SS-Sonderkommando R
SS-Sonderkommando R
Anyone have info and make-up of this unit. It was used to expel/resettle people in Ukraine and Belorussia.
Thanks
Thanks
Re: SS-Sonderkommando R
Some information regarding Horst Hoffmeyer here: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=77633
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Re: SS-Sonderkommando R
Add info
K.Wildenstein - he fought in the Sonderkommando "R'
K.Wildenstein - he fought in the Sonderkommando "R'
Re: SS-Sonderkommando R
I have the Kommandobuch for SS-Ostuf. Bangert, attached to Hauptamt Volksd. Mittelst. -Sonderkommando Rußland - in January 1942.
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Re: SS-Sonderkommando R
Hello,
How can one trace more information on 2 other Sonderkommando R members?
Heinrich Zabinski
Heinrich Boltz
Thank you and Merry Christmas!
How can one trace more information on 2 other Sonderkommando R members?
Heinrich Zabinski
Heinrich Boltz
Thank you and Merry Christmas!
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Re: SS-Sonderkommando R
Good morning.
Thank you for the attachments, amazing how you located them!
Thank you for the attachments, amazing how you located them!
Re: SS-Sonderkommando R - Heinrich Boltz
SS-Hstuf. Heinrich Boltz (*14.06.11 Lodz)huddyhuddy wrote: ↑24 Dec 2019, 14:45How can one trace more information on 2 other Sonderkommando R members?
Heinrich Boltz
https://www.emedals.com/germany-ss-a-ko ... ttelstelle
Regards Puck
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Re: SS-Sonderkommando R
Thank you, already saw this.
I am thinking more on personal files of the individuals, if possible...
I am thinking more on personal files of the individuals, if possible...
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Re: SS-Sonderkommando R
There is an interesting thesis on Sonderkommando R here :
https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/concern/dissertations/bk128c04n
CREATING KILLERS: THE NAZIFICATION OF THE BLACK SEA GERMANS AND
THE HOLOCAUST IN SOUTHERN UKRAINE, 1941-1944
Eric Conrad Steinhart
excerpts :
Same author also published this ;
The Holocaust and the Germanization of Ukraine
https://www.bookdepository.com/Holocaus ... 513&sr=1-1
A different author also has this available on the web :
Das Sonderkommando „R“ der „Volksdeutschen Mittelstelle“ der SS in Transnistrien
1941-1944
Von Klaus Popa
Excerpt :
Finally this recent podcast may be interesting to some :
https://anno-punktpunktpunkt.de/074-das ... -1941-1944
https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/concern/dissertations/bk128c04n
CREATING KILLERS: THE NAZIFICATION OF THE BLACK SEA GERMANS AND
THE HOLOCAUST IN SOUTHERN UKRAINE, 1941-1944
Eric Conrad Steinhart
excerpts :
p.86"Ethnic Germans, whom the VoMi had relocated to Germany in earlier population
transfers from Eastern Europe, constituted a disproportionate number of Sonderkommando
R‘s officers. The reasons for this were two-fold. First, as non-German citizens,
Volksdeutsche could not be conscripted for Wehrmacht service and were a group that SS
recruiters earmarked to fill their bottomless manpower needs. Given that ethnic Germans
received SS commissions commensurate with their participation in right-wing völkisch
organizations abroad during the interwar period, they constituted a particularly ideologically
committed group of SS officers. Second, the SS appears to have selected Eastern European
Volksdeutsche with esoteric language skills for Sonderkommando R. "
p101"Sonderkommando R’s Rank-and-File Personnel
In contrast to Sonderkommando R‘s leaders or its specialized female employees, the
unit‘s rank and file generally had a significantly lower commitment to the Nazi cause. As it
had in the VoMi‘s earlier ―resettlement‖ campaigns, the NSKK contributed a remarkably high
proportion of Sonderkommando R‘s personnel. Numbering some 150 members on the eve of
the unit‘s deployment to Transnistria and growing steadily thereafter, Sonderkommando R‘s
NSKK complement comprised between one third and one half of the Hoffmeyer
Sonderkommando‘s staff.275
Although the NSKK was the second largest Nazi party mass
organization, in which more than half a million Germans claimed membership by July 1941,"
p132"Siebert then divided the bulk of his
staff into eighteen four- to five-man Bereichkommandos. Commanded by a midlevel SS
officer, the Bereichkommandoführer, these subunits mixed SS and NSKK personnel, the
latter of which were responsible for driving and maintaining the handful of vehicles assigned
to each Bereichkommando.358
On Siebert‘s orders, these Bereichkommandos established
outposts throughout Transnistria in the predominately ethnic German towns of
Alexanderfeld, Anam, Bischofsfeld, Groß Liebenthal, Halberstadt, Hoffnungsthal, Janovski,
Johannisfeld, Lichtenfeld, Mannheim, Marianburg, Neudorf, Rastatt, Rosenfeld, Selz,
Speyer, and Worms as well as in the city of Odessa.359
"
p139-p140"Despite implausible postwar remonstrations from Sonderkommando R‘s former
personnel,382 the ―Jewish question‖ was far from solved when SS-Hauptsturmführer
Weingärtner383 and his subordinates, SS-Obersturmführer Konrad Hoffmann,384 SSOberscharführer Alexander Lerche,385 NSKK chauffeur Hermann J.,
386 established their
Bereichkommando in Hoffnungsthal the following month. When Weingärtner and his staff
arrived in Hoffnungsthal, the town appears to have had an unusually high number of
surviving Jews for two reasons. First, it appears likely that Einsatzgruppe D‘s earlier sweep
had focused on Freiburg, a predominantly Jewish village of roughly 100 residents some three
kilometers away, and thus overlooked many of Hoffnungstal‘s Jewish residents.387
Second,
postwar evidence suggests that Einsatzgruppe D‘s initial killings shocked area Volksdeutsche,
who had hidden surviving local Jews from the SS. August F., a local resident whom
Einsatzgruppe D ordered to serve in the burial detail, recounted being ―full of fear‖ at the sight of the corpses and having been unable to eat for days after the shootings.388
Adolf W.,
another denizen of Hoffnungsthal, recounted how the community was ―not in agreement‖
with the killings.389
Both popular and private disdain for the murders moved Hoffnungsthal‘s
newly appointed mayor, Gottlieb B., to shelter the town‘s remaining Jews from the SS.
