Bruno Gesche (5 November 1905 – 7 August 1982)[1] rose to the rank of Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel equivalent) in the SS in Nazi Germany.

[4][5] On 29 February 1932, with the advice of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, Hitler chose eight from a prospective twelve SS men presented by Sepp Dietrich, to serve as his personal bodyguard, the SS-Begleitkommando des Führers.

[7] The first incident arose when Gesche levied criticism against Himmler for the security detail provided by another SS unit during a Hitler campaign speech in Selb on 14 October 1932.

[9] On another occasion in 1935, Himmler as part of his attempts at consolidating his authority ordered that salaries of Hitler's personal bodyguard detail be suspended.

[10] After obtaining evidence that Gesche was in violation of the mandate, Himmler had him sign a statement on 26 September 1938, promising to abstain from alcohol consumption for three years or else face expulsion from the SS.

The 5th SS, from the moment Gesche arrived in the summer of 1942, engaged in bitter battles with Soviet forces for control of the oil-rich Caucasus.

Before the collapse of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, and the retreat through the Caucasus by the remnants that had not surrendered, Gesche had been evacuated from the front after being wounded in combat in October, 1942.

[16][17] Gesche's assignment to the notorious SS penal unit, Dirlewanger, at that stage of the war, was for all practical purposes a death sentence.

SS-Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein and SS-Obergruppenführer Maximilian von Herff successfully argued that assignment to the Dirlewanger Brigade, which was then operating on the Eastern Front, would be in contravention to the Hitler order forbidding such deployments.