“The Situation is Once Again Quiet”: Gestapo

Crimes in the Rhineland, Fall 1944

Michael P. McConnell

O

N

the morning of October 25, 1944, eleven foreign workers were trans-

ported from their overcrowded cells in the infamous Brauweiler prison
to the Cologne neighborhood of Ehrenfeld. Upon arrival the prisoners

were forced to mount a gallows constructed in an abandoned concrete lot next to
an elevated train line. In front of a large crowd of assembled onlookers and police,
the accused were executed for crimes ranging from petty theft to armed resistance.
Their executioners cataloged their handiwork from start to finish in a detailed
series of photographs that revealed that for one unfortunate, the gallows proved
too short, forcing the victim to be

“assisted” by a plainclothes Gestapo officer

who held his legs until he expired.

1

Seventeen days later, on November 10, 1944, another execution was held at

the same location. This time the victims were thirteen German teenagers and
adolescents charged with belonging to a gang alleged to be plotting attacks
against the police. Like their foreign counterparts on October 25, the bodies of
the victims, the youngest of whom was nine years old, were left to hang through-
out the day as a warning to other would-be

“plunderers” and “terrorists.” This

execution marked a point of departure; the same treatment meted out to the
foreign subjects of occupied Europe was now extended to German civilians as
the Nazi regime entered its final period of radicalization.

The significance of these atrocities does not stop here. They occurred within

the context of a larger operation conducted by the Gestapo to restore order in
place of the chaos that had erupted in the region as American troops arrived on
the Reich

’s border. Throughout the month of September, the collapse of the

I would like to thank the University of Tennessee, the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies,

United States Holocaust Memorial, and the German Historical Institute for their generous support
of this project, as well as Dr. Vejas Liulevicius, Dr. Daniel Riches, Dr. George Williamson, and
Dr. Stephen Fritz for their expert guidance and encouragement.

1

These photographs are now housed in the Historisches Archiv, Stadt Köln. Duplicates may be

found in the photographic archive of the United States Holocaust Memorial, Washington, D.C.
(hereafter USHMMA).

Central European History 45 (2012), 27

–49.

© Conference Group for Central European History of the American

Historical Association, 2012

doi:10.1017/S0008938911000975

27

region had appeared imminent. Coinciding with the arrival of the enemy, reports
flooded regional Gestapo offices regarding robberies committed by retreating sol-
diers, gangs of youth, and escaped slave laborers as well as the appearance of flyers
calling for the end of the war. In response, the Cologne Gestapo, in a move remi-
niscent of the anti-partisan warfare conducted on the eastern front, attempted forc-
ibly to evacuate the civilian and forced-laborer population of the area between
the border and the Rhine across the river, creating a secure

“dead zone” behind

the front. During the course of this operation, which removed by conservative
estimates two hundred thousand people, the security services combed through
the masses of deportees, searching for deserters, criminals, escaped prisoners, black
marketeers, and suspected spies as they sought to regain order and prepare for
the impending invasion. These efforts, initially conducted to strengthen the
Volksgemeinschaft, or people

’s community, for the upcoming final struggle, quickly

devolved into widespread violence as the Gestapo came face to face with civilian
discontent and the social problems posed by the region

’s structural collapse.

Throughout autumn 1944, the security forces underwent a cumulative radicali-
zation that enabled the final wave of bloodshed that occurred the following spring
as the Third Reich imploded.

2

Termed the

“End Phase” by historians, the period between September 1944

and May 1945 remains understudied. This is largely due to the sparse and scattered
nature of the source material. Documents regarding the late war activities of the
Nazi regime are rare; many were intentionally destroyed for security reasons, or
unintentionally by Allied bombing. Some officials, faced with enormous work-
loads, simply stopped filing reports. Fortunately, records do exist, largely in the
locales in which the events occurred, resulting in a historiography primarily gen-
erated by German historians engaged in regional studies. One valuable cache of
documents, including weekly situation reports from the Cologne Gestapo from
the middle of September through the end of November 1944, is housed at the
National Archives at College Park, Maryland. This material, alongside Gestapo
files from the Nordrhein-Westfälisches Hauptstaatarchiv in Düsseldorf, forms
the core of this study.

The few works that have examined the last months of the Third Reich have

portrayed it as a time of arbitrary violence in which German civilians for the
first time experienced the full brunt of the Nazis

’ destructive nature as die-hard

fanatics attempted to carry out Hitler

’s vengeful call for the destruction of the

Reich as defeat loomed. The violence that occurred against the Volks-
gemeinschaft in the last months of the war, however, had a long prehistory that

2

Nordrhein-Westfälisches Hauptstaatarchiv Düsseldorf (hereafter HStAD), RW 34-8, 2; RW 37-

24, 45; RW 37-11, 44. The figure of 200,000 evacuees is a rough estimate taken from a combined total
of numbers mentioned in the after-action reports of the Cologne Gestapo and Order Police units. The
real number is unknown due to the fragmented source material and is probably much higher.

MICHAEL P. McCONNELL

28

was rooted in police practices developed during the racial war waged in the occu-
pied territories. The connection between the

“End Phase” and this prehistory has

been overlooked, particularly the ways in which tactics of deportation and the so-
called

“Bandenkampf,” or the struggle against partisans, in occupied Europe influ-

enced domestic evacuation policies during the final months of the Third Reich.
Viewing late-war population removals and policing in this context enables us to
uncover why the violence occurred, its scope, and, most importantly, its process
of evolution.

3

Investigating the events that took place in the Cologne region will assist this

endeavor. The fall 1944 period should be viewed as a crucial stage of transition
for the regime

’s security forces instead as merely part of the “End Phase.” This

is aptly demonstrated by the depopulation efforts conducted by the Cologne
Gestapo. The operation, the only one of its kind to be carried out inside
Germany, was originally aimed at bolstering the war effort by restoring civilian
morale and harnessing material and labor resources for the Reich

’s defense.

Only during the course of the operation did these efforts degenerate into mass
violence. An examination of these events is better placed to highlight the conti-
nuities and breaks in police practice than the scattered episodes that occurred in
spring 1945. Focusing an investigation on the activities of the Gestapo in the
Cologne region will reveal how the organizational culture of the security services
and the reliance on long-standing and brutal police tactics combined with a
plethora of situational factors to enable the Gestapo for the first time to direct
widespread and indiscriminate violence against German civilians.

3

Unfortunately due to space constraints only a brief essay of the historiography is possible and will

include the main works. Bernd-A. Rusinek

’s Gesellschaft in der Katastrophe. Terror, Illegalität, Widerstand,

Köln 1944

–45 (Essen: Klartext, 1989) is the most comprehensive examination of conditions inside

Cologne in fall 1944. The work astutely reconsiders the activities of German youth gangs in the
city and convincingly debunks much of the postwar mythology surrounding the resistance work alleg-
edly conducted by these groups. Unfortunately, due to its focus, the study does not address the events
that occurred in the surrounding hinterland and therefore does not reveal the true extent of the vio-
lence that occurred in the left-bank region. Several essays in the two-volume anthology edited by
Gerhard Paul and Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Die Gestapo. Mythos und Realität (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995), and Die Gestapo im Zweiten Weltkrieg.

“Heimatfront” und

beseztes Europa (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2000), also address crimes committed
in the region during the regime

’s final months as part of larger overviews of Gestapo activity during

the end of the war. These essays reveal the most adequate explanations for the motives for these atroc-
ities and touch on the connections to police operations in eastern Europe. Yet, because of their broad
nature, the articles lack a closer examination of these experiences

’ influence on late-war atrocities. Both

volumes also aptly examine the organizational structure of the Nazi security apparatus and chart the
evolution of its radicalization. Robert Gellately

’s Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi

Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) and Eric Johnson

’s Nazi Terror: The Gestapo,

Jews, and Ordinary Germans (New York: Basic Books, 1999) peripherally address the fall 1944 events
in Cologne as part of their larger studies on public opinion. Richard Bessel

’s Germany 1944: From

War to Peace (New York: HarperCollins, 2009) weaves the events in the Rhineland into a comprehen-
sive study of the collapse of the Third Reich.

