Introduction Military complicity in the many crimes of the Third Reich remains a topic of ma- jor importance in German historiography

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Truman O. Anderson

A Hungarian Vernichtungskrieg?

Hungarian Troops and the Soviet Partisan War in Ukraine, 1942 I. Introduction

Military complicity in the many crimes of the Third Reich remains a topic of ma- jor importance in German historiography. Thanks to the impetus provided by the controversial Wehrmachtausstellung organized by the Hamburger Institut für Sozial- forschung, it has also become the latest focal point of German society's ongoing struggle with the »unmasterable past«. While the far reaching culpability of the German armed forces as an institution is no longer in question, debate continues about the extent of criminal behavior within the Wehrmacht and about the causes and meaning of such conduct1.

1 The culpability of the Wehrmacht in most aspects of the Third Reich's outrages against human rights was readily apparent from the evidence assembled for the Trial of Major War Criminals at Nuremberg. This issue did not become a focus of academic scholar- ship, however, until the 1960s, and then only selectively. It was not until the late 1970s and early 1980s that the first landmark studies appeared. These include: Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941-1945, (Stuttgart 1978); Helmut Krausnick and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, Die Truppe des Weltanschauungs- krieges. Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1938-1942, (Stuttgart 1981).

Since then the Mitverschuldung of the military leadership has become the subject of con- sensus. See for example: Jürgen Förster, »Das Unternehmen >Barbarossa< als Eroberungs- und Vernichtungskrieg«, in: Der Angriff auf die Sowjetunion, vol. 4 of the series Das Deut- sche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg (DRZW), produced by the Militärgeschichtliches For- schungsamt, (Stuttgart 1983), pp. 413-447; idem., »Die Sicherung des >Lebensraumes<«, in:

DRZW, vol. 4, pp. 1030-1088; Rolf-Dieter Müller, »Von der Wirtschaftsallianz zum kolo- nialen Ausbeutungskrieg«, also in: DRZW, vol. 4, pp. 98-189; Gerd Ueberschär and Wolf- ram Wette, Unternehmen Barbarossa. Der deutsche Uberfall auf die Sowjetunion 1941, (Pa- derborn 1984); Timothy Patrick Mulligan, The Politics of Illusion and Empire. German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union 1942-1943, (New York 1988); Theo Schulte, The Ger- man Army and Nazi Policies in Occupied Russia, (London 1989); Nationalsozialistische Ver- nichtungspolitik 1939-1945. Neue Forschungen und Kontroversen, ed. by Ulrich Herbert, (Frankfurt a.M· 1998); Christian Gerlach, Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord. Forschungen zur deutschen Vernichtungspolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg, (Hamburg 1998); Bernhard Chiari, All- tag hinter der Front. Besatzung, Kollaboration und Widerstand in Weißrußland 1941-1944, (Düsseldorf 1998); Die Wehrmacht. Mythos und Realität, ed. by Rolf-Dieter Müller and Hans-Erich Volkmann, (Munich 1999). These works inevitably raised the question óf the extent of the participation of rank-and-file German soldiers. Several more recent works have addressed this very sensitive issue directly. See: Ernst Klee, »Schöne Zeiten«. Juden- mord aus der Sicht der Täter und Gaffer, (Frankfurt a.M. 1988); Ernst Klee and Willi Dreßen, Gott mit uns. Der Deutsche Vernichtungskrieg im Osten 1939-1945, (Frankfurt a.M. 1989);

Omer Bartov, Hitler's Army. Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich, (New York 1992);

Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941-1944, ed. by Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann, (Hamburg 1995). For a comprehensive survey of the relevant literature, see Rolf-Dieter Müller and Gerd Ueberschär, Hitler's War in the East 1941-1945. A Critical As- sessment, (Providence, R.I. 1997), esp. pp. 209-282.

Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 58 (1999), S. 345-366 © Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Potsdam

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Although scholars have given considerable attention to the participation of east Européan volunteers in the Reich's effort to exterminate Polish and Soviet Jews, and to the military activities of indigenous formations raised by the Wehrmacht (known collectively as Osttruppen), the supporting role played by the armies of Germany's central and east European ally states in the »war of Weltanschauun- gen« on the eastern front remains a neglected topic2. The existing literature on the behavior of these German-allied troops is dated and renders a mixed verdict. Alex- ander Dallin argued in his early study of Odessa under German rule that German army troops were better disciplined in their treatment of the populace than their Rumanian allies, but he acknowledged that German occupation policy was gener- ally much more severe3. John Armstrong supported this generalization (extended to include Hungarian troops) on the basis of materials from the Harvard Interview Project⁴. Conversely, Peter Gosztony — one of the few historians to write about the Hungarian army on the eastern front — has argued that Hungarian "units took a much softer line toward the inhabitants than did those of the Wehrmacht⁵.

This article represents an attempt to reopen this issue by exploring a dispute which took place during 1942 between German and Hungarian commanders en- gaged in the anti-partisan effort in the rear area of Army Group South. Here, with-

2 For the participation of indigenous auxiliaries in the killing of Soviet Jews see: Raul Hil- berg, The Destruction of the European Jews, (New York 1985); Krausnick/Wilhelm, Die Trup- pe des Weltanschauungskrieges (as in η. 1); Ronald Headland, Messages of Murder, (New York 1992); Martin Dean, »The German Gendarmerie, the Ukrainian Schutzmannschaß and the >Second Wave< of Jewish Killings in Occupied Ukraine: German Policy at the Local Level in the Zhitomir Region, 1941-1944«, in: German History, 14 (1996), no. 2, pp. 168-192;

Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, (New York 1992); Konrad Kwiet, »Auftakt zum Holocaust. Ein Polizeibatallion im Osteinsatz«, in: Der Nationalsozialismus. Studien zur Ideologie und Herrschaft, ed. by Wolfgang Benz, Hans Buchheim and Hans Mommsen, (Frankfurt a.M. 1993); Hans-Hein- rich Wilhelm, »Die Rolle der Kollaboration für die deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Litau- en und >Weißruthenien<«, in: Okkupation und Kollaboration (1938-1945), ed. by Werner Röhr, (Berlin 1994), pp. 191-216. For the involvement of the Rumanian military and civil authorities in the extermination of Jews in Bessarabia and Bukovina, see: Jean Ancel,

»The Rumanian Way of Solving the >Jewish Problem< in Bessarabia and Bukovina, June-July 1941«, in: Yad Vashem Studies, 1988. Joachim Hoffmann's works still dominate the literature on the Osttruppen : Joachim Hoffmann, Die Ostlegionen 1941-1943, (Frei- burg 1976); idem., Kaukasien 1942/43. Das Deutsche Heer und die Orientvölker der Sowjet- union, (Freiburg 1991); idem., Deutsche und Kalmyken 1942 bis 1945, (Freiburg 1974); idem., Die Geschichte der Wlassow-Armee, (Freiburg 1984). See also: David Littlejohn, The Patriotic Traitors: The Story of Collaboration in German-Occupied Europe 1940-45, (Garden City, NY 1972); Jürgen Thorwald, Die Illusion. Rotarmisten in Hitlers Heeren, (Zurich 1974); Samu- el Newland, Cossacks in the German Army 1941-1945, (London 1991); Mulligan, Politics of Illusion (as in n. 1), pp. 147-161. For alliance politics between Germany and its central and east European allies, see Jürgen Förster, »Die Gewinnung von Verbündeten in Süd- osteuropa«, in: DRZW, vol. 4, pp. 327-364. For the operational activities of the Hungarian and Rumanian armies see relevant sections in Ernst Klink, »Die Operationsführung — Heer und Marine«, in: DRZW, vol. 4, pp. 451-651. Forthcoming research by Krisztián Ungváry should do much to broaden our understanding of the Hungarian army on the eastern front.

3 Alexander Dallin, Odessa, 1941-1944: A Case Study of Soviet Territory under Foreign Rule, (Santa Monica, CA 1957), pp. 65-68.

