Erich von dem Bach

Infobox Person
name = Erich von dem Bach-Zalewski


quotation =
birth_date = birth date|1899|3|1|mf=y
birth_place = Lauenburg, Pomerania, German Empire
dead=dead
death_date = death date and age|1972|3|8|1899|3|1|mf=y
death_place = Munich, West Germany

Erich Julius Eberhard von Zalewski and also known as Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski (1 March 1899 - 8 March 1972), was a Nazi official and a member of the SS, in which he reached the rank of "SS-Obergruppenführer".

Biography

Slavic origin

He was born to Otto Jan Józefat von Zalewski, a Roman Catholic, and his Lutheran wife Elżbieta Ewelina SzymańskaFact|date=April 2008. Both parents Fact|date=April 2008 were of Polish origin, although some sources mistakenly claim that his father was in fact Oskar von Zalewski who was killed during World War I. In reality, Oskar was Erich's cousin.] .

Erich's great-great-great-grandfather was Michał von Zalewski (a. 1700-1785), the owner of part of the village of Milwino, Niepoczołowice and Zakrzewo in Pomerania, who was Kashubian. Michał's marriage to Anna Zofia von Pirch produced a son, Franciszek von Zalewski (c. 1735-1788). Franciszek married Ewa von Kętrzyńska, who in 1778 gave birth to Andrzej Klemens von Zalewski. Andrzej married Konkordia Wilhelmina Henrietta von Grubba. Their eldest son, Otton August Ludwik Rudolf von Zalewski (born 1820 in Zakrzewo, died June 28, 1878 in Zęblewo), was von dem Bach's grandfather. Roman Catholic Church sources claim that in 1855 in Strzepcz Otton August von Zalewski married Antonia Fryderyka von Żelewska (apparently from another Zalewski family). One of their sons was Otton Jan von Zalewski (born May 19, 1859 in Zęblewo; died April 12, 1911 in Dortmund), who married Elżbieta Ewelina Szymańska about 1890. They had three daughters and three sons, one of whom was Erich Julius Eberhard von Zalewski.

Early life

He was born in Lauenburg, Pomerania, German Empire, on 1 March 1899, the son of a Junker from Lębork (in German Lauenburg). Despite his aristocratic genealogy, young Erich seemed to have grown up in poverty as his father proved unable to establish a career and undertook a range of jobs including agriculture. At the time of his death on April 17, 1911 in Dortmund he was employed as an insurance clerk. Otto's lack of success owed partially to his being the brother of Emil von Zalewski who on August 17, 1891 while leading a colonial force against Wehe insurgents in Tanzania was speared to death while his force was annihilated in the battle of Rugarto. Being militarily outwitted by the racistly despised negroes was a cause of shame and the family was disgraced. According to Philip W. Blood, Erich lived to restore his family's reputation, which partly explains the ferocious passion he would bring to his own `counter-insurgency` campaigns. Following his father's death, his mother married her brother in-law Oskar von Zalewski, a soldier who developed a very close relationship with Erich and encouraged him to also pursue a military career. In November 1914 Erich von Zalewski volunteered for the Prussian army, becoming one of the youngest recruits and served there until the end of World War I. He was wounded twice, and won the Cross of Honor (Ehrenkreuz) and then Iron Cross.

After the war, he remained in the army and, among other duties, fought in the Silesian Uprisings, where he earned a reputation for courage and daring and earned additional decorations. In 1924, he transferred to the "Grenzschutz" (border guards). On October 23, 1925 he legally changed his surname to `von dem Bach-Zalewski`.

He left the "Grenzschutz" in 1930, when he joined the Nazi Party, becoming a member of the SS in 1931. He was rapidly promoted and by the end of 1933 had reached the rank of "SS-Brigadeführer". However, he quarrelled with his staff officer Anton von Hohberg und Buchwald.

