Afghan war. History based on real events. As soon as the starley Sergey Bazhenov found his love - nurse Rita, the lovers had to leave. Sergei led a convoy of vehicles for ammunition. On the pass, the column was attacked by a gang of Mujahideen, who shot almost everyone. Bazhenov survived, but soon regretted that he had not died. The prisoners were taken to a special camp, where they began to train punishers to discredit the Soviet Army. Now Bazhenov has two ways - either become a traitor, or start a fight, maybe last Stand In my life…

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Adolf Hitler's wildest dreams of world domination by the Third Reich came true in one of alternate worlds. The Thousand-Year Reich has enveloped the entire Earth. Once great powers are now only provinces Greater Germany, and their peoples eke out a miserable existence of disenfranchised Untermens. In this universe, the Millennium Reich no longer has external enemies, and internal enemies are destroyed with the help of specially trained "Dogs" units recruited from among the conquered Slavs. "Dogs" perform the functions of police and punitive ...

Black Order of the SS. The History of the Heinz Hehne Security Guards

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Zombie Squad Ilya Derevyanko

For organization riots on the territory of Russia, Western intelligence agencies prepared a large detachment consisting of former special forces. Each fighter is implanted with a subcutaneous microchip controlled by a supercomputer. These zombies are capable of fulfilling any, the most incredible and cruel orders. But " universal soldiers' have one significant drawback. A specialist who implanted microchips fell into the hands of FSB Colonel Dmitry Korsakov, which means that the behavior of zombies can be controlled...

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Any crime is a consequence of the mores of its time. And in the personality of the murderer, as in a crooked mirror, the vices of the generation, estate, class are reflected. The tragedy of Khatyn is no exception. No wonder why it still attracts the attention of historians, publicists, writers, ordinary people. All horror appeared in the portraits of the executioners of this destroyed Belarusian village occupation regime, Total social structure created by the Nazis. Among the bloody gathering of punishers who were then operating on our land, all these von derbachs, Gottbergs, Kamensky, special place owned by Oscar Paul Dirlewanger. He was, one might say, a certified executioner ...

From the most famous surviving photograph taken in 1944, a subject of 60-70 years old is looking at us. And at that time, Oskar Dirlewanger was just 49 years old. He is in the uniform of an SS Oberführer. They say about such people: a person with the face of a born killer. Most of Dirlewanger's assessments come down to just such definitions: a psychopath, a rapist, a necrophile, a sadist, even "the most evil person in the SS." In the intricate hierarchy of Nazism, he was destined for the role of an executor for dirty work - nothing more. The Nazis themselves, many SS bosses and generals of the Wehrmacht treated him with undisguised disgust. But it was such two-faced chivalry. Dirlewanger was freely allowed to commit any crime "in the interests of the Reich." His biography is full of the most terrible details and high-profile scandals. Yes, and the ending was prepared for such, which the relatives of the victims usually ask for the murderers.

Dog of war

The life path of Dirlewanger as an "exemplary" Nazi. Born in the family of a small shopkeeper in Würzburg, the heart of Germany. Young World War I veteran. Hitler and his adherents were generally not very fond of old men: what good would they be, because they cannot be put under arms. The nation is strength, and the strength of the young! Participation in battles great war was especially valued - in this way a person proved his devotion to Germany, as if joining a special brotherhood. And Dirlewanger became a real "dog of war." He was wounded four times. As a result of a bullet wound to the head, the brain was seriously damaged. The command appreciated the zeal and awarded the wounded soldier with the Iron Cross of both degrees. But there is no need to rush to write off the entire history of his bloody crimes only on the wound he received. Social environment played much more important role. Such "enraged petty bourgeois" formed the basis of fascist movement in any country.

