IN PERSPECTIVE
Sepp Dietrich’s funeral took place at Ludwigsburg and was attended by some six thousand people, mainly former Waffen-SS comrades. His coffin was covered with the flag of the Iron Cross and resting on it were a helmet and sword. Six Knights of the Iron Cross bore it to the graveside and the many wreaths were carried by former members of the Leibstandarte The funeral oration was given by General Willi Bittrich, who, bearing in mind that Sepp always hated ‘to make a lot of words’, kept it very short. Indeed, ‘We cannot express our thoughts and feelings at the farewell of the soldier Sepp Dietrich in words. Only our hearts can speak!’.1 After further speeches, those present ended the proceedings by spontaneously singing the song of the Waffen-SS.
What upset his former comrades most were the obituaries in some sections of the West German press which sneered at Dietrich’s lowly origins and asserted that, as such, he was unfitted for the high rank which he achieved. An editorial in Die Freiwillige (The Volunteer), the house journal of HIAG, saw the implication that ‘it was disgraceful to rise from a travelling journeyman to Colonel General and leader of the 6th SS Panzer Army. Did not Freidrich Ebert as well rise from journeyman saddler and innkeeper in Bremen to be the first Reichspresident of the Weimar Republic?’.2 Yet, there were few of his men who did not doubt that he was promoted beyond his capabilities. Max Wünsche admits that he did not always agree with what Dietrich ordered, although ‘one can and could not deny that he had a healthy commonsense and an eye for the essential things’.3 According to John Toland, who discussed Dietrich at length with Peiper, the latter considered that he had limitations as a commander, but performed satisfactorily provided he had a good chief of staff, which he certainly had in Kraemer.4 We have seen, too, several other comments of this kind and it seems fairly certain that Dietrich was well aware of his own shortfalls.
Dietrich’s strength lay in his appreciation of what motivated soldiers, especially when the going was hard. The secret was that he was utterly dependable and his troops knew that he would never let them down if he could possibly help it. Max Wünsche likens him to ‘a lump of Bavarian rock which has yet to be hewn’, but that ‘he was also a person who had a heart for his men, who went through thick and thin for them. But he did not ask more of them than he was prepared to do himself. ’5 As we have seen, he was not a man given to making flamboyant speeches of exhortation, but his instinct for being at a point of crisis in person was enough to give his soldiers the inspiration that they needed. While he was commanding the Leibstandarte he was able to implant his personality deeply on every part of it. Indeed, one can almost say that Sepp Dietrich was the Leibstandarte Once, however, he was elevated to the command of a corps and then an army he could no longer enjoy such direct contact with his soldiers. This he undoubtedly considered frustrating and probably found it hard to accept that the place of a corps and army commander was at his headquarters during a battle and not with the leading battalion. He was a man of action rather than a thinker and a planner, as he would have been the first to admit.