A source of considerable annoyance for him was that three of his sisters married Jewish men, and in 1946 claimed under interrogation that this ruined his reputation in the army forcing him to leave the Reichswehr. This, along with his Slavic ancestry, may have driven him to ever-bloodier excesses in order to "prove himself" as a Nazi.Fact|date=April 2007

A member of the Reichstag from 1932 to 1944, he participated in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, taking the opportunity to have Anton von Hohberg und Buchwald murdered. He served in various Nazi party posts, initially in East Prussia and after 1936 in Silesia. By 1937 he had become the "Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer" ("HSSPF" - Higher SS and Police Leader) in Silesia.

World War II

After the war broke out, units under his command took part in reprisal actions and the shooting of POWs during the September Campaign, although von dem Bach was not personally present. On 7 November 1939, SS chief Heinrich Himmler offered him the post of "Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germandom" in Silesia. His duties included mass resettlements and the confiscation of private property. By August 1940, his units had forced more than 20,000 Żywiec families to leave their homes.

In late 1939, he proposed setting up a concentration camp for the non-German inhabitants in the vicinity of the town of Oświęcim. After initial reluctance, Himmler agreed to von dem Bach's suggestion; in May 1940, Auschwitz opened.

Moving up in rank

On 22 June 1941, von dem Bach-Zalewski became "HSSPF" in the region of the "Heeresgruppe Mitte" (Army Group Center); in July 1943, he became commander of the so-called "Bandenkämpfverbände" ("Band-fighting Units"), responsible for the mass murder of 35,000 civilians in Riga and more than 200,000 in Belarus and eastern Poland. The authorities designated him as the future "HSSPF" in Moscow; however, the Wehrmacht failed to take the city. Until 1943, von dem Bach-Zalewski remained the "HSSPF" in command of "anti-partisan" units on the central front, a special command created by Adolf Hitler. Von dem Bach-Zalewski has the distinction of being the only "HSSPF" in the occupied Soviet territories to retain genuine authority over the police after Hans-Adolf Prützmann and Jockeln lost theirs to the civil administration.

In February 1942, he was hospitalized, which he would later claim was due to a nervous breakdown connected with the ethnic cleansing in Belarus, especially the genocide of the Jews. Wireless intercepts decoded by British intelligence suggest, however, that his illness was strictly physical. He resumed his post in July, with no apparent reduction in his ruthlessness.

In June 1942, after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague, Adolf Hitler wanted von dem Bach-Zalewski to take Heydrich's place as Reichprotector of Bohemia and Moravia, in order to show the Czechs just how brutal Nazi rule could be. When Himmler argued that von dem Bach-Zalewski could not be spared because of the then-military situation, Hitler relented and appointed Kurt Daluege instead.

On 12 July 1943, von dem Bach-Zalewski received command of all anti-partisan actions in Belgium, Belarus, France, the General Government, the Netherlands, Norway, Ukraine, Yugoslavia, and parts of the Białystok area. In practice, his activities remained confined to Belarus and contiguous Russia.

Ruthless tactics

von dem Bach-Zalewski's tactics produced high numbers of civilian deaths and relatively minor military gains. German forces would more or less encircle partisan-controlled areas before closing in. Since deploying the necessary forces was a time-consuming and conspicuous process, the partisans would be forewarned and many would slip away, after hiding their heavier equipment and much of their supplies, while the remaining partisans would carry out a fighting withdrawal, picking off the lead German troops, often killing more men than they lost.

In the process of fighting these irregular battles, the Germans wantonly slaughtered civilians in order to inflate the figures of "enemy losses"; indeed, there were far more fatalities recorded than weapons captured. After an operation was completed, no permanent military presence would be maintained, allowing the partisans to slip back in, retrieve their hidden stocks and pick up where they had left off. On other occasions, though, the partisans would not return but begin operating where they had retreated to before the operation. Even when successful, von dem Bach-Zalewski was not accomplishing much more than forcing the partisans to relocate periodically.

Fighting on the front line

In 1944, he took part in front-line fighting in the Kovel area, but in March had to go to Germany for medical treatment. Himmler assumed all his posts.

