Alleged massacre of POWs at Webling

[Panzermahn]

Guten Tag Rudi,

I saw the list of names that the majority are from the Waffen SS. How did the ICRC or the German War Graves commission wrote about the deaths of these men to their relatives?

Rudi,

could you PM me? would like to discuss you for additional material into our book...Thanks!

[Timo]

Nachname: Freiherr von Truchsess
Vorname: Veit Heinrich
Dienstgrad: Hauptsturmführer
Geburtsdatum: 06.04.1902
Geburtsort: Saarburg
Todes-/Vermisstendatum: 29.04.1945
Todesort: nicht verzeichnet
Veit Heinrich Freiherr von Truchsess ruht auf der Kriegsgräberstätte in Augsburg-Westfriedhof (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) .
Endgrablage: Reihe 3 Grab 506

Nachname: Eckert
Vorname: Gustav
Dienstgrad: Oberscharführer
Geburtsdatum: 12.01.1908
Geburtsort: Wien
Todes-/Vermisstendatum: 29.04.1945
Todesort: nicht verzeichnet
Gustav Eckert ruht auf der Kriegsgräberstätte in Augsburg-Westfriedhof (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) .
Endgrablage: Block 1 Grab 42

Nachname: Kalweit
Vorname: Karl-Heinz
Dienstgrad: Obergefreiter
Geburtsdatum: 23.10.1924
Geburtsort: Berlin
Todes-/Vermisstendatum: 30.04.1945
Todesort: nicht verzeichnet
Karl-Heinz Kalweit ruht auf der Kriegsgräberstätte in Berlin-Neuk.-St.Thomas Friedhof (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) .
Endgrablage: Block 1 Grab 18

Nachname: Hilgenfeld
Vorname: Richard
Dienstgrad: Unterscharführer
Geburtsdatum: 04.04.1901
Geburtsort: Staßfurt
Todes-/Vermisstendatum: 29.04.1945
Todesort: nicht verzeichnet
Richard Hilgenfeld ruht auf der Kriegsgräberstätte in Augsburg-Westfriedhof (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) .
Endgrablage: Reihe 1 Grab 273

and so on...

BTW, note that many of them were quite old

[David Thompson]

Thank you, Timo, for those details.

[Arminiusder Cherusker1]

Timo, thnak you for helping too.
I didn't want to post more than the names.
As I mentioned before, this unit wasn't aregular unit from a Division or a Regiment.The members were drawn somewhere around München and were one of the so called Kampfgruppe, but most of them had a rank of the Waffen-SS.
Rudi

[Arminiusder Cherusker1]

Joachim,

I don't know who informed the relatives.
I have a copy of a letter from the mayor of Dachau, dated 30.10.1945 to Frau Aloisia Ostertag,living in Augsburg, where he tells the widow, that her husband Georg J. Ostertag got killed in action near Dachau and was buried in a massgrave.
He could give this information because a farmer in Webling had taken the Wehrpasses of some soldiers.
/Rudi

[Lipton]

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 Airborne 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 daylight " 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.

If you read the book you should know that on D-day Germans were comitting attrocities as well. They were bayoneting and slicing throats of paratroopers that get knotted into their parachutes and were unable to fight. Lt. Colonel Wolverton from 506. P.I.R. is a good example. While trying to get from his parachute a German soldier ran to him and sliced his throat. For the next days all of the Germans that were passing his body were using it as a target and firing on it.

During the battle of the bulge there were masacress of U.S. paras as well. A field hospital near Sprimont was ambushed by a German assault group. All of the medics, armored infantry and tank crews were captured but paratroopers, many of them wounded, have their throats sliced. Read Seven Roads to Hell for more info.

Sorry for off-topic.

[Arminiusder Cherusker1]

Hi Lipton,
could you please tell me the page where is something written about Peterson? I didn't find it.
Regards
Rudi

[Lipton]

Hi Lipton,
could you please tell me the page where is something written about Peterson? I didn't find it.
Regards
Rudi

It´s not in the book. It was mentioned on this 101st Division forum. And sorry for mistake, his name was Wolverton not Peterson: http://forums.wildbillguarnere.com/inde ... topic=5487

[Arminiusder Cherusker1]

Thanks a lot, now I know where to look for.
BTW, I have written a pn to you.
Regards
Rudi

[Arminiusder Cherusker1]

This is the memorial at Webling

[Arminiusder Cherusker1]

Sorry, the "Dachauer Nachrichten" of that time are not available on micro-film. You are only allowed to read the paper in the redaction and you are not alowed to make a copy. So I try to post the only (old) copy I possess and hope that somebody may translate it.
Best Regards
Rudi

[Rob - wssob2]

Hi Rudi - you may want to zoom in on the new clipping text and rescan the image. It's pretty much impossible to read right now. All I could make out was something about climbing the webling church, seeing an execution of "20 to 30 men. They wore SS uniforms" and something about a Captain Bird.