Interwar Germany was a typical picture defeated country. Life in her bored, overflowing with countless political intrigues and conspiracies, financial speculation, throwing to the surface the corresponding personalities. Dirlewanger was here like a fish out of water. He enters the freikorps - volunteer formation, created from war veterans to fight revolutionaries and supporters of leftist ideas. Nomadic life began in the cities of Germany under the command of various commanders who committed cruel reprisals against their opponents. The battles were sometimes very violent. In Saxony, for example, in 1921 Dirlewanger commanded an entire armored train. Then he studies at the Higher Technical School in Manheim, is expelled from there for anti-Semitic views. In general, he will be expelled not only from universities, but also from the NSDAP. The unbridled and quick-tempered invalid of the war did not get along well in any team. Dirlewanger did not give up and at the age of 27 he defended his doctoral dissertation (analogous to our thesis) on economic topics. He will still survive the trial over the authorship and value of this work. But such misadventures Oscar never embarrassed. In the same year, he joined the Nazi movement, where, thanks to his military and Freikorps "exploits", he became an old fighter of the party. And most importantly, he met Gottlob Berger, a person close to him in spirit, in the future one of the leaders of the SS, who became for Dirlewanger " godfather and patron.

Psychopath and swindler

Dr. Dirlewanger devoted several years to work in various commercial structures. There he was marked by numerous financial frauds. True, with an ideological bias - the owners of his enterprises were Jews, and he sent the stolen money to support local assault squads.

After Hitler came to power, a dedicated member of the party received a leadership position at the labor exchange in Heilbronn, Württemberg. But this was not what the soul of the old warrior and troublemaker demanded. Bureaucracy and sitting in an office were not his element. What did he not do! Indefatigable drinking was Dirlewanger's most innocent misdeed. For the time being, these "pranks" turned a blind eye. When he was charged with the rape of a thirteen-year-old girl, the party was forced to intervene. In addition, there were serious suspicions that the criminal episode was by no means the only one. The "old fighter" was expelled from the party, deprived doctoral degree, the title of honorary citizen of Sangerhausen (the same Saxon city where he distinguished himself as an armored train commander). In addition, Dirlewanger went to prison for two years.

Having been released, he tried to justify himself, but the party members, who then fought for the purity of their ranks, pretty polluted by all kinds of criminal and frankly psychopathic personalities, sent the former ally to a concentration camp. And then fate turned to face Oscar, or rather, the face of Berger. By that time, he had become the chief of staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS and sent the unlucky friend out of harm's way to fight in Spain on the side of the nationalists, General Franco. Here Dirlewanger turned around with might and main. Yes, and this war itself, which did not know any laws and was distinguished by savage cruelty, gave him the opportunity to throw out his diabolical energy.

Commander of the Poachers

"Exploits" for the benefit of the Reich were not forgotten, and in April 1940, the pedophile case of Dirlewanger was reviewed. He was acquitted, reinstated in the party, even returned his doctorate. Moreover, they decided to use the criminal experience of Dr. Oscar for its intended purpose. Among the entire mass of German prisoners were "ideologically and socially close elements." Why do they have to sit in prisons? Obviously, Himmler was personally puzzled by this question when he instructed the newly minted SS Obersturmführer (analogous to a senior lieutenant) Dirlewanger to form a "poaching team" Oranienburg ". His finest hour has come.

Dirlewanger was not so much a commander as a legitimized godfather for his subordinates, with many of whom he had to share prison rations. He was in complete control of their life and death. Sadistic punishment flourished in the unit. For various misconduct, the fighters were flogged - it was possible to get from 25 to 100 blows with a stick, they were locked for several days in the “Dirlewanger coffin” - a special narrow box. For their policy in the occupied territories, the Nazis just needed such a crazy Sonderkommando.

criminal way personal army Dirlewanger began in Poland. Local patriots did not reconcile themselves to the seizure of their homeland, and an underground anti-fascist struggle. To counter the underground, "poachers" were sent to Lublin. We will not now describe all the horrors that Dirlewanger and his henchmen did personally. The curious reader can easily find this information. Everything was there: sophisticated torture, and mass rape, and robberies. The degree of barbarism that was happening is evidenced by the fact that the SS leadership was forced to open several criminal cases at once based on the identified episodes! And although the Sonderführer himself considered such a trial "comical", he landed in jail. At that time, the Nazis were not quite ready for such frank sadistic orgies.