4 Soviet Partisans in World War II, ed. by John Armstrong, (Madison, WI1964), note no. 58 on p. 225.

5 Peter Gosztony, Hitlers Fremde Heere. Das Schicksal der nichtdeutschen Armeen im Ostfeld- zug, (Vienna 1976).

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in the boundaries of rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Süd (later redesignated Heeresge- biet Β), a mixed group of German, Hungarian and indigenous troops struggled to maintain the Reich's grip over large portions of central and eastern Ukraine in the face of mounting popular discontent and growing pressure from the Soviet partisan movement. In the northern portion of the Heeresgebiet — the Chernihiv6 and Sumy regions — poorly equipped and badly trained Hungarian units confronted increasingly formidable partisan groups, while German security forces deployed farther to the south enjoyed relative quiet for much of the year. As Hungarian casualties mounted, this imbalance provoked a dispute between senior German and Hungarian officers: the Hungarians complained bitterly about the disparity between their responsibilities and their resources, while the Germans insisted that they must make do. Because there was nothing that either party could do to redress fundamental issues such as manpower shortages and (to a lesser extent) in- adequate equipment, the controversy came to a head over the question of reprisals against Ukrainian villages. Unable or unwilling to strike the partisans directly, Hungarian units burned many villages and shot large numbers of civilians in crude retaliation for Soviet incursions. This prompted complaints from German commanders and from Ukrainian collaborators as well, both of whom argued that such devastation was ineffectual and counterproductive. Eventually, a Hungarian general proposed the extermination of all the male inhabitants between 15 and 60 years of age within a partisan-dominated area of his jurisdiction. The Heeresge- biet leadership responded by urging restraint, and argued that such extreme re- pressive measures would only aggravate the guerrilla problem. Ultimately, the Germans and their Hungarian allies reached a compromise solution in which a number of villages were evacuated and destroyed in September and October of 1942.

Given our current understanding of the brutal and indiscriminate character of German anti-partisan operations, which some historians have characterized as de- liberately genocidal, the respective roles played by German and Hungarian commanders in this situation seem surprising. In reality, however, there is less reason to be surprised than one might suppose. First, the consensus literature on the partisan war on the eastern front, which rightly focusses on events in Belarus (i.e. in Reichskommissariat Ostland and the rear area of Army Group Center), has tended to overlook an important pro-Ukrainian tendency in the German army's occupation policies. While much of occupied Ukraine fell under the rapacious rule of Erich Koch's Reichskommissariat Ukraine, a large area east of the Dnipro remained un- der military administration for much of 1942 and 1943. Although the inhabitants of this area remained subject to many of the Reich's most exploitative policies, including devastating plunder of the economy, a number of senior German officers had adopted the pro-Ukrainian bias preached by the Rosenberg ministry from the earliest stages of BARBAROSSA. Their ranks included Lt. General Karl von Ro- ques, the commander of Heeresgebiet Süd, and his deputy and successor, Lt. Gen-

6 In this article, Ukrainian place names are given in the Ukrainian form wherever possi- ble, using the Library of Congress system of transliteration (thus »Chernihiv« in prefer- ence to the more familiar »Chernigov«). The Russian equivalents used in German doc- uments are provided only where those documents are quoted directly, or where Russified place names are given in the document headings. Actual Russian place names are given in the appropriate Russian form (e.g. »Gomel«). My thanks to Roman Senkus of the Jour- nal of Ukrainian Studies for his help with these transliterations.

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eral Erich Friderici. Though neither of these men appears to have questioned the necessity of the war against »Jewish Bolshevism« (both of them actively facilitated the SD's efforts to exterminate the Jews of the Ukraine⁷) they consistently sought to protect the ethnic Ukrainian majority from the most severe features of the Ger- man occupation system, including (in some instances) reprisals for partisan ac- tivity⁸. Their motives were without question pragmatic rather than humanitarian,

7 The extermination of the Jews of the USSR in areas of military administration has yet to be thoroughly researched. A forthcoming study of Ukraine by Dieter Pohl will do much to redress this problem: Dieter Pohl, »Schauplatz Ukraine: Der Massenmord an den Ju- den im Militärverwaltungsgebiet und im Reichskommissariat 1941-1943«, in: Lager — Vernichtung — Öffentlichkeit, ed. by Norbert Frei, (Munich 2000). Both von Roques and Fri- derici repeatedly echoed Hitler's rhetoric about the war against »Jewish Bolshevism« in the east. Generally, the evidence of active cooperation with the SD is stronger for von Ro- ques than for Friderici. Von Roques specifically directed that Jews should be singled out as reprisal victims in an order dated 16 August 1941. At least one such reprisal execution is know to have occurred while he commanded the Heeresgebiet. He further direct- ed that the commanders of POW transit camps (Durchgangslager or Dulags) within his jurisdiction should assist SD units in the racial segregation of prisoners, a step which im- plied the execution of Jewish soldiers. GFP units under his command cooperated very closely with their SD counterparts, and on at least one occasion delivered captive Jews into the hands of the SD. Units under von Roques' direct command routinely oversaw the identification and registration of Jewish civilians and enforced the wearing of the star of David. In the light of this pattern of cooperation, Roques' well known order of 29 July 1941 which prohibited his soldiers from participating in pogroms should probably be interpreted as an expression of his concern over poor discipline. The same can be said of his subsequent order of 1 September which prohibited unauthorized (eigenmächtig) shootings of civilians, including Jews. Friderici's tenure as Heeresgebiet commander witnessed numerous shooting of Jews by Heeresgebiet troops during anti-partisan operations. In none of these cases did he question the grounds for the shootings or repri- mand the responsible commanders. For the entire period of Heeresgebiet Süd/B's ex- istence, there are only two written criticisms of the SS to be found in the document record.

Following the Stalingrad debacle, the Heeresgebiet operations staff complained that the HSSPF for southern Russia would not surrender his allotted share of horses. In August of 1943, the Heeresgebiet command complained that the HSSPF would not provide enough manpower to help protect the incoming harvest. See: Riickw. H.Geb. Süd Abt.

VII Nr. 103/41,16.8.41, Anordnung Abt. VII Nr. 7, BA-MA, Alliierte Prozesse Nr. 9, NOKW- 1691; Sicherungs-Division 454 Kriegstagebuch la entry of 31.8.41, BA-MA, RH 26-454/2;

GFP Gruppe 721 Tätigkeitsbericht Monat Februar vom 26.2.1942 geh., BA-MA, RH 22/199;

Befh. rückw. H.Geb. Süd Abt. VII/Nr. 3/4112.7.41, Erste Anweisung zur Durchführung der besonderen Anordnung VII 1/41, Alexandria Microfilm Series T-501 /5; Befh. rückw.

H.Geb. Süd Abt. Ic Nr. 1125/41 g. 29.7.41 BA-MA, RH 22/170; Befh. rückw. H.Geb. Süd Az. III Tgb. Nr. 3/41 geh. 1.9.41, Nuremberg Document no. NOKW-2594, cited in Förster,

»Sicherung«, DRZW, vol. 4, p. 1048; Rückw. H.Geb. Süd KTB la entry of 3.11.41, Alexandria Microfilms T-501 /4; 62. Infanterie-Division KTB la entry of 28.11.41, BA-MA, RH 26-62/39;

Anruf Sich. Div. 444 6.1.42, Vorläufiger Abschlussbericht über Banditenbekämpfung im Waldgebiet Nowo Moskowsk — Pawlograd, BA-MA, RH 22/19; Oberkommando des Heeresgruppe Süd Abt. Ia Nr. 1461/43 g. 23.4.43, Betr.: Beschwerdeführung des SS-Ober- gruppenführers General der Polizei Prützmann, BA-MA, RH 22/156; Der Kommandie- rende General der Sicherungstruppen und Befehlshaber im Heeresgebiet Süd Abt. Ia Nr. 6258/43 geh. 29.8.43, Betr.: Erntesicherung, BA-MA, RH 22/103.

9 For examples of the Heeresgebiet commanders' pro-Ukrainian attitude, see: Befh. riickw.

H.Geb. Süd Abt. Ic 968/41 geh. 11.7.41, Besondere Anordnungen für die Behandlung der Ukrainischen Frage, Alexandria Microfilms T-501/5; Rückw. H.Geb. Süd Abt. VII Nr. 103/41,16.8.41, Anordnung Abt. VII Nr. 7, BA-MA, Alliierte Prozesse Nr. 9, NOKW- 1691; Befh. rückw. H.Geb. Süd Abt. VII/123/41 geh. 14.12.41, Anordnung Abt. VII Nr. 31, Alexandria Microfilms T-5Ö1 /6; Besprechung am 6/1 /1941 btr. Fragen der Zusammen- arbeit mit der Wi.-In.-Süd, Alexandria Microfilms T-501 /6.

