Table of Contents
Foreword 4
Childhood and Adolescence 8
Poaching and Prison 8
Enlistment in the Wilddiebkommando Oranienburg 11
Deployment to the General Government 15
Relocation to Belarus 18
"Gypsies" and "Old Fighters" Strengthen the SS-Sonderbataillon "Dirlewanger" 26
The Partisan War, 1943 28
Operation in the Minsk Ghetto 31
Decorations and Leave 33
Back to Belarus with Career Criminals 35
Deployment to the Front Lines near Polatsk 42
I Shoot Down an Airplane 44
We Line Up for a Counterattack 45
"Social Misfits" from Concentration Camps as Battalion Reinforcements 53
Retreat from Belarus 55
Operation during the Warsaw Uprising 61
Wehrmacht Felons, Turkmen, and SS and Police Convicts 64
Political Prisoners 70
Establishing the SS-Sturmbrigade "Dirlewanger" 72
The Prisoners Defect 73
I Become Company Commander 76
The Battle for Lubisko and Guben 78
Shooting Down a Tank 83
Halbe 92
The Last Days of the War and Returning Home 95
War Captivity 99
Postwar Period 101
Looking Back At My Time as a Soldier 102
Appendix
Formation of the SS-Sonderkommando Dirlewanger 105
Timeline of the SS-Sonderkommando Dirlewanger 112
Endnotes 125
Bibliography 128