123-666: The Dirlewanger Brigade , also known as the SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger (1944), or the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS ( German : 36. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS ), or The Black Hunters ( German : Die schwarzen Jäger ), was a unit of the Waffen-SS during World War II . The unit, named after its commander Oskar Dirlewanger , consisted of convicted criminals. Originally formed from convicted poachers in 1940 and first deployed for counter-insurgency duties against
246-460: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it
369-557: A doctorate in political science in 1922, he worked at a bank and at a knitwear factory. By 1923 he had joined the Nazi Party . In 1934 he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for "contributing to the delinquency of a minor with whom he was sexually involved", and for stealing government property. The conviction led to him being expelled from the Nazi Party (but he was permitted to reapply for membership). Soon after his release, Dirlewanger
492-402: A second language , and 75–100 million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90 million people, or 16% of
615-587: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become
738-488: A "terrifying rabble" of "cut-throats, renegades, sadistic morons, and cashiered rejects from other units". Some Nazi officials romanticized the unit, viewing the men as "pure primitive German men" who were "resisting the law". During the organization's time in the Soviet Union, Dirlewanger's unit burned women and children alive, let packs of starved dogs feed on them, and injected Jewish women with strychnine . Transcripts of
861-467: A division of 4,000 men, regular army units were attached to the formation, a Grenadier regiment, a Pionier brigade, and a Panzerjäger battalion. Individual Sturmpionier demolition engineers had already been attached to the force during the fighting in Warsaw. The next day, Dirlewanger was seriously wounded in combat for the twelfth time during the counterattack to recapture the town of Sommerfeld. He
984-556: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from
1107-503: A month of fighting, the brigade suffered many casualties and was pulled back to Slovakia to refit and reorganize. In February 1945, orders were given to expand the brigade to a division but before this could begin it was sent north to the Oder-Neisse line to halt the Soviet advance. On 14 February 1945, the brigade was renamed the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS. With its expansion to
1230-453: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained
1353-679: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In
SECTION 10
#17328514531221476-630: A regiment. Over 700 men signed up as volunteers for the battalion, and most of them arrived in June 1944. Additionally, the battalion included 300 anti-communists from Soviet territory. In March 1943, together with the Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118 , carried out operations against partisans and civilians in the Smalyavichy and Lahoysk districts. It participated in the Khatyn Massacre , which
1599-493: A reputation for burying women and children alive. A witness reported "drunken soldiers practicing Caesarean sections with bayonets". During the massacres, Dirlewanger was notorious for plundering, with it being noted that, The desire to plunder . . . so great that they cut off fingers with a single blow, on which they noticed rings, so as not to waste time, they took out gold teeth with bayonets, and while plundering, out of greed, they killed each other. In what became known as
1722-475: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it
1845-580: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as
1968-596: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German
2091-546: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic
2214-472: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German
2337-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25 million speak it as
2460-520: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in
2583-595: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as
SECTION 20
#17328514531222706-559: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are
2829-442: Is located in the 'Welzheimer Wald', a forest in the north-east of Württemberg . The district of Welzheim and its surrounding villages are mainly rural and agricultural. Because of the big forest areas, the timber industry remains a big part of local business. There are many beautiful natural areas near Welzheim, including the lake 'Ebnisee' and a hiking trail 'Mühlenwanderweg' (mill hiking trail), which follows many mills located in
2952-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and
3075-587: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as