Note that the webpage for the "Dachauer Nachrichten" is located at
http://www.merkur-online.de/regionen/dachau/index.html

re not available on micro-film. You are only allowed to read the paper in the redaction and you are not alowed to make a copy.

Why not? That seems weird.

Frau Aloisia Ostertag,living in Augsburg, where he tells the widow, that her husband Georg J. Ostertag got killed in action near Dachau and was buried in a massgrave.

Does "killed in action" = "executed"?

I saw the list of names that the majority are from the Waffen SS.

Joachim - how do you figure that? If these guys are W-SS, they must be from the Gruppenfuhrer Grandpa Brigade. Their average age is 36. There are at least two 55-year old SS sergeants. Veit Heinrich Truchsess von Wetzhausen is listed as "SS-Sturmbannführer beim RuS-Hauptamt and SS-Hauptsturmführer der Reserve (Waffen-SS)" i.e. "SS-Major with the Empire Office of Reich Security and a Captain of the Reserve (Armed-SS)" - his primary rank (and thus role) was with the SS internal security department. This would make sense, given the other evidence that this guy was working for the Munich HSSPF office.

44-year-old soldiers with the rank of private doesn't sound like Waffen-SS to me. The majority of these guys were probably overage Allgemeine-SS either working as a security detail for the HSSPF or called up in the last weeks of the war.

[/quote]would like to discuss you for additional material into our book[/quote]

Joachim - I forgot - is your book about documented war crimes or just a "best of" collection of accusations? You seem remarkably willing to accept this allegation as fact. Guess you're not a big fan of "innocent until presumed guilty"

[Arminiusder Cherusker1]

Hi Rob, thanks for your advice.
I beg your pardon, I couldn't make it better because the original copy is bad too and if I zoom it you can't read anything.
I wrote to the "Dachauer Nachrichten" again and hope that they will help me in this case.
I think you are right about the age of those soldiers. I believe that they were drawn in the last days like Volkssturm so it was more a unit like Volkssturm and not Waffen-SS., but they were in SS-uniforms and the WASt named all of them as members of the Waffen-SS.

/Rudi

[Rudi S.]

Vor 30 Jahren (printed by Dachauer Nachrichten on 10 May 1975 from a recorded interview):
Exekution in Webling
Georg Scherer aus Dachau berichtet:Vor dem Einmarsch der Amerikaner gab es folgende Situation: Es wurde bekannt daß das Lager evakuiert wird. Die Parole wurde ausgestreut, "auf einem Marsch durch eine Stadt oder Ortschaft flüchten". Alle wußten daß Evakuierung eine Liquidierung bedeute. Es ist nicht dazu gekommen. Zehn bis 15 Häftlinge sind aber von den Außenkommandos geflüchtet.
Wir hatten eine kleine Widerstandsgruppe mit folgendem Ziel:
a) Unterstützung der Häftlinge, die evakuiert werden;
b) Verhinderung der Sprengung der Amperbrücke.
Nun kam in Münche die Affäre Gernegroß. Wir nutzen die Gelegenheit und die kleine Gruppe besetzte das Tathaus. Vergessen aber wurde die Kreisleitung. Sie hat nun die SS verständigt, die mit Panzern anrückte. Wir sind geflüchtet. Vier oder 5 Männer waren noch im Rathaus. Sie wurden erwischt und erschossen.
In der Früh um 8 oder 9 Uhr hatten wir das Rathaus besetzt und den Volkssturm nach Hause geschickt. Das waren zwei Hundertschaften, die zur Verteidigung antreten sollten. Sie sind aber mit Freuden heimgegangen.
Folglich ist die Verteidigung der Stadt Dachau durch die Auflösung des Volkssturms schon vom Start weg unterbunden gewesen.
Anderntags habe ich erlebt, ich war ins Pellheimer Ka(?) geflüchtet, daß es tatsächlich noch Leute in den Schützengräben gab, die die Stadt verteidigen wollten. Die SS war geflüchtet. Vom Wald aus sah ich, wie die Männer aus den Schützengräben herauskamen und sich den Amerikanern ergaben.
Im Laufe des Nachmittags ließen mich die Amerikaner holen. Wer das veranlaßt hat, habe ich nie erfahren. Ich lief also über einen Berg am Pellheimer Kai(?), sah ein angeschossenes Pferd und wollte helfen.
Am Ranken zur Weblinger Kirche erlebte ich dann die Exekution von 20 bis 30 Männern. Sie trugen SS Uniformen. Ich bin dann ins Rathaus in Dachau gekommen und niemand war mehr da. Auch nicht Hans Zauner(?).
Ein, zwei Tage war ich allein als Bürgermeister und dann kam ein neuer Bürgermeister, der Dr. L. geheißen hat. Er war der erste Bürgermeister. Später stellte sich heraus, daß er ebenfalls ein Nazi war.
Die beiden amerikanischen Stadt- und Lagerkommandanten Captain Bird und Wendig waren, soweit ich das beurteilen kann, sehr anständige Menschen. Daß sie Häuser, Radios und anderes verlangten, was eine Besatzungsmacht braucht, ist nicht verwunderlich.
(Im folgenden Bericht: Wie die Stadt Dachau die Versorgung der Häftlinge bewältigte.)
I hope that this will be helpful.
Greetings and salutations,
Rudi S.