Executioner

And again Berger intervened, interceding for his protégé. And the outbreak of war with Soviet Union removed any restrictions on Dirlewanger's base instincts. “What can happen to a Russian or a Czech does not interest me at all. Whether they live or starve to death like cattle - it matters to me only in the sense that we will need persons belonging to these nationalities as slaves ”- this is just one of a whole series of misanthropic quotes that belong personally Himmler. The Reichsfuehrer SS has a small brown pamphlet with them. Is it any wonder that Dirlewanger, his subordinate, got away with everything from now on?

On the occupied Soviet territory Sonderkommando Dirlewanger is constantly growing: first, the battalion is expanded to a regiment, then it is converted into a brigade. And in February 1945, the 36th grenadier division SS. And not simple, but nominal - "Dirlewanger". Rare honor! SS divisions were usually called by the names of some historical heroes or fallen Nazis, and geographical names at the place of formation. For example, the 1st SS Panzer Division was named not so much in honor of Adolf Hitler himself, but in honor of his Leibstandarte - a bodyguard unit. The other was christened not by the name of Himmler, but by his position - "Reichsführer SS". And only Hermann Goering had his own nominal unit in the form of a division in the Luftwaffe. And here directly and uncomplicated - Dirlewanger. So much for your despised pariah sadist! Dirlewanger himself was promoted all the way to Oberführer (something like a brigadier general). The “specialization” of German criminals, who were allowed to be recruited, also expanded. Petty thieves, rapists, and other rabble were added to the "poachers". So the staff of the whole "penal army" was formed. And in January 1942, Dirlewanger was allowed to replenish his unit at the expense of the local population.

This hodgepodge was marked on our land incredible atrocities. Almost none of the major punitive operations of the Nazis (and there were about 140 of them in Belarus alone) could not do without Dirlewanger's wards. It is impossible to read without a shudder the surviving reports of the executioners! A combination of cynicism and coldness of inveterate office clerks. And each time they justified the murders by "fighting the bandits." But for some reason, among the latter there were infants, women, and the elderly. In many executions, the Sonderführer took part personally. He did not disdain either torture or mass executions.

The SS Sonderbattalion "Dirlewanger" played a sinister role in the tragedy of Khatyn. The commander himself did not have time to check in there. But for his punishers, the action was an ordinary, ordinary event. Many of them, detained after the war, will not even be able to remember the name of the village, or any characteristic details. In their memory, all the crimes were mixed into one bloody mess. Now we know for certain that a German company and a Ukrainian platoon from the Sonderbattalion took part in the destruction of Khatyn. Here are just two quotes from the testimony of the Dirlewangerites:

From the protocol of interrogation of M.V. Maidanov:

“From Logoisk, we went to many settlements for punitive operations, where we killed people, burned villages, robbed property, and combed forests in order to detect and destroy partisans. We traveled from Logoysk to carry out these actions both on close quarters as well as in certain places.

From the protocol of interrogation of F.F. Graborovsky:

“When all the inhabitants of the village of Khatyn were driven to the barn, they began to be driven into the barn, then, on the orders of the Germans, they were shot in this barn. I was then armed with a rifle, I also shot from it at a shed with people. Having shot the citizens in the barn, they burned the barn with corpses and the whole village of Khatyn.

Monkey owner

True, the Dirlewanger brigade had a chance to participate in real battles. So, they tried to strangle the Borisov-Begoml partisan zone, were a striking force in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising, fought against the Slovak rebels. In the capital of Poland, "poachers" again distinguished themselves by inhuman crimes. For these atrocities, in September 1944, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, the highest order of the Third Reich, awarded as a recognition of the special courage of the recipient. Yes, in the organization of torture and mass executions the newly minted cavalier showed a rare composure. But in direct clashes, Dirlewanger's army carried huge losses. And here the commander turned out to be shoulder to shoulder with his fighters, rushing into the thick of the battle. Only here are the real military skills, the training of the punishers was clearly not enough. To scoff at the defenseless civilian population they came out much more skilled.