3198-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German
3321-510: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c. 1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period
3444-750: Is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ),
3567-566: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish
3690-481: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers
3813-673: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to
Dirlewanger Brigade - Misplaced Pages Continue
3936-627: The Allgemeine SS (General SS) with the rank of SS- Untersturmführer . In mid-1940, after the invasion of Poland , Berger arranged for Dirlewanger to command and train a military unit of convicted poachers for partisan-hunting ( Bandenbekämpfung ). On 23 March 1940, a department in the Ministry of Justice received a telephone call from Himmler's headquarters informing them that Adolf Hitler had decided to give "suspended sentences to so-called 'honourable poachers' and, depending on their behaviour at
4059-540: The 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division , was assigned to the Dirlewanger Brigade by Himmler as punishment for refusing to carry out orders. With his extensive combat experience, Schmedes became the unofficial advisor to Dirlewanger on front-line combat. In December, the brigade was sent to the front in Hungary. While fighting there, several new battalions made up of communist and socialist volunteers fell apart. During
4182-627: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as
4305-550: The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (modern Belarus ) was occupied in 1941 and formed part of Reichskommissariat Ostland . In this region, the unit came under the command of local HSSPF Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski . The unit resumed its so-called anti-partisan activities ( Bandenbekämpfung ), working in cooperation with the Kaminski Brigade , a militia force composed of Soviet nationals under
4428-557: The Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German
4551-522: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share
4674-417: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language
4797-514: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout
4920-724: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in
5043-706: The Nisko Plan ) in the General Government territory of German-occupied Poland . According to the historian, Matthew Cooper, "wherever the Dirlewanger unit operated, corruption and rape formed an every-day part of life and indiscriminate slaughter, beatings and looting were rife". Even within the brutal regime of the General Government concerns were raised about the unit's conduct. Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer (HSSPF) Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger eventually demanded
Dirlewanger Brigade - Misplaced Pages Continue
5166-531: The Nuremberg trials show Soviet prosecutors frequently questioning defendants accused of war crimes on the Eastern Front about their knowledge of the Dirlewanger Brigade. Heinrich Himmler noted the brutality of Dirlewanger , expressing that "The tone in the regiment is, I may say, in many cases a medieval one with cudgels and such things. If anyone expresses doubts about winning the war he is likely to fall dead from
5289-644: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c. 765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in
5412-656: The Polish resistance movement , the brigade saw service in German-occupied Eastern Europe , with an especially active role in the anti-partisan operations in Belarus . The unit is regarded as the most brutal and notorious Waffen-SS unit, with its soldiers described as the "ideal genocidal killers who neither gave nor expected quarter". The unit is regarded as the most infamous Waffen-SS unit in Poland and Belarus , and arguably
5535-533: The Slovak National Uprising began in late August 1944, the new brigade was committed to action. The brigade played a large part in putting down the rebellion by 30 October. With the outcome of the war no longer in doubt, large numbers of communist and socialist political prisoners began applying to join the unit in the hopes of defecting to the Soviets. SS- Brigadeführer Fritz Schmedes , former commander of
5658-640: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung
5781-536: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit. ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this
5904-503: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German
6027-644: The Wola massacre , RONA and Dirlewanger personnel indiscriminately massacred Polish combatants along with civilian men, women and children, in the Wola District of Warsaw . However, the role of Dirlewanger in the Wola massacre itself may have been limited in the beginning days, and Dirlewanger may not have arrived himself until the 7th of August. Up to 40,000 civilians were murdered in Wola in less than two weeks of August, including all hospital patients and staff. According to