GESTAPO CRIMES IN THE RHINELAND

29

The Rhineland: Autumn 1944

The rapid advance of the Normandy breakout had liberated most of France and
Belgium with surprising ease, placing Allied armies on the German border within
little over a month. Victory appeared to be weeks away as retreating German
troops streamed back into the Reich in disarray. American units had already
crossed the Reich

’s borders in the first weeks of September, penetrating the

Westwall and reaching the border city of Aachen by September 12. By the end
of the month, however, logistical problems and the shifting of American troops
north to assist the airborne operation

“Market Garden” in the Netherlands

slowed the Allied momentum. The weather began to deteriorate as well, and
the American divisions clearing the Huertgen Forest and Aachen could add
rain and mud to the list of difficulties facing them.

4

The German military was able to regroup as the Allied advance slowed. Units

were reorganized, and reserves were brought into line. Inserted into the defensive
network of the Westwall, these forces helped to stem the Americans and, with the
help of Allied logistical difficulties, stabilized the front. By the beginning of
October the situation along Germany

’s western border resembled a stalemate.

The Americans found themselves entangled in vicious street fighting in Aachen
and bogged down in the muddy forests to the south. In the north, British
troops entrenched for the winter after the failure of the

“Market Garden” oper-

ation. Although this respite allowed the Wehrmacht breathing room to consolidate
its forces, the situation in the rear area and the cities along the Rhine River
remained chaotic.

In the cities, around-the-clock bombing had obliterated large swaths of build-

ings, transforming neighborhoods, industrial areas, and city centers into unrecog-
nizable heaps of rubble. When American forces entered Cologne in March 1945,
they found that eighty percent of the city had been destroyed, with its famous
cathedral hovering over the ruined landscape. As one German eyewitness
remarked, it was

“the greatest rubble heap in the world . . . the paradigm of

destruction.

” Other neighboring cities shared similar fates; Düsseldorf, Krefeld,

Essen, Duisburg, and Wuppertal all suffered at least fifty-percent damage.

5

Due to the bombing, most of the nonessential civilian population of these cities

had been evacuated, and the remainder lived a tense day-to-day existence. Grimly
combing through the ruins each day and living in air-raid shelters and cellars,
these survivors not only faced danger from above, but also dwindling supplies,

4

HStAD, RW 37-7, 20. Derek S. Zumbro, Battle for the Ruhr: The German Army

’s Final Defeat in the

West (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2006), 9, 22

–23, 27.

5

Rusinek, Gesellschaft in der Katastrophe, 103. Alfons Kenkmann, Wilde Junge. Lebenswelt großstädtischer

Jugendlicher zwischen Weltwirtschaftkrise, Nationalsozialismus und Wahrungsreform (Essen: Klartext Verlag,
2002), 240. Stephan Burgdorff and Christian Habbe, eds., Als Feuer vom Himmel fiel. Der Bombenkrieg in
Deutschland (Munich: Spiegel Verlag, 2003), 21.

MICHAEL P. McCONNELL

30

sporadic running water, no electricity, and the increasing threat of armed gangs of
Germans and escaped foreign laborers living in the rubble who had resorted to
robbery and theft to survive.

6

The residents of the countryside endured similar conditions. Due to the inten-

sity of the Allied air campaign, factories had been relocated to smaller towns in the
region, making these targets in turn. In fall 1944, heavy bomber raids were
increased in an attempt to disrupt communications and traffic routes connected
to the front. These raids were also supplemented by strafing attacks by Allied
fighters operating from Belgium, allowing the air war to reach the remotest of
locations. Such attacks were highly destructive in their own right, making
travel extremely hazardous and contributing to the further disintegration of
local infrastructure.

7

Unlike their urban counterparts, rural residents evacuated only when the front

began to approach and the populations of these towns were swollen with refugees
from the cities, the occupied Netherlands, and the border regions. These strangers
added to the difficulties and frustration of residents, who suffered the additional
burden of opening their homes and sharing their scarce resources with them.
Criminality also began to rise as escaped prisoners from bombed factories and
camps foraged for supplies. Disrupted supply networks also forced rural civilians,
like their urban counterparts, to access the black market for essential goods or
resort to theft. Like the regular soldiers, numerous German youth and adults
sent to the front to work on the Westwall defenses also deserted and stole from
farms and villages as they made their way back to their homes.

8

Morale

Underlying the chaos in the countryside and cities was a shared sense that the end
was near, as the resigned attitude of

“Durchhalten,” the notion of sticking it out

until the end, dissipated as the Americans reached Aachen, less than fifty kilo-
meters from the Rhine. Morale reports from the Cologne Gestapo noted with
alarm that

“many feel that the war will soon end” and that “continued fighting

was purposeless and impossible.

” Weekly situation reports from police units oper-

ating in the field further documented the volatile mood of the region. Officers
began to encounter remarks such as,

“We’ve lost the war, our opponents are

stronger than we are, everything the government tells us is a lie,

” and “The

war can

’t be won, the situation here is the same as on the eastern front. Soon

all the Nazis, especially the party officials, will be shot.

” Others kept a wry

6

USHMMA, RG-68.017M, R58, fiche 990; HStAD, RW 34-8, 1-2.

7

Earl Beck, Under the Bombs: The German Home Front 1942

–1945 (Lexington, KY: University Press

of Kentucky, 1986), 151

–152; National Archives (hereafter NARA), RG 242, T175, Roll 224, Frame

2762605.

8

HStAD, RW 34-8, 1; RW 37-7, 43; RW 37-21, 42. Rusinek, Gesellschaft in der Katastrophe, 195.

GESTAPO CRIMES IN THE RHINELAND

31

sense of humor. A fireman from Cologne, commenting on his ruined home,
joked that

“Comrade Ley [the head of the Reich Labor Front] has given us

workers sunny and airy apartments.

” More disturbing to authorities was the

fact that some Germans along the border were preparing to open their homes
to the invaders or milled about the streets awaiting their arrival. These alarming
reports, combined with those concerning the behavior of the foreign workers
who populated the region, painted a scene of impending collapse.

9

An estimated 7,615,970 foreign laborers from the occupied territories were

working in the Reich by 1944 and comprised almost fifty percent of the work-
force in some vital sectors of industry. Based on the concept of racial purity, the
Nazi state, from 1941 on, found itself faced with a growing internal contradiction
as hundreds of thousands of foreigners were forced into the Reich

’s industries and

farms, quickly becoming essential to the war effort. These people, particularly
those from eastern Europe, were perceived as a security risk to the biological
and ideological well-being of the German people. Attempting to reconcile the
situation, the regime from the start implemented a harsh series of regulations to
curtail interaction between Germans and forced laborers in an attempt to head
off any attempts at rebellion and ensure productivity. By late 1944 these controls
became increasingly uncompromising as the regime began to fear insurrection
and sabotage as Germany

’s situation worsened.

10

A February 1944 Gestapo report reflected these fears in its gauging of the morale

of foreign workers and documented the

“fanatische Deutschenhass,” or “fanatical

hatred of Germans,

” among laborers throughout the Reich. It recorded comments

such as

“The Germans can’t win, Stalin holds all the cards in his hands!,” and “After

the war, the Germans will wear this badge [in reference to the colored patches the
workers were required to wear].

” One female worker remarked that although she

took the train to Germany, her

“Hausfrau” would be marching to Siberia on foot.