While the political hierarchy of the SS consistently tried to exacerbate the differences between the Waffen-SS and the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS generals themselves, especially Hausser, Steiner, Bittrich, and Dietrich, considered themselves as soldiers foremost. This was especially so of Sepp Dietrich who, from very early on in his life, wanted to be a professional soldier. There is no evidence, apart from his singular outburst on Rommel to Milton Shulman and his attacks on the likes of Keitel and Jodi to his American interrogators, that he voiced his dislike for the Wehrmacht field commanders, the majority of whom he clearly admired. They themselves clearly found it more difficult to reciprocate. Dietrich’s earthy manner was not what they were used to and there was always the lingering suspicion that whatever they said to Dietrich, would be immediately reported back to Hitler. An illustration of this was when von Manstein visited the headquarters of the Leibstandarte in the early spring of 1943. Rudolf Lehmann recalls that von Manstein initially made it very clear that he wanted to avoid Dietrich, preferring his staff to brief him. Von Manstein then made to depart, but Dietrich asked him to come into his office for a drink. As usual, it was cognac and, once it had been served; Rudolf Lehmann, who was present, states that Dietrich said:
‘“Herr Generalfeldmarschall, I have the impression that you think I have a special line to theFührerhauptquartür. I can formally report to you that this is not the case. I lead my division like any of my neighbouring commanders, without evading official channels.” When mentioning the Führerhauptoquartier, Sepp Dietrich did not express himself formally but said literally: “… a special line to that one”, while he was pointing to his upper lip. The GFM stood up and replied: “Obergruppenführer Dietrich, that was a good word at the right time. I have to beg your pardon.’”6
Yet, it does seem that Dietrich did have such a direct line of communication over the time of the July 1944 bomb plot, although this may well have been to Himmler’s rather than Hitler’s headquarters. Furthermore, there is no doubt that some Wehrmacht generals did take advantage of the close contacts that Dietrich enjoyed with Hitler. All this, of course, belies what many German generals told their interrogators immediately after the war, but one cannot help feeling that much of this was in an effort to save their own skins. By distancing themselves from the Waffen-SS and claiming that they were professional soldiers merely carrying out orders, as opposed to ideological men-at-arms, they hoped to create a favourable impression, which would gain them sympathy.
Much evidence has been given in this book that Dietrich himself was not an ideologically committed Nazi. True, he owed the high position which he eventually reached almost entirely to Hitler, who had pulled him up from obscurity. Yet, Dietrich’s involvement with Hitler must be seen in the context of the confusion and disillusionment that was Germany in the years after 1918. Anarchy and brutality were inevitable as the German people struggled to swallow the bitter pill of defeat and to salvage something from the wreckage created by Versailles. Having always been used to strong government, many could not accept that what they perceived as the watery democratic approach of the Weimar Republic was the right way forward. Internal conflict within a state inevitably drives people to extremes, and this was what happened in Germany’s case. For those who feared the spectre of Russian-dominated Communism, Hitler’s creed began to offer an increasingly hopeful alternative. The discipline, which was an inherent part of his policy, was something that appealed to the German character, and Fascism seemed to be the best way to make Germany great once more. Where their perceptions were flawed was over the nature of the state that Hitler created once he had gained power. It became an absolute dictatorship which would brook no opposition and brutality became endemic. Nothing can lessen the guilt of either party or nation for the instigation of ‘The Final Solution’ or the existence and nature of the concentration camps. As a man of limited intelligence, who had finally decided to hitch his wagon to Hitler’s star, Sepp Dietrich was prepared to give his Führer complete personal loyalty. However, that did not mean that he was prepared to do the same for Hitler’s subordinates. He soon realised the nature of Himmler’s warped mentality and did everything possible to avoid getting bound to him. This, however, brought him into conflict with Hausser. To Dietrich, it was inevitable that they would have the same differences, given Hausser was a general staff officer of the old school, while Dietrich had been merely a warrant officer in the old army, however both agreed that the Leibstandarte should not become an ideological battleground and that it was first and foremost a military unit. Given, too, the growing evidence of corruption and skulduggery among Hitler’s underlings, as they wrestled with one another for even greater power, Dietrich became more and more inward looking, concentrating merely on the Leibstandarte and keeping well out of politics.
Yet, the popular view of Sepp Dietrich, to use William Shirer’s words, is as ‘one of the most brutal men of the Third Reich’.7 True his manner and the reputation gained when he was responsible for Hitler’s security, prior to the formation of the Leibstandarte, support this. It could also be argued that the Night of the Long Knives also reinforces that view. On the other hand, as far as Dietrich was concerned, he was carrying out a direct order from Hitler in a highly charged situation. The evidence available shows that what occurred was a source of deep shock and concern to him. Even then, though, as the court in Munich in 1957 accepted, he did have second thoughts when actually confronting those whom he had to execute and the evidence of ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl indicates that he was afterwards very shaken.