6150-462: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from
6273-556: The 'Welzheimer Wald'. In the town itself, there are sights such as the St. Gallus Church and the town hall. The history of Welzheim reaches back to the time of the Roman Empire. Around the year 160 AD the Romans founded a colony and two forts there; linguists reconstructed their Latin name as (Castra) Valentia on the base of the town's medieval name Wallenzin first mentioned in 1181. In 1980, for
SECTION 50
#17328514531226396-737: The 73rd Waffen Grenadier Regiment of the SS within the division, was severely wounded and lost an arm during the battle in Halbe, according to former Oberst SS-Hauptsturmführer Harald Momm who commanded the II.battalion in Ehlers's regiment. Ehlers joined the unit on 15 September 1944 . Ehlers served in the SS-Totenkopfverbände as a company commander in Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Some account had him hung by his own troops and disemboweled. On 1 May 1945,
6519-400: The 800th anniversary of the founding of the city, the eastern part of the ruins was reconstructed, and in 1993 an archeological park was founded on the site. The western part of the fort was built over through the years. The history of the settlement after the fall of the Roman Empire is in darkness, until the year 1266 when Welzheim was granted city's-rights. In 1499 the church of Saint Gallus
6642-453: The Dirlewanger troops looted, gang-raped women and children, played 'bayonet catch' with live babies and tortured captives by hacking off their arms, dousing them with petrol and setting them alight to run flaming down the street. The soldiers' behaviour was so bad that even Himmler became alarmed. He ordered a battalion of SS military policemen to stand by, in case the Dirlewanger troops turned on their own leaders or on nearby German units. When
6765-614: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In
6888-414: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of
7011-417: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of
7134-399: The German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of
7257-623: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by
7380-547: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are
7503-408: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c. thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c. 1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy
SECTION 60
#17328514531227626-426: The Polish resistance. During the course of the two-month urban warfare Dirlewanger's regiment lost 2,733 men, 315% of the unit's initial strength. While some of the regiment's actions were criticized by Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski (who after the war described them as "a herd of pigs") and the sector commander, Generalmajor Günter Rohr , Dirlewanger was promoted to SS- Oberführer der Reserve on 12 August 1944 and
7749-514: The Posen Police Group advanced north of the street. The assault was delayed and continued into the night due to the street being heavily defended. On 6 August 1944, Kampfgruppe Steinhauer arrived in Warsaw and, along with Kampfgruppe Meyer, immediately began their attack to reach the Brühl Palace .They eventually had advanced through Chlodna and Elektoralna streets. On the evening of 7 August 1944, after receiving orders from Himmler to return to his regiment, Dirlewanger flew back from Germany and united
7872-412: The SS, but under the control of the SS. Accordingly, the unit name was changed to Sonderkommando Dirlewanger ("Special Unit Dirlewanger"). As the unit strength grew, it was placed under the command of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (the formation responsible for the administration of the concentration camps ) and redesignated as the SS-Sonderbataillon Dirlewanger . In January 1942, to rebuild its strength,
7995-415: The Second World War. After enlisting in the German Army as a machine gunner in 1913, Dirlewanger served in the XIII (Royal Württemberg) Corps rising to the rank of Leutnant ( lieutenant ) and receiving the Iron Cross first and second class during WWI. He joined the Freikorps and took part in crushing the German Revolution of 1918–19 . After graduating from Frankfurt 's Goethe University with
8118-474: The Sonderkommando attempted to advance further using a shield of Polish women and children in front of them — but the Poles fired anyway and drove the Germans back. By 3 October 1944, the remaining Polish insurgents had surrendered and the remnants of the regiment spent the next month guarding the line along the Vistula . During this time, the regiment was made a brigade and named SS-Sonderbrigade Dirlewanger (SS Special Brigade Dirlewanger). In early October, it