Other details included the defacing of a propaganda flyer of Hitler by a worker who
remarked that

“The time is coming when the real [“lebendig”] one will have his eyes

cut out.

” The report attributed such inflammatory statements to enemy propaganda

and the residue of communist ideology, rather than the harsh treatment, poor
rations, long working hours, and unsanitary living conditions the workers experi-
enced. The uneasy feelings of the Gestapo reflected in these reports were reinforced
by the increasing number of escaped workers that had already begun to inhabit the
ruined cities, stealing from stores and houses to supply themselves.

11

9

HStAD, RW 34-8, 10, 14; RW 37-21, 58; NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 240, Frame 2729942.

10

See Ulrich Herbert, Hitler

’s Foreign Workers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 1,

for statistics on estimated total number of foreign workers inside the Reich. While no figures exist
for the entire left-bank region of the Rhineland, Cologne had become home to roughly thirty thou-
sand foreign workers by 1944. Rusinek, Gesellschaft in der Katastrophe, 341.

11

See USHMMA, RG-68.017M, R58, Fiche 992, for a report concerning the morale of foreign

workers. The report lacks a publication date, but the research guide lists it as dating from February

MICHAEL P. McCONNELL

32

Already sensitive to any notions of defeatism or revolt from inside Germany,

Gestapo officers operating in the Rhineland in September 1944 viewed the
current situation on the ground as the physical manifestation of the fears expressed
in their reports. Desertion from the front, tuning in to enemy radio broadcasts,
surly foreign workers, black marketeering, theft, and disparaging remarks about
the regime were all considered evidence of the widespread demoralization and
insurrection that undermined Germany

’s defense and threatened to repeat the

“stab in the back” that had allegedly occurred in 1918. The July 20 attempt on
Hitler

’s life had further seemingly proven that any citizen or soldier had the

potential to turn against the regime. As the Reich faced invasion from without
and widespread social disorder within, the security apparatus adapted organiza-
tionally and became increasingly violent as it attempted to regain order.

The Security Forces

The organizational culture of the security forces, established in the late 1930s, laid
the foundation for the violence that occurred in fall 1944. The core of this culture
was its emphasis on preemptive action, initiative, and the application of over-
whelming force. The Gestapo, whose officers led efforts to restore order to the
region, best embodied these central tenets. These men set the tone of the oper-
ation and ensured that violence would become routine practice during the efforts
to depopulate the region.

Originally assigned the task of political policing during the Weimar Republic,

the Gestapo was absorbed and expanded by the Nazis upon their seizure of power
in 1933 and fell under the purview of the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler. In
1939, the Gestapo, party intelligence service (SD), and criminal police (Kripo)
were centralized under the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), commanded
by Reinhard Heydrich, former head of party intelligence. Under Heydrich and
his adjutant Werner Best, the security services were revamped. Both men, in con-
junction with Himmler, sought to fuse the police with the SS, combining their
investigative ability with the martial spirit and ideology of the party into a

“fight-

ing administration

” committed to the physical and spiritual defense of the Reich.

This new police apparatus was to be characterized not only by its administrative
efficiency but also by its reliance on preemptive action and personal initiative.
Its commanding officers were largely recruited from among members of the edu-
cated middle class, giving the organization

’s leadership cadre a broad social hom-

ogeneity and political reliability.

12

1944 and some comments, such as the locations of Russian forces in the Ukraine, coincide with the
period.

12

Gerhard Paul,

“Kampfende Verwaltung. Das Amt IV des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes als

Führungsinstanz der Gestapo,

” in Die Gestapo im Zweiten Weltkrieg. “Heimatfront” und beseztes

GESTAPO CRIMES IN THE RHINELAND

33

These men were not only career-minded professionals but had also experienced

a degree of politicization prior to joining the Gestapo. Many belonged to the

“war

youth generation

” that had been too young to participate in World War I but old

enough to have been infused with a strong sense of patriotism. This foundation was
built upon during the years of the Weimar Republic as feelings of national humilia-
tion over conditions of the Versailles Treaty combined with economic crisis to push
middle-class voters toward the Nazis. The overcrowded university system also
played an important role in the nascent political awareness of these men. As the
republic

’s economic problems worsened, more students failed to complete their

studies or find jobs, creating a sense of victimization among a milieu that considered
itself the bulwark of German nationalism.

13

The personnel file of Hauptsturmführer Kurt Matschke, reflects the background

of much of the Cologne Gestapo

’s leadership. Born in 1908 in Domsel, Upper

Silesia, Matschke was the son of a railway inspector. He experienced the
postwar border conflicts and Polish uprising of 1923 as a teenager, and these
events shaped his nationalist outlook. Later he entered the University of
Breslau with the intention of studying law, but due to financial difficulties was
forced to cut his studies short. Faced with limited job prospects, Matschke
worked as a low-level civil servant and eventually gravitated toward the Nazi
Party, becoming a member in 1932. He joined the SS the same year and obtained
the rank of sergeant by January 1933. The following year he entered the Gestapo
and rose to the rank of captain by 1944. Within a decade Matschke advanced from
being a junior civil servant with limited opportunity to become an officer of the
elite who enjoyed greatly expanded power and responsibilities as a leading officer
in the Cologne security apparatus.

14

The Gestapo offered both the prospect of career advancement and prestige.

Not only did the organization invest considerable effort in building a strong
sense of espirit de corps but also offered its personnel the chance to use their intelli-
gence and leadership potential. The organization thrived on action and initiative
and sought to embody the

“Führerprinzip,” or leadership principle. Officers

armed with almost limitless police powers and vague, easily expanded definitions
of criminality were expected to work proactively toward the perceived needs of
the party and people. Consequently, Gestapo personnel were not bound to a rigid
chain of command and exercised a great deal of latitude in everyday decision
making, further fostering an elite feeling and sense of mission.

15

Europa, ed. Paul and Mallmann, 45; Michael Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten. Das Führungskorps des
Reichssicherheitshauptamtes (Hamburg: HIS Verlag, 2003), 24.

13

Wildt, Generation, 73, 79.

14

NARA, RG242, A3343 (SO) Roll 343. C. F. Rüter and D. W. de Mildt, eds., Justiz und NS

Verbrechen. Die Deutschen Strafverfahren wegen Nationalsozialistischen Tötungsverbrechern, vol. 23
(Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007), 133

–134.

15

Wildt, Generation, 137

–142.

MICHAEL P. McCONNELL

34

The older, less educated, or politically active men that often composed the rank

and file of Gestapo offices became committed perpetrators as well. Kriminalassistent
Josef Hoegen, a native of Cologne and a veteran of World War I, was born in 1898
and hailed from lower-middle-class origins. During the 1923 inflation crisis he
joined the criminal police as an auxiliary and found regular employment as an
officer in 1924. In 1935 he joined the party and was transferred to the Cologne
Gestapo

’s anti-Marxist desk. Hoegen also served briefly with Einsatzgruppe B on

the eastern front before returning to the Cologne office. His postwar trial, in
which he was charged with fifty-eight counts of abuse and torture, revealed that
he became an enthusiastic and often overzealous perpetrator. He was hardly the
exception to the rule. Many policemen from the Weimar Republic stayed at
their posts, enticed by Nazism

’s removal of legal constraints, which allowed them

a freer hand to pursue their investigations.

