On 29th April 1945 43 soldiers of the Waffen-SS under command of SS-Hauptsturmführer Freiherr Veit-Heinrich Truchsess von Wetzhausen were killed on the ground of family Furthmayr in Webling Nr. 6, killed by GI's from 42th Inf.Regiment.
Freiherr Veit-Heinrich Truchsess von Wetzhausen a.k.a. Freiherr von Truchsess is the SS officer who died at the Furthmayr farm in Webling.
Forum member Rouille posted some biographical information on Freiherr von Truchsess at
at
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=261007
Rouille’s post includes the line
b.HSSPF München in 2.45
The “b” in this case is most likely the German abbreviation for “beim “, or “with” - thus the notation is “with HSSPF Munich Feb 1945”
Kurt Mehner’s
Die Waffen-SS und Polizei list him as commanding the 5th Squadron of the SS-Kavallerie Brigade from Feb to July, 1941. If anyone has access to John Moore’s CD, I’d welcome them to post whatever additional biographical data they can find on this officer.
So in Feb 1945, 2-3 months prior to the events at Webling, Freiherr von Truchsess was assigned to the HSSPF (Higher SS and Police Leader) command system. This is the last command assignment that we know of to date for this officer.
The HSSPF system was a regionally based subset of the larger SS internal security organization. Each regional command had a commander who reported directly to Himmler. The HSSPF headquarters for Wehrkreis VII was located at München 2, Ettstr. 4/11. (see p. A4 of Axis Europa’s
The German Police
The commander of HSSPF Wehrkreis VII was a guy named Friedrich Karl Freiherr von Eberstein - there’s some biographical info available on him in the book
Die Generale der Waffen-SS und der Polizei volume 1 (Abraham - Gutenberger) by Andreas Schulz and Günter Wegmann
The HSSPF command structure isn’t normally considered part of the Waffen-SS. If Freiherr von Truchsess was still assigned to HSSPF München on April 29, 1945, then he was probably commanding SS soldiers assigned to the HSSPF as opposed to a W-SS unit. That seems more likely, although it is thoretically possible that he could have commanded a scratch unit of W-SS troops or W-SS/HSSPF or any other myriad of permutations.
Following DT’s lead, I too would like to see a list of the 43 SS troops killed in and around the Furthmayr farm. The more we know about these troops, the better we will be able to attempt a reconstruction as to the events at Webling.
They were murdered after they had surrendered. I don't need Mollo or somebody else, it is a fact.
No, it is not a fact. The HWC rules at
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=47046 clearly state
If a poster raises a question about the events, other posters may answer the question with evidence. If a poster stops asking questions and begins to express a point of view, he then becomes an advocate for that viewpoint. When a person becomes an advocate, he has the burden of providing evidence for his point of view. If he has no evidence, or doesn't provide it when asked, it is reasonable for the reader to conclude that his opinion or viewpoint is uninformed and may fairly be discounted or rejected.
The claim of a massacre will be more credible if we can find additional sources that provide more information. The origin of this incident as war crime seems to be Andrew Mollo’s 1980 article for the Dachau issue of
After the Battle magazine. As I pointed out in my post, I think Mollo made a lot of assumptions and speculations – too many to definitely claim this incident was a war crime - and have provided reasons why I question this claim at
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=365309
I will find your claim of the Webling incident as war crime creditable if you can provide additional information to support it.
It is true, there were french POW's working on that farm who spoke to the GI's, but tell me, who will remember the names of this POW's after that long time? They were called by the first name, an experience I made on other places too.
I would like to see additional biographical information on these French POWs. What happened to them? Were they from the Dachau KZ? Where did they go after the war? Did any of them leave a written account of the events at Webling? Are there any 42nd Div reports that mention them? They are tracable, especially if they were POWs, DPs and/or affiliated in any way with the Dachau KZ. There’s an entire international tracing service which gathers and maintains information on former KZ inmates.
BTW, Johann Furthmayr senior wasn't shot ,he died long time later in his bed.
Mollo’s article which states on p. 31
Having lost one of their comrades the Americans were in a foul mood when they entered the farmyard. The first German to clamber out of the cellar and approach the American soldiers was the owner of the farm, Herr Furtmayer, but the suspicious and edgy Americans shot him on sight.
