We already wrote in our pages about how at the end of 1944 the Germans wanted to create Polish auxiliary armed forces of up to 175,000 soldiers. It was not the first such attempt in occupied Poland. Earlier, the Nazis wanted to establish ... a highlander Waffen SS Legion.
As early as in the fall of 1939, Governor General Hans Frank asked Wacław Krzeptowski, who collaborated with Germany, to organize a highlander "honorary" guard service that would guard at his side. As he writes in his book "Goralenvolk. A story of betrayal ”Wojciech Szatkowski:
Wacław Krzeptowski and Witalis Wieder [German agent operating in Podhale before the war, who later co-created Goralenvolk - the author's footnote], who agitated among the highlanders on the above-mentioned issue even said that it would be a guard at Wawel, among others at the Marshal's tomb Poland, Józef Piłsudski .
Wacław Krzeptowski dreamed of setting up a highlander SS unit.
The above assurances and the vision of a well-paid, safe job tempted only ... six volunteers to go to Krakow. Initially, they worked for three weeks as porters and janitors in the "Pod Baranami" Hotel run by the Germans. Then they were - without asking - uniformed and incorporated into the SS "Totenkopf-Standarte" 8 regiment.
Apparently, serving in Hitler's black guard was not in the highlander nature, because after a few months only two of them remained in the ranks of this formation. Others either fled or obtained medical certificates discharging them from service.
As you can see, the first attempt to recruit highlanders to the SS unit was completely unsuccessful. This, however, did not discourage the Germans, and even less so, the collaborators operating in Podhale.
The Germans are put to the skin and want to create the Highlander Waffen SS Legion
Another approach to creating a highlander SS formation took place after the Germans began to suffer heavy losses on the Eastern Front. As early as in the summer of 1942, people began to agitate in Zakopane and Nowy Targ for joining the Highlander Legion, but also this time the response was minimal .
Theodor Eicke speaks to members of the SS Totenkopf-Standarte. Six highlanders on guard at Hans Frank at Wawel served in the 8th regiment of this unit.
In connection with the above, this topic was revisited only at the end of the year, when the campaign of distributing highlander kenkarts was held, confirming belonging to the "highlander nation" (Goralenvolk). Interestingly, the highlanders were initially supposed to report to the Ukrainian grenadier division of the Waffen SS "Galizien", which was being formed at that time!
When it did not work out, the collaborative Highlander Committee began to form an independent Waffen SS Highlander Legion, in which - according to the Germans' calculations - as many as 10,000 highlanders would serve!
As W. Szatkowski writes, the recruitment of future SS men from Podhale rested on ten recruits who traveled all over the area, agitating among the local youth. Of course, potential volunteers were promised the proverbial "golden mountains" - well-paid service in the country, release from work in the Reich, release of relatives from German prisons and camps.
There will be no SS men from highlanders
What were the effects of this action? Again, not too stunning. According to various sources, on January 8, 1943 in the room of the Hotel "Morskie Oko" at the recruitment committee appeared from 300 to 400 "volunteers" . After the medical examination, this group significantly decreased, as some of those willing to serve in the SS were simply unsuitable due to poor health. However, the Germans were stubborn and did not want to let go of the case of the highlander SS men. Those who remained - sources say about 216 volunteers - were sent for training to the SS camp in Trawniki in the pre-war Lublin voivodeship.
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At this point, it should be emphasized that the recruitment of "volunteers" and then the briefing of the recruits had a rather specific course. Well, the highlanders were completely drunk and then forcibly thrown onto the train departing from the Zakopane train station .
The soldiers of the Latvian SS Legion during the parade in November 1943. The Germans wanted to see highlanders in such uniforms, but they did not mind.
As a result, when the highlanders regained some consciousness, almost all of them - about 200 - stated that it was not for them that the service in the Highlander Legion and in the vicinity of Maków Podhalański jumped out of the moving train. Later, they had to hide for some time, and those who were caught were most often sent to forced labor in the Reich. A few even ended up in concentration camps.
Only twelve highlanders finally reached Trawniki! As if that was not enough, these survivors had a fight with the Ukrainians trained there on the first occasion. After all, only a few inhabitants of Podhale remained on the spot. We know five of them by name, they were:Marzec, Suleja, Karkosz, Mytkowicz and Duda. The rest ran away.
German version
A slightly different course of events was presented by the Higher SS and Police Commander in the General Government, Fridrich W. Krüger. In a letter sent on April 5, 1943 to the head of the SS Main Office, Gottlob Berger, he wrote that:
According to the last assurances, 410 highlanders were ready to join the Waffen SS in order to take part in the fighting at the front. Only 300 appeared before the conscription committee [...], only 154 were qualified as fit for service. Those fit for service were sent to the camp in Trawniki […].
They were to be used as guards, especially in labor camps . Only 140 "volunteers" reached Trawniki, and the SS was forced to release 21 immediately […]. Another 88 highlanders were released during the shortened training. […] 19 highlanders fled, finally […] only 12 highlanders came to the camp.
As it turned out, the highlanders completely did not want to serve in Hitler's black guard. And they were completely out of the way with the Ukrainians from the SS Galizien Division.
It is interesting to summarize the whole case by Küger who made it clear that:
Highlanders do not differ in any way from Poles, and even on the contrary, on the basis of our three and a half years of observation, they should be assessed worse than Poles. […] Since it is impossible to make highlanders even guards in the General Government, refrain from trying to incorporate them into the Waffen SS.
Thus, after several years of efforts by the Germans and the collaborators of Wacław Krzeptowski et consortes from the Legion Góralski Waffen SS nothing came out . Perhaps, however, little of this "Germanic" blood flowed in highlander veins ...
Source:
- Wojciech Szatkowski, Goralenvolk. A story of betrayal, Kanon Book and Publishing Company, 2012.