16

The personnel files of both Matschke and Hoegen illustrate another important

aspect of the Gestapo

’s organizational culture: the rotation system. Shifting person-

nel throughout the Reich and occupied territories allowed not only extensive cross
training, but it also permitted the Gestapo to use an officer

’s particular skills, rushing

him to an area where his expertise was needed most. Transferred several times in his
career, Matschke first moved from Breslau to Saarbrücken, where he worked in the
office tasked with anti-Marxism. In 1941 he was assigned to the Ukraine as a
member of Einsatzgruppe B. He served two tours with the unit, participating in
the murder of Jews and suspected partisans before being reassigned to the field
staff of the unit. Matschke returned to the Reich in 1943 and was assigned to
Cologne where he initially oversaw the deportation of the city

’s Jews. He finished

his career in fall 1944 as the office

’s chief executioner, handing down sentences to

suspects arrested during the efforts to clear the region.

17

Transfer to the occupied territories was crucial to the development of these per-

petrators, allowing them to put ideology into practice and physically address the
enemies of the Reich by joining killing squads in occupied Europe. Other
members of the Cologne Gestapo, among them the office

’s chief, Dr. Max

Hoffman, served in such units and were active in the murders of thousands of
men, women, and children. Such encounters created callous, brutalized individuals
socialized to the use of violence. Postwar trial testimony recounts the cold behavior
Matschke exhibited toward the victims of his unit at Starodub in the Ukraine, where
he walked among the bodies, delivering headshots with his pistol to those still alive.

18

16

Rüter and de Mildt, eds., Justiz und NS Verbrechen, vol. 5, 1

–91; Patrick Wagner, Hitlers

Kriminalisten. Die deutsche Kriminalpolizei und der Nationalsozialismus (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2002), 94.

17

Lawrence D. Stokes,

“From Law Student to Einsatzgruppe Commander: The Career of a Gestapo

Officer,

” The Canadian Journal of History 37 (2002): 52–64; NARA, RG242, A3343 (RS), Roll 343

Personnel file of Kurt Matschke; Rüter and de Mildt, eds., Justiz und NS Verbrechen, vol. 12, 585

–599.

18

Paul,

“Kampfende Verwaltung,” 68. Paul notes that an estimated seventy-five percent of Gestapo

personnel spent part of their careers outside the borders of the Reich. See also Rüter and de Mildt,

GESTAPO CRIMES IN THE RHINELAND

35

Returning to the Reich, such men found themselves tasked with areas of

responsibility that grew enormously in the last few months of the war. Gestapo
offices inside Germany had always functioned with a small number of personnel.
As the war progressed and more personnel were sent to the occupied territories,
the work of the various subsections increasingly fell on fewer officers. In addition
to their regular duties, officers became responsible for the apprehension of desert-
ers, traffic control, and evacuations once the enemy approached in autumn 1944.
These heavier workloads combined with increased independence in decision
making to fuel the radicalization of the personnel during fall 1944.

19

The growing autonomy of the Gestapo

’s personnel, caused by the fragmenta-

tion of the organization, was the crucial spark that ignited the violence that
occurred in autumn 1944 and enabled the final wave of atrocity that occurred
the following spring. Due to the air war

’s devastating effect on communication

and loss of coordination caused by retreat on all fronts, regional offices found
themselves by September 1944 increasingly isolated and left to adjudicate as
they saw fit. Cut off from daily communication with headquarters in Berlin,
the Gestapo

’s regional organization continued to devolve down to the local

level. Allied air superiority meant snarled communications as offices were
destroyed, relocated, and destroyed again. In response, the Cologne Gestapo
began to use courier service to communicate with outlying posts, and correspon-
dence could take from twelve hours to four days to reach some locations in the
Rhine region. As the enemy approached, verbal communication also became
common due to fear that radio transmissions or written messages would be inter-
cepted. As reliable, consistent communication with their superiors effectively
ceased to exist, Gestapo officers became increasingly independent.

20

The news that did arrive from Berlin only served to fuel the radicalization of the

personnel. On September 20, Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) in the west
Karl Gutenberger met with the directors of the Aachen and Cologne Gestapo. He
informed them that Himmler had authorized them to execute plunderers, crim-
inals, saboteurs, and deserters in an attempt to regain order behind the front. This
directive was later circulated via telex on October 12. In terse and notably vague
prose, it stated

“‘the honorless’ [‘ehrevergessene’] behavior of civilians should be

punished with the sharpest measures [nun mit größter Schärfe geahndet würden].

”

Such orders were the essential ingredient of radicalization. They unleashed ideo-
logically committed, brutalized individuals armed with the power to apply lethal

eds., Justiz und NS Verbrechen, vol. 23, 156; Bernd-A. Rusinek,

“‘Wat denkste, wat mir objerümt han.’

Massenmord und Spurenbeseitigung am Beispiel der Staatspolizeistelle Köln 1944

/1945,” in Die

Gestapo, ed. Paul and Mallmann, 409.

19

HStAD, RW 34-31, 80.

20

HStAD, RW 34-10, 74-75; RW 34-31, 53-56. See also NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 250, Frame

2741687; Roll 224, Frame 2762041; and Wildt, Generation, 698

–699.

MICHAEL P. McCONNELL

36

violence at their discretion into a tense and disordered environment unfettered
from the oversight of any chain of command.

21

By late September 1944, the Gestapo had effectively decentralized itself to

meet the challenges posed by the chaos erupting inside the Reich. The flexibility
of the organization itself enabled regional commanders to rest assured their oper-
ations needed little day-to-day coordination since their officers, due to their
initiative and experience, were capable of addressing the problems in their areas
of control. This dispersal of decision making continued to grow throughout
the fall and eventually encompassed the personnel directed by the Gestapo.

These forces were appropriated from a wide range of sources. To supplement

the limited manpower of the Cologne Gestapo, retreating personnel from the dis-
solved Paris, Brussels, and Aachen offices were reassigned, bringing the total
number of available Gestapo personnel to 241. The arrival of the personnel
from Paris and Brussels, experienced in anti-partisan methods, further aided the
radicalization of the operation. Despite this infusion of manpower, the office
remained understaffed as it became responsible for an expanded area of operation
roughly one hundred kilometers long and fifty kilometers wide. Additionally, not
all personnel were fully fit. A report from the Cologne office to HSSPF
Gutenberger on November 9 noted that due to poor weather conditions and
lack of adequate shelter, many of the personnel were sick. Additionally, the con-
stant bombing and long working hours also led to an outbreak of stress-related
illnesses such as heart attacks and emotional collapse.

22

To help solve the manpower shortage, Gendarmerie units and border police

were also subordinated to the Gestapo as well as the factory guards and militia
overseeing foreign workers. Periodically these forces were supplemented by
Order Police units from the four battle groups of police reservists HSSPF
Gutenberger formed to assist the evacuations and plug gaps in the front lines.
Although composed of middle-aged reservists, these units were the most effective
manpower available to the Gestapo. Many of these policemen had seen combat
and had participated in genocide and anti-partisan operations in occupied
Europe. They were also well armed and organized. The rest of the available man-
power was of a more dubious nature. Gendarmerie and militia units were com-
posed of lightly armed and untrained older men and teenagers or, as in the case of
the factory guards, invalid soldiers. The poor quality of these forces aided the
expansion of the violence, as the insertion of inexperienced personnel into a
highly charged and chaotic atmosphere guaranteed that violence would
become uncontainable.

23

21

Gellately, Backing Hitler, 231; and NARA, RG 242, Roll 30, Frame 2537746.

22

HStAD, RW 34-8, 1-6; RW 37-21, 145.