So was Herr Johann Furthmayr senior the owner of the farm on April 29, 1945?
Was he shot by US GI’s? Who was the owner of the farm shot by GI’s, if not Herr Furthmayr? Andrew Mollo interviewed a “young man” and “an elderly Bavarian farmer eye-witness” (p29) for the 1980 article - was this Johann Furthmayr ? Then who was shot? And how did Johann Furthmayr survive? In addition, did anyone of the Furthmayr ever write about their perspective of what happened? Lodge a complaint with the US Army? All we have are secondhand accounts of a supposed summary execution.
His son and the grandson are still alive and can tell you the whole incident.If you take a trip to Dachau you may visit the farmers and speak to them, they will tell you what happened on their ground.
So how many German farmers were there who witnessed this incident? Are the son and grandson repeating a story passed down?
Then you may visit the little memorial, build on the place the massacre happened.
I have a list of the 43 killed members of the Waffen-SS and this list is provided by DRK, Standesamt Dachau und Wehrmachts-Auskunftsstelle.
The bodies got buried in a massgrave, later they were brought to Schwab-stadl, Augsburg and at least some of them buried in their hometowns.
You can get the list at Standesamt Dachau.
There is no doubt that German troops were killed in a firefight at Webling. Perhaps some - or even all? - of these 43 men were killed in combat as opposed to executed?
Georg Scherer, a former inmate of KZ Dachau wrote in "Dachauer Nach-richten from 10th May 1975, that he witnessed near the Webling-church the execution of about 20 - 30 men, they were SS-men.
Georg Scherer (1906-1985) was a German and former KZ inmate of Dachau who later became the mayor of the town. Here’s some links on him:
http://members.aol.com/zbdachau/fates/ger/scherer.htm
http://www.effner.de/haeftlinge/scherer.htm
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScr ... edhof.html
Scherer was involved in the ill-fated KZ inmate/Dachau civilian rebellion on April 28 1945 see -
http://members.aol.com/zbdachau/history/eng4.htm
along with a guy named Walter Neff. A translated version of Neff’s testimony about the uprising is at
Link
Basically, the uprising quickly failed, with SS troops (often described as coming from the KZ) crushing the resistance and leaving the bodies of several of the rebels in front of the town hall as a warning (see Marcuse’s
Legacies of Dachau)
“Dachauer Nach-richten” I assume refers to the town newspaper. I’d like to see the May 10th 1975 article which supposedly has Scherer claiming to have witnessed the massacre of SS troops at Webling on the 29th.
The mention of Georg Scherer is interesting since he was one of the rebels for the ill-fated Dachau uprising. It makes me wonder if there is some other connection between Scherer and SS troops possibly associated with HSSPF München. It would totally make sense if HSSPF troops put down the Dachau rebellion as part of their internal security mandate. Perhaps Freiherr von Truchsess was looking for rebel Scherer in Webling. Guess we’ll have to read the May 1975 article to find out!
Even Rob will think that a former KZ-inmate would not lie.
Multiple sources make evidence more reliable. Andrew Mollo relied heavily on former KZ inmate Nerin Gun’s account of the liberation -
The Day of the Americans - which is unfortunate because Gun’s 1966 book has multiple inaccuracies which Mollo perpetuates in 1980 and Howie Buechner repeates in 1986 in his book
The Hour of the Avenger
I am sure that it wasn't necessary for the involved GI's to be "sick of war",they had orders to kill prisoners long time before.
OK. Burden of proof time. Show me orders from a subcomponent of the US 42nd ID issued on or around April 29, 1945 that specifically state Rainbowmen were no to take prisoners.
Look at the famous book "BAND OF BROTHERS" by Stephen E. Ambrose and you will see, that the GI'S of the E Company 506th Reg. 101st Air-
borne were not sick of war when they jumped on D-Day over Normandy
and her General Maxwell Taylor told them "to fight with knives until day-
light " and "don't take any prisoners"(page 65), on page 67 "Joe Toye recalled Lt. Meehan coming over to his place to tell the men:"No prison-ers, we are not taking any prisoners!"and so on , see pages 206, 207,218 and some more.
