HJ and Volkssturm: "Volkssturmkommmandant"?! of Berlin

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

"Volkssturmkommmandant"?! of Berlin

The problem is the description of General Helmuth Reymann as "Volkssturmkommmandant" of Berlin. That title is incorrect: On March 5, 1945, Hitler appointed him "Kampfkommandant", i.e. overall military, or fortress, commander of the city to replace Lt.Gen. Bruno Ritter von Hauenschild who had fallen ill. That position put him in charge of all units, regular Wehrmacht and Volkssturm (not Waffen-SS though) that were garrisoned in Berlin, such as Wachregiment Berlin, replacement battalions, Flak batteries, depot and training school personnel, recuperating men from army hospitals, Polizei, RAD, Hitler Youth, etc. The bulk of these local Wehrmacht units had already been transferred East to bolster the depleted German divisions that were desperately trying to hold the Soviet armies on the Oder 50 miles away. Thus it was a pathetically small and totally under-equipped force (some 41,000 men), having no tanks or heavy weapons, with which Reymann was supposed to defend a defensive ring around the city between 24 and 36 miles in diameter - clearly an impossible task. It was only after April 16, 1945 when the remnants of the various German armies retreating toward Berlin reached the city that there was the semblance of an effective defense. On April 23, Hitler replaced Reymann with Lt.Gen. Weidling, CO of 56th Panzer Korps, as Kampfkommandant of Berlin. It was he who surrendered the city to the Soviets on May 2, 1945.

The Volkssturm was formed in October, 1944 by order of the Führer under the aegis of Dr. Goebbels and was organized by local SA and Party leaders, but ultimately placed under the command of the Wehrmacht. In Berlin the man responsible for raising Volkssturm battalions was the chief leader of the Berlin SA, SA-Obergruppenführer Graentz, but he had no powers of command and worked with and under Reymann. It may well be that HE is the mysterious "Volkssturmkommandant" referred.

Volksturm Bibliography

The Last Reserves: Political-Military Aspects of the Structure, Function and Composition of the German Volksturm, 1944-45, by David Yelton, as a dissertation through Univ-NC Chapel Hill 1991, DAI 1991 51(10)L 3498-A. DA9106154

Army of Despair: The German Volksturm, 1944-45, by Burton Wright III, as a dissertation through Florida State U 1982, DAI 1982 43(6): 2062-2063-A. DA8225315

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Deutscher Volkssturm

Of all the measures taken to mobilize speed the last manpower resources of the German nation, the most extreme was the creation of the Volkssturm designed to supplement the defense of the homeland. The Deutscher Volkssturm was constituted in September 1944. The organization may be considered a territorial militia which was formed and called to arms only for training purposes or for employment whenever a local area was threatened by the enemy. It was used to reinforce the Wehrmacht by "total commitment of all German people," as the constitution decree dictated. Although formation and training to the Volkssturm was not under the responsibility of the Wehrmacht, but rather under the auspices of the NAZI Party (NSDAP), for employment in combat all Volkssturm units came under the full operational command and control of the army. Under the status of forces as determined by the Geneva Convention, the Volkssturm was a legal irregular defense force that was neither part of the Wehrmacht nor the army, but rather an independent fighting force controlled by the Party.

Hitler Jugend

Few historical subjects are so emotional as the Nazi Third Reich, few have stimulated so much general interest, and few have been subjected to such close scrutiny. Adolf Hitler continues to fascinate and to horrify, and his barbaric regime still defies imagination. The Nazi regime is fortunately dead and buried, but the questions raised by its terrible history continue to demand explanations. Countless books have been written on the Nazi period, including many about the Hitler Youth, some of which have now become classics of their kind. In 1979, the historian James P. O’Donnell remarked that the British Library and the Library of Congress listed over 55,000 items on Hitler and World War II. Even the superficial student of that period of history is aware of why Hitler attached so much importance to the German youth, and the process of indoctrination leading to full-scale militarization is now well known