Hitler’s death, Becker led what was left of his battered division west across Austria and on May 9, 1945, surrendered to elements of the U.S. 3rd Army. The next day, on the grounds that it had fought only on the Eastern Front, the local American commander acceded to Soviet demands and handed the survivors of the SS Totenkopf Division over to the Red Army. This move condemned most of them to death through overwork, malnutrition, or summary execution. Among those to die was the last Death’s Head commander, Brigadefuehrer Helmut Becker. Shortly after he arrived in the Soviet Union, Becker and many of his men were subjected to “show trials” and were sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment. Becker had always been an implacable foe of Communism and now he took the attitude that, no matter what his captors did to him, they would not break his spirit. Although not the senior POW at his camp (which was located in Siberia, near the Arctic Circle), he assumed the role of leader and intervened on behalf of the prisoners at every opportunity. “Helmut retained a courageous attitude in captivity,” SS Brigadefuehrer Gustav Lombard wrote later. “He helped make the days in the barracks of our prison camps a little less tough for all the men. His fellow generals-in-captivity thought the Soviets paid special attention to the last commander of the unbeaten ‘Totenkopf’ Division: he was a thorn in the Russians’ eyes.”
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They removed this thorn on February 28, 1953, when they summarily executed General Becker, having accused him of sabotaging a building project. His widow, Lieselotte, and their five children were not informed of his death until 20 years later.

Today historians of the Nazi era are generally divided into two camps. The traditional (or “establishment”) historians hold that the Waffen-SS was part of a criminal organization, and its members were, therefore, guilty of being criminals by association, if not by specific deeds. The other group, the revisionist (or “apologist”) historians, holds that the vast majority of the members of the Waffen-SS (and some say all of them) were soldiers like any other. The second group has achieved a considerable following in Germany today and is growing in number in the United States and other countries. Since history is truly argument without end, the debate will no doubt go on for years to come. In any event, there is little middle ground in the case of Helmut Becker: he was either an unsung military hero who was murdered by the Soviets, or he was a filthy Nazi monster who finally got what he deserved. Readers, of course, must draw their own conclusions.

michael wittmann
, one of the greatest warriors in history, was born on April 22, 1914, at Vogelthal in the Oberpflaz district. After completing his high school education, he worked for his father (a local farmer) and joined the Volunteer Labor Services
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for a short time in 1934, before being accepted into the Reichsheer in October that same year. After serving two years with the 19th Infantry Regiment in the Munich area, he was discharged as a corporal (
Gefreiter
). He volunteered for the Waffen-SS in 1937 and was assigned to Hitler’s bodyguard unit, the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (the LAH, later the 1st SS Panzer Division), based at Berlin Lichterfelde.

Quiet, unassuming, cool-headed, and conscientious, Wittmann gravitated into the SS because of its stress on comradeship, the friendliness that existed between the ranks, and (one surmises) its handsome black uniforms, which attracted many young Germans into its ranks during this era. (Even Manfred Rommel, the only son of the Desert Fox, considered joining the SS as a teenager—due to the effectiveness of its recruiting campaigns and the attractiveness of its uniforms.) The opportunity for more rapid promotion did not hurt, either. By the time World War II broke out, Wittmann was an
SS-Unterschurfuehrer
(sergeant) in the divisional assault gun battalion. After seeing action in Poland, France, and Belgium, he was given his own assault gun, which he directed in the Greek campaign. He did not come into his own, however, until the Leibstandarte crossed into the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Unlike the panzers, the German assault guns were used primarily as infantry support vehicles, as anti-tank weapons in close defensive situations, and as a divisional commander’s organic mobile reserves. Sergeant Wittmann soon acquired a reputation for cool determination and incredible bravery because he liked to let enemy tanks get very close before opening fire on them. In fact, most of Wittmann’s kills were with the first shell, at very close range. There was certainly nothing wrong with his nerve! He destroyed several Soviet tanks in this manner in the summer and fall of 1941, although not without taking hits himself. (He was wounded, though not seriously, in August.) At one point he was attacked by eight Soviet tanks. He coolly engaged them at close range, blowing away one after another, until six were burning and the other two were fleeing.

In 1941, he was decorated with both grades of the Iron Cross, as well as the Panzer Assault Badge. In mid-1942, after the LAH was transferred back to France to rest and rebuild, Wittmann was sent to Germany to attend the SS-Junkerschule at Bad Toelz. After successfully completing his training he was commissioned SS-Untersturmfuehrer (second lieutenant) on New Year’s Eve, 1942. He then returned to the Eastern Front. When Wittmann rejoined the LAH in southern Russia, he was given a platoon of Tigers in the 13th (Heavy) Tank Company of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment. Although these monsters were slow, poor in maneuverability and prone to breakdown, they were heavily armored and packed tremendous punch in the long-barreled 88mm guns. Michael Wittmann soon became the acknowledged master of this deadly weapon. On the first day of the Kursk offensive (July 5, 1943), he personally destroyed eight Soviet tanks and seven artillery pieces. Always coolly methodical, he let the situation—not his own personality—dictate his tactics and the extent of his daring at any given time. This attitude, plus his great bravery and the courage and teamwork of his well-trained crew soon propelled Wittmann to near legendary status as the greatest tank warrior in military history. During the Battle of Kursk alone he destroyed 30 Soviet tanks and 28 guns.

Following the failure of Operation Citadel, all roads led backward for Hitler’s legions in the East. Michael Wittmann was one of those who remained at or near the front, covering the retreat and counterattacking when the opportunity arose. In one engagement during the winter campaign of 1943–1944, for example, he personally destroyed 10 Soviet tanks in a single day. Remarkably, he was not awarded his Knight’s Cross until January 14, 1944; however, he was presented his Oak Leaves only 16 days later. A few weeks later he was promoted to SS-Obersturmfuehrer (first lieutenant) and, in April 1944, was named commander of the 1st (Heavy) Company of the 501st SS Panzer Battalion, a Tiger unit attached directly to Headquarters, I SS Panzer Corps. By the time he left the Russian Front in the spring of 1944, Michael Wittmann had 119 Soviet tanks to his credit. He now, however, faced his most challenging battles on the Western Front.