23

HStAD, RW 37-11, Oct. 30, 1944, notes the average age of police personnel as fifty-two; RW

37-21, 176; NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 488, Frame 9348895; Roll 224 Frames 2762934-276939.
For more on the history and wartime activities of the order police, see Edward Westerman, Hitler

’s

GESTAPO CRIMES IN THE RHINELAND

37

“To Be Carried Out with the Harshest Measures”: Consolidation

These forces were organized into commandos led by officers from the Cologne
Gestapo and assigned specific areas of operation. Four of these were detailed to
the area directly behind the front and were based at Düren, Jülich, Erkelenz,
and Schleiden. A fifth commando was based in the city itself, while a sixth unit
led by Hauptsturmführer Matschke was tasked with processing suspected espio-
nage cases in the region. The Brauweiler and Klingelpütz prisons served as
regional detainment facilities for those arrested during the operation before
their transportation to concentrations camps deeper inside Germany. Liaison offi-
cers were also attached to the Wehrmacht to coordinate jurisdictional issues. The
military conducted their own clearances in the combat zone and civilian suspects
apprehended by military patrols were to be handed over to the Gestapo for further
questioning. In return the military police were to receive apprehended deserters
from the Gestapo for sentencing in military courts. The six Gestapo commandos
were subordinate to Dr. Hoffman, who in turn kept HSSPF Gutenberger
apprised of developments.

24

Both men felt that the best solution to the social disorder in the region was to

remove the population forcibly behind the Rhine and into the Reich

’s interior.

The goals of this operation were threefold. First, depopulating the area would
create a secure zone behind the front. In September the situation along the
Reich

’s western border remained porous and the hundreds of refugees on the

roads posed a problem for supply transport moving to the front, as well as a secu-
rity risk. The Gestapo feared that the Allies would use the chaos to infiltrate spies
into the region to gather intelligence, sabotage facilities, and incite foreign
workers to revolt. Second, the removal of the population, useful equipment,
and food supplies would deprive the invaders of any form of assistance. Finally,
the deportees and equipment could also be consolidated and redirected toward
the Reich

’s defense once across the Rhine.

25

These goals reveal the dependence on police practices developed while fight-

ing partisans in occupied Europe. From 1942 on, the German military and police
had shifted from sporadic reprisals to mass operations designed to limit support for
partisans by creating huge swathes of land stripped of people and food stocks.
Once deported, the able-bodied were sent to the Reich to work in the war

Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2005);
NARA, RG 319, File XE019542.

24

HStAD, RW 34-8, 3; RW 34-31, 34; RW 37-21, 114-115; RW 37-11, 34-36; NARA,

RG242, T175, Roll 487 Frame 9348200, Nov. 14; Roll 30, Frame 2537746, Dec. 12, 1944; Roll
157, Frame 2688995.

25

NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 488, Frame 9348895; Roll 157, Frame 2687793; Roll 224, Frames

2763257-2763258, 2763219. HStAD, RW 34-21, 62; RW 37-7, 57. The Gestapo also sought to
capitalize on the chaotic nature of the border region and insert its own spies and saboteurs behind
the American lines.

MICHAEL P. McCONNELL

38

industry while those unable to work were either killed outright or placed in
internment camps. Hoffman and Gutenberger were intimately familiar with
these operations as evidenced by their reports. Both men, as well as their subor-
dinates, repeatedly referred to the forcible removal (

“Zwangsräumung”) of the

populace and described the operation as

“Bandensicherungsaufgaben,” or an

attempt to secure the region from

“bandits.” Such vernacular underscores how

the experiences of the partisan war had come to permeate the thinking and prac-
tice of the security apparatus by late 1944, influencing the decision to remove the
inhabitants of the Rhineland as they grappled with the problem of population
control.

26

In the course of these forced evacuations, the Gestapo began to encounter an

increasingly frustrated populace tired of war and reluctant to leave their homes.
The fact that these units also appropriated personal property such as clothing,
farm equipment, coal, food, and livestock for the war effort only increased ten-
sions. Gestapo reports recounted comments such as

“Nazi whores!,” “Hitler is

a tramp, the party are all criminals and rascals,

” and “It’s good the enemy is

coming, that means that the war is over.

” Some encounters became violent,

such as an incident in the village of Honef, where a man threatened to stab a
party official who was assisting the evacuation in the throat, further revealing
the animosity directed at personnel.

27

In some locations residents took to the woods to avoid Gestapo units or fled

toward the front to seek shelter with army units, while others attempted to
pass through the lines to the Americans. Other residents refused to leave their
homes, claiming to have heard rumors about the shoddy treatment given to evac-
uees upon arrival at their destinations, expressing little faith in the party

’s ability to

provide for them. This attitude was further influenced by the haphazard nature of
the evacuations, which ensured that it often took several days to evacuate even the
smallest towns and villages. The lack of available transport meant that most resi-
dents would have to march to their destinations or the nearest functioning rail
station. The poor organization of the evacuations was exacerbated by the fact
that many of the local party officials responsible for planning them had fled,
further demoralizing the populace. Such experiences undermined civilian
cooperation and the stubborn attitude encountered by the personnel who were
conducting the clearances led HSSPF Gutenberger to issue new directives in
late October. He ordered the arrest of those who refused to leave and sanctioned

26

HStAD, RW 34-8, 1-6; RW 37-7, 57. For more on the conduct of anti-partisan warfare in

eastern Europe, see Christian

Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde.

Die

deutsche Wirtschafts- und

Vernichtungspolitik in Weissrussland 1941 bis 1944 (Hamburg: HIS Verlag, 2000); and Ben Shephard,

“Hawks, Doves, and Toten Zonen: A Wehrmacht Security Division in Central Russia, 1943,”
Journal of Contemporary History 37, no. 3 (July 2002): 349

–369.

27

NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 471, Frame 2729942; Roll 30, Frame 2537746; Roll 224, Frames

2763258, 2763041-2763042.

GESTAPO CRIMES IN THE RHINELAND

39

the use of

“necessary force” against those who continued to resist. Such experi-

ences undoubtedly fueled the belief by members of the security forces that the
German people had lost its collective will to fight.

28

Further evidence of widespread defeatism came from personnel who manned

the check points established to screen travelers and apprehend deserters. These
stops revealed many civilians were armed, carrying pistols and occasionally mili-
tary weaponry, an indication of the widespread feelings of insecurity felt by the
populace. These patrols also functioned as press gangs, creating a pool of labor
from recaptured prisoners and civilians caught without proper identification.
The prisoners were first detained at a hastily erected work punishment camp at
Hückelhoven and then moved to locations on the other side of the Rhine.

29

Situation reports from the Cologne office indicate detained suspects faced

further interrogation and sentencing by officers at detainment facilities. Most
executions of German civilians during the autumn took place in the prisons
and work camps due to concerns regarding civilian morale. Although
Himmler ordered that the cases of Germans slated for execution be passed onto
Berlin for approval, he acknowledged the communication difficulties personnel
in the region faced. His directives noted that if Berlin could not be reached, the
directors of regional offices were empowered to adjudicate. The majority of
these death sentences pertained to so-called acts of

“espionage.” This nebulous defi-

nition expanded as the operation progressed, encompassing not only alleged acts of
sabotage or spying but also civilians and foreign laborers caught attempting to cross
the border, seen near military installations, or in possession of enemy propaganda.
Gestapo reports also indicate that most prisoners accused of other crimes were sen-
tenced to forced labor, reflecting the view that redeemable manpower should be
directed to the war effort rather than wasted on vengeful acts. Regardless, this
was a period in which one could be detained and possibly executed for the slightest
infractions, as the security forces broadly applied definitions of criminality in a quick
attempt to restore order. Some units in the field, despite directives, also passed judg-
ment themselves, accenting the role that deliberate decentralization and poor com-
munication played in broadening the scope of the violence.

30

28

HStAD, RW, 34-31, 53-56; RW 37-7, 33; RW 37-21, 58, 161.