By the end of the war, Dirlewanger finally degraded, turning into a complete psychopath. According to the memoirs, his constant companion was a small monkey, which became the talisman of the "penalty box". He was not capable of effective command at the forefront, and at the end of 1944 the brigade was taken over by SS Brigadeführer Fritz Schmedes. But the change of commander did not change the nature of the actions. Everywhere where the former "penalty boxers" appeared, invariably suffered local population. The Dirlewanger division was finally defeated during the fighting in Hungary, and then in Silesia. From individual regiments then only a few dozen people remained.

Amazingly, Dirlewanger himself could well have eluded punishment. The same Shmedes escaped from the POW camp and then his traces were lost. Dirlewanger's constant patron, SS Obergruppenführer Berger, spent only six and a half years in prison. And quietly lived until 1975! Many Western countries refused to extradite Nazi punishers to the USSR and other socialist countries, referring to the "bias of their special services."

Oscar Dirlewanger at the very end of the war received severe wound and was in recovery. He was arrested by soldiers of the 1st French army in the Württemberg city of Altshausen, not far from where his Nazi career began. And then the executioner was overtaken by a well-deserved punishment. Polish soldiers were assigned to guard the prisoner. It was they who reminded him of the defeat of Lublin and the monstrous massacre over Warsaw. Further circumstances are shrouded in mystery and surrounded by legends. Officially, the death of the chief punisher was recognized on June 7. But there are fairly good reasons to believe that the guards simply beat him to death on the night of June 4-5. By at least, the body was found with significant physical damage. The body was disfigured, and then rumors circulated for a long time that Dirlewanger still managed to disappear safely. But the exhumation, carried out in 1960, confirmed: the earthly path of this scoundrel ended in 1945.

The question is quite appropriate: why now, in the days of mourning for Khatyn burned 75 years ago, for tens of thousands of our compatriots who fell victims of large-scale Nazi punitive operations, remember this executioner? I'm not afraid to seem banal: so that they remember and this does not happen again. After all, it is surprising, but books are being published, including in Russian, where Dirlewanger is called “the genius of the anti-partisan war”, “the commander who put things in order in the occupied territory”, “fought the bandits”. Many such epithets can be found in the open spaces global network... What can I say?! Order ... Truly a cemetery order! No, nevertheless, as much as we remember the victims of Nazi terror and bow our heads before their martyrdom, so much we will repeat the names of their executioners. And send curses. And one of the first in this anathemic list is the sinister and diabolical name of Oscar Dirlewanger.

Vadim GIGIN, candidate of historical sciences.

Complete reprinting of text and photographs is prohibited. Partial quoting is allowed with a hyperlink.

In fact, we know little about the Great Patriotic war and many of its events remain unknown to many ordinary people. Nevertheless, it is our duty to remember what happened at that terrible time in order to prevent a repetition of the senseless death of millions of people. This post will shed light on one of the many episodes of the Second World War, which not everyone knows about.

In 1944, from various anti-partisan and punitive units, on the orders of Himmler, the formation of special unit- "Jagdverbandt". On the western and east directions groups "Ost", "West" acted. Plus a special team - "Jangengeinsack russland und gesand". The Jagdverbandt-Pribaltikum was also included there.
She specialized in terrorist activities in the Baltic countries, which after the occupation were divided into general districts: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The latter also included Pskov, Novgorod, Luga, Slantsy - the entire territory up to Leningrad.
The elementary cell of this peculiar pyramid was "anti-partisan gruppen", where they recruited those who were ready to sell themselves to the Germans for a can of stew.
Armed with Soviet weapons, sometimes dressed in Red Army uniforms with insignia in their buttonholes, the bandits entered the village. If they came across policemen along the way, then the "guests" ruthlessly shot them. Then began questions like "how do we find" our "?
There were simple-minded people ready to help strangers, and then this happened:

