A routine report on the activities of Schutzmannschaft battalion 201, von dem Bach-Zelewski’s report appears in a folder of fifteen “Meldungen an den Führer über Bandenbekämpfung” to Reichsführer-SS Himmler, who passed them on to Adolf Hitler personally. It contains a series of information bulletins from German-led police forces in occupied Belarus and Ukraine.
This folder, containing materials captured by the US Army, bears annotations showing that Hitler had seen it. US National Archives, MF-3293, T-175, roll 124, Reichsführer-SS Chef der Deutschen Polizei, Feld-Kommandostelle, NARA EAP T-175, item 161-b-12/250, frames 2598495 to 2599093.
www.archives.gov/research/microfilm/t175-2.pdf (Accessed January 17, 2010) The reports illustrate the nature of the “counterinsurgency” activities in which Schutzmannschaft battalion 201 was involved.
Meldung number 51 is a summary of anti-partisan warfare in Russia-South, Ukraine, and the Bezirk Białystok, which is a summary of the police activities in that region from September to November, 1942. Passed to Hitler on December 29, 1942, it shows the realities of the Bandenbekämpfung. The number of Jews outweighs all other groups executed, and the number of “bandits” executed after an Aktion far outweighs the number of people killed in action.
Bandits
Killed in combat 1,337
Executed prisoners 737
Executed later 7,827
Bandit helpers
Arrested 16,553
Executed 14,257
Jews Executed 363,211
Deserters 140
German casualties
Dead 174
Wounded 132
Missing 13
Schutzmannschaft
Dead 285
Wounded 127
Missing 133
Meldung 51a, “Russland-Süd, Ukraine, Bialystok vom 1.9. bis 1.12. 1942,” December 29, 1942. NARA, RG 242, T175, reel 81, frame 2601524. Also cited in Blood, 90.
Meldungen 36, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 55, 56, 57, covering Russland-Mitte and Gebiet Weissruthenien for the fall of 1942, report 28, 360 enemy casualties and 381 “own losses;” a ratio of 1:74.
NARA MF-3293, T-175, roll 124, frames 2599081, 2599082, 2599007, 2598963, 2896965, 2598940, 2598915, 2598937, 2598916, 2598925, 2598926, 2598836, 2598837, 2598814-2598815, 2598775- 2598778, 25987783-25987784, 2598709, 2598710, 2598703-2598704, 2598692-2598693, 2598653, 2598655. Meldung 51a, which appears in the same folder, summarizing the entire region Russland-Süd, Ukraine, and Białystok, shows a ratio of killed Schutzmannschaft and Germans to killed “bandits” and “bandit helpers” (excluding the category of “Executed Jews”) of over 1:52. If we include the 363,211 executed Jews in the column of Bandenverdächtige, or ”suspected bandits,” the ratio is
1:843.