29

NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 224, Frame 2729942, 2762932; Roll 471, Frame 2729942. See also

RG242, T1021, Roll 17, Frames 556-582, Feb. 4, 1945, which includes a list of 677 prisoners destined
for transport to concentration camps, sent from Klingelpütz prison to the Cologne Gestapo, giving
evidence that prisoners were transported from other posts in the outlying region. Most Germans
listed were sent from the Cologne office in late November and early December, during the height
of operations to consolidate the city. The list documents a broad range of age groups, the youngest
being seventeen years old and the oldest seventy; a mother and her daughter were also listed.
Offenses ranged from looting and propagating anti-regime propaganda and remarks, to black
marketeering.

30

See HStAD, RW 34-10, 74-75; RW 34-30, 79, for a list of eighty prisoners executed by the

Erkelenz commando from Sept. 21, 1944, to Dec. 21, 1944. Of the eight Germans executed, one

MICHAEL P. McCONNELL

40

If the situation had worsened for Germans, it was even worse for the region

’s

foreign workers. Fears of escaped gangs of slave laborers, particularly east
Europeans, were widespread among Germans and account for the weapons
found among civilians stopped at checkpoints. In fact, escaped workers suffered
not only at the hands of security personnel, but the work of Ulrich Herbert
has also recorded several episodes of

“lynch justice” by civilians during the last

months of the war and noted that the presence of these groups provided the
Gestapo with a convenient scapegoat. Officers could claim to the public that
they had restored law and order by eliminating these

“bandits” stereotyped as

the source of crime. This racist hysteria contributed to the chaos and violence,
as increasingly larger segments of the German populace began to take the law
into their own hands and was encouraged to do so by the Gestapo.

31

Many foreign workers were simply caught at the wrong place at the wrong

time. Air raids had destroyed many of the camps and factories in the area, enabling
them to escape. Expecting the quick arrival of the Allies, some factory guards
simply disappeared, leaving their charges unattended. Bombing also cut off
vital food supplies, and due to the racial hierarchy of life in the Third Reich,
these prisoners were often left to fend for themselves as their overseers appro-
priated dwindling food stocks. Thus by September 1944 increasing numbers of
prisoners found themselves on the roads, foraging for food and shelter or
seeking a way through to the American lines.

32

By October these escapees found a net of security personnel standing between

them and the freedom of the Allied lines, and this net began to tighten as the
Gestapo commandos systematically swept the region. Although these units
often detained escapees, they also executed foreigners suspected of theft or
caught attempting to cross into the zone directly behind the front. In contrast
to most German suspects, many of these victims died at the scene of the
alleged crime, their bodies summarily deposited in bomb craters, cemeteries,
parks, or patches of woods.

Undoubtedly, ethnicity played a role in the choice of victims. One situation

report reveals a Belgian worker detained for possessing black-market goods
lived to see another day while three Ukrainians, considered racial inferiors in
the Nazi hierarchy, accused of breaking into a house were executed at the
scene. Indeed, as the consolidation operation continued, Gestapo reports
ceased to record the numbers of eastern European victims, merely noting in
passing large numbers of

“eastern workers” had been arrested for plundering

and theft, some of whom were executed while others were sent to concentration

was accused of looting, and the other seven of crimes connected to resistance or attempts to cross
enemy lines. RW 37

–7, 57; RW 37–11, 44.

31

Herbert, Hitler

’s Foreign Workers, 361–362.

32

Ibid., 360.

GESTAPO CRIMES IN THE RHINELAND

41

camps. Such records not only indicate the busy workloads of Gestapo personnel
during the operation but also reflect the low regard held for east Europeans,
whose fates were not worth a passing mention. Faced with the choice of either
a quick death by firing squad or a return to abysmal conditions in factories and
camps that endured constant aerial bombardment, many escaped prisoners fled
east, hoping to seek shelter and wait out what appeared to be the last few
weeks of war in the ruins of Cologne.

33

Cologne

By fall 1944 the battered cities of the region had become the home of a rapidly
expanding shadow community made up of criminals, escaped prisoners, and
deserters. Cologne, the largest city in the region, was the most attractive choice
for fugitives. The vast, unpopulated rubble fields offered a perfect hiding place,
and one

’s needs could be met by the thriving black market. Additionally,

supply depots dotted the city and the chaos caused by the air war allowed
thieves to take full advantage of the food, fuel, and weapons that were available.
The gangs that inhabited the ruins, living in cellars and only emerging under the
cover of darkness, also provided a much-needed sense of camaraderie and access
to the underworld.

These groups can be divided into two general categories. Foreign laborers who

had managed to escape from the work camps and factories that dotted the region
composed the first. The second was made up of German adolescents and teen-
agers, collectively termed the

“Edelweiss Pirates” by the authorities, who had

deserted from the front or had left their jobs in the war industry. Although the
Gestapo, as well as many postwar historians, marked the origins of these groups
in the youth movements of the Weimar Republic, their real source lay in the dis-
integration that occurred within the Hitler Youth as the war progressed.

34

As the air war intensified the Hitler Youth was detailed to civil defense duties

such as firefighting, manning Flak units, and assisting evacuees. As a result, the
structured environment the organization provided dissolved, allowing bored or
disgruntled youth to drift away. These adolescents formed their own groups
that were characterized by acts of nonconformity such as dressing in civilian cloth-
ing, smoking, drinking, and playing pranks. They wore distinctive symbols on
their clothing, gave their groups adventurous names such as

“Navajos,” and

appropriated local landmarks such as parks or air-raid shelters as their meeting
places. By late 1944 these groups grew larger as the war effort increasingly fell
upon the shoulders of German youth. Bored and tired of the long hours in the
factories and sleepless nights with civil defense units, more and more skipped

33

NARA, RG242 Roll 471, Frame 2729942; HStAD, RW 34

–8, 50, 61.

34

NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 240, Frame 2728942. Kenkmann, Wilde Junge, 228

–230.

MICHAEL P. McCONNELL

42

work or quit entirely, drawing increased attention from the Gestapo as concerns
about the war effort rose as the Reich faced defeat.

35

From the beginning the Nazis expressed concern over the presence of those

they considered parasitic

“useless eaters” who lived among the racial community

but contributed nothing in return. This core negative concept held by Nazis
converged with fears about the productivity of the war industry to create a
series of strict regulations for factory workers. Any worker suspected of loafing
on the job or chronic absence could be sent to a labor reeducation camp
(

“Arbeitserziehungslager,” or AEL) for several months of hard labor in wretched

conditions. In response many youths chose to go underground, especially once
the end seemed near. Unable to access regular supply channels, these individuals
turned to their social network, forming gangs and engaging in theft and black
marketeering. As the police struck back, attempting to reincorporate these
youths into the war effort, these gangs, like their foreign counterparts, began to
resist, giving rise to a series of street battles that occurred in the city throughout
the fall.

36

The murder of several party officials during a rash of armed robberies that

plagued the city throughout September emphasized the need for a concerted
effort to restore order in the city. One murderer

’s revelation under interrogation

that he targeted his victim because of his brown party uniform underscored the
idea rebellion was afoot, as did the appearance of broadsheets calling for
workers to boycott the war effort and soldiers to desert their posts. The
Gestapo considered such activities evidence that attempts were being fostered
to manifest a

“stab in the back” similar to the one alleged to occur in

November 1918. Such efforts, it was feared, would undermine the war effort
and lead to the collapse of the Reich as it faced enemy invasion.

37

Initially, the Gestapo was unable to respond adequately to such activity.

Throughout the month of September personnel were conducting other oper-
ations in the region, accenting the expanded duties and lack of manpower that
troubled the organization. Consequently, the Cologne office did not begin a sys-
tematic effort to engage gang activity until late October when the front stabilized.
These operations carried on well into December. Six companies of police reserv-
ists bolstered by a Gestapo unit led by Hauptsturmführer Friedrich Mohr
launched an effort to purge the city of subversives. In November reinforcements
from Brauweiler prison commanded by Kriminal Kommissar Ferdinand Kütter
joined the operation, highlighting the difficulty the Gestapo faced securing the

35

Kenkmann, Wilde Junge, 77, 83-86. NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 277, Frame 5487839.