“On December 31, 1943, two guys came to our village of Stega, who began to ask the locals how to find the partisans. The girl Zina, who lived in the village of Stega, said that she had such a connection.
At the same time, she indicated where the partisans were located. These guys soon left, and the next day a punitive detachment burst into the village ...
They surrounded the village, drove all the inhabitants out of their houses and then divided them into groups. Old people and children were herded into barnyard, and young girls were taken under escort to the station to be sent to forced labor. Punishers set fire to the barnyard, where the population was driven there: mostly old people and children.
Among them was me with my grandmother and my two cousins: 10 and 6 years old. People screamed and asked for mercy, then the punishers entered the courtyard and started shooting at everyone who was there. I alone managed to escape from our family.
The next day, I, along with a group of citizens from the village of Stega, who worked on the road, went to where the barnyard used to be. There we saw the bodies of burnt women and children. Many lay embracing ...
Two weeks later, the punishers committed the same reprisals against the inhabitants of the villages of Glushnevo and Suslovo, who were also destroyed along with all the inhabitants "- from the testimony of witness Pavel Grabovsky (born 1928), a native of the village of Grabovo, the Maryn village council of the Ashevsky district; letter file No. 005/5 "Owl. secret").

According to eyewitnesses, a detachment under the command of a certain Martynovsky and his closest assistant Reshetnikov especially committed atrocities in the territory of the Pskov region. The Chekists managed to get on the trail of the last of the punishers many years after the end of the war (criminal case No. A-15511).
In the early 1960s, one of the residents of the region applied to the regional department of the KGB. Passing through some kind of stop, she recognized in a modest lineman ... a punisher who took part in the execution civilians her native village during the war. And although the train stopped for only a few minutes, she had a glance to understand: he!
So the investigators met a certain Gerasimov, nicknamed Pashka the Sailor, who, at the very first interrogation, confessed that he was part of an anti-partisan detachment.
“Yes, I took part in executions,” Gerasimov was indignant during interrogations, “But I was only a performer.”

"In May 1944, our detachment was located in the village of Zhaguli, Drissensky district Vitebsk region. One evening we went on an operation against the partisans. As a result of the fighting, we suffered significant losses, while the platoon commander, Lieutenant german army Boris Pshik.
At the same time, we captured a large group of civilians who were hiding in the forest. They were mostly elderly women. There were also children.
Upon learning that Pshik had been killed, Martynovsky ordered the prisoners to be divided into two parts. After that, pointing to one of them, he ordered: "Shoot for the mention of the soul!"
Someone ran into the forest and found a hole, where they later led people. After that, Reshetnikov began to select punishers to carry out the order. At the same time, he named Pashka the Sailor, Narets Oscar, Nikolai Frolov ...
They took the people into the forest, placed them in front of the pit, and stood a few meters away from them. Martynovsky at that time was sitting on a stump, not far from the place of execution.
I stood next to him and told him that he could get hit by the Germans for unauthorized actions, to which Martynovsky replied that he spat on the Germans and you just need to keep your mouth shut.
After that, he said: "Igor, to the point!" And Reshetnikov gave the order: "Fire!" After that, the punishers began to shoot. Pushing the punishers aside, Gerasimov made his way to the edge of the pit and, shouting "Polundra!", began firing from his pistol, although he had a machine gun hanging behind his back.
Martynovsky himself did not participate in the execution, but Reshetnikov tried" - from the testimony of Vasily Terekhov, one of the fighters of the Martynovsky detachment; criminal case No. A-15511.

Not wanting to be responsible for the "exploits" of traitors, Pashka the Sailor handed over his "colleagues" with giblets. The first person he named was a certain Igor Reshetnikov, right hand Martynovsky, whom the operatives soon found behind barbed wire in one of the camps located near Vorkuta.
It immediately became clear that he received his 25 years in prison for ... espionage in favor of foreign country. As it turned out, after the surrender of Germany, Reshetnikov ended up in the American zone, where he was recruited by intelligence. In the fall of 1947, he was transferred to the Soviet occupation zone with a special assignment.
For this, the new patrons promised him a residence permit overseas, but SMERSH intervened, whose employees figured out the traitor. A speedy court determined his punishment.
Once in the far north, Reshetnikov decided that they would no longer remember his punitive past and that he would be released with a clean passport. However, his hopes were dashed when a kind of greeting from the distant past was conveyed to him by his former subordinate, Pashka the Sailor.
In the end, under the pressure of irrefutable evidence, Reshetnikov began to testify, omitting, however, his personal participation in punitive actions.