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but this tendency in their policies was in fact well established before the belated Ger- man attempt to pursue a wider collaborative occupation strategy in 1942 and 19439. At the same time it is also clear that Hungarian units did in fact use severely brutal methods in the effort to crush partisan resistance in rear areas. Gosztony's blanket as- sertion that Honvédség troops were less inclined to kill civilians than were the Germans does not hold up under careful scrutiny of German sources (not to mention Soviet or Hungarian)10. Indeed, it seems that several of the most extreme reprisals which took place within Heeresgebiet Süd were perpetrated by Hungarian units.

Both of these points suggest that the German-Hungarian wrangle over reprisals was not such a startling reversal of roles after all. But there is also an important qualification to be added where the German officers are concerned: their insistence on »proper« or »reasonable« treatment of the civil population must not be taken at face value. Though the Heeresgebiet commanders continued to espouse a pro- Ukrainian point of view until the collapse of the German military administration in Ukraine in late 1943, the actual effects of their paternalism were never great, and they became increasingly slight as the war in Soviet Russia dragged on. Many factors beyond the control of Heeresgebiet leaders frustrated their efforts to cultivate the cooperation of the inhabitants. The forced-labor round-ups of the Sauckel or- ganization, which went forward in Ukraine over von Roques' and Friderici's strong protests, are perhaps the best example. But their own anti-partisan methods were never as different from those of the Hungarians as they seem to have believed, and the severity of German measures did much to alienate majority opinion in Ukraine11. The Heeresgebiet commanders' guidance on anti-partisan operations was often contradictory, reflecting a powerful tension between their desire to fight what they considered a »clean« war and their determination to crush an ideological enemy which they genuinely despised. Careful examination of the more restrained anti-partisan operations conducted by the Heeresgebiet in 1942 shows that the ethnic Ukrainian civil population in the affected areas suffered greatly despite the staff's policy of favoritism. The same is true of the evacuations carried out in September and October, during which only the most rudimentary arrangements were made to care for the evacuees. Whatever claims the Heeresgebiet leadership could make about its own »proper« treatment of the populace were based at least in part on a division of labor which left much of the dirty work to other agencies

9 Tim Mulligan's investigation of German occupation policy remains the best account of the effort to »reform« policy in 1942 and 1943. See Mulligan, Illusion and Empire (as in n. 1).

10 Gosztony writes on p. 258 of Fremde Heere: »In the garrisons of the Honved units friction between Hungarians and indigenous people was extremely rare [...] Under the Hungar- ian occupation regime, churches were opened, [and] state land was divided in order to ensure that hunger could not become a problem. Although the German political rules, under which schools were closed and instruction had to be discontinued, also were in force in areas occupied by the Hungarians, the [Hungarian] Ortskommandanturen often allowed these orders to be ignored. Nowhere were there excesses against the inhabitants

— like executions or the shooting of hostages, and the normal (kriegsüblich) requisitions stayed within bounds.«

" Von Roques complained about the labor round-ups as soon as they began: Der Kom- mandierende General der Sicherungstruppen und Befehlshaber im Heeresgebiet Süd Abt. Ia — Nr. 195/42 g.Kdos. 15.7.42, betr.: Monatsbericht — Berichtszeit 1. bis 30.6.42, BA-MA, RH 22/39. Friderici argued later in the year that Ukraine should be granted spe- cial status among the occupied territories and exempted from labor drafts: Befh. H.Geb.

Β Abt. VII Nr. 607/42 geh. 9.11.42, betr.: Monatsbericht (1.-31.10.42), BA-MA, RH 22/100.

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and jurisdictions. SS and police units operating within the Heeresgebiet's boundaries conducted a number of savage reprisals during 1942 and 1943, during which time Heeresgebiet staff officers typically described their cooperation with the SD as »smooth« (reibungslos). The same can be said for units of the Geheime Feldpolizei (Secret Field Police or GFP) which were in fact directly subordinated to the Hee- resgebiet command. These facts strongly suggest that German complaints about the Hungarians' reprisals involved a large measure of self-delusion if not outright hypocrisy.

It is interesting to speculate about why the Heeresgebiet commanders (and many of their senior subordinates) attempted to draw such a distinction between Hungarian practices and their own. It is possible that their persistent criticism of their allies reflected the conflict between their self-image as decent, professional soldiers and the many horrors for which their army had become responsible since 22 June 1941. A detailed exploration of the mentality of the Heeresgebiet leadership, however, lies outside the scope of this article. The main point of this discus- sion is to demonstrate the active participation of Hungarian forces in the Vernich- tungskrieg on the eastern front, and to raise questions about the roots of this participation which may stimulate further research.

The research for this article was conducted with German, Soviet and (to a very limited extent) Hungarian archival materials. The German sources include the records of Heeresgebiet Süd (later redesignated »B«) and its subordinate security di- visions and regional and local garrisons (Kommandanturen). These documents, held by the German Federal military archive in Freiburg (Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv or BA-MA), are substantially intact for the year 1942, and contain a wealth of material generated by relatively low-level commands (German and Hungarian) in. close contact with the civil populace. Some of these records are also cited below from the microfilm collections produced by the U.S. National Archives at Alexandria, Virgin- ia (hereafter »Alexandria Microfilms«). On the Soviet side, various records of the Soviet partisan movement in Ukraine, the communist party underground orga- nization, and the NKVD have been consulted, along with some materials produced by various government commissions which began investigating the history of the German occupation as early as 1944. These are housed in the Central State Archive of Public Organizations in Kiev (Tsentral 'nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv hromads 'khykh ob 'iedan '

— TsDAHO), and in the Chernihiv (Derzhavnyi arkhiv Chernihivs'koi oblasti — DA- ChO) and Sumy (Derzhavnyi arkhiv Sumskoi oblasti — DASO) region (oblast) archives.

Additionally, some material has been drawn from interviews the author conducted with elderly residents of the Chernihiv and Sumy districts in the summer of 1997.

Where Hungarian sources are concerned, the author has been able to obtain copies of activity reports submitted by Hungarian units operating in Heeresgebiet Süd from the military historical archive (Hadtôrtnélmi Levâtar — HL) in Budapest.

II. The Ukrainian partisan war to March of 1942

In the initial months of BARBAROSSA the Wehrmacht had little trouble from So- viet partisans. Stalin had refused to sanction the formation of a partisan organiza- tion before the invasion, and Soviet authorities initially had scant success impro-

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vising one after the Germans struck12. Those groups that did spring up in the Ger- man rear under the leadership of local party officials or the NKVD enjoyed little pop- ular support and were easily dealt with by the second-rate units the Ostheer de- ployed in rear areas. This was perhaps especially (though not exclusively) true in Ukraine. Although special pre-invasion directives had exhorted German com- manders to make heavy use of violent reprisals against civilians in the event of ir- regular resistance to the German advance, it seems that this was seldom found nec- essary13. Moreover, realizing that their army enjoyed the sympathy of the population in some areas, a number of German commanders argued that reprisals should be limited to those circles that were considered genuinely hostile to the Wehrmacht, especially (in their view) to Jews and communists. The A r m y High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres or OKH) endorsed this policy on 12 July 194114. In Hee- resgebiet Süd, von Roques, who described Ukraine to his subordinates as the

»Lebensraum of a friendly people«, responded to OKH's guidance with a similar order of his own:

»The impression must come into being that we are just (gerecht). Acts of sabo- tage, where the perpetrator cannot be apprehended, are to be blamed not on Ukrainians, but on Jews and Russians; reprisals are to be used against them15.«

It is improbable that these instructions were at this time obeyed without excep- tion. Even though von Roques had demanded that his officers report to him all re-

12 For an excellent introduction in to the genesis and structure of the Soviet partisan move- ment, see Kenneth Slepyan, The »People's Avengers«: Soviet Partisans, Stalinist Society and the Politics of Resistance, 1941-1944, doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, 1994. See also: Soviet Partisans in World War II (as in n. 4); Edgar Howell, The Soviet Par- tisan Movement, 1941-1944, (Washington 1956); Bernd Bonwetsch, »Sowjetische Partisa- nen 1941-1944. Legende und Wirklichkeit des allgemeinen Volkskriegs<«, in: Partisanen und Volkskrieg, ed. by Gerhard Schulz, (Göttingen 1985); Sovetskie partizany: iz istorii par- tizanskogo dvizheniia ν gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, (Moscow 1963); Partiinoe podpol 'e:

Deiatel'nost podpolnykh partiinykh organov i organizatsii na Okkupirovannoi Sovetskii territo- rii ν gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, (Moscow 1983); Voina ν tylu vraga: o nekotorykh pro- blemakh istorii sovetskogo dvizheniia ν gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, (Moscow 1974); P.K.