When Weingärtner discovered B.‘s efforts on behalf of his Jewish neighbors, he sacked B. in
favor to another local resident, who was seemingly more sympathetic to the Nazi agenda.390
B.‘s advanced age apparently spared him from a harsher punishment.391
The Jews whom he
attempted to help, however, were not so lucky. Witness accounts describe how Weingärtner‘s
subordinates rounded up the surviving members of the town‘s ten to fifteen Jewish families
and executed them on Hoffnungstal‘s environs.392
Many local ethnic Germans appear to
have reacted equally negatively to this subsequent round of killing. As Heinrich F., aged
fourteen in 1941, later recounted: ―as a boy I was really shocked [by the shootings], because
the Jewish children, with whom we had been together, suddenly were no longer among us.393
In a pattern that replicated itself in many of Transnistria‘s Volksdeutsche settlements,
Sonderkommando R‘s initial responsibilities involved murdering local Jews who, often with
the assistance of area ethnic Germans, had eluded Einsatzgruppe D.39"
Same author also published this ;
The Holocaust and the Germanization of Ukraine
https://www.bookdepository.com/Holocaus ... 513&sr=1-1
A different author also has this available on the web :
Das Sonderkommando „R“ der „Volksdeutschen Mittelstelle“ der SS in Transnistrien
1941-1944
Von Klaus Popa
Excerpt :
p1"Das Datum der ersten „Dienstanweisung“ des SS-Standartenführers Hoffmeyer, der 22.
September 1941,5 deutet an, dass das Sonderkommando „R“ der VoMi6 bereits vor diesem
Zeitpunkt in Transnistrien Quartier bezogen hatte. Die in Abschrift bzw. als Originalkopien
erhaltenen „Rundanweisungen“ und „Stabsbefehle“ des Kommandos belegen, dass Transnistrien
in „Bereichskommandos“ eingeteilt wurde, wobei der Wirkungskreis des Kommandos
„R“ zunächst die Bereichskommandos 11-27 umfaste.7 Die Bereichskommandos (BKs)
werden mit ihren Hauptorten auf der „Rundanweisung Nr.9“, “Skizze der Reiterstafettenverbindung“
vom 18. November 1941 festgehalten.8 Hier die Auflistung:
BK 11 Rastadt; BK 12 Halbstadt; BK 13 Helenental; BK 14 Worms; BK 15 Mannheim; BK
16 Rosenfeld; BK 17 Alexanderfeld; BK 18 Speier; BK 19 Hoffnungstal; BK. 20 Lichtenfeld;
BK 21 Freidorf; BK 22 Sebastianfeld; BK 23 Selz; Bk. 24 Neudorf; BK 25 Odessa; BK. 26
Ananjew; BK 27 – Marienberg; Landau Hauptstadt. Diese Gliederung blieb bis zum Abzug
des Einsatzkommandos „R“ im März 1944 in Kraft. Allerdings erfuhr sie eine zeitweise Erweiterung.
Die „Rundanweisung Nr. 65“ vom 20. August 1942 führt auch das BK. 34 im
Verteiler an, und die „Rundanweisung Nr. 98“ vom 21. März 1943 fügt auch das BK. 41 hinzu.
9 Ab dem 18. April 1943 (Stabsbefehl Nr. 102) kommen die Bereichskommandos (BKs)
20a; 44 (Krim) und 45 (Krim-Taurien) hinzu.10"
Finally this recent podcast may be interesting to some :
https://anno-punktpunktpunkt.de/074-das ... -1941-1944
Re: SS-Sonderkommando R
Sonderkommando R:
Obergruppenführer Lorenz
Oberführer Hoffmeyer
Standartenführer Ellermeyer
Sturmbannführer Karl Goetz
Hauptsturmführer Knuth
Obergruppenführer Lorenz
Oberführer Hoffmeyer
Standartenführer Ellermeyer
Sturmbannführer Karl Goetz
Hauptsturmführer Knuth