Shirer’s comment, however, is probably as much directed towards the atrocities committed by theWaffen-SS troops under Dietrich’s command during the years 1939-1945. In this context, there is no doubt that unit discipline within the Leibstandarte during the campaigns in Poland, the Low Countries and France was not all that apologists would have us believe. The incidents of looting in Poland and Holland were many and, as well as a lack of fire control, as evidenced in the wounding of General Student in Rotterdam, are signs of bad discipline. The shooting of the British prisoners at Wormhoudt in May 1940 is a more serious indicator. Significantly, it is the one atrocity charge levelled against Leibstandarte which Rudolf Lehmann does not mention in his definitive history. To others in Russia and Italy he is at great pains to refute, and those in the Ardennes are outside the trilogy, which finishes at the end of 1943. While it is obvious that Dietrich had nothing to do with the actual murders of the Royal Warwicks and others, since he was stuck in his ditch, it would have been very surprising if knowledge of it had not come to his ears afterwards, that is unless Mohnke imposed the oath of secrecy at battalion level. Yet, there is no evidence that Dietrich every initiated any form of inquiry or disciplined Mohnke and one can only presume that, if he did know about it, he decided to keep quiet since, if the news got out, it would sully the name of the Leibstandarte, to which he was so devoted. Nevertheless, his failure to act made him an accessory after the fact. Interestingly, Hoepner’s XVI Corps headquarters did demand an enquiry into the parallel massacre of British prisoners carried out by the Totenkopf at Le Paradis, but Himmler’s headquarters did nothing about it. Indeed, the officer responsible, Fritz Knochlein, finished the war as a regimental commander and holder of the Knight’s Cross, before finally being tried and hanged by the British.
In the 1941 campaign in the Balkans and Greece the Leibstandarte had matured and there are no recorded incidents of ill discipline, let alone atrocities. Indeed, the treatment of prisoners, Greek and British, seems to have been a model of chivalry. Russia, on the other hand, was a very different matter, especially given the fanaticism with which both sides fought. However, the two specific incidents of brutality on the part of Dietrich’s men are difficult to substantiate. We have already seen the confusion of historians brought about by Erich Kern’s description of Soviet prisoners being shot as a result of atrocities on German troops, especially the six Leibstandarte corpses found in Taganrog. As for Kharkov, the incident at the hospital is equally difficult to prove either way. For a start, apart from one brief mention of it by the Soviet Prosecutor at Nuremberg, in the context that evidence on it had been submitted to the court,8 the Soviets took no further steps to see that the alleged perpetrators were brought to justice until 1967. Then they submitted evidence to the Federal German Government, and this was largely based on the findings of the investigatory commission of September 1943. In response the judicial authorities in Nuremberg carried out a lengthy inquiry, examining no less than 688 witnesses, all but thirteen of whom were former members of the Leibstandarte. Only four of them professed to having ever heard of Soviet prisoners having been shot and the general view was that the Leibstandarte would never have been permitted to shoot defenceless prisoners. What could be established, though, was that the hospital itself was within the area of the attack made by 1st SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment and that the main Soviet defensive belt was just north of the hospital. It is thus very likely that it became embroiled in the battle and, given that street fighting is often confused and merciless, it is quite possible that Leibstandarte soldiers may have believed that they were being fired upon from the hospital and decided to eradicate all possible opposition inside it. On the other hand, it could have been a fabrication done for propaganda purposes. In any event, the court found that there was insufficient evidence for individual culprits to be identified and no further action was taken.9 On the other side of the coin, however, Lehmann quotes an eyewitness of the disinterring for identification purposes of the bodies of the Leibstandarte who had been killed during the original withdrawal from Kharkov:
‘Here we saw a picture I had never seen before and would never see again in my life: all of the men were undressed, and heavily mutilated. A lot of them, who had gone missing at the time, were slain, stabbed to death, had cut off limbs and eyes put out. Thus it was difficult to identify them… From this moment, we were paranoid about being taken prisoner by the Russians.’10
That the war on the Eastern Front was brutalising there is no doubt and one cannot but help repeat Max Wünsche’s comment that no one who had not fought on it could have any conception what it was like. Those who wish to moralise on it are on weak ground if they have no personal experience of it. The brutality on both sides was horrific. Both Wehrmacht and the SS had much to answer for, particularly after the outbreak of partisan warfare. That the Russians behaved as they did, was in no small part due to the savagery of the treatment meted out by the Germans to many thousands of peasants and villagers.