Ponomarenko, Vsenarodaia bor'ba ν tylu nemetsko-fashistkikh zakhvatchikov, (Moscow 1986);

A. Fedorov, Podpol'nyi Obkom deistvuet (Moscow 1949); Istorila Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny Sovetskogo soiuza 1941-1945, (Moscow 1965); A.S. Zalesskii, V partizanskikh kraiakh i zo- nakh. Patrioticheskii podvig Sovetskogo krestianstva ν tylu vraga, 1941-1944, (Moscow 1962);

V.l. Klokov, Vsenarodnaia borba ν tylu nemetsko-fashistskikh okkupantov na Ukraine 1941-1944, (Kiev 1978). Leonid Grenkevich's recent book on the Soviet partisan movement contains a comprehensive bibliography of Soviet-era literature, but offers little in the way of new information or interpretation: Leonid Grenkevich, The Soviet Partisan Movement, 1941-1944 (London 1999).

13 These were the infamous »criminal orders« promulgated by the Oberkommando der Wehr- macht (Armed Forces High Command) and Oberkommando des Heeres (Army High Com- mand) in the months preceding the invasion. The most important of these was perhaps the Gerichtsbarkeitserlaß (Decree on Military Justice) which suspended the rules of land warfare, hitherto respected by the Wehrmacht, for the duration of the war with Soviet Rus- sia. Among its many provisions was the devolution of authority to order reprisals against enemy civilians to the level of battalion commanders, and the authorization granted to any commissioned officer to order summary executions of resistance suspects. For dis- cussion of the »criminal orders« and their origins, see Förster, »Das Unternehmen >Bar- barossa<«, in: DRZW, vol. 4., pp. 413-447.

14 OKH/GenStbdH/H Wes Abt. (Abw.), Az. Abw. Ill Nr. 2111/41 12.7.41, BA-MA, RH 27-7/156.

15 Rückw. H.Geb. Süd Abt. VII Nr. 103/41,16.8.41, Anordnung Abt. VII Nr. 7, BA-MA, Al- liierte Prozesse Nr. 9, NOKW-1691.

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prisais against civilians as »special occurrences« (besondere Ereignisse), it is conceiv- able that some were not16. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that despite sporadic partisan activity, only one case appears in the Heeresgebiet documents before Oc- tober. On 29 August, motorized Police Battalion 82 of Security Division 454 shot 63 Jewish men at a village called Chervone, after ethnic Ukrainian residents accused local Jews of assisting the partisans17.

From October onwards the situation began to change. As the Wehrmacht push- ed eastward, it entered districts where communist party officials had had more time to prepare an underground infrastructure and partisan resistance stiffened accordingly. Often fighting alongside isolated bands of Red Army soldiers or with retreating elements of Soviet line forces, the partisans began to strike German units directly. In the Dnipro bend region, fighting between Heeresgebiet security divisions and partisans lasted for many weeks. At roughly the same time, Heeresgebiet forces, reinforced by the 62nd Infantry Division (temporarily detached from the 6th Army) effectively eliminated the Poltava region partisan movement in a series of small engagements in the Myrhorod and Shyshaky districts. Here the conflict- ed character of Heeresgebiet policy first became apparent. Contrary to von Ro- ques' previous order, Heeresgebiet troops carried out reprisals against several Ukrainian villages in this area with the approval of the staff. Captured partisans or

»suspects« were routinely executed in the field by German patrols, and the ratio of German to Soviet casualties was disproportionately low. A number of shootings of Jews also occurred in the course of these operations, making clear that the Hee- resgebiet command, like so much of the Ostheer, had incorporated the Jewish-Bol- shevik Feindbild into its anti-partisan doctrine¹⁸. Despite the killings of ethnic Ukrai- nians/however, the command (now led by Friderici, who replaced von Roques on 27 October) reaffirmed its commitment to a pro-Ukrainian occupation policy in

16 454 Sich. Div. Abt. la Reg. Nr. 10789/41, Divisionsbefehl Nr. 54, BA-MA, RH 26-454/6a.

17 Sicherungs-Division 454 Kriegstagebuch la entry of 31.8.41, BA-MA, RH 2 6 - 4 5 4 / 2 .

18 The German documentation of the struggle with the Novomoskovs'k partisans is plen- tiful. The most important are: Rückw. H.Geb.Süd KTB (la), entries of 18.11.41, 12.12.41-16.12.41,19.12.41, USNA T501/4; Tätigkeitsbericht der Abteilung Ic zum Kriegs- tagebuch der Sicherungs-Division 213 (no date), BA-MA, RH 2 6 - 2 1 3 / 6 ; Sich. Div. 444 Abt. Ia 22.1.42, Bericht über die Bekämpfung der Banditengruppen im Waldgebiet No- womoskowsk-Pawlograd, BA-MA, RH 22/19; Rückw. H.Geb. Süd Tagesmeldung to Hee- resgruppe Süd, 4.1.42, BA-MA, RH 2 2 / 1 9 ; Anruf Sich. Div. 444 6.1.42, Vorläufiger Ab- schlußbericht über Banditenbekämpfung im Waldgebiet Nowomoskowsk, BA-MA, RH 2 2 / 1 9 ; Sich. Div. 444 Abt. Ia 22.1.42, Erfahrungsbericht beim Banditenunternehmen No- wo Moskowsk-Pawlograd, BA-MA, RH 22/19; Befh. H.Geb. Süd Abt. Ia 3 5 7 1 / 4 2 geh.

10.1.42, Abschrift, 10 Tägige Meldung to Gen. St. d.H./Gen. Qu., Abt. K.Verw., BA-MA, RH 22/19. For Soviet accounts of the fighting, see: Stenogramma zapici vospominanii Panchenko, Trofima Ivanovicha, TsDAHO 1 6 6 / 3 / 2 4 5 ; Dokladnaia Zapiska o partisans- kom dvizhenii, o sostoianii podpol'nykh part-organizatsii i o polozhenii del ν levobe- rezhnykh raionakh Dnepropetrovshchiny so vremeni ikh okkupatsii fashistskimi vois- kami, TsDAHO 1 / 2 2 / 7 . John Armstrong, et al deal with the Novomoskovs'k episode at some length in Soviet Partisans in World War II (as in n. 4). This work retains much of its value despite the passage of many years. See also: L.E. Kizia and V.l. Klokov, »Ukraina ν plameni narodnoi voiny«, in: Sovietskie Partisany, ed. by V.E. Bystrov and Z.N. Politov, (Moscow 1961). For a detailed examination of the Heeresgebiet's efforts to suppress the partisans of the Poltava oblast based on both German and Soviet documents, see Tru- man Anderson, »Incident at Baranivka: German Reprisals and the Soviet Partisan Move- ment in Ukraine, October-December 1941«, in: Journal of Modern History, September 1999, pp. 585-623.

