"SS Oficer's account of his unit's destruction" Topic

Here's a link to a first person account by an SS officer prisoner of his experience in NW Europe from D-day to his capture. It is a translation of the handwritten account he provided to US intelligence officers.

link

Interesting. Thanks.

Interesting; classic mangling of the names Berlichingen and Gethsemane.

Interesting indeed-- sort of.

But.

Am I the only one who is curious about some things, namely.

1. What is the name of the individual allegedly writing the report? Surely it would give the name of an SS staff officer.

2. Why was this copy made?

3. Why did a G2 OFFICER give it to a lowly GI of a Naval Armed Guard? That seems a little irregular?

4. Obviously the report is a translation of a German hand-written report, but the use of many American idioms like
"shanghaied" and "prime movers" for trucks make me wonder how much of the original handwritten account made into this version and how much else was from other sources.

5. Finally- there is no detail of the capture of the individual. How did our putative SS officer get taken prisoner? And, more pertinently what about the unit he was with etc. The account breaks off before hand.

The nature of the account and the narrative is consistent with what other recollections were, but… there's a lot of holes.

I'm not doubting the report, but observing some irregularities.

"4. Obviously the report is a translation of a German hand-written report, but the use of many American idioms like
"shanghaied" and "prime movers" for trucks make me wonder how much of the original handwritten account made into this version and how much else was from other sources."

It was probably translated by GI, for him this was probably normal english.

sounds like you are doubting the report, and that's okay.

Otto,

While I understand your concerns, the report number is sequentially correct for 3rd US Army (TUSA) for the time that the document was written.

As for the Americanisms, the document was translated and typed by an American soldier so they are to be expected.

I believe that the SS officer may have been Sturmbannführer Max Linn, who was the divisional chief of staff until his capture by the Americans.

Jurgen

Dear Jurgen

Not doubting the report either generally or particularly. Those are only the points of concern. Obviously it could very easily be as you said, AND that you can put a name to the unknown figure (even if there is no direct citation that the DCOS was captured about the same time leads credence to it. It's circumstantial evidence but in times of battle that's often the best your are going to get.

Dear Jurgen

Oh yes- one other thing-- that the report contains NO information other than that which we expected- more or less a confirmation of many, many other similar reports of officer and men of the division up and down the ranks of the experience of combat under the allied air umbrella lends to a sense of it's authenticity. It contains nothing unusual or surprising, so why forge something that's ordinary and hum drum.

Otto

I have to agree with most of Otto's … irregularities.

Otto,

That is a valid point; one would expect a forgery to be far more dramatic and lurid. I did not say that you doubted; I said in my post that I understood your concerns.

For me, the key concern is why the document was given to a lowly guard; that just does not seem right.

I will keep poking around in the records here although they are sadly very incomplete.

Jurgen

Dear Jurgen

Thanks, I suspected that was your intent. As you know when you go around getting advanced degrees they tell you as a historian's tools of the trade to question these things Or me the greatest problem is the one you mentioned, giving this to a lowly guard but--- on the other hand-- this is war and all sorts of things get all cocked up in war so it's entirely possible.

There's whole piles of stuff that could explain this. For example, suppose the guard made up the story that the G2 gave this to him to hold for him. Suppose the guard was going through the HQ to get the SS man (or someone) and saw this copy in the waste-paper basket and picked it up when no one was looking just as a lark or to try and get some useful info (I imagine that he was not on the list to be informed of everything that was going on.) There fore he could have made up the story about the G2 telling him to hold it for him, and it was a mere cover. Or there are a hundred and one other possible scenarios, and all of them matter not the slightest in the least because all we are REALLY interested in was who wrote the story and how it was transcribed and is it accurate!

Another possibility is that it was simply blowing around the battlefield. One writer, specifically AT the battle of the Falaise Gap notes that the thing that he found remarkable was that along with the wrecks and casualties, the thing he found littering the battlefield the most was-- litter--- in the form of paper. Paper, paper everywhere from requisition forms to top secret reports blasted far and wide in barrages. He might have just found the paper and picked it up.

But we are here merely piling speculation on top of speculation. What is important is that the account sounds true! That is once we get past the irregularities AROUND the report, the tale of the report (which is all we are interested in, sounds true.

After everything that my both of my Great Grandfathers lived through WW2 I tend to entertain ridicilous notions :)

It might be the G2 was going somewhere wet (outdoors in rain, to the latrine, or to chow) and wanted the document to remain dry, and with a custodian. He certainly picked a good one who kept it safe for 70 years!

Asking the guard to read the IPW and keep it to himself might have been simple camaraderie in the ranks, or possibly a mistake -- maybe the G2 confused Frankemolle with a soldier who had book learning or knew German.

But . . . suppose the G2 knew leaving the doc with a guard was irregular but for some reason wanted to do it anyway. Telling a guard to read the document he's holding might have been a shrewd way of looking out for the enlisted man. Suppose another officer came by and discovered Frankenmolle with the document. "Why do you have that soldier? Did you read that? Don't you know it's eyes only!? You're on report!" To which Frankemolle could reply, "No, the G2 ordered me to read it."

Pure speculation on my part, just an idea.