The 1944 campaigns in the West were, however, a different matter. Here it was expected that both sides would observe the rules of war. Yet atrocities did occur. Panzer Meyer was found guilty, as commander of the 25th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment of the Hitlerjugend, of the massacre of forty-five Canadian prisoners in Normandy on 8 June 1944, although, as has already been stated, Sepp Dietrich asserted that he did try and conduct an inquiry at the time. This now brings us to the most emotive area of all, that of the Ardennes. What is clear from examining the judicial procedures surrounding the trial was that, as far as the Americans were concerned, it was not just Peiper and his men, but all Waffen-SS who fought in the Ardennes who were on trial and were guilty from the start. As has been said before, no one can deny that atrocities took place in the Ardennes. However, given the circumstances of Kampfgruppe Peiper’s mission, which became one of deep penetration and was carried out amidst increasing confusion, both because of Peiper’s lack of communication with divisional headquarters and because his men had cut deep into the American lines, there was inevitably a great deal of nervousness and a tendency to fire first and ask questions afterwards. Thus, some at least of the atrocities were hardly premeditiated, and indeed can be put under the label of ‘accidents of war’. Others, though, especially the murder of Belgian civilians, even given Dietrich’s warning over the Resistance, were inexcusable. It must, however, be pointed out that the Americans, too, were guilty of atrocities in the Ardennes. In the aftermath of Malmédy there were numerous incidents, as Jean Paul Pallud in his in-depth study The Battle of the Bulge; Then and Now11 reveals. 328th US Infantry Regiment, which was part of 26th Infantry Division, in its order for 21 December 1944, specified that ‘No SS troops or paratroopers will be taken prisoner but will be shot on sight’ and Pallud goes on to detail a number of incidents when this order was actually put into effect by US units.12 Revenge, however, is not considered as an extenuating circumstance in the Geneva Convention and hence the Americans were just as guilty as their enemy of atrocities. The only difference was that they were the eventual victors. Unfortunately, in the singular circumstances of combat, where it is so often a matter of whose finger is first to squeeze the trigger and emotions are stretched to their ultimate, the Laws of War are often broken.
Notwithstanding this, there is the matter of whether Dietrich himself ever gave any order, written or verbal, that in certain circumstances the shooting of prisoners was allowed. It would have been surprising, given the desperate situation at the time, if Dietrich had not exhorted his men to fight ruthlessly and, as Colonel Bresee pointed out in his review of the Malmédy case, this was a perfectly reasonable order. Likewise, there was nothing illegal about warning his men of Resistance activity. Indeed, the treatment of armed civilians not wearing a recognisable uniform is not subject to the Geneva Convention. As for prisoner handling, it is worth pointing out that it was common German practice to issue the administrative order separately from the operational order, as is still the NATO procedure today, and that prisoners would be covered by the former. Kraemer’s assertion that he ordered collecting points for prisoners to be set up and that leading tactical elements were not to concern themselves with them is also logical and makes sound military sense. The prosecution could produce no primary written evidence that Dietrich had given any order that prisoners were to be shot in certain circumstances and could only point to the extrajudicial confessions, which were later retracted, as evidence. At best, therefore, the case is non proven and it is hard not to conclude that the Americans were determined to bring Dietrich to book, not for what he or his troops might have done, but merely because of who he was. For a man who saw himself as solely a professional soldier and not a Nazi fanatic, it does not seem to be in character that he would have actively countenanced such behaviour in his troops. For many reasons, as have been shown, the Malmédy trial was a miscarriage of justice, but it was so because the intense pressure of American public opinion would accept no other result than guilty verdicts for all the defendants.