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December, declaring that the Ukrainians, as an »Aryan« people, were entitled to friendly and proper treatment. As Friderici explained in an order dated 14 December,

»The positive attitude of the Ukrainians toward Germany must by all means be preserved. Their liberation from an intolerable yoke must not be followed by the fear of a new servitude¹⁹.«

Hungarian units under Heeresgebiet command became active in anti-partisan operations at this time and quickly displayed a harshness toward the civil populace which was not tempered by any pro-Ukrainian viewpoint. The Heeresgebiet had at its disposal a Hungarian corps known as the Royal Hungarian Occupation Group East (Königliche ungarische Besatzungsgruppe Ost), comprised of the 102nd, 105th and 108th brigades. On 18-19 December, German intelligence identified a par- tisan group estimated 1,700 strong in the vicinity of Koriukivka, a district Seat located roughly 75 km northeast of Chernihiv. Their report claimed that this band was com- posed of Soviet officers from the 4th Army, party officials and local »leading communists,« plus »an entire Jew battalion,« and was equipped with mortars, auto- matic weapons, and a large number of horses20. On 20 December the 2nd battalion, 105th (Hungarian) Brigade led by Colonel Kálmán Csiby was dispatched to elimi- nate the guerrillas. Two days later, the brigade reported that 700-800 partisans had been killed in battle and that the remainder had escaped into neighboring Army Group Center, which had failed to provide a blocking force to prevent their flight.

The reports also noted that a band of 90 Jews who had allegedly procured food for the guerrillas had been executed at some point in the operation and at least one village (Reimentarivka in the Koriukivka district) burned to the ground²¹. There are no detailed descriptions of the battles at Kariukivka in German records. Given the generally poor performance of this Hungarian brigade in subsequent operations, it is likely that the body count of 700-800 partisans is highly inflated. It is nevertheless clear that more than one hundred persons were killed. A late Soviet-era account states that 114 people were massacred by Hungarian troops in Reimenta- rivka. A leaflet produced in December of 1941 by the Chernihiv district partisan movement also mentioned the killings22. Hungarian casualty figures reveal that some genuine fighting did indeed take place, but also lend credence to the supposition that most of the dead »partisans« were civilians shot in reprisal: the brigade reported that only seven Hungarians were killed and but ten wounded during the

19 . Befh. rückw. H.Geb. Süd, Abt. V I I / 1 2 3 / 4 1 geh. 14.12.41, Anordnung Abt. VII. Nr. 31, Alexandria Microfilms T-501 /6.

20 Rückw. H.Geb. Süd KTB la entry of 29.11.41, Alexandria Microfilms T-501 / 4 ; 105. (ung.) Inf. Brig. Ia Fernschreiben (via FK197) to Befh. H.Geb. Süd la 18.12.41; Auszug aus dem Operations-Tagebuch der 105. Honved Inf. Brig. 23.10.41-8.1.41 [sic], entry of 16.12.41, BA-MA, RH 22/182.

21 Ung. Brig. 105 Fernschreiben to rückw. H.Geb. Süd la, 3.1.42, BA-MA, RH 2 2 / 1 9 . Megs- zállo csop. pság./574.3696/5/M.l.vkf.-1941; Megsz. osop. pság. 622/I.a. 41.XII.22, 3301./5./M.1. vkf.. Both documents in Hadtôrténelmi Levéltár (HL) 1.89. VKF/1. osztá- ly /Fasc. 265-266.

22 Vinok Bezsmertia, ed. by M.V Stetiukha, (Kiev 1988), pp. 57-61. This popular account al- so indicates that Reimentarivka was in fact a base for the Chernihiv region partisan or- ganization. See also: Befehl des Befh. der Partisanenbewegung im Gebiet Tschernigow, Dez. 1941, BA-MA, RH 22/159. This is a German translation of Soviet proclamation is- sued by the Chernihiv region underground. It notes the killing of civilians by the Hun- garians as one in a long list of crimes ascribed to a Ukrainian collaborator named Kon- stantin Dobrovolski. According to this translation, the partisans placed a 50,000 ruble price on Dobrovolski's head.

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operation. A further three soldiers went missing, while among the Ukrainian »Hi- po« {Hilfspolizei — auxiliary police in German service) who took part in the fighting there were 11 dead, nine missing, and 27 wounded.

The fighting around Koriúkivka set the pattern for subsequent Hungarian operations in this region. As the Wehrmacht absorbed the blows of the Soviet winter counteroffensive, the northern boundary of Heeresgebiet Süd came to rest in the Chernihiv region. Between the river Desna and the border with Belarus and Russia, Hungarian units came into contact with partisan detachments under the centralized control of the Chernihiv region underground, led by the future Hero of the Soviet Union A.F. Fedorov. From January to early March, while most of the Heeresgebiet's manpower was diverted to the front, the 105th Brigade fought a series of small engagements against Fedorov's detachments under extremely difficult conditions.

These fire fights exacted a steady toll from the Hungarians and Ukrainian collaborators.

Between 15 and 18 January, a partisan detachment operating in the vicinity of Khol- my killed 26 Ukrainian Hipo and 17 of their family members in the town of Orlivka (Novhorod-Sivers'kyi district), and burned 34 houses upon withdrawal23. On 5 Feb- ruary, two Hungarian soldiers were killed in an ambush near Yeline (Shchors district).

Twelve days later, a detachment from the 105th Brigade was ambushed in the same area and suffered 31 casualties. In retaliation for this attack, the Hungarians burned the village of Luky-Hutor and reported killing 139 »partisans« in the fighting24. The partisans, undeterred by this gesture, became increasingly bold in March. On 2 March, elements of the 46th Hungarian Regiment lost 28 men killed, 56 wounded and two missing in a skirmish with partisans between Kholmy and Konotop (in the neighboring Sumy region)²⁵. Ten days later Fedorov attacked a task force from the 105th Brigade (now redesignated a »light division«) in the village of Ivanivka (Shchors district) and inflicted more than forty casualties. At some point in this encounter, the partisans entered the village, executed 30 Hipo volunteers and burned 6 homes26. Ac-

23 Feldkommandantur (V) 194 11.2.42 an Befehlsh. d. rückw. H.-Geb. Süd, Abtlg. Ia — nach- richtl. Befehlshaber H.-Geb. Mitte, la Betr.: Lagebericht für die Zeit vom 14.1. bis 10.2.1942, BA-MA, RH 22/203; Megsz. csop.pság. 779/Megsz. csop. I-a.42.1.16. 3808/26/M.l.vkf.- 1942, HL 1.89. VKF/1. osztály/Fasc. 265-266.

24 [Fernspruch] Nr. 1094/Bes. Gr. Abt. Ia Feldpost Nr. 13 17.2.42. 1315 Uhr Olgyay Gene- ralmajor und Befh. der Bes. Gruppe, BA-MA, RH 22/22. The Hungarians claimed to have killed 139 partisans after the initial ambush. The true character of this fight is elusive.

A more detailed report made by the 105th Brigade to the Hungarian Besatzungsgruppe on 3 March gives the number of Hungarian dead as 20 with a further 9 men wounded, and puts the partisan dead at 137, rather than the 139 given in the initial report. It also men- tions that a village called Luky-Hutor was set on fire, and that 20 horses were captured from the guerrillas. Whether the village was burned as punishment or in an effort to deny the partisans shelter is not clear, nor is it clear whether the 137 »confirmed dead« includ- ed residents of Luky-Hutor executed in reprisal or as partisan »suspects«. No such exe- cutions are mentioned in the document. NR. 210/Inf. Brig. 105 Abt. I b. vom 3.3.42, Mel- dung über die Unternehmen von Iwanowka, BA-MA, RH 22/24. A Hungarian report from within their own chain of command is similarly nebulous: Mgsz. csop. 1 (illegible signature) 4/I.a.42.II.17 4069/21/M.l.vkf.-1942, HL 1.89. VKF/1. osztály/Fasc. 265-266.

25 Fernschreiben Nr. 1167/Bes. Gruppe Abt. Roem. Eins A an Befh. rückw. H. Geb. Süd 2.3.42, BA-MA, RH 22/24.

26 Fernspruch Bes. Gruppe an Befh. r. H.Geb. Süd 14.3.42, BA-MA, RH 22/24; K.megsz.

csop. pság. 1221/1.a. 42.III.12 4073/7/M.l.vkf.-1942, HL 1.89. VKF/1. osztály/Fasc.

265-266; Fernschreiben Nr. 1239 Bes. Gruppe Abt. roem. Eins A an Befh. rueckw. H.Geb.

Sued 11.3.42, BA-MA, RH 22/24; Nr. 241/le. Div. 105 Ib vom 12.3.42, Gefechtsbericht über die Unternehmung von Iwanowka am 11.3.42, BA-MA, RH 22/24.