Dachau scrapbook makes pretty much the same allegation on
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScr ... cre03.html
I suppose you’re attempting to demonstrate an overall criminal intent by linking 2 completely separate units in completely different campaigns almost 11 months apart. The US army took hundreds of thousands of Germans POWs - yes even W-SS men- from June 1944 to May 1945. Allegations against the 506th PIR in June 1944 do not implicate the 222nd IR of criminal activity on April 29th 1945.
The Webling-warcrime account as provided by Duncan does specify a GI from company F as being killed by the SS troops at Webling, which is an interesting additional bit of information not mentioned by Mollo. I wonder where he got it?
Regarding company F, I wanted to include a couple excerpts from the book
Dachau 29 April 1945: The Rainbow Division Memoirs, which a compilation of interviews with 100-odd members of the 42nd Infantry Division around the time of the liberation of Dachau. I wanted to see if I could find any recollections that may concern the Webling incident. I didn’t find any “smoking gun” admissions of shooting POWs, nor any accounts that specifically mentioned Webling. But here are the ones that might describe the incident documented in the Signal Corps photos that Andrew Mollo wrote about:
Lt. Col. Donald E. Downard, CO, 2nd Battalion, 222nd IR - p 74:
”...Earlier that day, we were about six kilometers from Dachau, when one of my sargeants brought a civilian to me who said there was a large Concentration Camp. I’d was the first I’d ever heard of Dachau. I passed the word along to my Companies that a) I’d received the report b) it might not be true; c) it could be a trap, and d) if true, care must be taken because of possible disease, etc. At any rate, I moved quickly toward Dachau along a country road with my lead rifle company F, 222d, and my attached Tank Destroyer Platoon (2nd Platoon, A Company, 692d Tank Destroyer Battalion). We were well within my assigned zone of attack. We came under small arms fire at the foot of a long, not too steep hill. We halted, dispersed, and dispatched the offending Krauts, about a platoon, maybe two. We remounted the Tank Destroyers and moved on...
Sargeant Olin L. Hawkins, F Co. 222nd IR - p79:
...It was early in the morning. We started walking down the road towards Munich. All of a sudden we got orders to “Load up!”. We loaded up on every available vehicle, and we charged ahead, hell-bent for election! The I & R (Intelligence and Reconnaissance) platoon was in front. I was platoon leader, 3rd Platoon, Company F, 2d Battalion, and our battalion commander, [Lieutenant Colonel) Downard, was leading the way. We ran into little pockets of resistance, and the I&R platoon gave them machine gun bursts and we drove right through them. The German soldiers just looked at us. They couldn’t understand it. Why we didn’t want to stop and fight?
Then, without warning, we ran into some real resistance. We stopped, we unloaded. It was, as near as I can recall, some fifty SS troops; that’s what they said there were later. We chased them into a dead end draw just outside the Dachau camp. I sent a squad to the left and a squad to the right, and we fired machine guns into them, and motars into them, and killed about two-thirds of them and took the rest prisoner...
Lt. Donald H. Hathaway, F Co. 222nd IR - p 109:
...At the time, I was a Second Lieutenant, commanding F Company. We met a lot of resistance as we approached Dachau. We engaged SS troops who were trying to slip back through our lines. There were about twenty or twenty-five of them trying to escaple the camp. One platoon of F Company took care of them in a gun battle on the outskirts of the town of Dachau...”
What’s interesting about Hawkins testimony is that his mention of a “draw” corresponds to Signal Corps photo SC271391: - this is what Mollo has to say about that photo on p 33 of
After the Battle:
”...Photo 271391 shows some SS men laying where they had fallen, roughly in a straight line. The original caption to this photo comments on the ‘unusual position of dead SS members’. It is possible that these are, in fact, the SS men which our eye witnesses remembers as having been executed in the farmyard, or it shows another group of SS men who may have been summarily shot as they prepared to surrender...”
I’ve bolded what I believe are Mollo’s conjectures as regards to the photo. The photo could just as well show SS men trapped and shot in a draw during a firefight - a scenario Mollo seemed unwilling to consider.