On 2 August 1944, he took command of all troops fighting against the Warsaw Uprising as "Korpsgruppe Bach". Units under his command killed approximately 200,000 civilians (more than 65,000 in mass executions) and an unknown number of POWs. After more than two months of heavy fighting and the total destruction of Warsaw he finally managed to control the city. For his actions in Warsaw von dem Bach-Zalewski was awarded on September 30, 1944, the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross by the Nazi-regime.

Between 26 January and 10 February 1945, von dem Bach-Zalewski commanded "X SS Armeekorps", one of the "paper-corps", in Germany. His unit, however, suffered annihilation after less than two weeks.

Awards

* Iron Cross (WWI))
* German Cross (23 February 1942)
* Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (September 30, 1944)

After the war

Von dem Bach-Zalewski went into hiding and tried to leave the country. However, US military police arrested him on 1 August 1945. In exchange for his testimony against his former superiors at the Nuremberg Trials, von dem Bach-Zalewski never faced trial for any war crimes. Similarly, he never faced extradition to Poland or to the USSR. He left prison in 1949.

In 1951, von dem Bach-Zalewski claimed that he had helped Hermann Göring commit suicide in 1946. As evidence, he produced cyanide capsules to the authorities with serial numbers not far removed from the one used by Göring. The authorities never verified von dem Bach-Zalewski's claim, however, and did not charge him with aiding Göring's death. Most modern day historians dismiss von dem Bach-Zalewski's claim and agree that a U.S. Army contact within the Palace of Justice's prison at Nuremberg most likely aided Göring in his suicide. [" [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4247069.stm Guard 'gave Goering suicide pill'] ", BBC News, February 8, 2005.]

Also in 1951, von dem Bach-Zalewski received a sentence of ten years in a labor camp for the murder of political opponents in the early thirties; however, he did not serve time until 1958, when he was convicted of killing Anton von Hohberg und Buchwald, an SS officer, during the Night of the Long Knives and was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment. In 1961, he received an additional sentence of ten years in home custody for the murder of ten German Communists in the early 1930s. None of the sentences referred to his role in the East and his participation in the , though he openly admitted to having murdered Jews. He died in a Munich prison on 8 March 1972.

It has been said that Hitler particularly admired von dem Bach-Zalewski's ruthlessness and ingenuity, describing him as "so clever he can do anything, get around anything."

Notes and references

::In-line:::General:
* cite book | author =Władysław Bartoszewski | coauthors = | title =Prawda o von dem Bachu (Truth on von dem Bach)| year =1961 | editor = | pages =103 | chapter = | chapterurl = | publisher =Wydawnictwo Zachodnie | location =Poznań | id = | url = | format = | accessdate =
* cite book | author =Marek Dzięcielski | coauthors = | title =Pomorskie sylwetki (Pomeranian Biographies) | year =2002 | editor = | pages =221-233 | chapter = | chapterurl = | publisher =Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek | location =Toruń | id =ISBN 8373224912 | url = | format = | accessdate =
* cite journal | author =Tomasz Żuroch-Piechowski | year = | month = | title =Eryk z Bogdańca, niewinny w Norymberdze | journal =Tygodnik Powszechny | volume =39/2006 | issue =2006-09-24 | pages = | id = | url =http://tygodnik2003-2007.onet.pl/3229,12454,1361279,tematy.html | format = Dead link|date=June 2008 – ^{[http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=intitle%3AEryk+z+Bogda%C5%84ca%2C+niewinny+w+Norymberdze&as_publication=%5B%5BTygodnik+Powszechny%5D%5D&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&btnG=Search Scholar search]} | accessdate =
* Patzwall, Klaus D. and Scherzer, Veit. "Das Deutsche Kreuz 1941 - 1945 Geschichte und Inhaber Band II". Norderstedt, Germany: Verlag Klaus D. Patzwall, 2001. ISBN 3-931533-45-X.

* Blood, Philip W. - Hitler's Bandit Hunters - The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe. Potomac Books Inc. 2006

ee also

*Ex-Nazis and List of former Nazis influential after 1945
* Geneva Convention
* Third Reich
* Warsaw Uprising
* Warsaw Uprising Atrocities