[Georg_S]

In reflection of have reading this thread and many others (more recently warcrimes comitted by 5.SS-Pz.Div. "Wiking") and the massacre of the SS soldiers in KL Dachau + many more. I have started to wonder why it´s big differences between source of witnesses and proof who comitted what, when and how. If it´s a crime comitted by the SS (in all aspect) just a witness is Ok as evidence, but if the crime is against soldiers of the SS (all branches) is not one witness enough many still ask for more evidences, and if more witnesses is made in public it´s still not enough, then the crowd ask for mor evidence such as documents as example.

In especielly three occasions I have great doubts of what really happened.

1. La Paradise ( 2 survivors) was enough to hang SS-Ostubaf Fritz Knöchlein, even that the court admitted that the English might have used Dum Dum bullets Knöchlein couldn´t provide evidence of that (La Paradise occasion happened in 1940 his trial was held in 1947). Knöchleins whole witness was rejected and he was condemned and hanged.

2. The massacre of the SS soldiers in KL Dachau and Übungslager Dachau / Hospital. two witnesses for the Germans are produced 1 German and one US soldier (even if he is declared as lier of the US) I have a witness from the Rainbow division which admits that his comrades in the Division comitted summarily executions of the Soldier and that the Soldiers they met was ordinary combat soldiers of the Waffen-SS, I have published some parts of his mail to me in the thread of the MAssacre of SS soldiers at KL Dachau. He also admitts that later they got aware that the soldiers hadn´t anything to do with the camp until its last week. I have published photos of dead SS-soldiers/wehrmacht at the KL dachau even one with a cuffband of the "Grossdeutschland" Division. (Coalyard) All other is denying that it was so many soldiers as they say who got killed (only 50-60 soldiers was killed). But who have testified about this ?? yes those who was the perpitrators. Good evidence.....

3. Webling. Even if several witnesses are produced who says what really happened, many still ask fro more proof, and even tries to judge the soldiers (because of age) etc. or their previous service (amt service) as one wrote the last month hte Forces in Germany was in Chaos, and every soldier (clerks, nachschub soldiers etc) was brought to the front into Kampfgruppen or lose formations of soldiers. Just to prevent the allied and the russians to go deeper into Germany.

many other crimes agains SS-soldiers was comitted during the war, we have seen a lot of evidence of that, Fürbringens book about the Hohenstaufen publish several photos of tied and mutilated soldiers of the Hohenstaufen (1944) Checkz killed thousand of Germans after the war, especially SS soldiers had it very difficult, there is a webpage with several witnesses telling their story how the last weeks after the war was in Chzeckien. But that is negligated.

The Russians behavoir during the war, of executions of SS-soldiers (of all ranks).

The summarily act of the Allied to shoot SS prisoners. Many evidence of that, even the US ( GB and French) vets admitts that it was what they did. Even before Malmedy.

General Leclercs act of summarily shot Waffen-SS soldiers of French origin. without trial.

I am well aware that the SS commited several crimes against their opponents, but many of you must also admitt that in the ranks of Allied and Russian forces have it´s black cheaps.

"If you are free of guilt you can throw the first rock"

//Georg