Publisher's Synopsis
This is the history of the SS Totenkopf units established by Eicke, which can easily be placed into three stages. The first was the establishment of the original formations as concentration camp guards. [Excerpt: When Eicke arrived at Dachau he was appalled. First of all, Eicke decided, the current guards must go, bar a few, and requested permission to form a new SS-Wachverbaende (Guard Bands) whose sole purpose would be to guard the camp. Himmler agreed, and as these new volunteers arrived they replaced the existing guards, who were most grateful to be relieved. The recruits underwent a training program set out by Eicke. His basic tenet was that the prisoners were the enemy behind the wire. In other words the camp was a veritable battleground in an ideological war, and that if the tables were turned it would be the guards who would suddenly find themselves inside the wire, and the Communists etc. that currently made up the inmate population would be sitting in the guard towers.] But within months the units started infantry training, and the second stage was the creation of Eicke's private army by separating these Totenkopf standarte from the camps and using them in a paramilitary function. Tragically Himmler confiscated some of these troops for his murderous ends. [Excerpt: At this time Himmler impressed upon Fegelein that he was being too lenient on the Jews. From now on he should shoot all men aged fourteen and up and drive the women and children into the swamps, where hopefully they would expire. And there would be no need for excuses in the daily reports. Lombard went one better and told his men to shoot Jewish women and children. This was done. But here too not every soldier agreed to join the firing squads, and not everyone that did agree would shoot women, and very few men indeed were happy about shooting children. Some had to be bribed with alcohol and a promise of light duty and time off. In the town of Khomsk all 2,000 Jewish people were arrested and shot. In Motol the 2,200 Jewish inhabitants were massacred. In Telekhany c2000 Jews were killed. And the murders continued. In all cases the Belarussian and Ukrainian hiwis assisted in the arrests, and in some cases they did the shooting. The local non-Jews [Christians] often took the day off and held a picnic at the execution site. At Davyd-Haradok the Christian population did not wait for the SS to arrive, but arrested more than 2,000 Jewish men, women and children and expelled them from the town.] But eventually most of Eicke's boys were destined for suicidal combat. [Excerpt: The SS troops fought with exemplary courage, but the following day Soviet tanks took advantage of the fact that this was the first frost of the year to seize the hard ground. By late afternoon almost every infantry officer in the SS Thueringen was grabbing the radio microphone or telephone and demanding reinforcements, and the most disconcerting thing of all was that some platoons were not reporting in at all. To add to this confusion the radio unit at Lushno had lost its equipment to a Russian tank assault. An SS antitank gun battery tried to stop the enemy armor, but was completely wiped out, that is except for Corporal Fritz Christen, who manning a 50mm gun all by himself picked off six of the metal monsters! Then Russian infantry engulfed his position.]
