Hitler's Foreign Executioners by Christopher Hale

Acknowledgements
    The very broad scope of this book was challenging. I must thank first of all Simon Young who took time out from his busy schedule to provide invaluable advice and hands on assistance with a recalcitrant manuscript. Professor Michael Burleigh, William Niven and Nigel Jones read parts of the manuscript. Judith Lanio assisted with a mass of German language documents and texts with great efficiency. Christian Barse assisted with Danish materials. A number of historians generously responded to my many questions: Marko Attilla Hoare, Milan Hauner, Clemens Heni, David Cesarani, Andrew Ezergailis, Martin Dean, Wendy Lower, Martin Conway, Saul David, Adam Sisman, Timothy Snyder and Giles MacDonough all provided expert advice. Matthew Kott offered valuable insights into the German occupation of Norway, Latvia and the Baltic. At a critical stage, Ephraim Zuroff and Dovid Katz made valuable contributions. Detlef Siebert provided vital leads. I am grateful to Julian Hendy and Ray Brandon for generously sharing their insights and hard-won information about Ukrainian nationalism and the formation of the SS Division ‘Galizien’. George Lepre and Michael Melnyk, who have written accounts of the Bosnian ‘Handschar’ and the Ukrainian ‘Galizien’ SS divisions respectively, sent unique documentary materials. From these, I have drawn my own and no doubt different conclusions.
    I spent many hours in some excellent libraries, above all the British Library and the Weiner Library in London. The National Archives in Kew was another important resource. I must also thank three German libraries: the German National Library in Leipzig, the State Library and the excellent Library of the ‘Topography of Terror’ in Berlin. I am especially indebted to the Bundesarchiv/Zentralle Stelle in Ludwigsburg. I discussed the problems of collaboration with Ojārs Ēriks Kalninš at the Latvian Institute and with historians at the Museum of the Occupation, Riga, the Riga Ghetto and Latvian Holocaust Museum and the Central State Archives in Kiev. Needless to say, I alone am responsible for any errors of fact and judgement.
    I welcome corrections, comments and further research proposals through the website listed at the end of the Acknowledgements.
    I thank Pimlico Books for permission to quote from Mihail Sebastian’s Journal: 1935–1944 (2003) and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for permission to use extracts from Frida Michelson’s remarkable memoir I Survived Rumbuli (1979).
    Richard Johnson, Patrick Janson-Smith and Neil Blair backed the project at the beginning of a long haul. Simon Hamlet, Christine McMorris and Lindsey Smith at The History Press bravely took on a long manuscript. I must also thank some good friends: Laurence Peters, who read parts of the book and made valuable suggestions; Gerda Sousa; Karin Kaschner-Sousa; and David Robson, Sarah Dewis (and family), who provided varieties of nourishment and accommodation. My wife Diana Böhmer and our son Jacob put up with my periodic disappearances with fortitude: my love to them.

    www.hitlersforeignexecutioners.com

Preface
Riga, 2010
    Imagine Whitehall on a dank, autumn morning. A far-right British political party leader steps towards the Cenotaph, jaw set, dark suited, clutching a wreath. 1 Behind him stands the party elite sporting banners displaying back and white photographs of hard-faced men in grey military uniforms. A dense police cordon holds back jeering anti-fascists who have gathered in Parliament Square. He and his followers have come here to commemorate a handful of forgotten anti-communist martyrs who joined the German armed forces and fought against Stalin during the Second World War. After solemnly placing the wreath at the foot of Edwin Lutyen’s chaste memorial to the dead of the Great War, the party leader makes a short, angry speech denouncing the post-war British government for punishing these brave, far-sighted warriors as traitors. History