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cording to a report made by the Feldkommandant, the partisans also terrorized the inhabitants of Ivanivka by cutting off the hands of Ukrainian policemen's children and dragooning 19 men into their own ranks27.

Like their German counterparts, the officers of the Hungarian Besatzungsgrup- pe looked upon partisans and their supporters not as soldiers but as criminals. The losses suffered in this period — though nothing like those of front-line infantry units — were therefore particularly galling and the frustration of the Hungarian troops mounted. Their commanders requested reinforcements and complained that their German comrades were demanding too much of them. At the same time their attitude toward the civil populace in their zone of operations began to harden, and they escalated their own use jrf force against the partisans. After captured partisans overpowered and killed two Hungarian soldiers assigned to guard them, the 105th Brigade unilaterally announced on 28 January that it would no longer take prisoners28.

The German leadership was not deaf to these complaints. In response to pleas from Brigadier General Kolossváry, the commander of the 105th Brigade, and from Lt. Col. Würfel, the commander of Feldkommandantur 194 (based at Chernihiv), the Heeresgebiet command sent some reinforcements to the north and launched a coun- terattack against the Fedorov group. Troops from Wach- battalion 703 and Lan- desschützen-battalion 544 joined two Hungarian battalions in the operation, which aimed at surrounding the partisans in their forest bastion south of Yeline. The task force was further augmented by three detachments of German GFP under the com- mand of Leitender Feldpolizeidirektor Stephainski, the senior GFP official in the Hee- resgebiet. The intelligence preparations for this attack were unusually good, and despite extremely cold weather (the temperature ranged from -15° to -30°C) and the defection of some Ukrainian policemen prior to the assault, Fedorov's group was driven from its most important base with significant losses. According to his mem- oir, Fedorov lost 22 men killed and 53 wounded from a detachment numbering roughly 900 strong, including camp followers. The Germans, who overestimated the partisans' casualties, suffered 27 men killed and a further 27 wounded.

The tactical details of this battle are of little relevance here29. More important are the aftermath of the fighting and the fate of the local population. During the bat·*

27 FK(V) 194 Sammelheft über Erfahrungen in der Partisanen-Bekämpfung gem. Anord- nung Befh. rückw. H.Geb. Süd Ic vom 7.1.1942, entry of 12.3.42, BA-MA, RH 22/173. Fe- dorov's published account of this raid does not mention the execution of the policemen nor, of course, the maiming of children reported by the Germans. It merely states that the Hungarian unit was driven out of village by the partisans and left behind 153 dead (included Ukrainian auxiliaries). See Fedorov, Podpol'nyi Obkom Deistvuet (as in n. 12), vol. 2, pp. 202-3.

28 Megsz. csop. pság. Szn. 4066/18/M.l.vkf-41; Megsz. csop. 1001/I.A. 42.II.6., 4 2 6 8 / 4 / M.l.vkf-1942. Both documents from HL 1.89. VKF/1. osztály/Fasc. 265-266. This is an in- teresting statement, for there is considerable evidence that the Besatzungsgruppe was already executing its partisan prisoners by this point in time. Heeresgebiet policy on par- tisan prisoners changed several times during 1941 and 1942 in response to directives from OKH and Heeresgruppe Süd.

29 A unusual wealth of sources has made it possible to recount the fighting near Yeline in much greater detail than is required here. See Truman Anderson, »Yeline: A Case Study in the Partisan War, 1942«, in: Civilians in the Path of War, ed. by Mark Grimsley and Clif- ford Rogers, (Lincoln, NE 2000). For relevant documents see: 341 ./55./II Batl. 4.4.42 An- lage Nr. 2 zu 621./105. le. Div. la 7.4.42, Abschliessende Meldung über die vom 21.3.1942 gegen das Partisanenlager im Walde von Jelino durchgeführte Unternehmung, BA-MA,

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tie, Hungarian troops under the command of a Lt. Col. Csendes had briefly occupied Yeline. Most of the inhabitants had fled to the surrounding forest, though perhaps as many as 80 people who had remained behind had been killed by a Ger- man air strike during the Hungarians' assault. A few days later, however, the Hun- garians returned and found that many of the villagers had come back to their homes.

According to Csendes' account of the battle, his troops shot 30 people on the spot for resisting arrest, rounded u p the remainder and turned them over to the GFP for screening. Csendes then ordered Yeline burned to the ground. Between 29 March and 4 April, a total of 536 persons were arrested in this vicinity. 230 of them were released and 306 sent to a civil internment camp at Gomel pending investigation of their backgrounds. Within Heeresgebiet Siid's records, the story ends there, for Gomel was then situa ted in the rear area of Army Group Center and thus lay outside of Friderici's jurisdiction. However, an NKVD interview with a surviving villager, conducted in 1944, states that the Gomel prisoners were later segregated into two groups on the basis of age. The elderly persons were released on condition that they never return to the Yeline area. The remainder, apparently including women and children, were shot³⁰.

We can only speculate as to how the Heeresgebiet staff might have reacted to news of these executions, if indeed they ever received word of the killing. Overall, the German leadership was very pleased with the outcome of the operation, and seemed convinced that the troublesome northern area had been definitively paci- fied. The commander of Wach-battalion 703 was very satisfied with the accom- plishments of his middle-aged soldiers, and von Roques himself, now returned from medical leave, expressed his pride in the men in marginal comments written on an after-action report31. If the Germans had any complaints about the conduct of the Hungarian troops, they failed to commit them to paper. Csendes' assessment of the battle's outcome was less sanguine: he pointed out that at least 300 partisans had escaped the encirclement. General Kolossváry, on the other hand, was more positive about the impact of the operation, but he used his report as an opportunity to surface a number of complaints about the conditions his brigade had thus far endured under Heeresgebiet command. His remarks, peppered with sarcastic barbs, afford us unusual insight into the dynamics of the German-Hungarian alliance re- lationship, and are therefore worthy of careful attention.

RH 22/34; Fernschreiben Nr. 1285 Bes. Gruppe Abt. la 27.3.42, BA-MA, RH 22/24; Feld- kommandantur (V) 194, Sammelheft über die Erfahrungen in der Partisanen-Bekämpfung gem. Anordnung Befh. rückw. H.Geb. Süd Ic vom 7.1.1942, BA-MA, RH 22/173; Wach- Bataillon 703 Abt. Ia 24.3.42, Gefechtsbericht, BA-MA, RH 22/24; Der Ltd. Feldpolizei- direktor beim Befh. H.Geb. Süd 30.4.42, Bericht über die Partisanenkämpfe im Räume nordostwärts von Snowsk, BA-MA, RH 22/27; FK(V) 194, Sammelheft über Erfahrungen in der Partisanen-Bekämpfung gem. Anordnung Befh. rückw. H.Geb. Süd Ic vom 7.1.1942, entry of 12.3.42, BA-MA, RH 22/173; 621./105. le. Div. Ia. 7.4.42, 5. zusammenfassende Meldung bis zum 31.3.42, BA-MA, RH 22/34; K.megsz. csop. pság. 1268/K. megsz. csop.

I.a. 42.111.23 4774/13/M.l.vkf-1942, HL 1.89. VKF/1. osztály/Fasc. 265-266; K.megsz.

csop. pság. 1275/I.a. 42.111.24 4072/18/M.l.vkf, HL 1.89. VKF/1. osztály/Fasc. 265-266.

30 Protokol doprosa svidetelia (kopüa), 1944 goda, avgusta 19 dnia, c. Elino [...] Peven' Alek- sei Minovich, TsDAHO 166/3/242.

31 Wach-Bataillon 703 Abt. Ia 24.3.42 Gefechtsbericht, BA-MA, RH 22/24.

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III. Kolossváry's complaint

In his summary report to the Heeresgebiet on the 105th's activities in this period (including the Yeline operation) Kolossváry devoted four typewritten pages to the theme, »The Difficulties of the Light Division«³². The general began by pointing out that half the division's ranks were initially filled with reservists, men whose induction was medically approved only with the understanding that they were unfit for duty at the front. »The enthusiasm and outstanding spirit of the officers and men«, he stated, had for a long time compensated for their poor physical condition and lack of proper training, but the weather, supply problems, long march- es, and heavy combat losses had caused severe difficulties which »without the superhuman moral superiority of the commanders« would have meant a »serious and dangerous decline in readiness«. He went on to explain the impact of these factors in detail. The division had commonly encountered temperatures of -30°C in January while' marching through waist-high snow drifts. Seven men had been permanently debilitated by frostbite, and 250 had suffered second degree injuries.