36

Gellately, Backing Hitler, 97-99. See USHMMA, RG-68.017M, R58, Fiche 1027 (RSHA), May

26, 1941, for an RSHA document pertaining to the creation and use of AELs. For more on the history
of the AELs, see Gabriele Lofti, KZ der Gestapo. Arbeitserziehungslager im Dritten Reich (Munich:
Deutsche Anstalt Verlag, 2000).

37

HStAD, RW 34-8, 1-6, 10, 67-70; RW 34-30, 86. Rusinek, Gesellschaft in der Katastrophe, 268.

GESTAPO CRIMES IN THE RHINELAND

43

ruined terrain. These units, like those behind the front, established traffic stops to
check for proper identification and weapons, searched labor camps for contra-
band, and directed evacuees farther east in an orderly fashion. Their primary
and most difficult task, however, was sweeping the ruins and air-raid shelters
for runaways and stashes of black-market goods.

38

Efforts to clear the city

’s rubble fields took on a military form as Gestapo offi-

cers and Order Police armed with machine pistols and hand grenades spread out
across the city. Their encounters with cornered fugitives who decided to fight
rather than surrender quickly led to firefights throughout the city. Barricaded
in cellars and armed with small arms and sometimes explosives, these suspects,
mostly deserters and foreign workers, knew they likely faced execution if appre-
hended. Consequently they were difficult to root out. One particularly tense
incident that lasted more than twelve hours reveals the brutal nature of the clear-
ance operation. On December 10 Gestapo officers acting on a tip passed to them
by an informant attempted to raid a gang hideout. After repeated assaults were
repulsed by small-arms fire, the Gestapo brought in military engineers to blast
the suspects out of the cellar, and no quarter was given to the survivors. The
death of the office

’s commander, Dr. Hoffman, and the wounding of the head

of the Cologne commando, Friedrich Mohr, which occurred during an assault
on another gang refuge the following day, further radicalized the Gestapo

’s

efforts to secure the city.

39

Such experiences reinforced the notion that the situation in Cologne had

become open rebellion. Captured suspects, be they Germans or foreign laborers,
were now described as

“bandits” or “terrorists” in police reports as harried person-

nel tried to make sense of the chaotic situation by falling back on National
Socialist ideology. This terminology had been commonplace in the reports
written during anti-partisan operations in occupied Europe and was broadly
applied, extending to unarmed women and children. The application of such
labels to the civilian population indicates the extent to which criminality, war
weariness, and allegedly deviant behavior had become politicized as the Third
Reich faced defeat.

Contributing to the fear of rebellion was the fact that many Gestapo personnel

had only the most basic military experience. Although many personnel had served
in killing squads abroad, most were not experienced in urban combat. They
found themselves at a tactical disadvantage and took considerable casualties,
leading to increasing frustration among the personnel as they faced suspects
who were familiar with the terrain and well entrenched. As a result, the
Gestapo

’s operation became increasingly unmerciful, pursuing, mistreating, and

killing suspects who, for the most part, posed no real threat to the regime.

38

HStAD, RW 34-8, 74-77.

39

Ibid.

MICHAEL P. McCONNELL

44

The majority of German gang members were probably ambivalent or even

somewhat sympathetic to the regime. Some had tried previously to join the
SS, and during the early postwar years they attacked former concentration
camp prisoners and foreign laborers, reflecting their adherence to the Third
Reich

’s racism. Hans “Bomber” Steinbruck, a gang leader who emerged as a

posthumous hero in the postwar resistance mythology surrounding the
Edelweiss Pirates, had aspired to be a Gestapo agent himself. Although many of
these youths had become disenchanted with their obligations to the war effort,
they hardly posed an insurrectionary threat and would have been content to
have been left alone. They fought only when attacked because they knew that
the end was coming and that internment in a work camp or prison meant a dras-
tically reduced chance of survival.

40

Other individuals merely suspected of

“deviant” behavior, such as homosexu-

ality, supplying or fraternizing with foreigners, found to be in possession of
enemy propaganda, out after curfew, or making disparaging comments about the
regime, also found themselves the victims of official brutality due to the tense situ-
ation in the city. Police and Gestapo personnel, ideologically committed, over-
worked, and fearing for their own safety, reacted with lethal force against anyone
who resisted arrest or attempted to escape. Those who did surrender were subjected
to savage interrogations and pestilent conditions in the prisons, whose overcrowded
nature helped to expand the scope of violence that took place in the region.

41

Confinement

The first tribulation facing the Gestapo

’s prisoners was their transport to a larger

detainment facility. Strafing attacks by Allied fighters were common, and traffic
jams, another frequent occurrence, left prisoners stranded on the roadways,
making them easy targets. When these attacks did occur, panicked guards often
shot prisoners in response to real or imagined escape attempts. Directives from
the Cologne office advised units to return prisoners to their own detention
centers if they had been unable to reach Klingelpütz or Brauweiler by twilight,
underscoring the difficulties posed by the chaotic nature of the road system.

42

40

Kenkmann, Wilde Junge, 255

–259. Stephen Fritz, EndKampf: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Death of the

Third Reich (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2004), 219. Perry Biddiscombe,

“The

Enemy of our Enemy: A View of the Edelweiss Piraten From the British and American Archives,

”

Journal of Contemporary History 30 (Jan. 1995): 48

–50. Rusinek, Gesellschaft in der Katastrophe, 90,

124

–125.

41

See Rüter and de Mildt, eds., Justiz und NS Verbrechen, vol. V, 189, 740; and NARA, RG242,

T175, Roll 471 (RFSS) Frame 2729942, Dec. 10, 1944, Oct. 31, 1944, Nov. 27, 1944, Dec. 11,
1944, for Cologne Gestapo weekly situation reports. As noted in these reports, many suspects were
apprehended due to tips from anonymous informers, illustrating that the Gestapo

’s network was

still active and effective even as the Reich entered its final months. See also NARA, RG 242,
T1021, Roll 17, Frames 556

–582, Feb. 4, 1945.

42

NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 487, Frame 9348200.

GESTAPO CRIMES IN THE RHINELAND

45

The poor condition of transportation routes inevitably led to overcrowding in

both the outlying AELs and the larger prisons as new detainees were added daily
to facilities that were unable to move their prisoners on to other locations. In fact,
Brauweiler and Klingelpütz, the mainstays of the regional penal system, had been
dangerously overcrowded since August. In the wake of the July 20 assassination
attempt on Hitler the Gestapo initiated nationwide arrests, code named
“Aktion Gewitter.” This sweep detained hundreds of suspected political dissidents
in the Rhineland, among them the former mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer,
to ensure they would not fall into the hands of the Allies and aid a postwar gov-
ernment. The prison cells in the basement of the EL DE Haus, the headquarters
of the Cologne Gestapo, were similarly overburdened with as many as thirty-four
prisoners confined in rooms designed to hold eight. Thus, arriving prisoners
found themselves deposited in unsanitary cells already overflowing with prisoners
sick with disease or bearing the marks of the interrogations which could be heard
echoing down the halls.

43

These interrogations marked a prisoner

’s second set of tribulations. The testi-

mony given during the postwar trial of Kriminalassistent Josef Hoegen and other
members of Kommando Kütter reveal the brutal methods used. They committed
dozens of beatings in Brauweiler prison, assaulting prisoners, including adoles-
cents, elderly men, and a pregnant woman, with metal bars, chairs, clubs, and
their fists. The plight of suspects during these interrogations was exacerbated by
the fact that their interrogators were often the very same officers who had arrested
them. Due to the manpower shortage all officers were active in the field, chasing
down suspects during the day and then questioning them the same evening or
during the following days. Thus the frustrations of overworked officers were
taken out on their prisoners, and the fact that some of these beatings were deliv-
ered by middle-aged men with their fists denotes the personal nature many of
these interrogations took on for the officers involved.