8241-477: The Soviets wiped out all that was left of the unit in the Halbe pocket . Only a small remnant of the division managed an escape attempt to reach the US Army lines on the Elbe river . SS-Obersturmbannführer Kurt Weisse led a large group of around 400 men escaping from Halbe Pocket . He was later put in British captivity and escaped on 5 March 1946. His later fate is unknown. Schmedes and his staff(excluding Kurt Weisse) were taken prisoner in Soviet captivity. Schmedes
8364-400: The Special Commando Dirlewanger lost only ninety-two men—many of them, no doubt, to friendly fire and alcoholic accidents. A ratio such as that was possible only when the victims were unarmed civilians. In September 1942, the unit murdered 8,350 Jews in Baranovichi ghetto and then a further 389 people labelled "bandits" and 1,274 "bandit suspects". According to the historian, Martin Kitchen ,
8487-409: The battalion and by late February 1944, the battalion was back to full strength. It was decided that Eastern volunteers would no longer be admitted to the unit, as the Russians had proven to be particularly unreliable in combat. On 26 June 1944, an attachment of German Ordnungspolizei artillerymen led by Hauptmann der Schutzpolizei Josef Steinhauer was assigned to the second battalion. Steinhauer
8610-420: The brutal suppression of the Slovak National Uprising of August to October 1944. The eponymous Dirlewanger Brigade was led by World War I veteran and habitual offender , Oskar Dirlewanger, considered an amoral violent alcoholic who was claimed to have possessed a sadistic sexual fetish and a barbaric nature; he has been described as "the most evil man" in the SS and possibly the most sadistic commander of
8733-458: The churchyard, where 35 of the concentration camp's victims are buried, there is a memorial to these events. The author Justinus Kerner lived in Welzheim from 1812 to 1816. Besides the Protestant Saint Gallus church, and the Catholic Church of Christ the King, there is also a CVJM, the South German Alliance, and several other free-church unions such as the Baptists, Evangelical Free Church Union, Evangelical-Methodist Church, New Apostolic Church,
8856-407: The command of Bronislav Kaminski . Dirlewanger's preferred method of operation was to gather civilians in a barn, set it on fire, and shoot at anyone who tried to escape; the victims of his unit numbered about 30,000. Some estimate around 200 villages were destroyed and around 120,000 were killed. According to historian Timothy Snyder , As it inflicted its first fifteen thousand mortal casualties,
8979-449: The criminally insane and homosexuals, also joined the unit. From the beginning, the formation attracted criticism from both the Nazi Party and the SS for the idea that convicted criminals who were forbidden to carry arms, therefore then exempt from conscription in the Wehrmacht , could be a part of the elite SS. A solution was found where it was proclaimed that the formation was not part of
9102-527: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with
9225-452: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in
9348-745: The division is still used by Neo-Nazis , such as the Wolfsbrigade 44 , and troops in Ukraine. A Swedish neo-Nazi rock band named "Dirlewanger" rose to infamy in the 1990's as they reportedly were one of the Swedish neo-Nazi scene's most popular groups. German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It
9471-507: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of
9594-687: The end of the war. Anti-partisan operations continued until June 1944, when the Soviets launched Operation Bagration , which was aimed at the destruction of the Army Group Centre. The unit was caught up in the retreat and began falling back to the town of Lida . Under the Kampfgruppe von Gottberg, the unit hold their position against the Soviet so that the remaining retreating Germans have the time to fall back to safety. The regiment sustained heavy casualties during several rearguard actions and were detached from Kampfgruppe von Gottberg on 20 July 1944 .At
9717-522: The expansion of the battalion to regimental size was authorized by SS-Führungshauptamt under Hans Jüttner . However, the order faced delays due to a shortage of soldiers to fill the newly planned regiment and a lack of weapons to equip them. To overcome this problem, Dirlewanger armed his troops with captured Soviet weapons stocks. The actual expansion of the Sonderbattalion into a regiment did not begin until May 1944, when two battalions were formed from
9840-427: The front, to pardon them". A confirmation of Hitler's order was sent specifying that the poachers should, where possible, be Bavarian and Austrian, not be guilty of crimes involving trap setting , and were to be enrolled in marksmen's rifle corps . The men were to combine their knowledge of hunting and woodcraft similar to traditional Jäger elite riflemen with the courage and initiative of those who willingly broke
