"Condemned Men – Meet Hitler’s Penal Battalions" Topic

"Call them the Fuhrer's "Dirty Dozens" — the German army's strafbattalions were infantry units made up largely of convicts, felons, malingerers and thugs.

Inmates in these de facto ‘marching prisons' could expect only the most hazardous and backbreaking of assignments. When they weren't being deployed as common labourers, penal units fought as shock troops or were thrown into losing battles to defend hopeless positions. In some cases, whole strafbattalion units would be ordered at gunpoint to march across minefields in order to clear them.

The officers and men of the Nazi prisoner brigades fought without the distinction of rank. Their uniforms bore no unit designation either, save for a telltale red triangle on the sleeve. The battalions were under the direct command of German military police. Discipline was harsh and unrelenting in strafbattalions and soldiers were frequently under-provisioned and poorly equipped. Yet those who refused to perform their duties were liable to be summarily executed. Despite this, assignment to a penal unit wasn't necessarily a death sentence. The condemned could serve their time and be reinstated to the regular army or in cases of exceptional gallantry under fire have their sentences commuted…"
Full article here.
link

How he not mention Sven Hassel?

Amicalement
Armand

that's disturbing…

"Call them the Fuhrer's "Dirty Dozens" — the German army's strafbattalions were infantry units made up largely of convicts, felons, malingerers and thugs.

Sounds like this article is talking about the SS. When I read the article indeed they are.

In fact, the Dirlewanger Brigade's depravity was so revolting, even seasoned SS field commanders voiced their displeasure with the group's methods.

That's saying a lot.

I don't understand why Dirlewanger's unit is in an article about penal battalions since it was not a penal unit. Perhaps because they recruited a lot of criminals?

This is a very interesting book about the sonderkommando:

link

it was indeed a penal unit. i have the excellent book "the cruel hunters".
the unit was formed(at first) from poachers released from prison. these were reinforced buy men from the army and ss who were up on charges.
read the book…

I have read the book, which is why I posted the link. I know they recruited criminals but I didn't recall it being a penal unit.

It most certainly was a penal unit although the article is innaccurate and confuses the various Dirlewanger incarnations with the 36th SS which it becomes in 1945. The plan was to form a unit of poachers from concentration camps to form an anti-partisan unit. There were never enough poachers and it took concentration camp prisoners, soldiers on various charges, foreign auxillaries and when it upgraded to a Division troops from the regular army.