For the dirtiest work, the Germans looked for helpers, as a rule, among declassed elements and criminals. A certain Martynovsky, a Pole by origin, was ideally suited for this role. Leaving the camp in 1940, being deprived of the right to live in Leningrad, he settled in Luga.
Waiting for the arrival of the Nazis, he voluntarily offered them his services. He was immediately sent to a special school, after which he received the rank of Lieutenant of the Wehrmacht.
For some time Martynovsky served at the headquarters of one of the punitive units in Pskov, and then the Germans, noticing his zeal, instructed him to form an anti-partisan group.
Then Igor Reshetnikov, who returned from prison on June 21, 1941, joined her. An important detail: his father also went to the service of the Germans, becoming the burgomaster of the city of Luga.

According to the plan of the invaders, Martynovsky's gang was supposed to impersonate partisans of other formations. They had to penetrate into areas of active operations folk avengers, conduct reconnaissance, destroy patriots, under the guise of partisans, raid and rob the local population.
To disguise their leaders, they had to know the names and names of the leaders of large partisan formations. For each successful operation the bandits were generously paid, so the gang worked out the occupation marks not for fear, but for conscience.
In particular, with the help of the Martynovsky gang, several partisan appearances were uncovered in the Sebezhsky district. At the same time, in the village of Chernaya Gryaz, Reshetnikov personally shot Konstantin Fish, the intelligence chief of one of the Belarusian partisan brigades, who was on his way to establish contact with his Russian neighbors.
In November 1943, the bandits went on the trail of two groups of scouts at once, abandoned in the rear with " mainland". They managed to surround one of them, which was led by Captain Rumyantsev.
The fight was uneven. With the last bullet, intelligence officer Nina Donkukova wounded Martynovsky, but was captured and sent to the local Gestapo office. The girl was tortured for a long time, but having achieved nothing, the Germans brought her to the Martynovsky detachment, giving her "to be eaten by wolves."

From the testimony of false partisans:

"On March 9, 1942, in the village of Elemno of the Sabutitsky s/soviet, traitors to our people Igor Reshetnikov from Luga and Ivanov Mikhail from the village of Vysokaya Griva chose Boris Fyodorov, a resident of Yelemno (b. 1920), as a target for shooting exercises, who died as a result.
On September 17, 1942, 12 women and 3 men were shot in the village of Klobutitsy of the Klobutitsy s/soviet just because the railway was blown up in the immediate vicinity of the village.
“There was such a guy in our detachment - Petrov Vasily. During the war he served as an officer and, as it turned out, was connected with the partisans.
He wanted to take the detachment to the partisans and save them from treason. Reshetnikov found out about this and told everything to Martynovsky. Together they killed this Vasily. They also shot his family: his wife and daughter. It was, I think, on November 7, 1943. I was then very struck by the small boots ... "
“There was also such a case: when during one of the operations near Polotsk ... partisans attacked us. We retreated. Reshetnikov suddenly appeared. He began to swear, shout at us.
Here, in my presence ... he shot the nurse and Viktor Alexandrov, who served in my platoon. By order of Reshetnikov, a 16-year-old teenage girl was raped. This was done by his orderly Mikhail Alexandrov.
Reshetnikov then told him: come on, I'll remove 10 punishments for you. Later, Reshetnikov also shot his mistress Maria Pankratova. He killed her in the bath out of jealousy" - from the testimony at the trial of Pavel Gerasimov (Sailor); criminal case No. A-15511.