9963-404: The historian Alex J. Kay , Dirlewanger murdered some 12,500 people on 5 August. Dirlewanger "burned prisoners alive with gasoline, impaled babies on bayonets and stuck them out of windows and hung women upside down from balconies". Polish nurses were repeatedly raped, and in some instances, hand grenades were inserted into their vaginas and detonated. Many otherwise unknown crimes committed by
10086-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,
10209-610: The image of the hunt and the animalization of the enemy". According to French historian Christian Ingrao , Dirlewanger's unit committed the worst atrocities of the Second World War, while the American historian Timothy Snyder noted they committed more atrocities than any other. The unit killed at least 30,000 civilians in Belarus alone, with up to over 120,000 killed and 200 villages destroyed by Dirlewanger's unit in Belarus. Several members such as Hans von Cullen were put to death after
10332-474: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of
10455-527: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Welzheim Welzheim is a town in the Rems-Murr district, in Baden-Württemberg , Germany . It is located 35 km east of Stuttgart , and 15 km northwest of Schwäbisch Gmünd . Welzheim has 11,239 (2005) inhabitants and
10578-557: The law. In late May 1940, Dirlewanger was sent to Oranienburg to take charge of 80 selected men convicted of poaching crimes who were temporarily released from their sentences. After two months of training, 55 men were selected with the rest sent back to prison. On 14 June 1940, the Wilddiebkommando Oranienburg ("Oranienburg Poacher's Unit") was formed as part of the Waffen-SS . Himmler made Dirlewanger its commander. The unit
10701-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted
10824-630: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from
10947-412: The original 1st company and 2nd company. The formation of a third battalion was delayed due to a shortage of men and did not occur until August 1944. Recruits were to come from criminals, Eastern volunteers ( Osttruppen ), and military delinquents. On 19 February 1944, permission to take volunteers from concentration camps was granted by Himmler in order to fill the battalion before it could be expanded to
11070-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation
11193-483: The quick removal of the unit from his territory or he would have the men arrested. The unit's crimes continued when it returned to Poland to help suppress the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Crimes included the mass rape and murder of 15 Red Cross nurses and the killing of thousands of civilians. After troops entered a makeshift military hospital, they first killed the wounded with bayonets and rifle butts before gang-raping
11316-414: The regiment was informed to form a battalion-sized Kampfgruppen to support the suppression of the uprising. The first Kampfgruppe was formed out of the 1st Battalion and was named Kampfgruppe Meyer, under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Herbert Meyer, who was now fully rehabilitated. Next morning , with a strength of 356 men, they departed for Warsaw by trucks and arrived that night. The second Kampfgruppe
11439-650: The regiment, led a group of troops in an assault on the Market Hall . This decisive action led to the complete defeat of the retreating Polish insurgents. Schreiner’s assault played a crucial role in the immediate capture of the Brühl Palace. Dirlewanger , with the Waffen-Sturm-Brigade RONA , are notorious for being the two units which committed the worst crimes during the Warsaw Uprising. Dirlewanger had
11562-507: The same time , they were sent to East Prussia for reconstitution at the Arys trraining center in the town of Lyck . The Sonderregiment arrived on 21 July 1944 and used their time to re-organised its regiment and received replacement. In late July 1944, Dirlewanger left the regiment and flew to Berlin to lobby Gottlob Berger for more troops and equipment. The command of the regiment was given temporarily to SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Kurt Weisse. The command
11685-419: The stairs. There is a memorial plaque in that place stating that 350 children were killed. I think there were many more, maybe 500. The regiment arrived in Warsaw with only 865 enlisted personnel and 16 officers but it soon received 2,500 replacements. These included 1,900 German convicts from the SS military camp at Danzig-Matzkau. Extremely high casualties were inflicted on the unit during fighting in Warsaw by
11808-541: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,