44

If prisoners survived interrogation they languished in overcrowded cells. Many

were executed for their real or perceived crimes against the regime. Between
August 1944 and March 1945, 437 prisoners were executed at the headquarters
of the Cologne Gestapo alone, while another seventy-two were executed at
Brauweiler. Although the Cologne Gestapo, specifically Hauptsturmführer
Matschke, initially made the selections for execution, prison guards themselves

43

NS-Dokumentation Zentrum Köln (hereafter NS-Dok K): Z 20614, Interview with Kazimierz

Tarnawskj, Sept. 13, 1995; Z 20545, Interview with Marija Schabanowa, Sept. 22, 1991. For con-
ditions inside EL DE Haus, see NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 471, Frame 2729942; RG 242,
T1021, Roll 17, Frame 542. For conditions inside Klingelpütz prison, see Lofti, KZ der Gestapo,
272

–273; Paul Weymar, Conrad Adenauer, His Authorized Biography (New York: E. P. Dutton &

Company, 1957), 139; Eric Johnson, Nazi Terror: The Gestapo, Jews, and Ordinary Germans
(New York: Basic Books, 1999), 348.

44

See Rüter and de Mildt, eds., Justiz und NS Verbrechern, vol. 5, 724

–758.

MICHAEL P. McCONNELL

46

took over this process in the AELs and prisons as communication broke down.
Some prisoners were killed

“attempting to escape” by bored or paranoid

guards. Others died during air raids because they lacked proper shelter. Many
also succumbed to disease as the guards appropriated their rations and refused
them medical care. Finally, the last set of tribulations appeared in the spring,
when Gestapo personnel evacuated the prisoners into the interior of the Reich.

45

Postscript: Spring 1945

By the end of the year the Gestapo had managed to regain its hold on the region,
although the situation remained tense. Large operations took place in Krefeld and
Düsseldorf in January and February 1945 as the security forces in those cities also
sought to consolidate control and apprehend fugitives fleeing from Cologne.
Despite the best attempts by authorities, residents of the left-bank region also
tried to return to their homes, ensuring continued friction between the popu-
lation and the security forces. The failure of the Ardennes offensive in
December was a serious setback to morale, and while Gestapo reports remained
optimistic about striking a truce or a final victory, in the same breath they charac-
terized the morale of the populace as marked by a high degree of apathy (

“Im Volk

herrscht eine tiefe Apathie

”) and noted this dispirited condition was dangerous for

the war effort (

“Aber die Müdigkeit im Volk ist gefährlich”). The only question

that remained was when the Allies would strike.

46

The long-anticipated blow came on February 9, when the American First and

Ninth armies launched Operation Grenade, directed at clearing the region
between the border and the left bank of the Rhine. German opposition crumbled
within the month, and by March 3 elements of the American Seventh Corps
reached the outskirts of Cologne. As the front collapsed, the situation in the
rear quickly deteriorated, and the remaining command structure of the security
forces ceased to exist. Despite orders to stand and fight, most Gestapo and
police personnel fled east or simply returned to their homes to await the end.

47

45

Martin Rüther, Köln im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Alltag und Erfahrungen zwischen 1939 und 1945

(Cologne: Emmons Verlag, 2005), 464

–465. Hermann Daners and Josef Wisskirchen, Was in

Brauweiler geschah. Die NS Zeit und ihre Folgen in der Rheinischen Provinzial-Arbeitsanstalt (Pulheim:
Pulheim Verein für Geschichte, 2006), 121. Nikolaus Wachsmann, Hitler

’s Prisons: Legal Terror in

Nazi Germany (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 244, 308. Wachsmann notes that
guards in Klingelpütz were encouraged to execute prisoners as they were paid an extra tobacco
ration (300 extra cigarettes per month) and also were allowed to appropriate the property of the
deceased. Lofti, KZ der Gestapo, 293, 290, 303-304. Johnson, Nazi Terror, 349. NARA, RG 242,
T1021, Roll 17, Frame 551.

46

NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 224, Frames 272932, 2762041; Roll 606, Frame 35; Roll 229,

Frame 2767630.

47

Zumbro, Battle for the Ruhr, 67-84. See NARA, RG 319, File XE019212, for a U.S. Army

Intelligence report concerning the interrogation of Krefeld Kriminalsekretär Theodor Schommer.
He told his interrogators that although the rest of the personnel evacuated the city, he remained, as
he considered he had not done anything to warrant his arrest by the Americans.

GESTAPO CRIMES IN THE RHINELAND

47

During this period the Gestapo, militia, and police unleashed a final wave of

spontaneous violence fueled by Hitler

’s “Nero Order” of March 19 that

ordered the destruction of anything that could be deemed useful to the
Allies. This directive ostensibly referred to material goods and industry.
Nevertheless, due to the regime

’s reliance on slave labor and recent fears

about the emergence of a postwar occupational government, the order can
effectively be interpreted as pertaining to human beings as well. Police and
military personnel also targeted civilians who refused to join the fighting. In
the overcrowded prisons and work camps, guards also executed sick and

“polit-

ically unreliable

” prisoners, complying with Himmler’s orders to liquidate

them before evacuation.

48

The experiences of the autumn created the final wave of violence in the spring.

Faced with limited resources and widespread social disorder, the Cologne
Gestapo resorted to the application of tactics developed while pacifying the popu-
lations of occupied Europe as they attempted to restore order quickly and prepare
for the Reich

’s defense. The decision to undertake a mass operation to depopulate

the region was pivotal. Directed against German civilians, the efforts to create a
secure

“dead zone” behind the front was not intended to be carried out with

the same levels of force as those endured by the peoples of occupied Europe.
Despite this intention the operation rapidly spiraled into violence.

The lack of manpower and the woeful state of transportation and supply net-

works hampered the Gestapo

’s efforts to carry out their mission efficiently. These

factors combined with civilian animosity to generate an increasing sense of frus-
tration among the overworked personnel. The depopulation efforts also exposed
widespread criminality and

“defeatist talk.” The theft and grumbling caused by

the region

’s shattered infrastructure belied the myth of a unified community of

fate and revealed the

“Volksgemeinschaft” was apparently unwilling to defend

the Reich at its darkest hour.

Consequently the Gestapo underwent a cumulative radicalization during fall

1944 as the organization

’s institutionalized reliance on violence and initiative

came face to face with these ideological contradictions. Here the purposeful
decentralization of command proved to be crucial as ideologically committed
and brutalized personnel were freed from any oversight that might have
checked the violence. The unraveling of the Gestapo

’s few remaining ethical

restraints that occurred throughout fall 1944 in the face of civilian war weariness
and apathy ushered in the final wave of arbitrary violence in spring 1945. This
period, termed the

“Katastrophe,” or catastrophe, by the Germans, was the

48

HStAD, RW 34-31, 8. Jeremy Noakes, ed., Nazism 1919

–1945: A Documentary Reader. Volume

4, The German Home Front (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1998), 658

–66. See Rüter and de Mildt,

eds., Justiz und NS Verbrechen, vol. 13, 681, 685

–686; Weymar, Adenauer, 146–150; Lofti, KZ der

Gestapo, 297

–310.

MICHAEL P. McCONNELL

48

moment when the citizens of the Third Reich became intimately familiar with
the true face of the Nazi regime as its destructive nature was for the first time
directed inwardly against the now unworthy racial community it had sworn to
protect.

U

NIVERSITY OF

T

ENNESSEE

-K

NOXVILLE

GESTAPO CRIMES IN THE RHINELAND

49