Truly terrible was the fate of the women of those places where the detachment passed. Occupying the village, the bandits selected the most beautiful as their concubines.
They had to wash, sew, cook, satisfy the lust of this perpetually drunk crew. And when she changed her place of deployment, this peculiar female convoy, as a rule, was shot and new victims were recruited in a new place.
"On May 21, 1944, the punitive detachment moved from the village of Kokhanovichi through Sukhorukovo to our village - Bichigovo. I was not at home, and my family lived in a hut near the cemetery. They were discovered, and my daughter was taken with them to the village of Vidoki.
The mother began to look for her daughter, went to Vidoki, but there was an ambush, and she was killed. Then I went, and my daughter, it turns out, was beaten, tormented, raped and killed. I found it only along the edge of the dress: the grave was poorly dug up.
In Vidoki, the punishers caught children, women, the elderly, drove them into a bathhouse and burned them. When I was looking for my daughter, I was present, as they dismantled the bathhouse: 30 people died there "- from the testimony at the trial of witness Pavel Kuzmich Sauluk; criminal case No. A-15511.

Nadezhda Borisevich is one of the many victims of werewolves.

Thus, the tangle of bloody crimes of this gang, which began its inglorious path near Luga, was gradually unraveled. Then there were punitive actions in the Pskov, Ostrovsky, Pytalovsky regions.
Near Novorzhev, the punishers fell into a partisan ambush and were almost completely destroyed by the 3rd partisan brigade under the command of Alexander Herman.
However, the ringleaders - Martynovsky himself and Reshetnikov - managed to escape. Leaving their subordinates in the cauldron, they came to their German hosts, expressing a desire to continue serving not out of fear, but in good conscience. So the newly formed team of traitors ended up in the Sebezh region, and then on the territory of Belarus.
After the summer offensive of 1944, which resulted in the liberation of Pskov, this imaginary partisan detachment reached Riga itself, where the Jagdverbandt-OST headquarters was located.
Here, the YAGD gang of Martynovsky - Reshetnikov struck even their owners with pathological drunkenness and unbridled morals. For this reason, already in the autumn of the same year, this rabble was sent to the small Polish town of Hohensaltz, where he began to master sabotage training.
Somewhere along the way, Reshetnikov dealt with Martynovsky and his family: a two-year-old son, wife and mother-in-law, who followed along with the detachment.
According to Gerasimov, "that same night they were buried in a ditch near the house where they lived. Then one of ours, nicknamed Krot, brought gold that belonged to the Martynovskys."
When the Germans missed their henchman, Reshetnikov explained what happened by saying that he allegedly tried to escape, so he was forced to act according to the laws of war.

For this and other "feats", the Nazis awarded Reshetnikov the title of SS Hauptsturmführer, awarded him the Iron Cross and ... sent him to suppress resistance in Croatia and Hungary.
They were also preparing for work in the deep Soviet rear. For this purpose, parachuting was especially carefully studied. However, the rapid advance Soviet army confused all the plans of this variegated team of German special forces.
This gang ended its "combat path" ingloriously: in the spring of 1945, surrounded Soviet tanks, she almost all died, unable to break through to the main forces of the Germans.
The exception was only a few people, among whom was Reshetnikov himself.

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As part of the SS, there was a unique unit - the 36th division under the command of Oscar Dirlewanger, which consisted of criminals. Service in the ranks of this SS unit was seen as an opportunity to improve. But as a result, one of the most brutal punitive military units of the Third Reich was created.

In the summer of 1940, at the height of the Western Campaign, Hitler received a letter from a woman who asked the Führer to show mercy to her husband, who was imprisoned for poaching. He was a sharp shooter, and therefore his wife hoped that his skills would be useful in active army and he will be able to earn forgiveness. Hitler himself was a vegetarian and was disgusted by any kind of hunting, but he liked the idea of ​​​​creating a unit of well-aimed shooters. He instructed Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler to look for poachers in German prisons. After analysis, it was decided to include in the unit only natives of Austria and Bavaria (hunting was a common trade there) and only recidivist poachers, since it was assumed that they had a special passion for shooting and hunting in general.