During Dietrich’s ten years in prison there is no doubt that he conducted himself with dignity and resilience, as he did at and after the 1957 Munich trial. The prison authorities at Landsberg, especially Colonel Moore, praised him for his honesty and openness, qualities which his Waffen-SS comrades also recognised. Yet, there is one niggle of doubt over this and that is why Dietrich should have been so cagey about aspects of his early life? Why did he for so long have it believed that he had originally been a cavalryman rather than artilleryman? Why was he so contradictory about his dates of service in the Landespolizei and the jobs he took after it? Why did he pretend to have been a regular soldier from 1911 onwards? There is no clearcut explanation to this, especially since his record of service during the First World War was nothing to be ashamed of. One can only surmise that he felt keenly that it was a disgrace to have been invalided out after only a month’s service and that the cavalry had a greater social cachet than the field artillery. As for the post-war period, no documentary evidence has been found that he was in fact a member of the Oberland and that which does exist is merely that of Hans Weber, a fellow Oberlander, and the fact that Dietrich held the Silesian Eagle. Nevertheless, it would have been in character for him to have fought in Upper Silesia. For Dietrich to have left the Munich Police in 1923 would have been logical if he had taken part in the November Beer Hall putsch, and it was this date which he put in his SS Personal forms. Yet, it was not until 1927 that he actually left the police and, bearing in mind the post-putsch purge, it is unlikely chat Dietrich would have been allowed to serve on if he had taken an active part as an Oberlander in the events of 8-9 November 1923. It is therefore very possible that he was not involved, but that the assertion that he did was a ‘window dressing’ exercise by the Nazi propaganda machine in order to give him, in his capacity as one of Hitler’s inner circle the right type of ‘respectability’. In spite of these doubts, there was clearly much in Dietrich’s character that appealed to his soldiers and officers and also to those who came to know him in later years. That he was a very brave man is certain, and this was not just physical bravery, but also moral bravery, especially when it came to men’s interests versus the hierarchy of the Third Reich. Even given his rough exterior, he was essentially a very warm man underneath. John Toland, who met him in his last years, formed a very favourable impression of him and wanted to reverse the picture that he had earlier painted in his Battle: The Story of the Bulge as a ‘burly, rather uncouth chap with a taste for alcohol ’.13 Indeed, the popular image of him was largely shaped by Allied wartime and immediate post-war propaganda.
In truth, Sepp Dietrich was a child of his time, whose career personified the lives of many Germans who lived in the first part of the 20th century. Indeed, he was present on stage, or just off in the wings, for many of the momentous events that are the history of Germany in these troubled times. That he had outstanding natural leadership qualities there is no doubt. He also achieved some remarkable successes as a general, given that he lacked the training and education normally enjoyed by commanders of his seniority. Yet, in many ways he was just an ordinary man, who saw himself as nothing more than a simple soldier faithful to the ideals of duty, honour and Fatherland. In following these precepts he at times made choices, or avoided making them, with consequences that on other grounds must be regarded as morally reprehensible. Unfortunately, though, he was probably not intelligent enough always to perceive where his actions would lead. There were many Germans like him.
It can also be argued that he was a man propelled to the forefront of German history by forces not under his control and was not master of his own destiny. Nevertheless, as a powerful member of the Third Reich, who had Hider’s ear, he cannot be absolved of all responsibility for what happened during the years 1918-1945. The extent of that responsibility must itself depend upon how much one believes the maxim that men must bear the burden of the consequences of their actions, whatever the circumstances which surround them. Notwithstanding this, those veterans of the Waffen-SS who served under him will continue to revere him for as long as they live. To the rest of us Sepp Dietrich should be judged as a man caught up in the evil of his times who none the less and according to his own lights normally behaved with honour and devoted dedication to a mistaken cause.