Dirlewanger, with the
Waffen-Sturm-Brigade RONA, are notorious for being the two units which committed the worst crimes during the Warsaw Uprising.
[69] Dirlewanger had a reputation for burying women and children alive.
[70] A witness reported "drunken soldiers practicing
Caesarean sections with bayonets".
[71]
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.
[55]
In what became known as the
Wola massacre,
Dirlewanger personnel, along with police units under command of
Heinz Reinefarth, 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.
[72] Up to 40,000 civilians were murdered in Wola in less than two weeks of August, including all hospital patients and staff.
[73][74] According to the historian
Alex J. Kay,
Dirlewanger murdered some 12,500 people on 5 August.
[75] Dirlewanger "burned prisoners alive with gasoline, impaled babies on bayonets and stuck them out of windows and hung women upside down from balconies".
[76] Polish nurses were repeatedly raped, and in some instances, hand grenades were inserted into their vaginas and detonated, while other times a "shouting and flute concerto" followed with the driving of women to the gallows.
[77]
Many otherwise unknown crimes committed by 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 the stairs. There is a memorial plaque in that place stating that 350 children were killed. I think there were many more, maybe 500.
[78]
Schenck noted the often mass rape of female civilians in cellars and basement, and noted an incident where the men of the brigade raided a cellar and noted the brutal death of a Polish girl:
Every time, when we stormed the cellars and women were inside the Dirlewanger soldiers raped them. Many times a group raped the same woman, quickly, still holding weapons in their hands. Then after one of the fights, I was standing shaking by the wall and couldn't calm my nerves. Dirlewanger soldiers burst in. One of them took a woman. She was pretty. She wasn't screaming. Then he was raping her, pushing her head strongly against the table, holding a bayonet in the other hand. First he cut open her blouse. Then one cut from stomach to throat. Blood gushed.
[78]
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 the Polish resistance.
[79] During the course of the two-month
urban warfare Dirlewanger's regiment lost 2,733 men, 315% of the unit's initial strength.
[1] 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 was recommended for the
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 30 September 1944 by Reinefarth .
[80] He actually received the medal on 16 October 1944 at a reception hall of the
Wawel Royal Castle in Krakow and was presented by
Hans Frank.
[3] In gratitude for the presentation of the award, Dirlewanger wrote to Hitler's SS Adjutant, Hauptsturmführer
Otto Günsche, three weeks later and told him:
[Y]ou know as well as I do that I received this high award for the soldierly achievements of my regiment, among other things. With this, the last unwelcome voices from “higher places” about my unit should have faded away! My men have achieved superhuman things in this fight to the death and destruction and have earned themselves a place in the honor book of the German soldier by their sweat, blood, and heroic sacrificial commitment!
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 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.
[81]
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 unofficially referred as a "brigade" in the message traffic.
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, 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.
[82]
Haar grootste fout is, mijn inziens, het kiezen van de medische sector. Als ze iets als WeWork had gekozen was ze er hoogstwaarschijnlijk mee weggekomen (hat tip to Adam Neumann).
, en nieuwe relate met een (veel jongere) heir van de Evans Hotels 
(well played). Also ze heeft maar 11.5 jaar gekregen dus is (ten laatste) vrij tegen haar early 50's, well played (dat is minder lang dan het bedrijf bestond).