Such an unusual unit needed an unusual commander. The choice fell on Oscar-Paul Dirlewanger. To the first world war he proved to be a desperate and courageous soldier, very quickly achieving officer rank. In the first years of post-war Germany, Dirlewanger continued to serve in voluntary self-defense units, the purpose of which was to exterminate left-wing activists and members of Marxist parties. In the 1920s, he repeatedly entered and left Nazi Party. At the same time, he received a doctorate in economics.

In the early 1930s, he was again a member of the NDSAP, Sturmführer, fighting corruption in regional level, but is known primarily for his drunken brawls and beatings of random passers-by. In 1934, Dirlewanger raped a 13-year-old girl and ended up in prison. After leaving prison, he goes as a volunteer to Spain, where he takes part in civil war on the side of General Franco. After that, in Germany, Dirlewanger seeks rehabilitation and enters military service in the SS with the rank of Oberführer.

It is he who is entrusted with the command of the “Oranienburg Poaching Team” (German: Wilddiebkommando “Oranienburg”), which got its name from the place of deployment. Dirlewanger himself believed that service in the SS would contribute to the correction of criminals.

At the beginning of 1941, the Oranienburg team was sent to Poland. From the very beginning of its combat use the SS unit was used for punitive operations. Dirlenwanger was instructed to clear the San River region bordering the USSR from "suspicious elements". Already the first operation of the Dirlewanger unit created for him the glory of a cruel and even sadistic SS unit. But in Poland, the "Poachers' Team" did not stay long. In the second half of 1941, an investigation begins mass rape Jewish women by Oranienburg fighters in the Krakow and Lublin ghettos. They were accused of attempting racial incest.

As a result, the unit was sent to Belarus to fight the partisans. By this time, it had been renamed the Dirlewanger Assault Team in honor of the commander. The unit begins to be completed not only from poachers, but also from other recidivists: thieves, murderers, rapists.

In 1942, "Dirlewanger" starts anti-partisan operations in the Belarusian forests. Very quickly, the unit of criminals in the service of the SS proved to be one of the most effective and merciless punitive units of the SS in the Reichskommissariat "Belarus". It was the Dirlewanger that in March 1943 burned the Belarusian village of Khatyn. It was far from the first and not the last settlement destroyed by this part of the SS.

During the year of fighting with partisans in Belarus, the composition of the Dirlenwanger has changed a lot. The unit suffered significant losses, but now it was recruited from local residents who wished to serve the occupation authorities. The composition of the team is first increased to the size of the battalion, and then to the regiment. Up to half of its numbers were now Soviet collaborators, mostly Belarusians, Ukrainians and Russians from Latgale. But there was no talk of changing the commander, since the very name of Dirlewanger terrified the whole of Belarus.

Only in November 1943, "Dirlewanger" for the first time entered into battle with units of the Red Army. After the first battles, the losses in personnel were catastrophic. By the end of the year, out of two thousand, only 259 people remained in the ranks of the regiment. But already in February 1944, the Dirlenwanger was again restored to full strength.

During the operation "Bagration" in the summer of 1944, "Dirlewanger", despite the fact that as a unit it has never been very disciplined, retreats to Poland in a very organized manner. In August, it was the Dirlewanger, together with the Kaminsky brigade (Russian Liberation People's Army - RONA), that turned out to be the backbone of the punitive units of the SS and the Wehrmacht, which suppressed Warsaw Uprising organized by the Home Army. It is believed that it was these events that became the bloodiest crime of the Dirlewanger, which destroyed tens of thousands of residents of Warsaw.

At the end of 1944, the Dirlewanger was elevated to the status of a brigade, and in February 1945, a division. But these reorganizations remained only on paper. The number of the 36th SS division never exceeded two thousand personnel, although at the end of 1944 it was allowed to be equipped with political prisoners, mainly German communists.

In April 1945, the remnants of the division were defeated Soviet troops in Silesia.

Oskar Dirlewanger himself was captured, where on the night of June 4-5, 1945, he was beaten to death by Polish guards.