Individual battalions were scattered in small enclaves at Horodnia, Bákhmach, Nizhyn, Novhorod-Severs'kyi, and Iampil', some of them 70-80 km removed (as the crow flies) from the division headquarters and field hospital at Chernihiv. Many had no access to rail transport and were unreachable by motor vehicles, owing to the impassible condition of the roads. Supply difficulties were therefore severe and mail infrequent. Some elements of the division had marched more than 2,500 km during the winter and were quartered in »Ukrainian houses, unheated or warmed by dung from the outside, used simultaneously as both stalls and home, together with the residents or their animals in a single room.« Sanitation was primitive or non-existent, and even when delousing supplies were available it was impossible to keep the men free of parasites. By Kolossváry's reckoning, 101 soldiers from the 105th had been killed in battle by the end of March and 129 wounded. The wounded suffered greatly during the jarring evacuation to Chernihiv over bad roads and in frigid weather.

All of these travails, Kolossváry noted, had contributed to the troops' feeling that »an alien and only temporary command lacks understanding of their efforts, fails to take the weather situation into account when making demands [upon them], and assigns them impossible tasks.« He hinted gravely that the Soviets (whom he always called »the Russians«) were making good use of this disaffection, sewing

»division between German and Hungarian troops by all possible means«. Their fa- vorite device, he claimed, was to blame Hungarian troops for pillaging and burning actually carried out by the partisans. On several occasions, he insisted, the Ger- man area commander (Lt. Col. Würfel) had complained to the Heeresgebiet about such incidents without first confirming that Besatzungsgruppe forces were indeed responsible and without bothering to discuss his accusations with Hungarian officers. This, Kolossváry stated flatly, »was not conducive to the deepening of com- radely relations«, and made »investigation of the case more difficult«.

Inching toward his conclusion, Kolossváry then described the numerical superiority of the partisans in his area of operations. Noting that this region had pro-

32 621./105. le. Div. Ia. 7.4.42, 5. zusammenfassende Meldung bis zum 31.3.42, BA-MA, RH 22/34.

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duced the best of the partisan groups who fought Napoleon, and also had afforded the White armies one of their last redoubts in the Civil War, he predicted that the conditions were very favorable for the growth of a renewed partisan movement which, if »under German or Hungarian leadership could destroy two light divisions in so large an area.« He underscored his point with one and one-half pages of statistics on the size of his area (44,000 square kilometers, of which 16,000 were wooded), the long distances marched by his troops, and the high number of partisans killed by his command through the end of March (an estimated 5,132). He then finally came to the point, and asked that the division be relieved of all static security jobs by Ukrainian auxiliaries, that the units then detached from the division be returned to its operational control, that his troops receive flame throwers, mortars, additional anti-tank guns and submachine-guns, and that the Heeresge- biet make a better effort to keep the division command informed. All in all, these were very modest requests. Some of von Roques' German subordinates who had less grounds for complaint would ask for much more in the months to come. Al- though von Roques, like his successor Friderici, would never opênly accept manpower shortages and equipment problems as an excuse for failure, he was not un- sympathetic to Kolossváry's situation. Prior to receiving the Hungarian general's letter, he had described the 105th Light Division's predicament to the Generalquar- tiermeister at OKH in understanding terms³³.

The issue of reprisals remained in the background in the correspondence between the Hungarians and the Heeresgebiet for a time. In Kolossváry's report, it had only surfaced in connection with the friction between the division and the Ger- man area command, and the commanding general had described the population's behavior in mixed but on the whole favorable terms. By the beginning of summer, however, the Hungarians' attitude towards the civil populace in their zone had hardened further, and reprisals became the focal point of the tactical and strategic debate between the allies.

IV. Summer operations and the dispute over reprisals

The springtime floods and withdrawal of the Fedorov group into the territory of Army Group Center brought a temporary respite to the Hungarians. There were no significant clashes with the partisans in April or May. The Heeresgebiet commander was preoccupied with preparations for FALL BLAU, the coming offensive in- to the Caucasus, and in any case had but 1,320 men available for active anti-partisan operations in the more than 100,000 square kilometers for which he was responsible34. In June, however, the Heeresgebiet boundary was expanded eastward into the Sumy region, and this brought the meager forces in the north into direct contact with the stronger partisan groups rooted in the Briansk forest. Some of

33 Befh. riickw. H.Geb. Süd Abt. la 5522/42g. 1.3.42 an OKH Gen. St. d. H./Gen. Qu., Abt.

Kriegsverwaltung, BA-MA, RH 22/24.

34 Vortragsnotiz für Gen. Qu. in Potawa, am 24.5.1942, Die Lage in den rückwärtigen Ge- bieten, BA-MA, RH 22/30; Der kommandierende General der Sicherungstruppen und Be- fehlshaber im Heeresgebiet Süd an die Heeresgruppe Süd 27.5.1942, BA-MA, RH 22/63.

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these were in fact operating from forward bases in the Sumy region itself, and had ranged as far south and west as Iampil'. At the end of June, the Heeresgebiet received some temporary reinforcements from Heeresgebiet Mitte and drew together an- other ragtag task force to attack Sidor Kovpak's large partisan group near Putyvl'.

Elements of the 108th and 105th Hungarian Light Divisions, a »Turkic« battalion recruited from Soviet POWs and a company of airfield guards and construction troops from Konotop (called »Group Becker«) formed the bulk of the available manpower, and were supported by a company of captured tanks, some engineers, and flak artillery, for a total of about 1,200 men35.

The operation took place between 20 and 26 June. The results were mixed, and the unsatisfactory outcome brought the conflict between the Hungarian and Ger- man leadership to a boil. The Besatzungsgruppe headquarters reported that 250 par- tisans fell in battle, and that Hungarian units had shot or hanged 143 persons after capture. They also sent an unspecified number of prisoners to Putyvl' for screening by the GFP³⁶. All the participants agreed, however, that most of the par- tisans had escaped. General Imre Bogányi, commander of the Besatzungsgruppe, was convinced that the civil population was responsible for this: they had harbored and supported the partisans and helped them to avoid encirclement. While the fighting was still in progress, he had expressly ordered the destruction of the villages of Nova Sloboda, Iatsyne, Cherepovo, Ivanivskyi and Sesiulyn, along with other villages to be designated by the commander of the 34th (Hungarian) Infan- try Regiment. He also demanded the execution of all the male inhabitants of these communities between the ages of 15 and 60, along with all the male prisoners who had been arrested and sent to Putyvl'. All female prisoners tattooed beneath their breast with the Soviet star (allegedly a sign of reliability used by the Soviet underground) were also to be executed. Not yet content, Bogányi also ordered the execution of ten hostages at Beriukh, to be followed by the killing of five more male hostages from each Of the neighboring villages — this in reprisal for a bomb ex- plosion at Beriukh on 25 June37.

Direct German documentation for the implementation of these orders exists only for the destruction of Nova Sloboda and two other villages — Kalitshe and Li-

35 Nr. 2770/Bes./Gr. Ost la vom 4.7.42, Betr.: Meldung über Säuberungsaktion gegen Par- tisanen im Räume von Putiwl, BA-MA, RH 22/46.

36 The fate of these persons is not revealed in Heeresgebiet records. The author's interviews with elderly residents of the village of Stara Huta (Seredyna Buda district, Sumy re- gion) indicate that the Germans began deporting villagers from partisan dominated areas during late 1942. Stara Huta was Kovpak's main base of operations in the Sumy district in the spring of that year. After his detachment departed in May, the village was par- tially destroyed by Hungarian troops and many residents fled to improvised camps in the large forest north of the village. Many of these refugees were arrested during subsequent anti-partisan operations in December 1942 and January 1943. Residents of Stara Huta were taken to the civil internment camps at Gomel or Briansk and then to farms in Po- land or Lithuania where they spent the remainder of the war as laborers. Conditions dur- ing transit appear to have been uniformly bad: the prisoners were given little to eat and suffered from exhaustion and exposure. The anecdotal evidence of these interviews sug- gests that mortality was high among the elderly and small children. It is conceivable that the persons arrested during the Putyvl' operation were deported in this manner, though this is of course a matter of speculation. Interviews with Ekaterina Vladimirovna Ark- hipenko and Alexander Tikhonovich Bazarny, Stara Huta, 7 August 1997.