11931-488: The table." The deputy commander, Kurt Weisse, has been described as the soldier in Dirlewanger that came closest to matching Dirlewanger in "brutality, cruelty, and outright sadism", and if "there was anyone in the unit who matched the classic profile of a psychopath , it was he." On 1 August 1940, the unit was assigned to guard duties in the region of Lublin (site of a Nazi-established "Jew reservation" established under
12054-496: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in
12177-656: The two Kampfgruppen to form Kampfgruppe Dirlewanger. By August 7 Dirlewanger had occupied the Saxon Gardens and had linked with other German troops on the Kierbedzia Brigde . The next day, they reached the palace and also captured the Theatre Square . During the assault, several hospitals were burned down, except for St. Stanisław Hospital , which was later used as the regiment's headquarters. On 8 August 1944, SS-Untersturmführer Max Schreiner, an experienced member of
12300-477: The unit "committed such shocking atrocities in the Soviet Union, in the pursuit of partisans, that even an SS court was called upon to investigate". A witness reported Dirlewanger men roasting captured partisans alive and then throwing their bodies to a herd of hungry pigs. Women were raped and then kept as "sexual cattle", in which they would be traded amongst the men for "two bottles of vodka", with even children being raped and tortured to death. On 10 August 1943,
12423-604: The unit at Wola were later revealed by Mathias Schenck, a Belgian national who was serving in the area as a German Army sapper . Regarding an incident in which hundreds of Polish children were murdered, Schenck stated, We blew up the doors, I think of a school. Children were standing in the hall and on the stairs. Lots of children. All with their small hands up. We looked at them for a few moments until Dirlewanger ran in. He ordered to kill them all. They shot them and then they were walking over their bodies and breaking their little heads with butt ends. Blood and brain matter streamed down
12546-525: The unit was authorised to recruit Russian and Ukrainian volunteers. By February 1943, the number of men in the battalion doubled to 700 (half of them Volksdeutsche ). It became a Waffen-SS unit again in late 1944. In May 1944, the 550 men (Turkestanis, Volga Tartars, Azerbaijanis, Kirghiz, Uzbek, and Tadjiks) from the Ostmuselmanische SS-Regiment were attached to the Dirlewanger Brigade. Although other Strafbataillons were raised as
12669-530: The war by ad-hoc tribunals. Several commanders attempted to remove Dirlewanger from command and to dissolve the unit, but powerful patrons within the Nazi apparatus protected Dirlewanger and intervened on his behalf. Amongst other actions, the unit took part in the destruction of Warsaw in late 1944 and in the Wola massacre of more than 50,000 of Warsaw's inhabitants in August 1944 during the Warsaw Uprising – as well as in
12792-491: The war proceeded and the need for further manpower grew, these penal military units were for those convicted of military offences, whereas the recruits sent to the unit were convicted of major crimes such as premeditated murder , rape, arson, and burglary. Dirlewanger provided them with an opportunity to commit atrocities on such a scale that it even raised complaints within the brutal SS. Historian Martin Windrow described them as
12915-416: The women. The naked bleeding nurses were then taken outside, hanged by their feet and shot in their stomachs. Investigations also showed that the unit had cut off the breasts of at least one of the nurses while still alive during the rapes. The unit would carry out atrocities during the Wola massacre in which more than 40,000 Polish civilians were killed in reprisal on the orders of Himmler. The territory of
13038-543: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during
13161-585: The worst military unit in modern European history based off its criminality and cruelty. During its operations, the unit participated in the mass murder of civilians and committed other atrocities in German-occupied Eastern Europe. It gained a reputation among Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS officers for its brutality. The unit epitomized the "anti-partisan activity on the Eastern front that emerged from
13284-579: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching
13407-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of
13530-585: Was a small concentration camp near the city, today identified euphemistically to as simply "The Prison." The camp held 10,000-15,000 prisoners. The most famous prisoner during this time was the Communist labor unionist Friedrich Schlotterbeck , of the Luginsland resistance group. A previous inhabitant of Welzheim, aged ten in 1945, testified how he would witness how the camp would regularly hang several inhabitants on Tuesday to make room for incoming camp internees. [2] In
13653-530: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially
13776-525: Was consecrated, presumably as a new parish. On 5 September 1726, a fire destroyed the entire city. The church was burned down to its foundations, though it was soon rebuilt. The city hall was rebuilt in 1731. The district of Welzheim became part of the county of Waiblingen in 1938, and has been a deanery of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg since 1977. During World War II there
13899-604: Was decided to turn the unit into a Waffen-SS combat brigade and it was renamed 2. SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger (2nd SS Assault Brigade Dirlewanger ) in December 1944, and had soon reached its complement of 4,000 men. The journalist and history writer Nigel Cawthorne noted how Dirlewanger committed worse atrocities than the Kaminski Brigade, and how they enjoyed committing them, Encouraged by their commander SS- Oberführer Oskar Dirlewanger, who told them to take no prisoners,
14022-485: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which
14145-472: Was formed out of the regiment's 2nd Battalion, named Kampfgruppe Steinhauer, led by SS-Sturmbannführer Josef Steinhauer, with a strength of 350 men. They arrived on 6 August 1944, and the two Kampfgruppen fell under the command of Reinefarth. On 5 August 1944, under the leadership of Weisse, Kampfgruppe Meyer began their assault on the Wola district, advancing along the Litzmannstadt-Strasse, while
14268-568: Was later appointed by Dirlewanger as the second battalion's commander. On March 1944, Hauptmann der Schutzpolizei Herbert Meyer volunteered to serve in the battalion and was assigned as the commander of the first company. Meyer had been convicted of petty theft and embezzlement in November 1942 and was sent to the Danzig-Matzkau prison. He later served as the commander of the first battalion in Warsaw in August 1944 and remained in this position until
14391-535: Was not charged with any crime and discharged shortly due to poor health. Only about 700 men of the division survived the war. In June 1945, Dirlewanger was captured by French forces in Germany and died in their custody by 8 June, allegedly beaten to death by Polish soldiers in Altshausen . SS Assault Brigade Dirlewanger (October 1944) 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (March 1945) The cross-grenades emblem of
14514-456: Was perpetrated on 22 March. In November 1943, the battalion went into action with Army Group Centre to halt the Soviet advance, and suffered extreme casualties due to ineptitude. Dirlewanger received the German Cross in gold on 5 December 1943 in recognition of his earnestness, but by 30 December 1943, the unit consisted of only 259 men. Large numbers of amnestied criminals were sent to rebuild
14637-558: Was rearrested for sexual assault and sent to a concentration camp at Welzheim . In desperation, he contacted his old WWI comrade Gottlob Berger who was now a senior Nazi working closely with Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler . Berger used his influence to help Dirlewanger join the Condor Legion , a German unit which fought in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). On his return to Germany in 1939, Berger helped Dirlewanger join
14760-500: Was recommended for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 30 September 1944 by Reinefarth . He actually received the medal on 16 October 1944 at Krakow and was presented by Hans Frank . During one fierce fight on 6 August 1944, Dirlewanger's men used civilians as body shields, Dirlewanger's men spread out along the square and with armor support, rooted out several insurgent positions. Then
14883-572: Was returned back to Dirlewanger when he flew back from Germany in August 1944. When the Armia Krajowa began the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August 1944, under the command of SS-Sturmbannführer Kurt Weisse , SS-Sonderregiment Dirlewanger was sent into action as part of the Kampfgruppe formation led by SS- Gruppenführer Heinz Reinefarth ; once again serving alongside Bronislav Kaminski's militia (now named SS Sturmbrigade RONA ). On 3 August 1944,
15006-442: Was sent to Poland where it was joined by four Waffen-SS NCOs selected for their previous disciplinary records and twenty other recruits. By September 1940, the formation numbered over 300 men. Dirlewanger was promoted to SS- Obersturmführer by Himmler. With the influx of criminals, the emphasis on poachers was now lost, though many of the former poachers rose to NCO ranks to train the unit. Those convicted of other crimes, including
15129-422: Was sent to the rear and Schmedes took command; Dirlewanger would not return to the division. The division was pushed back to the northeast when the final Soviet offensive began on 16 April 1945. Desertion became more and more common, and when Schmedes attempted to reorganize the division on 25 April, he found that it had virtually ceased to exist. On 28 April 1945, SS-Sturmbannführer Ewald Ehlers, who commanded
#121878