37 Anlage 3 zu Nr. 2270, Bes. Gr. Ost la vom 4.7.42, Nr. 2195/Bes. Gr. Ost Ia vom 25.6.42 (Auszugsweise Übersetzung), BA-MA, RH 22/46.

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novo. In any case, the devastation was sufficient to provoke the criticism of Gene- ral von Weichs, the commander of neighboring Army Group von Weichs. On 3 Ju- ly, he complained to Friderici that the Hungarians' destruction of villages had got- ten out of hand, and had done nothing to diminish the partisan threat at Iampil' and Seredyna-Buda. Weichs requested the action of German troops, and offered this impression of the Putyvl' operation:

»2.) Putiwl too cleared. Action of Hungarian troops failed = roughly 1,300 ban- dits broke out = 12 villages and 460 tons of grain among other important food- stuff supplies destroyed by burning by Hungarian troops. Population fled. Re- lief is urgently requested38.«

Friderici had been present in the Putyvl' area during the fighting. His role in the Hungarians' reprisals is therefore not altogether clear. He seems at least to have agreed with Bogányi that the partisans had been helped by local villagers, for he repeated this claim in a subsequent report to OKH39. On the other hand, either Fri- derici or some member of his Heeresgebiet operations staff had annotated Bogányi's report indicating disapproval of the proposed mass executions40. Immediately after the Putyvl' fighting, the Heeresgebiet commander produced a new series of instructions for anti-partisan operations that were sharply critical of indiscriminate retaliation against non-combatants and severely restricted the use of reprisals.

The new instruction was in many ways reminiscent of the series of orders promulgated by the Heeresgebiet command in 1941 which were intended to clarify who should be considered a combatant (i.e. entitled to POW status if captured) and who should be deemed a »partisan«. It featured the familiar stock arguments about »the cruelty of the Jewish-Bolshevik method of war«, and the resultant need for »hardness«, and its early paragraphs contained nothing which departed from the spirit of previous directives. There then followed some new material on the treatment of deserters, to the effect that partisan deserters were only to be spared summary execution if they surrendered when their unit was not in contact with German forces (Red Army soldiers, on the other hand, were to be treated as POWs regardless of how they surrendered); Under the heading, »Collective Punish- ment«, however, Friderici introduced a new series of restrictions which brought Heeresgebiet doctrine much closer to the spirit (if not the letter) of the army's old, pre-B ARB AROSSA regulations. »Our remorseless war of annihilation against the Freischärler pestilence applies to the guilty«, he began. To kill truly innocent peo- ple, he wrote, »contradicts the German sense of justice and has, for political reasons, disadvantageous consequences«. Friderici stated that the partisans had been in- structed by Moscow to goad German units into collective punishment of civilians

38 [Fernschreiben] Armeegruppe von Weichs an Befh. H.Geb. Süd 420703, BA-MA, RH 22/47. It is interesting to note that von Weichs made no mention of German troops in his complaint, and seemed not to know that Friderici himself was in the northern area at the time of the Putyvl' fighting.

39 Der Kommandierende General der Sicherungstruppen und Befehlshaber im Heeresge- biet Süd Abt. Ia Nr. 8791 /42 an OKH/Gen Qu / K.Verw. betr.: Monatsbericht [...] 15.7.1942, BA-MA, RH 22/299.

40 Anlage 3 zu Nr. 2270, Bes. Gr. Ost Ia vom 4.7.42, Nr. 2195/Bes. Gr. Ost Ia vom 25.6.42 (Auszugsweise Ubersetzung), BA-MA, RH 22/46. The paragraph which outlines Bo- gányi's plan to exterminate all the male villagers in the area is heavily underlined in col- ored pencil and a large question mark is written beside it in the right margin. Bogányi's order for a reprisal at Beriukh is similarly annotated, while other sections of the report earned the marginal comment »gut«.

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in order to »sow hate and discord against Germany and its supporters among the population«. This, he continued, must be avoided. Generalized threats of hostage killings and the actual executions conducted in the event of sabotage »make absolutely no impression upon the mentality of the Bolshevik bands«. In the same sense, he said:

»Burning down whole villages and exterminating their entire population is not a military tactic employed as part of an anti-partisan operation in progress, rather [is] the sharpest of reprisals [undertaken] after battle, when, through con- tinuing investigation, it is established that the affected locality and its residents participated in its entirety in the partisan activity.«

Friderici concluded by stating that reprisals carried out without these precondi- tions destroyed potential quarters for German troops, disrupted the economic ex- ploitation of the land, squandered precious labor resources, created Soviet martyrs and increased popular support for the partisans⁴¹.

This was not the first time that the Heeresgebiet command had attempted to curb excessive violence by its troops. Von Roques had prohibited recourse to what he called »lynch justice« in July of 194142. In this instance, however, there can be little doubt that Friderici had the Hungarian leadership in mind. The contrast between his new conception of counter-insurgency and the wildly indiscriminate steps Bogányi was advocating could not be more striking. Friderici had insisted that re- prisals should only occur where the populace »in its entirety« (in ihrer Gesamtheit) supported the partisans. This was a standard of civilian guilt which no unit in the field could reasonably be expected to prove, a fact which raises the immediate question of Friderici's intentions. It is unlikely that he meant to prohibit »proper« reprisals. Just a few days after he promulgated these new instructions, the GFP unit stationed at Nizhyn executed 116 persons from Volodko in reprisal for the killing of a single GFP sergeant. This massacre took place on the orders of the German area commander, yet Friderici apparently made no complaint43. Instead, he probably intended to discourage the type of reflexive burnings and mass executions

41 Befh. H. Geb. Süd Abt. VII/III/Ic Nr. 8449/42g., 2.7.42, BA-MA, RH 22/173. This order was accompanied by a proclamation to the Ukrainian population which urged them to take a more active role in the anti-partisan campaign. Unlike earlier efforts of this type, this announcement contained no threats of collective punishment in the event of non- compliance. Befh. H.Geb. Süd Abt. Ia/Ic/VII/ Nr. 212/42 2.7.42, Betr.: Besondere Maß- nahmen, BA-MA, RH 22/45. It is interesting to note that Friderici's new instructions ap- peared more than one month before Hitler's Weisung Nr. 46 of 18 August 1942. This document made a grudging rhetorical concession to a more collaborative (and less dra- conian) conception of anti-partisan warfare, while at the same time strengthening the re- sponsibility of the SS for the overall direction of the anti-partisan effort. The authority of the army was, however, preserved within the operations area (including the Heeresge- biete). For an analysis of the importance of Weisung Nr. 46, see Bernd Wegner, »Der Par- tisanenkrieg«, in: DRZW, vol. 6, pp. 918-919.

42 Befh. H.Geb. Süd Abt. Ic Nr. 1125/41 g. 29.7.41, BA-MA, RH 22/170.

43 This killing took place in the following manner. The GFP were conducting a search of Volodko when Sgt. Frank was shot by an unknown assailant. This man and three armed accomplices slipped through a cordon of Ukrainian Hipo and escaped. The GFP detach- ment then rounded up all of the men from the surrounding area and transported them to Nizhyn. All of the Hipo who had been involved in the operation were also arrested.

After interrogating these prisoners, the Germans shot 116 of them on the orders of the Feld- kommandant »as reprisal for the death of a German soldier.« (Fernschreiben) Tagesmel- dung FK(V) 194 an Befh. H.Geb. Süd la 9.7.42, BA-MA, RH 22/51; Der kommandieren- de General der Sicherungstruppen und Befh. im Heeresgebiet Β Abt. Ia — Nr. 9340/42 g„ 15.8.42, Betr.: Monatsbericht 1. bis 31.7.1942, BA-MA, RH 22/46; HSSPF z.b.V. Ein-